Loyalty and middle class at stake in the General Motors strikes, Flint (Michigan), Summer 1998

In June and July 1998, the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) engaged Flint General Motors workers in one of the longest strike to take place lately in United States. Officially, the strike was launched on Health and Safety issues, as globalisation and relocation of the company were non strikeable ones in the bargaining contract. Still, the issue of globalisation and the relationships between the firms and their employees, and the firms and the countries in which they are settled, were clearly at the heart of the conflict. This paper is based on the empirical data we collected in Flint (Michigan) at the beginning of August 1998. It is the result of the individual interviews we conducted with the workers and UAW representatives about their own ideas on the situation. It focuses on what workers think by identifying the words and categories they themselves use to analyse the situation. The paper looks at the national contract signed by GM, Delphi Automotive Systems Corp. and UAW in late September 1999 as an attempt to respond to the real issues addressed by the strikers, that neither GM nor the union could face in 1998 because of juridical reasons ruling negotiations agenda.