GM strike
World's biggest company can't run without workers
By Dianne Mathiowetz
Member, UAW Local 10
The writer works at GM's Doraville, Ga., assembly plant; she
has been an auto worker for 22 years.
Some 9,200 workers at the General Motors Flint
Metal Center and Delphi Flint East parts complex in Michigan
are on strike. As of June 16, more than 63,000 additional
United Auto Workers members at 16 GM assembly plants and 66
parts facilities have been idled.
The number of closed plants is expected to increase rapidly
if the strikes continue. GM's facilities cannot operate without
the parts the striking workers produce.
The strikes are over the issues of outsourcing, speed-up and
unsafe working conditions.
Workers at the Flint Metal Center manufacture hoods, fenders
and other metal parts for 16 assembly plants, where workers
build some of GM's top profit makers-such as pick-up trucks and
sport-utility vehicles. At the Delphi East complex, workers
make air and oil filters, sparkplugs and speedometers. These
are used throughout GM's North American operations.
There are some 296,500 hourly workers in the United States,
Mexico and Canada whose plants could close as a result of the
strikes.
Financial analysts estimate that the strikes are costing GM,
the world's biggest company, $40 million a day. Yet Wall Street
supports GM's strategies to cut costs and raise
profits-strategies that forced the strikes.
Wall Street loves job cuts
The overriding issue is outsourcing-transferring work to
low-wage or non-union shops in this country and abroad. Through
plant closings and consolidations, speed-up, technological
improve ments and increased overtime, GM has eliminated
hundreds of thousands of union jobs over the last two
decades.
Flint was once a center of both auto production and union
strength. But GM's corporate downsizing has cost 50,000 jobs in
Flint. The Buick City facility is scheduled for closing next
year.
GM has particularly targeted the parts plants. Under the
national contract with the UAW, all auto workers receive
comparable pay and benefits-whether the person works in a parts
plant or assembles the vehicles. GM management has long wanted
to break up the work force's unity.
The company's domestic competitors buy most of their parts
from outside companies. Most of these suppliers don't have
unions. Many are in Mexico, Thailand, and other impoverished
countries where workers are super-exploited-which translates
into higher profits for the car companies here.
Although GM is the number-one auto maker in the world and
makes billions of dollars in profits every year, there is a
constant drive to increase the rate of profit. Wall Street has
backed the company's efforts to become "leaner and meaner."
In just the last five years, GM has cut 39,000 hourly jobs.
At the same time the company made profits of $27.5 billion.
GM aims to reduce its unionized work force by another
50,000. Internal documents leaked to reporters outline the
firm's plans to double production in Mexico and transfer
small-car production out of this country.
Such evidence magnifies most auto workers' sense that GM is
conducting an all-out war against their economic future and
their union.
International solidarity
Workers at plants idled by the strikes have been expressing
overwhelming solidarity with the Michigan workers.
Most auto workers have personally experienced job transfers,
plant closures and extended layoffs caused by capitalist
restructuring. For instance, workers at the Doraville, Ga.,
assembly plant came there from over 100 different UAW locals
throughout the country. Many once worked in Flint, where GM's
plant closings have devastated the community and separated
families.
UAW officials have been appealing for public support in its
struggle against the auto giant by calling on GM to honor its
"social contract" with the communities where its plants are
located. In fact, economists estimate that the jobs of one out
of every 10 workers in the United States are affected by the
auto industry.
Some of that connection is direct-for instance, workers at
small, unorganized parts suppliers. Then there are the cities
where loss of auto jobs has economic repercussions in every
area-from retail sales to restaurants and gas stations.
Workers are all too aware that their wages have stagnated
while corporate executives have been awarded huge bonuses and
stock options in the millions of dollars for containing labor
costs. And auto workers in the United States are not alone in
this fight.
German and U.S. workers are forming relationships to counter
any cuts in jobs brought about by the Mercedes-Chrysler merger.
The economic crisis in Asia, center of much of the world's
automotive production, is sure to be felt in the United States
as the bosses maneuver to keep their profits intact.
Korean auto workers have provided a fine example of
militancy as they have repeatedly taken to the barricades to
oppose layoffs and cuts in wages and benefits.
GM may act to temporarily solve the strikes in Flint. But
the same issues of outsourcing, job overload and unsafe working
conditions plague other plants. There have already been 11
local strikes in the last two years over these issues, and more
are likely in the coming months.
National contract negotiations with the Big Three auto
makers take place next year.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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