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Should We Be Having a Birthday Party or Funeral for General Motors in Flint Michigan? Birthday Party,, I love Cake and a Buick  25%  [ 2 ] Funeral,, GM has forgot who made it what it is today.  75%  [ 6 ] Total Votes : 8   Author    Post   squash F L I N T O I D Speaking of special sections... How many more times can the Journal trot out that Beecher tornado footage? Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:36 pm  Ryan Eashoo F L I N T O I D I agree Demeralda, do you think that the Flint Journal will print my letter to the editor??? ( the exact same post i posted here?? ) quote: Demeralda schreef: Oh, and one more thing: I agree, big whoop. I don't know what there is to celebrate, exactly. But you can bet that the Flint Journal won't EVER let an opportunity like this go by. Special section! = ad dollars _________________ Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:49 pm  Public D F L I N T O I D Sounds like a reasonable demand to me. Doubt very much that that had anything to do with Buick City's closing. Sure makes for a great story to sell and continuously retell to workers eager to convince themselves that all power and say-so belongs solely to the company. There wouldn't be a UAW if that cowering logic prevailed in 1936. But in quiet moments you know it is the reason why there isn't much of a UAW now. Besides, if GM bases their plant-closing decisions on the number of angry employees, it tells you all you'll ever need to know about GM's priorities. And if true, even more about how much fear the UAW failed to take advantage of and power they failed to wield. But what do I know? I studied Business Management at a private school. _________________ http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html http://www.hr676.org http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:32 pm  twotap F L I N T O I D Well darn all along I figured it was the lack of a mutual agreement on how to implement the new flex body shop in fact a good friend of mine who was an ex 599 prez ( now deceased by the way) verified that fact but now we learn from a graduate from a private business school who wasnt there, never worked there and probably never soiled the bottoms of his new made in China Nikes by even entering the place that thats not the way it happened. Well holy shit the answer man has spoken once again. _________________ "If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!! Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:06 pm  Dave Starr F L I N T O I D I didn't know that Dave was a friend of yours. _________________ I used to care, but I take a pill for that now. Pushing buttons sure can be fun. When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way. Paddle faster, I hear banjos. Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:40 pm  twotap F L I N T O I D Actually it was the prez before him Fred Myers who died tragically while at his place at cedar lake. Yettaw was related to my oldest sons wife. I remember Dave taking a tour of plant 36 and he noticed some anti Clinton stuff I had under the plexiglass on my desk one showing Slick Willie hugging Sarah Brady with the caption "think you need a reason to protect your guns well heres a couple " His face got beet red and he stormed off. The next day those pro 2nd ammendment items were gone. When it comes to protecting gunowners the UAW are a confused bunch telling us that we should support a Gore or Kerry or of course now Baracko while having an ad for CCW classes in the union paper. _________________ "If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!! Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:51 pm  Ryan Eashoo F L I N T O I D Wow your kinda famous!!! quote: twotap schreef: Actually it was the prez before him Fred Myers who died tragically while at his place at cedar lake. Yettaw was related to my oldest sons wife. I remember Dave taking a tour of plant 36 and he noticed some anti Clinton stuff I had under the plexiglass on my desk one showing Slick Willie hugging Sarah Brady with the caption "think you need a reason to protect your guns well heres a couple " His face got beet red and he stormed off. The next day those pro 2nd ammendment items were gone. When it comes to protecting gunowners the UAW are a confused bunch telling us that we should support a Gore or Kerry or of course now Baracko while having an ad for CCW classes in the union paper. _________________ Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:51 pm  Ted Jankowski F L I N T O I D The day the GM big wheels were at Buick City to consider putting in the flex body shop, a large group of workers put on a loud "demonstration" demanding that all of the installation be done by local 599 people. That was the end of the flex body shop, and Buick City. It all went to Lake Orion. Exactly! It was a JD power reccomendation that said they needed it to stay open. It was a JD Power Award that Closed it! Number One Plant in the World! GO figure. Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:28 pm  strattonsigns F L I N T O I D Ryan, Are you a broker or an agent? Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:36 pm  Ryan Eashoo F L I N T O I D An Agent currently. quote: strattonsigns schreef: Ryan, Are you a broker or an agent? _________________ Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:03 pm  Ryan Eashoo F L I N T O I D Well, those so called angry employees gave GM the largest market share for most of the 20th century. quote: Public D schreef: Sounds like a reasonable demand to me. Doubt very much that that had anything to do with Buick City's closing. Sure makes for a great story to sell and continuously retell to workers eager to convince themselves that all power and say-so belongs solely to the company. There wouldn't be a UAW if that cowering logic prevailed in 1936. But in quiet moments you know it is the reason why there isn't much of a UAW now. Besides, if GM bases their plant-closing decisions on the number of angry employees, it tells you all you'll ever need to know about GM's priorities. And if true, even more about how much fear the UAW failed to take advantage of and power they failed to wield. But what do I know? I studied Business Management at a private school. _________________ Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:21 am  Public D F L I N T O I D http://www.counterpunch.org/sustar04252005.html The Strong Life of Dave Yettaw By LEE SUSTAR THE LABOR movement suffered an irreplaceable loss April 14 when Dave Yettaw passed away at the untimely age of 58. As a longtime rank-and-file activist and later local president in the United Auto Workers (UAW) at General Motors’ Buick City complex in Flint, Mich., Dave was a key leader of the New Directions Movement that challenged the contract givebacks and pro-corporate policies of the UAW in the 1980s. As president of UAW Local 599, he put his perspectives to the test, leading an important strike in 1994 that showed the union’s power by winning hundreds of new jobs after years of devastating cuts. That victory rattled both GM execs and top UAW leaders, who conspired to oust Dave and the New Directions slate in the next local union election. “Vote for Yettaw and New Directions, and GM will close the plant,” Yettaw’s opponents said. Dave and his team lost--and GM closed the plant anyway. As a retiree, Dave ran with a New Directions slate as delegates to the 1998 UAW convention and won, elected by workers who felt betrayed by the UAW. The convention took place amid a long strike at two Flint parts plants that had virtually shut down GM’s entire North American production system. I’ll never forget how the late Steve Yokich, then UAW president, sweated and stammered whenever Dave took to the convention floor to call for a more militant approach to the struggle. Yokich, with his big salary and gold-plated benefits, was far more comfortable golfing with Ford executives than leading strikes. Dave, by contrast, was the real thing: a lifelong militant who personified the best traditions of the UAW. And Yokich knew it. Even in his retirement years, Dave kept fighting to challenge the direction of the UAW. He was always willing to put his encyclopedic knowledge of the UAW’s contracts, constitution and appeals process at the disposal of activists across the country. He helped people overturn stolen elections, win back their jobs, strategize how to vote down lousy contracts, and bring issues to the UAW convention floor. As an authority on the real history of the UAW--including the central role of radicals, socialists and communists in the union’s early years--Dave was a one-man school of what the old-timers called class-struggle unionism. “The [UAW leadership] is taking this union back to where we were in 1933, when we had company unions,” he told me in an interview for Socialist Worker about the 20003 contract. I got to know Dave through UAW conventions and reform meetings in the last seven years. He was an invaluable resource to those of us in the reform wing of the National Writers Union--a local of the UAW--as we ousted incumbents backed by the union hierarchy. Like scores of other UAW members, I corresponded regularly with Dave. We also spent many long hours on the phone, discussing not only the UAW and the labor movement, but the rightward turn in U.S. politics. Dave once told me that he was getting more radical as he got older. A Vietnam veteran, he spoke out against the impending war in Iraq at a grassroots meeting of UAW retirees in late 2002. Sadly, we’ve lost Dave just as he was warming to a new fight against cuts in the Big Three health care plans and retirement benefits. Just three days before he passed away, he was in his element, meeting with other activists to strategize. My favorite memory of Dave is from the 1998 union convention. By patiently asking a series of pointed questions, Dave had prodded Yokich into making a militant speech about the GM strike. “When he’s on that road,” Dave said afterward, with a twinkle in his eye, “you push him down it as far as you can.” With Dave gone, it’s up to us to keep pushing. The job is will be much harder without him. But we can keep learning from his example. _________________ http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html http://www.hr676.org http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:35 am  strattonsigns F L I N T O I D Ryan, Do you believe in a free market economy? Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:05 am  Ted Jankowski F L I N T O I D I would never portray Dave Yetaw as Militant... Principled, tenacious, Firm, Determined, Persistent, Wholehearted would be better chosen adjective. Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:35 am  Public D F L I N T O I D quote: Ted Jankowski schreef: I would never portray Dave Yetaw as Militant... Principled, tenacious, Firm, Determined, Persistent, Wholehearted would be better chosen adjective. That's a great point, Ted. Seems anybody who stands on principle against those all too happy to put theirs (assuming they ever had any) up for bid is painted as a 'militant.' Sad commentary on the pervasiveness of corporate culture (both inside and outside unions), and how we are all suppose to behave within it – and what your fellow workers will say about you if you dare question indoctrinated corporate dictums and what passes for polite professional behavior and proper niceties. That's the change we need to believe in. _________________ http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html http://www.hr676.org http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:20 am    Display posts from previous:   All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First

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