An Interview with auto worker activist Dianne Feeley
The restructuring of GM has cost 27,000 jobs in the United States, reducing its total U.S. workforce to 62,000. (Thirty years ago the company employed over 466,000 in the U.S.) An additional 15 plants will be closed. GM is also shutting plants in Canada. As part of a deal negotiated with the United Auto Workers, workers who retain their jobs will have their wages frozen. A no-strike pledge until 2015 was agreed by the UAW. How do you assess the restructuring plan? And what is the response of rank and file unionists to the plan and to UAW’s concession? If there is division of opinions among them, what is the debate about?