Following auto-parts maker Delphi’s bankruptcy filing last fall, a new rank-and-file movement emerged to fight back against the layoffs and cutbacks. Calling itself Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS), they organized a series of large meetings of rank-and-file autoworkers across the Midwest, as well as high-profile protests against Delphi and GM, forcing both corporate executives and conservative union leaders to adjust their plans and rhetoric.

SOS brought together a number of local dissident groups within the UAW, including the Future of the Union group in Kokomo, Indiana. Todd Jordan, who runs the Kokomo groups’ website, has emerged as a leading voice within SOS. Reaching 500,000 hits in March alone, Todd’s website – www.futureoftheunion.com – is probably the most looked-to source of information and analysis among working-class fighters at Delphi, GM, and autoworkers in general.

Justice’s Ty Moore interviewed Todd in mid-April about his ideas, personal background, and perspectives for the class struggle in America.

First, tell me some about yourself. What life experiences set you on course to be the class fighter you are now?
I was born [in 1977] and raised in Kokomo, Indiana in a single-parent home. My mother is an extremely strong woman.

My family moved here in the 1950s to work at a local steel mill and escape the coal mines of Kentucky. We have 11 active and retired autoworkers in the family here in Kokomo. I am a 3rd generation autoworker. I worked mostly dead–end, low-paying jobs until I hired on in 1999 at Delphi and joined the UAW.

After I started reading material from the Socialist Labor Party and the Knights of Labor when researching my family history, it all started to come together. Soon after, I found a copy of the Communist Manifesto. The search for the truth, and great feelings of love for people, are the main driving force for all that I do. I’m just glad to be able to help in the here and now with my limited computer abilities.

What are the origins of SOS and the dissident grouping in your local?
Locally, the SOS Kokomo Chapter started when the UAW agreed to two-tier wages. We are a bunch of coworkers talking up change and revolution. Just a few of us back then, maybe a half a dozen workers.

It wouldn’t be until the Delphi bankruptcy [October 2005] that we would grow to several dozens, with regular meetings to discuss many things including a takeover of UAW Local 292.

Our local SOS meetings are not just for Delphi workers though; we have many members from Chrysler, which is the largest employer in Kokomo. We talk for 3-5 hours with other workers at our meetings. We also encourage involvement of people from around the country and world to come spend the day with us.

One of the most important things we talk about is how to make this global and the need to form a peoples’ party, a working class party. Why can’t it start in Kokomo?

Industry analysts say it’s likely the bankruptcy court will allow Delphi to throw out your contracts and impose brutal wage and benefit cuts. UAW leaders have threatened a strike. What do you think is going to happen?
The same thing that is happening now, that is, there will be a struggle among all interests to protect their own. GM, Delphi, and the UAW structures will try various tricks against the membership. They have a large repertoire of carrots and sticks and outright treachery. The membership will give them the best fight that we are able. The outcome is not in anyone’s crystal ball.

There has been no fight-back from our current UAW leadership. In fact, these “buyoffs” [UAW recently agreed to “buyouts” to lay off 30,000 GM workers] are a way to mitigate resistance to concessions.

How do you answer the arguments of union leaders who, pointing to international competition, say the only alternative to concessions is the destruction of the U.S. auto industry?
The union leaders only give a partial picture of the situation. Look at the money. Look at the incredible billions piled up in the corporate holdings, in the banks that fund and feed off the corporations, and in the personal fortunes of investors like Kirk Kerkorian. All those billions come originally from our labor.

Sure, their owners want to keep the billions for their personal pleasure, the yachts and mansions and all the rest. But they will return that money to us, in the form of jobs, wages, and benefits, if we leave them no other choice. The rise of the CIO in the l930s and l940s left them no other choice.

The money exists to provide jobs to everyone in this society who wants to work. We can do many different kinds of work. But we refuse to live and work like slaves.

Ultimately, I don’t think anything will really ever change as long as the current system is kept in place. Until we approach the economy scientifically and through democracy, humanity will continue to suffer.

If SOS was in the leadership of the UAW, what would you be doing differently?
I don’t think more leaders are what we need. What we need is direct democracy and control from the bottom. Solidarity! I believe the SOS leadership would have called a strike vote long before the Delphi bankruptcy and forced GM to negotiate before we reached this point. SOS would not have allowed GM to spin off Delphi, or Ford to spin off Visteon.

SOS would have been using the full resources of the UAW not on Democrats, instead spending millions of dollars organizing workers inside and outside the auto industry. We would have been fighting for a living wage and national healthcare.

If SOS were elected to leadership, I suspect the membership at that point would be saying that the whole country should be shut down until the attacks on working people ceased and the money at the top came back to the base.

Our local leadership at UAW 292 recently defeated a motion by the workers for direct election of all positions in the UAW, that we submitted. Their reason was, “the average member can’t make an informed-enough decision to vote for those positions.” In other words, they think the workers are not smart enough to vote. This control is what we must break up and destroy within our union.

On your website, you describe your group as “a movement calling for a real working-class party to be built.” Why do you think union leaders still refuse to launch such a party?
The leaders of the AFL-CIO have been tied to the Democratic Party for so long, the two power structures are heavily intertwined at the top. The Democratic Party is not engaging its full resources in a real all-out struggle to defend workers’ interests. Not for national health insurance. Not a living wage. Not for workplace safety. Not for full employment policies. Not for educational assistance to workers’ children.

Nevertheless, because the union leadership lacks confidence in the rank and file to protect our own interests in action, they will not break away and do what must be done. We must unite and break past this. The bosses have two parties, why can’t we have one?

What is the relevance of socialist ideas to the current struggle? What do you think the prospects are for defending decent living standards for working-class Americans under contemporary capitalism?
The relevance is simply that socialism, as I understand it, is the logical way to resolve the class struggle. Today, more and more workers across the country are waking up to the fact that it really is a class struggle going on.

The extreme rich are attacking all the rest of us. So we will be forced to engage in our part of the struggle, to defend ourselves. The prospects for defending decent living standards are excellent if we put forward our full power.

I do not believe capitalism can be reformed, though. It is an economic system of death. The people of the world should have democratic control over the means of life. Our prospects are excellent if we fight back, and very poor if we don’t.