Lech Walesa to Visit Wayne State University In Detroit
By Raymond Rolak
DETROIT– The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University will be opening a new exhibit, SOLIDARNOŚĆ: Poland’s Struggle for Freedom.” The former President of Poland, Lech Wałęsa will be making an appearance to bring attention to the 30 year anniversary of the Solidarity labor movement.
The exhibit will open October 27, 2010 and run until July 1, 2011. The Reuther Library at 5401 Cass Ave. is across from the Main Detroit Public Library. “We are just the ambassador’s as so many people helped including the Office of the President, at Wayne State,” said Michael Smith.
Smith, Director of the Reuther Library at WSU and Marcin Chumiecki, Director of the ‘Polish Mission’ at St. Mary’s Schools in Orchard Lake got together last February and went to Miami to invite Lech Wałęsa to help kick off the exhibit.
October is also Polish Heritage Month in America. Smith added, “Wayne State invites the whole community to view the displays during the run. It is concise, informative and historical. The exhibit will be open to the public starting at 9:00 A.M. on Wednesday October 27.”
“The Reuther Library has a strong tradition of reaching out into the community to document our labor history,” Smith added. “We will have some very rare photos and artifacts from Soldiarnosc in the exhibit.”
The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at WSU is the largest labor archive in North America. Its mission is to collect, preserve and provide access to the heritage of the American labor movement. Reuther was the long time leader of the United Auto Workers and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1995 by President Bill Clinton. In Metro Detroit the I-696 Freeway is named the Walter P. Reuther Freeway in his honor.
Reuther and his wife May were killed in a 1979 plane crash near Pellston, Michigan.
Smith and Chumiecki also travelled to Poland to research and document the background for the exhibit. There are first person accounts, which are the most valuable in a history account. Some items are on loan from the Polish Mission. Smith added, “Wałęsa said he was honored to come to Detroit to announce the opening of this exhibit. He was genuinely enthused and of course added insights that only he could do. This is living history.”
Wałęsa was President of Poland from 1990-95. He was front and center for the “Solidarity” trade union movement that eventually changed Poland and led to the break of control from Russia. This was the catalyst for the political changing of the borders of the USSR.
A former welder at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his human rights efforts throughout Europe.
Wanda Strozyk, President of Fiat Solidarity Union in Poland will also be appearing in Detroit. Her visit just happens to coincide with a historic labor vote that will affect the aviation industry. Thru November 3, the Delta Airlines Flight Attendants and the former Northwest Airlines F/A’s are voting to determine if there is going to be representation by the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America (AFL-CIO). Delta is now the largest commercial airline in the world.
Wałęsa, who will be on a restricted schedule during his Detroit visit, was the first democratically elected president in postwar Poland. During his area stay, he will meet privately with labor and community leaders. On October 28, he will travel to Chicago for a fundraiser.
Groups can make arrangements to view the Reuther Labor Library Detroit exhibit at 313-577-4024, starting October 27.
From Working America: AFL-CIO Releases Database That Tracks Outsourcing, Safety Violations, Discrimination
The AFL-CIO and Working America released Oct. 7 a searchable database detailing outsourcing numbers, safety violations, and discrimination cases for more than 400,000 corporations and subsidiaries.
The groups’ Job Tracker searches for information by zip code, company name, and industry.
“Because of Job Tracker, corporations who have taken advantage of lax trade policies in America and abroad will no longer be able to hide behind the veils of bureaucracy,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America. “Every night on our neighborhood canvasses, we hear from people who want to know which companies are profiting off the loss of their jobs. Corporations have created a global race to the bottom and working people won’t stand for it.”
The interactive database uses data from dozens of public sources to allow visitors to find out which companies have exported jobs overseas, violated health and safety codes or engaged in discriminatory or other illegal practices, Nussbaum said.
On a conference call to release the database, speakers noted that both experts and the general public now will be able to easily search through a huge compilation of data on corporate outsourcing.Drawn From Several Sources
Detailed results are drawn from sources including the Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) records, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, and other agencies.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka noted the impact of trade and tax policies that make it even easier for corporations to outsource jobs. Trumka pointed to the benefits of the tool for workers as they rebuild the economy.
“We must demand that our leaders show that they stand with working families—fighting to create jobs, rejecting unfair trade deals and putting us on a path to make things in America again,” Trumka said. “For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of the failed policies of the past that gave corporations the ability to ship American jobs overseas. With this new data as a benchmark, working people will have the ability to separate the economic patriots from the corporate traitors at the ballot box.”
Trumka said it has “been excruciating” to find information about what companies are outsourcing and to what extent. “This allows anyone to see who is a bad actor in their community,” he said.
Nussbaum said that six researchers spent three months developing the database…
From the NY Times: Even Workers Surprised by Success of Factory Sit-In
By the time their six-day sit-in ended on Wednesday night, the 240 laid-off workers at this previously anonymous 125,000-square-foot plant had become national symbols of worker discontent amid the layoffs sweeping the country. Civil rights workers compared them to Rosa Parks. But all the workers wanted, they said, was what they deserved under the law: 60 days of severance pay and earned vacation time.
And to their surprise, their drastic action worked. Late Wednesday, two major banks agreed to lend the company enough money to give the workers what they asked for….
The article gives the inside story on the sit-in and the workers’ victory. The way the business owner, Richard Gillman, steadily manuverded behind the workers’ backs is a sad testament to the way he ran his business. A new corporation, a new location, disappearing equipment, non-union workers, not a word, then blame it all on the banks. Sure they had their part, but Mr. Gillman selfishly tried to milk the whole process for personal gain. His lasting memorial will state: ‘Sure, give the workers their due, but give Gillman a Mercedes too.‘
It is too bad for Mr. Gillman. He ignored and undercut the ‘dark skinned, ethnic, Union workers’ because he probably figured they couldn’t help his business. Too bad for him, with their enthusiasm, courage, knowledge, and dedication they likely would have saved it.
From Interfaith Worker Justice:
Interfaith Worker Justice congratulates the United Electrical Workers Local 1110 for a historic victory that ended a six-day occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago. Last night, the company’s workers voted to accept a $1.75 million settlement.
“Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the rights of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked”
Psalm 82:3-4The Republic workers would have been forgotten if they hadn’t stood up — by sitting down and occupying their factory. They captured the attention and the support of people of faith, and sent shock waves through corporate board rooms across the nation.
Absolutely true. The workers would have been caught up in court wrangling (something they couldn’t afford) and government bureaucracy in an attempt to obtain the wages they had earned. They faced a Federal government that has all but given up on wage and hour enforcement under the Bush Administration, the white tie and tails folks. The workers only choice was to stand up by sitting down — much like Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Walęsa did in the dawning days of Solidarity.
This is a victory to be celebrated by the thousands of people who stood in solidarity with the workers: people like you who took the time to send messages to Bank of America and rallied at banks across the country.
The Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, an IWJ affiliate, has been working closely with Local 1110 since day one. On Tuesday of this week, IWJ members from around the country rallied alongside Chicago Interfaith Committee in supporting workers.
Both the Republic Windows victory and this week’s news of Wal-Mart’s $54 million settlement of a class-action suit over unpaid wages highlight wage theft, a national crisis on which IWJ and its national network of workers centers are playing a leading role in tackling.
IWJ Executive Director Kim Bobo has written the first book to deal with this issue. In a happy coincidence, her Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It
, was published this week, during the Republic sit-in.
While we celebrate the Republic victory, we are going to see hundreds of factory closings in the coming months, and the question is: will workers be paid what they’re owed? And while the Wal-Mart settlement is welcome news, 60 additional wage theft lawsuits remain pending, cases involving billions of dollars that have been stolen from and are owed to millions of workers.
Workers should never be ashamed of expressing their rights and their demands. That is their bargaining strength. We all assume that we have some measure of control, saying: ‘I work for who I choose.” Unfortunately the benefits of our labor, be it physical or intellectual, rarely inure to our benefit in proportion to our sacrifice. If we demand that we be compensated equitably we are seen as pariahs. The government, press, and many of our fellow workers look at us with disdain. ‘So you didn’t get paid — just quit, move on. So they took advantage of you, that’s just life.’
As people of faith we cannot move on, get over it, and most especially we cannot accept a life based on one-upmanship. I am a member and a deacon of the PNCC, a Church whose founder, Bishop Hodur, stood up for workers’ rights. I live in a Church, founded by immigrants and laborers, who from its beginning championed the dignity and rights of those immigrants and workers. I see the extent of abuse that goes on to this day (and people think the days of sweat shops, slave labor, and child labor are long gone – they’re not!), I can say that one must stand up, whether through advocacy, preaching, teaching, or sitting-in. People of faith must witness against inequality based on advantage and power.