Dear Brothers and Sisters:
As you know, our Region’s top organizing priority is the Fuyao Glass plant in
Moraine, OH, just outside of Dayton. The plant—which now employs over 1,500
production workers—has become the world’s largest automotive glass plant.
Fuyao’s low wages, dangerous working conditions, and unfair policies pose a
direct threat to two UAW-represented glass plants in the Region—in Crestline, OH
and Evansville, IN. On April 30, Fuyao workers held a Town Hall meeting at which
they, along with local elected officials and community leaders, challenged the
company to respect their right to organize with the UAW. (You can watch video
from the meeting here: http://fuyaoforward.org/town-hall/).
Since the Town Hall, Fuyao has stepped up its attacks on workers, lining up
articles in the Dayton press and enlisting some local elected officials in the
company’s anti-union campaign. Workers have launched an on-line public
petition calling on Fuyao to respect workers’ rights to organize, and live
up to the promise it made when Ohio taxpayers committed $22 million in state and
local subsidies to build the plant. It is extremely important that there’s a
strong showing of supporters on this petition.
I am asking you to reach deep into your membership to collect signatures for
this on-line petition, which you can find at
http://bit.ly/FuyaoTax. If
your Local has a Facebook page, a web page or an e-mail list of activists, these
would all be good ways to get the word out this week to your membership.
Thank you for your support and assistance on this very important matter.
Ken Lortz, Director
Region 2-B, UAW
KL/dc
Opeiu494