MICHIGAN: Just as the sit-down strike of the 1930s, the United Auto Workers is preparing to join other unions and activists in more non-violent protests against what the UAW president Bob King described on Friday as a framework of right-wing policies that have hurt the middle class.
King told a crowd of more than 500 at the 75th anniversary of union's first contract with General Motors that more direct action similar to the Flint sit-down strike of 1937 is needed to today to challenge corporate power and prevailing economic wisdom that demands wage cuts for working Americans and smaller tax bills for the wealthy.
The union faces the many of the same challenges it faced back in the 1930s, King said. "They're trying to shred the social contract," King told a standing-room -only crowd of union member and retirees at a union hall in Flint.
"We don't spend too much. This is still a rich country. The problem is we've lost our moral compass," said King.
He noted that he demands of the wealthy one percent have distorted the American priorities. The right-wing framework used to run the country over the past 30 years has left workers struggling to hang on to a middle class standard of living, King said.
"In Michigan, we started taxing pensions, while giving a tax break to businesses," he said. "I know a lot of people who could collect a pension but are afraid to retire."
King also said college students today face tuition bills that will leave them in debt for years to come even if they are lucky enough to find a job, paying a living wage.
The rising cost of tuition has made it especially difficult for working class students to afford college at all, he said.
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