Thursday, October 31, 2019
IDS Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
IUPD issues crime notice By Grace Ybarra gnybarra@iu.edu | @gynbarra
IU Police Department issued a crime notice Wednesday after receiving a delayed report of rape that occurred during Welcome Week, the first week students arrive on campus each fall. IUPD Capt. Craig Munroe said the rape allegedly occurred on the night of Aug. 19 through the morning of Aug. 20 at Forest Quad. It was reported the alleged victim met the suspect at a gathering in an on-campus residential housing facility. The suspect engaged in nonconsensual sex with the victim later that evening, according to the crime notice. Munroe said IUPD doesn’t know the identity of the suspect. The crime notice said the suspect is believed to be a student or affiliated with IU. Munroe said the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about the crime can reach out to IUPD at 812-855-4111.
Bloomington gears up for reopening of Eskenazi By Greer Ramsey-White gramseyw@iu.edu
Not only will the Eskenazi Museum of Art be reopening its doors after three years of renovations, but it will also present a MuseumFest with various arts activities and performances. Nov. 7, reopening day, will feature activities from 4 to 8 p.m. Activities will include guided tours, pop-up talks of ancient art and impressionist paintings and “Poetry on Demand” from Bloomington’s Writer’s Guild where a poet will write a poem for attendees on the spot. The day will also feature a behindthe-scenes conservation experience that museum goers must reserve tickets for on the Eskenazi Museum of Art website. The following day, Nov. 8, will feature performances of “Ascension” – a dance choreographed by IU’s Contemporary Dance Department director, Elizabeth Shea. There will be multiple performances that last 20-30 minutes running from Nov. 8-12. Festivities will continue into Nov. 9 as an open art studio will present “What is Art Therapy?” The last day of the reopening festivities on Nov. 10 includes a presentation on “Rethinking the Modern Art Collection,” as well as a history of the museum tour. For the full weekend schedule, visit the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art website at https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/reopening/.
‘We didn’t lose, but we
didn’t gain anything’ Workers return after General Motors strike. It was the longest nationwide auto strike in 50 years. By Lilly St. Angelo lstangel@iu.edu | @lilly_st_ang
BEDFORD — At each tent, a campfire fire burned, and the wind whipped the white soot and embers in all directions. Union workers, who had traded their T-shirts and sunglasses for sweatshirts and beanies, sat in camp chairs or stood around the fire, waving their signs when the occasional car passed. It was late October, and it had been more than a month since the United Automobile Workers’ strike had begun at the General Motors plant, and autumn had arrived. Drivers still honked and waved, and the Bedford Police still turned on their sirens in support. The strikers wanted to go back to work, but they didn’t want the long weeks of no pay to be for nothing. They wanted their share of GM’s new wealth they believed they’d earned. Around the fires, they talked about GM’s CEO Mary Barra’s nearly $22 million paycheck and watched the few people who are still working in the plant go in and out of the buildings behind the tall fence, pointing them out by name and position. “He needs to pull his britches up,” one woman said as she saw a man she recognized walk out. Some union workers would wave at the handful of people they knew who were still working on the other side of the factory fence. Workers sometimes returned the wave and sometimes didn’t, fearing that if they showed support of the strike, they might lose their jobs. The strikers also knew they were being watched. Cameras were pointed at the picket line, and
managers would peek out the windows to watch them. Tension, frustration and hope intermingled on the picket line as national negotiations with GM dragged on. Kevin Hutchinson, president of Bedford’s UAW Local 440, was determined to stick it out for long haul if that’s what it took to get what they wanted. “We’re in it now,” he said. The strike would last six weeks, the longest nationwide auto strike in 50 years. * * * At 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 15, Hutchinson, or “Hutch” as everyone calls him, walked into the Bedford GM plant carrying the blue and gold flag of the worker’s union. Word spread quickly on the factory floor, where workers were casting aluminum to make engine and transmission parts and assembling Corvette chassis. They shut down their die cast machines and semi-permanent molds, cleaned up their work stations and walked out of the factory doors, simultaneously starting a strike with nearly 50,000 GM workers across the country. As they marched out together, union and American flag leading the pack, Hutch got goosebumps. For more than 70 years, the Bedford GM plant had provided the best paying jobs in the area. Jobs with enough pay to start a family, own a house and retire comfortably. But now, good jobs were no longer a guarantee. Before GM filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the UAW gave up worker benefits to keep GM afloat. Since then, GM had bounced back financially but had been slow to give back the benefits and level of pay union
workers enjoyed before the bankruptcy. The union also agreed to let GM hire more temporary workers after they filed for bankruptcy, positions that have ended up being not so temporary. Temp workers, many of whom have worked for GM for several years, perform the same jobs as permanent employees, are paid a little more than half of what a permanent employee makes, have significantly less health insurance, receive three unpaid vacation days a year and must give 24-hour notice before taking those days. They are not guaranteed a certain number of hours a week, and the union can do little to protect them. Their hourly pay starts at $15 an hour and is capped at $19 an hour. One temp worker got his wisdom teeth pulled and wasn’t given permission to stay home after the surgery. Instead, he was given a bag to spit blood in as he worked. Hutch has a keen eye for corporate greed and cutting corners, and not just in the auto industry. He rants about how little employees get paid at Walmart, what teachers are paid at schools and what the catering workers at Los Angeles International Airport who went on strike this past June made. Hutch thought about what Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto allegedly wrote after the attacks on Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” He wonders if Mary Barra feels the same way. As GM tries to tighten its spending to compete with foreign car companies, job security is the deepest concern among many workers. GM closed three plants in the past year to cut expenditures
LILLY ST. ANGELO | IDS
Kevin Hutchinson talks to union workers on the picket line at Bedford’s General Motors plant. The union workers recently ended a six-week long strike.
and invest in self-driving cars and electric vehicles, which the company sees as the future of the industry. These vehicles, by nature, will require fewer human hands to put them together and will result in the loss of many jobs. In the meantime, employees of shuttered plants get transferred to plants around the country, becoming “GM Gypsies” and leaving homes and families behind. President Donald Trump promised to keep manufacturing jobs in America in his 2016 campaign and even visited the workers of the now-shuttered Lordstown, Ohio plant, and told them not to move or sell their houses, that he would fight for their jobs. Hutch, who doesn’t even like to call Trump “president,” said while union workers generally vote blue, he knows workers who voted for Trump because of his promises and now regret it. “I think there’s huge things that could have been done to help the auto industry,” Hutch said. But those things didn’t happen. In the blustery autumn wind, union workers threw more wood on the fire, making sparks fly. Older workers on the picket line reflected on the struggle each generation of autoworkers has made to secure good paying, permanent jobs for the generation after them. It was their turn to do that now, but was it even possible? SEE STRIKE, PAGE 4
Anderson Cooper visits IU for Union Board lecture series By Kyra Miller kymill@iu.edu | @kyra_ky94
Anderson Cooper, anchor of Anderson Cooper 360˚ and correspondent of 60 Minutes, gave a lecture on his experiences in reporting across the globe and on being in the national spotlight. The lecture was accompanied by a Q&A Sunday night at IU’s Musical Arts Center as a part of the Lou Mervis Distinguished Lecture series. Cooper has been reporting around the world for the past 27 years without any formal journalism education. Cooper graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in political science but said he had always been inspired by war correspondents, traveling and telling stories. Cooper was able to get his first official story by faking a press pass and sneaking into Myanmar to tell the story of students fighting against the government. “I knew then that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Cooper said. Since the inception of his journalistic career in Myanmar, Coo-
per has traveled and reported in more than 50 countries. He traveled to Somalia in 1992 and witnessed war and famine. He told a story of a mother and father who watched all four of their sons die. Cooper said he was reminded of the importance of journalism in Somalia. “I could not stop the starvation, and I couldn’t save people’s lives, but I could bear witness to their struggles,” Cooper said. “I could learn their names and tell their stories.” Even though Cooper witnessed some of the darkest things while reporting abroad, he said he also saw the best in humanity. Cooper spoke about how he saw everyday people put their own lives at risk to help others during events such as Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Japan and the earthquakes in Haiti. “In the midst of tragedies and disasters, I’ve seen so many acts of bravery and selflessness by individuals,” Cooper said. However, Cooper said he also saw how easy it is for instituTY VINSON | IDS
SEE COOPER, PAGE 4
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°,” speaks Oct. 27 in the Musical Arts Center. Cooper talked about IU’s motto, “Light and Truth,” and how it relates to good journalism practices.