Boston community-labor rally for striking Machinists

March 7 — Leaders of the Greater Boston Labor Council and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, along with powerhouse rank-and-file unionists like UNITE HERE Local 26 members, joined 30 striking International Association of Machinists Local 447 technicians in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Local 26 UNITE HERE in solidarity with IAM strikers. Credit: Steve Gillis.

 The strikers have said “Hell No!” to the $30 billion transnational Cummins corporation’s concessionary demands, which would turn hourly wages into 19th century piecework rates.

The lunch-break crowd of nearly 300 was outraged to hear IAM Chief Steward Rick Lipinsky tell how Cummins — a world giant of the military and industrial supply chain with 58,000 workers — wants to pay them like gig workers: by the job. For these technicians, who have worked underpaid overtime during the pandemic to keep generators running at hospitals, nursing homes and factories, it was a unanimous vote to fight like David against their Goliath employer.

The union, with Teamster delivery drivers’ solidarity, has also shut down Cummins shops in Concord, New Hampshire, and Scarborough, Maine, since Feb. 12. Management’s only response has been to illegally mail out insulting union decertification forms to strikers’ homes. 

To support these frontline strikers in their fight against naked capitalist greed, donate to the strike fund at goiam.org/iam-strike-fund.

— Report and photos by Steve Gillis