BY JACK WILLEY AND JACOB PERASSO
PEKIN, Illinois-"Our strike remains 100 percent solid. No
union member has crossed because of the solidarity we've
received from many union locals and individuals," said Jim
Blanchard on the picket line in front of Tazewell Machine
Works.
Caterpillar workers in UAW Local 974 are hosting a chili dinner benefit, on February 6, from 1-6 p.m. for their union brothers on strike against Pekin-based Tazewell company. Eighty-two members of UAW Local 2283 have been on strike against the Caterpillar contractor since October 5. One of the main demands of the company is to eliminate the "dues check off" procedure, which allows the union to collect all dues money in a single payment deducted from members' paychecks. Tazewell's demand to eliminate this is viewed by strikers as a direct attack on the union.
Many strikers point to bigger stakes for the bosses and the union in the strike. In the past decade or so, Caterpillar, one of the largest earth-moving equipment builders in the world, has moved large sections of production to small contractors like Tazewell. These shops are largely nonunion and workers make substantially less money and benefits than workers at Caterpillar.
Henry Cakora, owner of Tazewell Machine Works, has hired dozens of scabs in his attempts to break the union. He has taken the union to court, attempting to get a series of injunctions pinned against the union and filed a lawsuit against two strike leaders for supposed violence.
The company has tried to brand the strikers as violent. The latest attempt was claiming a bomb threat was called in to Tazewell Machine Works and insinuating it was done by striking workers despite no evidence. "The Pekin Daily Times always covers the company's lies about union violence. The same day as the supposed bomb threat, the guys' cars on the picket line were shot at with paint balls, but the newspaper didn't say a thing about it," explained Terry Beebe, on the picketline.
"This is the company's second attempt to break the union," said Blanchard, who was part of the last organizing drive. "In the 1970s, another union in the shop was driven out after an unsuccessful strike. Before we organized the shop in 1989 under the UAW, Tazewell was a hell hole and if you spoke up you were fired. With the union we have rights." Cakora's actions have strengthened the resolve of the strikers. Chad Hartley, Local 2283 president summed up what several others expressed. "We will not go back until he backs down, even if it means Tazewell goes out of business. We will stay out one day longer."