• In this Issue >
  • Features
    • From the President
    • Is that a FLEX-FUEL you're driving?
    • Devastating news
    • Face time
    • UAW legislative priorities for 2006
    • UAW delegates meet with congressman
    • Workers Memorial Day
    • The Dangers below
    • Connecting dots, to Delphi’s Miller
    • Life on Line
  • Union Front
    • Company postpones filing court motions
    • Workers authorize strike
    • Anti-union group grasping at straws
    • Dana workers choose the UAW
    • Election results may be key to passage
    • Member minute
    • Organizing Roundup
  • Departments
    • From the Readers
    • Just the Facts
    • World of Work
    • UAW 101
    • Safer Work
    • Still Solid
    • Skilled Trades
    • Workers' Words
    • Solidarity Index / Past Issues

Brian Goodhart

Member minute

Brian Goodhart, 34, is a third-generation UAW member in the Quad Cities area, which includes Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Moline, East Moline and Rock Island, Ill. Goodhart is a continuous improvement coordinator at the John Deere Davenport Works, where 850 UAW Local 281 workers make construction and forestry equipment.

What is important to you as a UAW member?

Keeping jobs in the United States.

What needs to be done to achieve that goal?

At Deere we do what we can to stay competitive with overseas markets … and maintain that edge showing our true value as a UAW workforce.

What else can we do?

There are places I don’t shop – like Wal-Mart – because they’re not labor-friendly. I try to educate folks about places like that on a daily basis. We only hurt ourselves when we shop there.

How has work changed at Deere?

They used to say, “Strong back, weak mind” about factory workers. But it’s not like that anymore. We’re hired for our minds now.

Sam Stark