IUE-CWA Members Featured on CBS Evening News

 
IUE-CWA Local 83761 members Jaelin Carpenter (left), Nathan Schultz (second from right), and Oliver Smith (right) pose with CBS correspondent Mark Strassman (second from left).

When immigrant coworkers came under attack by the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant policies, members of IUE-CWA Local 83761 spoke out and shared their solidarity far and wide. Last week, CBS Evening News featured IUE-CWA members from Louisville, Ky., sharing how union workers, both immigrant and citizen, have made GE Appliances more productive and globally competitive, creating more American manufacturing jobs.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration, without warning, revoked the legal immigration statuses of more than 150 IUE-CWA members at GE Appliances, causing the workers’ employment to be terminated without notice. Manufacturing lines were thrown into chaos with multiple team members suddenly missing from the line.

"These people were one of the vertebrae in the backbone that is American manufacturing,” Nathan Schultz, an IUE-CWA member, told CBS Evening News.

IUE-CWA Local 83761 members bargained for, and won, the right for workers who are able to secure new legal immigration status to return to work without penalty.

An additional 200 IUE-CWA members at GE Appliances may lose their immigration status in the coming months, dealing another blow to American manufacturing.

GE Appliances has been an American manufacturing success story, recently announcing another $490 million in investments in the Louisville plant, slated to create approximately 800 jobs. IUE-CWA has played a key role in the plant’s comeback. The facility began to expand after the company agreed to participate in IUE-CWA’s LEAN manufacturing program. Unlike corporate-side LEAN programs, IUE-CWA’s approach protects and grows employment at manufacturing sites by increasing efficiency and reducing waste without sacrificing health, safety, or jobs.

“IUE-CWA’s LEAN program is creating more jobs in American manufacturing right here in Louisville,” said Oliver Smith, an IUE-CWA Local 83761 member. “But deporting my coworkers just hurts my line and hurts GE’s ability to put out American-made appliances.”

Watch the CBS Evening News Story here.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.