http://blogs.metrotimes.com/index.php/2010/06/video-king-outlines-new-role-for-uaw/ Video: King Outlines New Role for UAW June 28, 2010 By David Uberti The UAW will take a more prominent role as an activist group, supporting unaffiliated workers and progressive groups around the world, union President Bob King said.
King, 63, was head of the UAW's Ford Department before becoming the union's president. King, elected the ninth president of the UAW on June 15, helped lead a protest Friday in Detroit against Chase Bank’s foreclosure policy and its connections to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He gave two speeches throughout the morning, addressing how the UAW will join forces with unrelated social activist groups.
On Friday, the UAW came in support of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which is fighting for representation and better contracts for Reynolds’ tobacco workers in North Carolina. The Detroit-based union also protested Chase’s foreclosure policy, taking a familiar role in championing the rights of the working class.
“We’re here to support the fight for justice,” King said. “The fight for justice includes stopping foreclosures. If we can bail out Wall Street over and over again…workers, working families and the middle class should keep their homes.”
Friday’s protest was well attended by several hundred activists, representing a bevy of progressive groups. Such joint movements are essential for change, King said.
“Our power is each other,” he said.
King has injected charismatic leadership to the union, which made considerable concessions to domestic automakers during the financial crisis and has seen its membership drop consistently for 30 years. Brian Clendennin, a Ford employee and member of UAW Local 387, said King has the right ideas to enact social change.
“Everybody needs to get together,” Clendennin said. “Not just the unions, everybody.”
Under King’s leadership, the UAW will look to extend its influence further than the auto industry, King said.
“The mission is to make a better world,” he said.
Watch videos of King’s speeches below:
Tags: Baldemar Velasquez, Bob King, Chase, Chase Bank, Demonstration, Detroit, FLOC, JPMorgan, Protest, U.S. Social Forum, UAW, United Auto Workers, USSF