Auto workers strike to save jobs, benefits

Since the February announcement that Delphi, the former parts division of General Motors, would close a plant in Puerta Real, Spain, the workers have been fighting back. They have held massive demonstrations, have sat down inside the plant, and have blocked the plant entrance with burning barricades.

On April 18 the struggle to save 1,600 Delphi jobs and thousands more directly affected took a huge step forward with a one-day general strike. Called 90 percent successful by Spanish unions, the strike brought out hundreds of thousands of workers, shutting down 14 municipalities in the province of Cádiz. “Silent” is how the unions described the cities, with public transportation barely running and garbage pickup nonexistent.

Hundreds of militant workers protested outside the Interior Ministry office in Cádiz, shouting: “If Delphi closes, war, war, war.” Similar actions took place in other municipalities, while in Barcelona some 300 Delphi workers marched in solidarity.

Pressed, Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero has stated that “the government is not going to fail the workers of Delphi nor the Bay of Cádiz.”

All over the world, auto workers are beginning to realize that only dramatic, militant action can stave off the global corporate assault. On April 12, workers at the Coghlan-Russell plant in Geelong, Australia, staged a sit down strike, after being idled without pay and being denied entitlement benefits. Ten days later, Ford, one of Coghlan-Russell’s two major customers, came up with $1 million to keep the plant open for at least a year. The 49 victorious strikers are returning to work.