Portside

With the Lordstown GM plant closing, the idea of tackling worker alienation, behind workers 1972 "industrial Woodstock," seems lost. The measure of that loss is in news that the US death rate is rising due to suicide and drug overdose.

Trump promises to protect US jobs have proven false as Nabisco shuts down its Chicago plant to move to Mexico and Ford reneges onits promise to reinvest in Detroit. Under the new tax bill, even more manufacturing jobs are likely to move overseas.

Trump promises to protect US jobs have proven false as Nabisco shuts down its Chicago plant to move to Mexico and Ford reneges onits promise to reinvest in Detroit. Under the new tax bill, even more manufacturing jobs are likely to move overseas.

Unions must maintain unity among the workforce split by the Carrier deal, and educate its members on why they should not have voted for Trump. Election data seems to indicate that it was union white workers more than poor white workers who supported Trump to begin with. The divide between highly skilled and paid workers and minimum wage workers harkens back to the 1920s when unions focused primarily on craft workers rather than the expanding industrial workforce.

The BCTGM is organizing to protect its members and their community in Chicago. However the odds of success appear stacked against them. Job security has become the key issue in the national negotiations between Nabisco and the BCTGM, in which the company is also trying to eliminate the multi-employer BCTGM pension plan for all plants. Nabisco was recently purchased by the stridently anti-union Mondelez, a global food conglomerate.