By Greg Burry | People’s Weekly World Newspaper
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — Steelworkers union President Leo Gerard joined Lansing, Mich., Mayor Virg Bernero, members of Congress, actor Danny Glover and the Rev. Jesse Jackson here as the “Keep It Made In America Tour” rolled into Michigan this week.
The multi-city bus tour by workers, union leaders, city and state officials, car dealers and other local businesses, aims to mobilize working people in the fight to keep manufacturing jobs and rebuild a future for America’s heartland communities.
This is a “fight for middle class jobs and to rekindle the American dream,” Gerard told a May 11 rally in this epicenter of the auto crisis. “If we are silenced we will be crushed. If we don’t stand up and fight we will be crushed.”
The tour of 36 cities in 11 states is fighting back against Wall Street and corporations who want to outsource manufacturing and jobs, and crush the working class. Debbie Stabenow, one of Michigan’s two Democratic senators from Michigan, reflected that spirit, declaring, “We will not go under. It is time to stand up, and we will fight with you.”
Looking at the working class crowd gathered here, Bernero delivered a stinging indictment of Wall Street.
His city, Lansing, was formerly home to Cadillac and Oldsmobile manufacturing plants employing thousands in well-paid union jobs with health coverage and other basics of a decent life. The per capita income in the city is now under $18,000 and one in six residents lives below the official poverty line.
Wall Street does not see us as workers who worked all their lives to build America, the Lansing mayor said. Instead, Wall Street sees workers as costs that decrease profits and must be eliminated by outsourcing, slashing wages and benefits, and exporting our standard of living and the American dream. Outsourcing is the way capitalism works, Bernero said. Noting that it is considered all right for Wall Street to turn to the government for a bailout for a financial crisis they created, he said ironically, “Socialism is for Wall Street and capitalism is for us.”
The mayor concluded, “This battle is going to be won with the blood, sweet and tears of union workers.” Some say the unions have had their time, but “The union’s time is today,” he said. “We have to stand together. The labor movement will lead us out of this.”
Gerard noted that every country with a domestic auto industry has stepped up to help their auto industry, with conditions. France gave $9 billion with the condition that the industry cannot close any plants and must expand domestic production. But such demands have not been placed on American auto companies or banks that have taken bailout loans, Gerard said.
Manufacturing is central to the country’s future, speakers said. A viable economy cannot be solely based on the service sector. The opportunities to rebuild manufacturing in the U.S. are great, many said. We can make wind turbine parts, Stabenow said, “keep it American and build it right here in Michigan.” Michigan Congressman Sander Levin called for electric vehicles and batteries to be built in Michigan.
To keep manufacturing in America, we must “change this rotten system” that Wall Street has created, said another Michigan Democrat, Rep. John Conyers. We need an “economic system that puts everyone to work,” Conyers said. He proposed a new full-employment act similar to the 1978 Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act to retrain workers and create jobs to get the economy moving. “What we need now is a full employment stimulus,” the veteran lawmaker said.
This was not a rally to bash workers in other countries. “They did not take jobs from us,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “Corporations took jobs to them and chose cheap labor over organized labor.”
Underscoring that this was a rally to demand jobs, keep manufacturing in America, and strengthen worker rights and economic rights, Jackson said we must “save the worker,” and “stimulate the economy from the bottom up.”
He called for a “level playing field, free and fair trade, and a moratorium on foreclosures and plant closings,” and for “reinvesting in American manufacturing.”
Actor and activist Danny Glover urged collective action, saying we must be the “architect of our own rescue.” Paraphrasing India’s Gandhi, Glover declared, “We are going to be the world we want to create.” It is a world without violence and war, and a sustainable economy that provides full employment, and universal health care, he said.
