73,000 striking GM workers fight for their jobs

Bulletin: On Sept. 26, General Motors and the United Auto Workers announced a tentative settlement that ended the two-day strike. The ripple effect of the two-day strike hurt GM. Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, said that GM production in his country was coming to a standstill.

WW photo: Martha Grevatt

In the U.S., Teamsters were refusing to cross picket lines and other labor support was growing. On the Sept. 29-30 weekend UAW members—only those active at GM—will be eligible to vote to accept or reject the agreement.

“You gotta do what you gotta do.” After being on strike a mere eight hours, this General Motors (GM) worker summed up the feeling on the picket line at the Parma, Ohio stamping plant.

“They want more, and there’s gotta be a point somewhere where you say no,” another added.

They had been told on Monday, Sept. 24, to walk out at 11 a.m. if they weren’t told otherwise. By 11:01 workers began streaming out of the plants by the thousands. This is the first national strike against GM since 1976.

The core issue, according to United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, is job security. Apparently the heads of GM are refusing to guarantee work to those 73,000 remaining autoworkers at the company that once employed hundreds of thousands.

It had been thought that if there was a strike it would be around the issue of retiree health care costs. Yet the two sides had actually agreed on the details on creating a VEBA—Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association—to be administered by the UAW. The VEBA would in the long run boost GM profits incalculably, as it would relieve the company of future burdens of paying for retiree benefits.

The VEBA represents a historic retreat from the position that obligated automakers to provide health insurance to all employees and retirees, as well as to their dependents. For more than half a million retired workers and loved ones, the lifetime coverage they’ve grown accustomed to is at risk. If the fund underperforms, it puts the UAW in the awkward position of cutting benefits to those it is supposed to represent.

Yet rather than show appreciation to the UAW for coming to its rescue, GM’s reported stance was that the more they give to the VEBA the less they will be willing to preserve in the areas of wages and job security.

What inhumanity—asking the union to choose between job security or the security of affordable health care! After working for decades at hard, monotonous and at times dangerous work—work from which the Big Three profited handsomely—why should anyone have to worry about becoming underinsured?

At the news conference announcing the strike, Gettelfinger pointed to the concessions already made by autoworkers in the past four years: “We’re shocked and disappointed that General Motors has failed to recognize and appreciate what our membership has contributed during the past four years. Since 2003 our members have made extraordinary efforts every time the company came to us with a problem: the corporate restructuring, the attrition plan, the Delphi bankruptcy, the 2005 health care agreement. In every case, our members went the extra mile to find reasonable solutions.”

The bosses don’t care. Through no fault of the workers, domestic automakers have lost market share—losing billions—or they are seeing a radically diminished rate of profit. Dealers’ lots are overflowing with gas-guzzling vehicles they can’t sell. GM, Ford and Chrysler combined are nearly $100 billion in debt for their health care obligations, and health insurance premiums are skyrocketing with no end in sight. The auto barons want to take a huge bite out of labor costs no matter how much or how many it hurts.

The corporation is determined to weaken the UAW with a severe cost-cutting policy. Their strategy—expand global operations at the expense of the North American work force.

In the midst of negotiations, GM arrogantly announced plans to build an $800 million state-of-the-art Buick plant in Shanghai. The global market is their future and the plunge in the dollar will make their products cheaper and more competitive, and expand operations abroad. The billions to be invested must come at the expense of the GM workers’ jobs and benefits. Plants will be shut down to lower costs and investments in the U.S.

The third party in all these negotiations, causing both sides to weigh their options carefully, is the state of the capitalist economy. What began with the sub-prime mortgage crisis has morphed into a generalized crisis of the financial markets, causing lenders everywhere to tighten purse strings. Finance capital is not inclined to be generous towards the workers in the higher-paid manufacturing sector while its overall situation is precarious.

On the other hand, the economic crisis weighs heavily on the workers, many of whom are mired in debt for homes, cars and college tuition. A rumored $5-per-hour wage cut, for example, could put someone in the position of choosing between taking their kid out of college or looking at foreclosure. Even one more plant closing would spell disaster for a town in Michigan or Ohio, where foreclosures are already the highest in the country.

No wonder the workers see a strike as “doing what you gotta do.”

Whether the strike is short or long, in this context the display of workers’ power by 73,000 UAW members has tremendous significance—more than can even be known at this time. ν