Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
Sept. 24, 2007
The ten million members of the AFL-CIO stand one hundred percent in solidarity with the 73,000 men and women of the UAW who went on strike at General Motors today.
GM workers and the UAW are on the front lines of working people’s efforts to make corporations accountable, demanding that one of the world’s largest corporations honor its workers’ contributions and listen to their reasonable concerns.
Its workers are among GM’s greatest assets – they have improved product quality and productivity, boosting strong gains in critical areas. The UAW membership has approached corporate restructuring and other top issues in a spirit of partnership and flexibility. Â
We stand ready to assist the members of the UAW in any way necessary in order to hold GM accountable for reasonably addressing the key issues that are so important to these working families’ futures.
This strike exemplifies what’s wrong with America. America’s industrial capacity is vanishing because our government simply doesn’t concern itself with healthy, well educated citizens. Nor does it punish corporations for “off shoring” their operations, or plundering workers benefits.
Auto workers, as well as workers in all US industries – unlike their counterparts in the developed world – pay through the nose for health care and education for their kids. Toyota workers don’t. Volvo workers don’t etc….
Other developed nations provide their citizens with health care, education and job security as part of their social contract. The US puts this burden on workers, employers and consumers.
Unrestrained and unencumbered by morals, free market capitalism is killing the goose that laid the American dream.