Some 30 workers paraded slowly along the sidewalk above an Expressway entry ramp. Many waved mostly hand-drawn placards and chanted slogans, pointing out that "We Did Not Cause This Crisis," asserting that "Unfair Trade Policies Destroy Our Country," and especially, calling for an end to the recently-enacted two-tier wage structure. That practice permits auto companies to operate with different wage scales for different workers. Where this standard is in effect, newly-hired employees get sharply reduced wages.

Don Kemp, who's put in 25 years at GM's Truck & Bus plant in southeast Michigan, puts the two-tier wage rate at the top of the hierarchy of grievances. Auto companies have devised a 40/60 split, Kemp explained: 40 percent of workers take a pay cut to about $14 an hour, while 60 percent stay at their previous wage rate. How do you support a family on $14 an hour, Kemp asks, noting that eventually "they're going to make everybody lower tier."

Kemp sees the two-tier system as a violation of basic labor principles. This is a union, he asserts. So, how can some people be unequal?

UAW retiree Dianne Feeley unabashedly expressed her disappointment with the union and its current leaders. Bob King, the new head of the UAW, has gone along with two-tier wages, Feeley stated. Furthermore, he supports the free-trade agreement proposed with South Korea. Enacting that bill "will reduce the number of high-wage jobs, in iron and steel," Feeley claimed. Another worker noted that instead of a free-trade agreement, "we need fair trade laws worldwide," so all will benefit.

Still in his early days in office, King has 11 principles, according to Feeley. Most publicized is his goal of organizing at least one "transplant" factory (owned by an import-brand company) this year. Traditionally, import-brand companies that establish manufacturing plants in the U.S. do so in the southern states, where non-union factories are the rule. Thus, they bypass the UAW completely, typically paying sufficient wages to keep their workers satisfied and thus unlikely to join a union.

Feeley chided the auto companies for hiring 80 percent contract or temporary workers. This practice began with auto parts suppliers, she said, but now has become the rule at the "Big 3" automakers as well.

We've "never recovered from the concessions of 1979-80," Feeley said. Now, the auto companies want more and more concessions. Even the UAW is accepting the reduced wage rate for newly-hired, low-tier workers.

One of their grievances involves whipsawing. This curious term refers to a factory whose workers have a different wage scale than equivalent workers at another plant, even though both make the same product. The auto company then "whipsaws" the work back and forth between those two plants.

Speeding up the line has been a common complaint of labor through much of the past century, and Feeley says it's still an issue. This contributes to the "stress that people are under," because "there's "no job security."

"Young workers may think they'll get ahead by working harder, " Feeley said. But "if they work harder, they're going to get injured."

"Opening up the plant" to alternative production is another goal, according to Feeley. "We can produce mass transit," she said, noting that fewer than 5,000 buses were manufactured in the U.S. last year. All the others that went into service were imported.

"We're not lifting all boats," Kemp insisted. "Only the top are lifted." The middle class is dying, and we're all becoming "poor working class."

In Kemp's view, "we've got to be building hard things." "There is no expendable income," people cannot buy what they need. Regardless of who's in charge, added another worker, the government is "working for 2 percent of the population. The ultra-rich."

Asked about the comparatively small turnout for this Sunday rally, Kemp admitted that it's not easy to get disgruntled workers to take action, He compared the situation to the recent worker demonstrations in France, "which shut down the country." Media coverage also was modest, because most out-of-town journalists had not yet arrived in Detroit for the auto show.