CWA Vice President Seth Rosen (left) and IUE-CWA Division President Jim Clark joined union members and community supporters in solidarity with workers at Whirlpool.

When more than 5,500 workers and community and religious activists from at least six states converged in front of the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind., members of IUE-CWA led the way to deliver the message to “Keep It Made in America.”

Local 808 President Darrell Collins said:

We have had small rallies before and Whirlpool ignored us! They will not ignore us today! This is just the beginning of something big. We will carry this fight on till it changes. There is no limit to what we can accomplish as long as we work together.

One of the Whirlpool workers who stands to lose her job is Natalie Ford. A member of Local 808, Ford told the rally:

This doesn’t just affect us, it affects everyone in our families…This is the only life we’ve known–now it’s gone. The questions run through my mind: Am I going to lose everything I’ve worked my entire life for? I try to be strong for my family, but deep down I’m scared to death, not knowing what the future holds for us.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (far right) rallies with workers at the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind.

More than 5,000 workers, community and religious activists from at least six states converged in front of the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind., to say with a unified and loud voice: “Keep It Made in America.” The massive crowd stretched nearly a mile along the road leading to the plant.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka along with 40 people, including children and grandchildren of workers, clergy and retirees, used a Whirlpool refrigerator to wheel petitions with 70,000 signatures to the plant’s locked front gate. At the same time, more than 40,000 signatures on petitions were delivered to the Whirlpool headquarters in Michigan. The petitions urged Whirlpool executives to reconsider their decision to shutter the Evansville plant, laying off 1,100 people and moving jobs to Mexico. Union members also made more than 1,700 phone calls today alone to Whirlpool headquarters in Benton Harbor, Mich., and the Evansville offices with the same message.

As the petitions were delivered, marchers chanted in unison “USA,” “USA.” The crowd extended down Evansville’s Hiway 41 five-to-deep as far as the eye could see. With tears in his eyes, a local business owner told of the hardship his company would experience with the plant closing.

President Leo Gerard of the USW sat down for a discussion with Richard McCormack, the editor and publisher of Manufacturing & Technology News, a publication he created in 1994. This entry is their full discussion.

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Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched show in TV history. But before the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts took the field, a different kind of team was behind the scenes, making sure the game was seen around the world.

More than 500 broadcast technicians, all members of the Electrical Workers (IBEW), were in the stands, on the field, behind cameras and in the control room to make the Super Bowl work. In a new video (above), IBEW tells the story of this unseen but vital group that made watching the game possible.

There were 90 cameras alone. Neil McCaffrey, a member of IBEW Local 1212, has operated a camera at seven Super Bowls. He says:

Everyone wants to participate in it [Super Bowl] because it’s so big. So it’s a great sense of brotherhood.

Martin Febres, a freelance technician and member of IBEW Local 108 who was working his first Super Bowl, says:

[The other IBEW workers] are willing to share their knowledge. They’re willing to give you that experience. That’s one of the great things I like about IBEW.

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