Two funerals in one week at Sterling Stamping Plant: Part 1
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Last week, family, friends and coworkers laid to rest two autoworkers from Stellantis’s Sterling Stamping Plant north of Detroit.
Terry Garr’s casket
Crane operator Terry Garr, 57, died in the hospital the night of Wednesday, April 21, after a fatal accident, which occurred during a die set. Two days later, millwright Mark Bruce, 62, passed away after a fight with the coronavirus. Both were needlessly sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit.
The deaths of these two men are tragedies. Both men leave behind countless loved ones and friends, who had expected to spend many more years with them.
Indiana auto parts workers join calls for four-week shutdown of the auto industry with pay to stop the spread of the virus
Rank-and-file workers at the Faurecia Gladstone auto parts plant in Columbus, Indiana erupted in anger on Tuesday as word spread of a serious outbreak of COVID-19 at the factory. Vital information had been kept from all those who had been exposed so that the company could maintain production to push profits at the expense of safety.
Faurecia Gladstone (Credit: Google/Aaron Mayberry)
A mid-level manager tested positive last week and disappeared without telling any of the men and women on the shop floor that he may have exposed them to the coronavirus.
Crane operator crushed to death at Stellantis Sterling Stamping Plant in suburban Detroit
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On Wednesday, crane operator Terry Garr died in an industrial accident at the Stellantis Sterling Stamping Plant north of Detroit. The death was acknowledged earlier on Thursday in brief statements by Stellantis and the United Auto Workers.
Sources from inside the plant reported to the
World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter that Garr was crushed by a heavy die towards the end of his shift. This was confirmed later in the evening by a police report obtained by the
Detroit
Free Press.
Employees at Sterling Stamping Plant remove a minivan roof after it has been stamped in a 180-inch Transfer Press (Stellantis Media)
2,900 Volvo Truck workers walk out in Virginia, joining ongoing strikes by coal miners, steelworkers, nurses
On Saturday, 2,900 workers at Volvo Trucks’ New River Valley plant in Dublin, Virginia, walked off the job, demanding higher wages and improved health and safety measures, benefits and job security. The walkout has begun amid a renewed growth of strikes and other forms of class struggle in the US and in other countries.
Volvo Truck workers had voted by an overwhelming 96.8 percent to strike in February. However, the United Auto Workers union ignored the strike mandate for months, extending the previous contract by 30 days, which gave the company time to prepare strikebreaking operations.
Demand a four-week shutdown of auto plants to contain the spread of COVID-19!
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With record numbers of COVID-19 cases in Michigan and infections spreading rapidly in auto plants, The Autoworker Rank-and-File Safety Committee Network is calling for an emergency four-week shutdown of auto plants to halt the further spread of sickness and death. We demand that all workers who are laid off continue to receive full pay until the pandemic is contained.
Autoworkers at Warren Truck plant in Warren, Michigan, on May 18, 2020 [Credit: AP photo/Paul Sancya]
The situation in the Detroit area is particularly dire. Large numbers of cases are being reported at the Stellantis plants, including Jefferson North Assembly Plant (JNAP), Sterling Heights Assembly (SHAP) and Sterling Stamping. But while massive auto plants continue to operate, Detroit school officials have voted to delay the start of in-person instruction until May 11 due to the high COVID-19 case rate.