From Detroit Free Press

DETROIT -- Droves of out-of-town workers angry with General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. are chartering buses, forming caravans and booking hotel rooms in preparation to protest Sunday outside the opening day of the Detroit auto show media preview.

The city's police force has been tapped to monitor potentially as many as 3,000 protesters at Cobo Center. But the protest is not expected to impede attendees.

Although the protest is scheduled only from noon to 4 p.m., it could overshadow the excitement domestic automakers need to generate as they fight to regain lost market share.

It is hard to predict how much coverage the expected 6,000 journalists at the North American International Auto Show will give protesters. Half the journalists are traveling from other countries, where U.S. hourly workforce issues garner little attention.

"They're going to be focused on the more than 60 unveilings and press conferences every 25 minutes," said Richard Genthe, senior cochairman of the auto show. "We do not expect any trouble."

Sunday's auto show attendees will not have to squeeze past picket signs to enter. The Detroit Automobile Dealers Association, which organizes the show and rents Cobo Hall, has had meetings with the Detroit Police Department on a range of security strategies and has been assured entrances to Cobo will be clear.

Protesters said they would congregate in front of the building on the sidewalk.

The protest is being spearheaded by Soldiers of Solidarity, a faction of the UAW who work for Delphi, the nation's largest auto parts supplier. Members are upset because Delphi is in bankruptcy and wants to eliminate 24,000 jobs while cutting hourly wages by more than half and reducing benefits.

These hourly workers, who are more anxious to strike than the UAW leadership would care to acknowledge, were not a part of the initial chess match Delphi Chief Executive Officer Steve Miller set up when entering bankruptcy protection Oct. 8. Miller took Delphi into Chapter 11 after negotiations with unions failed and a financial bailout from GM did not come through.

Miller's bankruptcy move came with enough calculated checks and balances to help Delphi reach its goal of cutting wages and benefits and shedding unprofitable plants. With the bankruptcy filing, GM had an incentive to bail out Delphi because it feared a Delphi UAW strike would quickly hurt GM's automobile production.

Delphi, however, could be almost certain the UAW would not strike because the union -- with 24,000 active and 9,800 retiree members -- feared losing pensions for its majority baby boomer membership.

Leading the Charge

Enter Soldiers of Solidarity. Though becoming increasingly vocal lately, the group has been around in some form or another for years, always taking a combative stance against the UAW leadership.

In recent years, Gregg Shotwell, the Soldiers of Solidarity leader and an hourly machine operator at Delphi's fuel injector plant in Coopersville, MI, has rebuked the UAW leadership at national conventions and other key meetings

Shotwell, a short and slender 55-year-old man with a knack for persuasive writing and delivering speeches, has held several weekend meetings discussing strike strategies in union halls and hotel conference rooms in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and New York.

"People say, 'If you strike and GM goes bankrupt, aren't you biting the hand that feeds you?' " Shotwell said. "We're not biting the hand that feeds us. We're biting the hand that slapped us in the face, that defeated and robbed us. First we're going to bite the hand and then we're going to go for the throat."

Sunday's demonstration, however, is expected to be violence-free. It will be more of an informational picket, with handouts for passersby and auto show attendees, said Todd Jordan, the 28-year-old protest organizer who flanks Shotwell in leading the group.

Jordan, an hourly Delphi worker at a plant in Kokomo, IN, is a trained labor organizer who has traveled to South America to study under Luis Inacio Lula da Silva's Workers Party, which grew out of the mass strikes in the 1980s against the military.

Jordan, who currently studies labor relations at Indiana University, said he helped rally workers in Delphi's South American operations who were not unionized.

He said his reason for protesting Sunday in Detroit is simple.

"If we're going to save our jobs, it's got to be from the bottom, from the rank and file," Jordan said.

Number of Protesters Uncertain

Since RSVPs aren't required to join the picket, Shotwell said he is unsure of how many people will attend. But he said he has received numerous calls this week from California, Minnesota, Missouri, Alabama, New York and parts of Canada.

Shotwell said those long-distance calls give him hope that "an impressive number" will come from Michigan and Ohio, which have the highest concentration of automotive workers.

The Detroit Police Department has devoted enough officers to handle a protest of 3,000, Sgt. Eren Stephens-Bell said. The department, however, is hoping for a peaceful crowd.

Copyright 2006 Detroit Free Press. All Rights Reserved.

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