MAY
2001












Union for
All
Workers		 Detroit,MI

Photos by William Jordan
Text by Sam Stark

When people hear “Detroit,” they usually think “cars.”

Detroit remains the Motor City, but it is much more than that. UAW members here make Cadillacs and Jeep Grand Cherokees, all right, but we also make food service equipment, test wastewater, and operate public libraries--all within Detroit city limits.

We build engines, but we also deal cards at three new casinos, produce paint chemicals, work in district court and probate court, provide health care services, do social work for the state of Michigan, deliver blood for the Red Cross, do foundry work, perform clerical and engineering duties, process Blue Cross/Blue Shield forms, treat steel, handle student enrollments at Wayne State University, and work in tool and die job shops.

Detroit is the home of 34,290 active UAW members and 24,894 retirees.

Founded in 1701 by the French explorer Antoine Cadillac, Detroit is celebrating its 300th birthday this year. By the 1890s, Detroit became home to its first “Big Three,” three companies that made the city the world’s leading producer of iron stoves. The skilled metalworkers from the city’s stove, shipbuilding, and railroad car industries, along with its access by water to iron ore and coal, made Detroit the logical center of the budding automobile industry in 1899.

 


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Michael Wells is one of 155 UAW-represented librarians working for the Detroit Public Library system at its main facility and 26 neighborhood branches. A member of Local 2200, Wells is the coordinator of activities and operations at the Frederick Douglass Branch on the city’s near west side. He also supervises library services for shut-ins, retirees, and the blind and physically disabled. He has worked with the DPL for 26 years.

La Rosa Refrigeration has been making food service equipment for Detroit-area restaurants since 1970. Sal Tocco has worked as an assembler-operator there for almost as many years--since 1978. Tocco and his 16 co-workers at this northeast Detroit worksite are members of UAW Local 155.

After assembling Cadillacs in an old plant in southwest Detroit for 12 years, Alfonso Guzman was transferred over to General Motors’ brand-new, high-tech Detroit-Hamtramck facility in 1985. Today, as a journeyman pipefitter, Guzman installs, troubleshoots and repairs Glycol pumps. This equipment automatically fills each Cadillac and Buick LaSabre with the exact required amount of anti-freeze. A Local 22 member, Guzman serves as an alternate health and safety representative. He has also been a volunteer union organizer.
Before industrial wastewater is released back into the Detroit River, the 115 UAW members in the city’s Water and Sewerage Department’s analytical laboratory inspect it for toxins. Prabha Doddamani, an analytical chemist for 19 years, checks for oil and grease. A native of India, Doddamani is a member of Local 2334, which was an independent association for 20 years before it affiliated with the UAW in 1995.

Representing the new generation of young auto workers entering a new generation of high-tech auto plants, DaimlerChrysler worker Jenson Dye II, with nine years seniority, is a PQI Communicator at the Jefferson North Assembly plant in southeast Detroit. Dye helps facilitate members’ input into quality, safety, cost, delivery, and morale issues. The 4,800 UAW members of Local 7 produce Jeep Grand Cherokees in a plant that was built in 1991. The Jefferson North plant replaced obsolete operations at the same site.

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