Union, Community Rally for Whirlpool Workers Punching Clock for the Last Time
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Braving a chilly and dreary rain yesterday, several dozen union and community activists rallied outside the gates of Whirlpool’s Evansville, Ind., plant. They were there to show their support for the nearly 500 second shift workers on their way to clock in for their last shift on the line.
Whirlpool is closing the refrigerator plant, laying off 1,100 people and moving jobs to Mexico. Eliminating the second shift is the first blow, the other jobs end in June.
IUE-CWA Local 808 member Lori Houchin says that yesterday’s rally and the massive February march to the plant gates helps spotlight the damage to workers and their communities when corportions like Whirlpool shutter their U.S. plants and ship jobs overseas. She told the Evansville Courier & Press:
It’s happening across America—factories are picking up and moving somewhere the labor’s cheaper…all the factories are moving jobs outside the U.S.
Thousands Tell Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America
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| AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (far right) rallies with workers at the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind. |
More than 5,000 workers, community and religious activists from at least six states converged in front of the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind., to say with a unified and loud voice: “Keep It Made in America.” The massive crowd stretched nearly a mile along the road leading to the plant.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka along with 40 people, including children and grandchildren of workers, clergy and retirees, used a Whirlpool refrigerator to wheel petitions with 70,000 signatures to the plant’s locked front gate. At the same time, more than 40,000 signatures on petitions were delivered to the Whirlpool headquarters in Michigan. The petitions urged Whirlpool executives to reconsider their decision to shutter the Evansville plant, laying off 1,100 people and moving jobs to Mexico. Union members also made more than 1,700 phone calls today alone to Whirlpool headquarters in Benton Harbor, Mich., and the Evansville offices with the same message.
As the petitions were delivered, marchers chanted in unison “USA,” “USA.” The crowd extended down Evansville’s Hiway 41 five-to-deep as far as the eye could see. With tears in his eyes, a local business owner told of the hardship his company would experience with the plant closing.
Whirlpool Exec’s Letter Strengthens Workers’ Resolve
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Whirlpool executive Paul Coburn’s memo warning Whirlpool workers not to participate in a rally tomorrow to save their jobs has only made the workers more determined than ever to fight the company’s decision to lay off 1,100 workers and send jobs to Mexico when U.S. unemployment is at its highest level in decades.
The reaction to his “open letter,” contained in an internal newsletter, has been quick and strong. It also has put a national spotlight on the practice of many employers to cut costs and raise profits by moving jobs offshore without regard for the communities and workers they leave behind.
Show solidarity with the Whirlpool workers, 900 of whom are members of IUE-CWA Local 808, by signing an online petition urging Whirlpool to reverse its decision and Keep It Made in America: Save Our Jobs. Click here to add your name to the nearly 40,000 who already have signed the petition.
More than 630 people commented on the story about Coburn’s letter on the Huffington Post, many condemning Coburn for trying to stifle dissent and for moving good jobs out of the country. Many cited the $20 million in federal economic recovery money Whirlpool received and the boost in sales from the government’s push for energy-efficient appliances.
