Spring Hill, Tennessee workers reject deal, as UAW pushes GM sellout contract

In the first vote held at a large General Motors facility on the four-year deal accepted by the United Auto Workers union, workers at the Spring Hill, Tennessee assembly plant defeated the sellout, with 51 percent of production workers voting “No.”

The vote is a blow to the UAW, which is holding a quick succession of tightly controlled “educational sessions” on the deal and ratification votes in hopes of shutting down the five-week strike by 48,000 GM workers on the company’s terms before workers are able to study the full agreement and rally opposition.

After local union officials voted to back the deal last week, a UAW press spokesman cynically claimed that the UAW was a “democratic organization” whose members made the final decision on the agreement. But the UAW’s attitude to the democratic will of the rank and file was on display in Monday morning, when Local 1853 union bureaucrats in Spring Hill called the police on workers campaigning for the defeat of the deal.

A worker who videoed the incident denounced local union president Tim Stannard and the UAW as stooges of GM. “I want everyone to think about it; a president calling the police on his own constituents… What’s that say about defending your rights inside the plant?” Another worker demanded: “What do they do for us? [Ignore] our grievances! … They are dividing and conquering us [with outsourcing]!”

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/22/auto-o22.html