From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 11:59 PM
To: 'cassandra.james@ymail.com'; 'kirsten@globalexchange.org'; 'angela@globalexchange.org'
Cc: 'sen.david.tomassoni@senate.mn'; 'Bill Hilty'; 'ddepass@startribune.com'; 'bgross8608@aol.com'; 'CarlD717@aol.com'; 'lgerard@usw.org'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'DLONG@uaw.net'; 'David Shove'; 'WCS-A@yahoogroups.com'; 'Lynn Hinkle'
Subject: re: lies and more lies about the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant
Cassandra,
Why Angela Walker and Global Exchange knowingly published all of these lies needs to be explained. Any legitimate reporter would have authenticated such an article and sought comments from Minnesota State Legislators.
It is interesting that Alternet allowed Global Exchange to peddle these lies without confirming anything in this wholly fabricated story; and then they used Progressives for Obama to do the rest of their dirty work and give these lies credibility… par for the course with Carl Davidson and Tom Hayden.
We obviously need to do some research to find out the extent to which Global Exchange and Alternet regularly publish these kinds of lies; who they get their money from etc.
I have posted this in the “contact us” at Alternet.
Thank you for bringing this article to my attention.
This is nothing but lies.
You can look for yourself on the Minnesota Legislature’s web site and you can see that there is no such activity as stated here around S.F. 607:
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/getbill.php?session=ls84&number=SF607&version=list
I have also Cc’ed this article to Dee DePass a reporter who has previously written articles about the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.
This is the same kind of crap and rumors floated in order to thwart opposition to demolishing the Oldsmobile Plant in Lansing, Michigan… again, in the same way Michigan Legislators remained silent as these kinds of rumors were floated. The politicians and big-business have honed and fine-tuned their lies using their front groups.
I have not been able to find one single presently employed member of this Local who knows anything about the Ford Local being in any kind of “coalition” as referred to.
If such a coalition has been formed it has been organized behind the backs of the membership.
No doubt you will be seeing this kind of thing in Detroit, too.
Hinkle and this group are promoting a “people’s ‘green’ capitalism.”
They know this will never fly but their intent is to do what these phony progressives are doing with all issues from ending the war to single-payer universal health care--- trying to thwart and derail any movements aimed at saving jobs and plants.
As far as the hydro dam everyone says it has been sold but neither Ford nor any government officials will provide the details of the sale.
These same politicians enabled Ford to get away without paying one single penny in property taxes for one of the parcels of land ever since Ford owned the property.
They run up phony schemes that sound good but they have no intent in fighting for making people think something good is in the works while the people in power are scamming behind everyone’s backs to do their dirty work.
Lynne Hinckle and UAW leaders have never organized workers anywhere… the present UAW local leadership dropped the ball on SF 607 as a means to save this plant and two-thousand jobs… they couldn’t even muster the support to push SF 607 through one lousy Senate committee that was dominated by Democrats.
The members of this local have never been consulted about this scheme.
The Democrats who make up this Senate Committee chaired by a banker, Jim Metzen, even colluded to make sure the minutes of the meeting were not kept properly.
As you can see, I have Cc’ed this to Minnesota State Senator David Tomassoni who is on this Senate Committee from which there has been no action on SF 607.
In fact, this property upon which is presently situated the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is going to be turned into a money pit for money grubbing real-estate speculators with poverty wage jobs for workers.
St. Paul needs to protect the housing it already has which is being foreclosed on with families being evicted daily and the Minnesota Legislature is too cowardly to act to defend homeowners. Vacant foreclosed on homes are all over the city right now.
State legislators allowed United States Steel to close down an iron ore mine which is part of their taconite operation.
The only viable alternative to save auto and steel in this country is nationalization of the auto and steel industries and the Democrats are too cowardly to consider this option.
The only “green solution” being sought here is money green… it’s the only green that capitalists and their bought and paid for politicians know.
These people can “envision” all they want to but the only thing they are going to see in the days ahead is these Ford workers getting the shaft.
Now, it is up to David Tomassoni to either confirm the details in this article or to set the record straight.
Both Leo Gerard and Carl Pope are part of this corrupt fiasco, too.
Let us here from Senator David Tomassoni and State Representative Bill Hilty just what the Minnesota Legislature is considering, if anything, concerning the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… they have an obligation and responsibility to set the record straight.
We see the exact same thing taking place with the anti-war movement and the movement for single-payer universal health care; the same method of operation took place around the impeachment issue, too. We run into the exact same thing with efforts to defend the Big Bog from peat mining.
I would also note that it is the responsibility of any union to struggle to save the jobs of its members not to push the demolition of the plant where they work.
To date, where ever these “green” schemes have been pushed workers end up with one-half to one-third of their former pay… just ask any steelworker who lost their job in the steel mills now building wind generating equipment.
Alan Maki
Option for Obama: Transforming Manufacturing Plants into Community-Saving Business Ventures
Photo: One of Ford’s Largest Plants
Our Future
Is With A New
Energy Economy
By Angela Walker
AlterNet.org
Nov. 12, 2008 - Hit hard by the slowdown in the marketplace and higher fuel prices, Ford Motor Company recently experienced its largest quarterly loss in its 105-year history. With people evacuating their fuel-inefficient vehicles, Ford is experiencing its delayed rude awakening about the unsustainability of an auto industry geared towards producing pickups and sport utility vehicles. Despite plans to introduce six small cars made in Europe to the U.S. market, Ford today announced another 10 percent reduction in salaried payroll costs and will cut as many as 2,200 salaried jobs by January.
Workers and Students Seeking Green Solutions
The oldest Ford plant still in operation — the Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota — will be the epitome of the changes to come. With plans to shut down in 2011, an additional 900 jobs will be lost in a plant that used to employ 2,000 workers. Communities throughout the state have already experienced the brunt of the country’s economic downturn, Minnesota having lost 50,000 manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2006 alone, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
“We’re just hemorrhaging,” states former United Auto Worker (UAW) official, Lynn Hinkle, who retired over a year ago from a 30-year career at the Twin Cities Ford plant.
Yet something unusual is in the works that could change the future of this 140-acre manufacturing site and convert it into a model for green manufacturing.
A coalition of the local UAW 879, McAllister University students, and affordable housing and environmental groups have formed the Alliance to Reindustrialize for a Sustainable Economy (ARISE) to design a green manufacturing site. The ARISE project is currently being considered by the Minnesota Legislature under Senate File 607 as a way to transition workers into a mixed-use facility for green manufacturing.
ARISE is re-envisioning how people look at industry, which historically has collided with the environmental movement. Their reindustrialization plans serve as an opportunity for industry to play a key role in the green economy.
“It is becoming increasingly clear to people in the union movement that our job security is dependent upon the new energy economy,” states Hinkle. “If you’re about family sustaining jobs, you have to connect global warming solutions and jobs otherwise you’re going to have neither.”
Ford’s current training center would be converted into a green jobs training program for onsite wind turbine manufacturing and installation, and light rail car production. A plan to expand the light rail system is in the works to reach out to surrounding, traditionally low-income communities, which have been working with ARISE on the reindustrialization plans.
The Ford plant, located on the Mississippi River, is already connected to a hydroelectric system, which produces 18 megawatts of hydropower, and has powered the plant for over 80 years. Additionally, there exists a maze of tunnels onsite that were originally dug out for silica, used in making glass for windshields. These tunnels may be used for ground-source heating.
“We believe there’s enough green energy sources on site to go totally noncarbon,” says Hinkle.
With 140 acres, the coalition has the space to get creative with its envisioning and holistic approach. Businesses would be brought in to develop retail shops on the lower levels of buildings with affordable, residential units above. Walkways up and over the buildings would connect rooftop restaurants and bars to urban gardens with beautiful views of the Mississippi River. To connect the shops to the light rail, small electric vehicles would be produced onsite.
Throughout the last century, manufacturing jobs and industry have played a significant role in the growth of cities and development of communities by providing families with low entry-level jobs. Communities cannot afford to continue experiencing the off-shoring of their manufacturing jobs, especially during the current economic downturn. ARISE’s plan is to develop this site as a prototype for turning brown fields, or old industrial grounds, into green manufacturing sites to support green jobs and sustainable community development.
Student group Summer of Solutions — in partnership with economic justice organization, Global Exchange — sees the future of their generation invested in this project.
“If we’re going to build the green economy, we have to start here,” says McAllister graduate Joseph Adamji. “The green jobs movement and the whole idea of shifting and expanding economic opportunity are to make social changes happen. As much as this project is about the Ford site, we need to use it as a model for how we develop communities, intentionally and sustainably.”
City planners hope to see this space used as a central hub for sustainability projects for St. Paul and beyond.
“We could redevelop old manufacturing cities like Detroit and bring economic opportunities and prosperity,” states Adamji. “We’re trying to say that industry can play a role in the green economy.”
Decarbonize, reindustrialize, equalize, is what ARISE is saying. The new energy economy can be used to battle lagging economic opportunities and social inequity. ARISE hopes to inspire communities — from Flint, Michigan to Richmond, California — to decide how they want to develop a new sense of community. Reindustrialization can be part of this process by formulating ways to generate green energy, mass transit, higher density and energy efficient buildings, and affordable housing.
“This is an opportunity to change the landscape literally and figuratively,” says Hinkle. “What a great basis to rebuild the union movement. It’s an opportunity for the green union movement to emerge, where unions can stand center stage and create aspirations for our entire society.”
Angela Walker is the media director for Global Exchange.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/106425/
Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
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Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
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http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/
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