After decades of concessionary contracts, rank-and-file United Auto Worker activists have worked tirelessly the last two months resisting attacks on auto parts workers at Delphi Corporation.

Peoria, IL – United Auto Workers (UAW) members employed by Caterpillar Inc. ratified a six-year agreement, Jan. 9, 2005 . Many union members called it, “The worst contract in the history of the union.”

Decatur, IL – Sunday, Jan. 9 proved to be a day of infamy for United Auto Workers members worldwide. The fallout from the new six-year contract with Caterpillar will ultimately touch the lives of every member, active or retired. Without any fight or any known strategy, United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership surrendered any hope of recovery at Caterpillar Inc.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) will sit down in August to negotiate a new contract with the Big Three automakers – General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler. Many union activists expect the negotiations to be characterized by concessions to management. Detroit launched an assault on autoworkers years ago, and it continues. For example, GM slashed some 120,000 jobs in the 1990s.

Inglewood, CA – Twenty thousand people demonstrated here, Jan. 31 in a powerful display of solidarity with the striking, locked-out United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) grocery workers. Trade unionists – including strikers and their families, longshoremen, public workers and Teamsters – along with community supporters marched on Safeway-owned Vons market.

More than 75,000 grocery workers on strike in southern California are on the front lines of a battle to defend health care and job security. The United Food and Commercial Workers have been on strike or locked out by their employers since Oct. 12, 2003.

As Fight Back! goes to press, a key battle for the working class is shaping up in West Coast ports. On one side stands the International Longshore Warehouse Union (ILWU), which has mobilized strong support from West Coast labor. On the other side is the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), a coalition of shipping companies. Behind the PMA stand big business and the Bush Administration.

Los Angeles, CA – The single largest victory for the labor movement since the 1930s took place here last spring. Seventy four thousand homecare workers voted for a union, and won their first raise ever, from the State of California. This year, the struggle for a Union contract continues.

Jacksonville, FL – On May 17, 150 union members from around north Florida and southern Georgia gathered outside the Hyatt Regency Riverfront Hotel here to expose a top-secret meeting of CUE – the Committee for a Union-Free Environment. Corporate bosses are trying to stop the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) from passing in Congress, an event that one union buster referred to as “Armageddon.” Unions like the Teamsters, Boilermakers, Electricians, Metalworkers, Carpenters, Plumbers and community and student supporters attended.

On March 23, Robert Walston, former Local 743 president, pled guilty to stealing two union elections and attempting to purchase $150,000 of cocaine.