BY TONI GORTON
DETROIT - "Pay is not the issue. The issue is health and safety, job security, and being fair," stated Thomas Brown, a jobsetter on strike at Chrysler's Mound Road engine plant in Detroit.

Roy Wright, a machine operator added, "I feel good about the strike. I've worked here 28 years. The plant is dirty, dusty. You can hardly see in certain areas. They won't clean the filters. Its pathetic. People are dying shortly after retirement from the quality of the air in there. You tell them and they won't listen."

On April 10, the 1,800 members of United Auto Workers Local 51 went on strike after several months of bargaining for a local contract. Local TV news showed workers excited and determined as they marched out of the factory. Visiting the picket lines over the week Militant reporters found their mood unchanged, with strikers waving their placards to the supportive, horn-blowing traffic flowing by. As of April 15, negotiations to end the strike had broken down.

The Mound Road plant builds V6 and V8 engines for Chrysler trucks and vans. The strike immediately stopped production at four other plants, affecting some 12,000 workers. Chrysler shut down its Dodge City light-duty truck plant in Warren, Michigan, and the Jefferson North assembly plant, also in Detroit. A van plant in Windsor, Ontario, and light-duty truck-assembly plant in St. Louis, Missouri, are also idled. Overtime stopped at the company's Kokomo, Indiana, factory, which supplies transmissions for the truck plants.

According to Wall Street analysts, the strike could cost Chrysler as much as $67 million a week. The number-three U.S. automaker posted record profits of $1.04 billion during the first quarter of 1997. As the strike began, Chrysler released the salaries of its top executives. Chairman Robert Eaton pulled in $12.6 million last year. As a group, Chrysler's top five executives garnered a total of $21.1 million in salaries, bonuses, and other compensation in 1996, up 79 percent from the previous year. Last year, Chrysler's income was at near-record levels, and up 74 percent from 1995. Nevertheless, the auto giant faces stiff competition from its rivals, and seeks to further boost its rate of profit.

Roosevelt Thomas, a pin grinder and picket captain, explained that a new plant is opening in 1998 at Mack and St. Jean nearby. "That plant will hire new people at the basic $12 an hour. It is in an economic `empowerment zone,' so the company gets $3,000 [from the government] for everyone hired. This situation is very profitable for the company, more than bringing in workers from this plant at $19 or $22 an hour. The Mound Road plant will close down and these workers will be scattered everywhere, instead of going to the new plant. They won't get another job until a vacancy occurs through death, retirement, or quitting. The strike is about saving jobs here and about seniority rights."

Chrysler is planning to outsource to a Dana Corp. plant - a nonunion shop that pays $6 an hour - the production of rear- wheel-drive prop shafts, now handled by more than 200 workers at the Mound Road plant. A number of the pickets also referred to ongoing problems of favoritism and discrimination, with management not allowing women to take certain jobs.

The Oakland Press, a regional newspaper, quotes Sam Nardicchio, president of UAW Local 51, as saying that the bosses "think the UAW membership is weak. But we're not. We know we have to stick together. Without the union we're nothing."

According to the Oakland Press, Local 51 officials spent weeks preparing for the strike and carefully explaining the issues to other locals and campaigning for their support. This paid off with quick support from the locals affected by the strike, including the Canadian Auto Workers Local 444 in Windsor, which has about 2,000 members idled.  
 
 
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