Last year you may recall the labor negotiations with the auto makers, Chysler, Ford GM, where the auto companies successfully got the unions to accept all kinds of labor busted measures.  The most important of which was the portion that set up a class system within the industry, where new hires and old hands would be at each others throats in the years to come.

Few reports come out about some of the labor problems and such about the fringe companies and unions of the auto industry, like American Axel.  The bitter strike at auto parts-maker American Axle & Manufacturing enters its tenth week, the irreconcilable nature of the conflict between the demands of the company and the needs of the workers emerges ever more starkly.

American Axle boss Richard Dauch refuses to budge from his demand that workers accept a near-50 percent pay cut. He threatens to bring in strike-breakers and permanently close his unionized plants. The police in Detroit—the site of the company’s headquarters and largest plant—grow increasingly menacing and provocative.

For their part, the workers remain determined to beat back the company’s sweeping concessions demands, knowing they cannot support their families on the near-poverty wage the company is offering. They doggedly maintain their picket lines, despite being forced to subsist on paltry strike benefits of $200 a week.

The issue in this strike poses a universal question facing workers not only in the US, but around the world. Are they to go back to conditions of poverty and sweatshop labor, as demanded by the corporations in the name of competitiveness and profitability, or are they to assert their own independent interests?

Each of the Dem candidates have stated that they support fair labor laws, but neither has issued a statement on the conditions and the strike itself.  Why?  Could it be that they owe way too much to the companies to get involved in thsi strike?  Blue collar workers need to wake and take a good look at these candidates, not one of them is truly a candidate of the people.

Peace!  Out!