Auto workers face plant closings & layoffs
By Martha Grevatt
Cleveland
Members of the United Auto Workers have voted
on a new four-year contract, ratifying a national agreement
that grants major concessions to the bosses of General Motors,
Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Delphi and Visteon.
Ron Gettlefinger, who became the UAW president in 2002, put
a different spin on the concessionary agreements. He boasted
that the contract "delivered on health care, economic gains,
workers' rights."
Not true. It is a significant retreat from the 1999 contract
and opens the door wide for massive layoffs and plant
closings.
At least 10 plants in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri,
Maryland, Alabama, New York and New Jersey will be permanently
closed or sold. More will close if they do not become
"competitive." Addi tional job losses will result from cutting
entire shifts and eliminating classifications.
At DaimlerChrysler, for example, a joint union-management
task force has been set up to develop the means to eliminate up
to 5,000 out of 12,000 skilled-trades positions. After the
contract was ratified, 400 UAW-represented designers learned
their jobs are on the chopping block.
Fifty thousand union jobs could be taken out of the domestic
economy. These closings and layoffs will be devastating, not
only to workers but to their communities.
Ford plans to close a van plant in Lorain, Ohio, a town
dependent on steel and auto with big African-American and
Latino communities. The plant is in a county with one of the
state's highest unemployment rates.
Baltimore faces a shutdown of a GM assembly plant. Related
industries such as rubber, glass, and other suppliers will cut
back on their work forces.
On the economic front, the contract freezes wages for the
first two years. Workers at Delphi and Visteon, which GM and
Ford spun off under the 1999 negotiations, will work under a
two-tiered wage structure. New hires will start at $10 an hour
less than current employees. Future retirees will see only a
modest increase in pensions over the previous contract. For the
first time since the 1960s, current retirees will have their
pensions frozen, receiving only a lump sum each year. Company
payments into the union pension fund will decrease.
Wall Street wants more
"Does this make the industry even a little more competitive?
No," said Maryann Keller, an auto analyst and former executive
who ran the Priceline.com automotive division. "This contract
does nothing to even make a slight dent in the fundamental
problems." (New York Times, Sept. 23)
"We believe the new contracts will not materially bolster
the automakers' competitive positions," said an auto analyst
from Standard and Poor, mirroring similar remarks from analysts
at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. (Detroit News, Sept.
23)
Why would any worker vote for such a contract? Gettlefinger
appealed to those members who will be least hurt by the
settlement. Retirement buyout offers of up to $70,000 and the
option to transfer to other plants left workers asking, "What
choice do we have?"
Health benefits, which have come under repeated attack in
negotiations, remain virtually untouched. A $3,000 signing
bonus made it very tempting for some workers whose jobs appear
secure to vote "yes." Workers at plants not slated for closing
are protected by language preventing the corporation "from
closing, selling, spinning off, consolidating or otherwise
disposing of any plant, asset or business unit during the term
of this agreement."
On the shop floor, however, the rank and file are concerned.
They don't like the job cuts. They worry about a new, stricter
attendance policy that could lead to more firings.
While they can live without a raise for two years, they
don't think it's right--not when the top executives got big
raises and bonuses this year.
"What aren't they telling us?" asked one worker talking with
others during lunch break at a DaimlerChrysler plant.
While the contracts passed with a clear majority, support
was hardly unanimous. A handful of locals at each of the five
companies rejected the contract.
Only 58 percent of skilled trades at DaimlerChrysler backed
the contract. At a Delphi plant in Coopersville, Mich., workers
trashed the contract because of the two-tier provision for new
hires. As one worker put it, "When there's no equality there's
no solidarity."
This is a critical point. The Big Three will try to use the
contracts' divisive nature to divide the workers.
The two-tiered wage structure is inherently unequal. There
will be resentment and confusion in the open plants toward
workers from closed plants, who transfer with full seniority
and bump workers with less seniority. It will demand great
sacrifices from families whose members face a job loss or a
move to another city.
The Big Three bosses cried that they were losing money and
losing market share to foreign competition. They wanted the
UAW's help to become more "competitive" and "return to
profitability."
They got the UAW leaders to swallow their line and push it
on to the rank-and-file: that it's not labor vs. management but
the U.S. industry versus Toyota and others.
Unbelievably, they got Gettlefinger and his negotiating team
to cooperate in cutting employment costs. The union president
said, "One of our goals has been to bring this industry
together."
Auto executives, including GM Chair Rick Waggoner, praised
Gettlefinger's "professionalism." (New York Times, Sept.
23)
What cannot be justified is the passive and collaborative
position the UAW leadership imposed on the rank and file, which
led to the ratification. Tragically, the membership voted to
eliminate their own jobs, and turned over the fate of some
750,000 active and retired workers to the self-serving class
interests of the corporate tycoons.
The loss of thousands of additional jobs will add to the
steady decline in the UAW's Big Three membership ranks. Member
ship stood at 700,000 in 1979. It could drop to 250,000 during
the life of the contract.
Bitter global competition is behind this crisis to cut labor
costs. The competition led to overproduction, tremendous
increases in productivity and speedup. Also, the Big Three have
recklessly expanded their overseas plants and investment in
Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Never have so many cars been produced in so few hours.
Roughly a year ago, DaimlerChrysler workers were scolded by
plant managers because it took, on the average, over 40 hours
to build a vehicle. Now that average is down to 28 hours, and
workers are told it is still not good enough.
Resistance to speedup, mass layoffs and plant closings is
still alive today. Upon learning of Ford's scheme to eliminate
3,000 out of 9,000 jobs, Ford workers in Genk, Belgium, carried
out a splendid struggle. Starting Oct. 2, the union has been
blocking gates, burning debris and tires and stopping
deliveries to the Ford factory. On Oct. 6 workers staged a
24-hour work stoppage. They plan to keep the gates blocked.
Workers said they would "hit Ford where it hurts."
A group in the U.S. called the UAW Solidarity Coalition has
been formed to urge members to "Vote NO until you KNOW." More
opposition is bound to deve lop as this disastrous contract
unfolds.
Last year UAW Local 122 sent a resolution to the National
Bargaining Con ven tion pointing out that workers in Europe
already work fewer hours per week and have longer vacations.
The resolution called for a shorter work week for U.S. workers
with no cut in pay. While the Convention resolution vaguely
alluded to this demand, the current contract provides for its
opposite--more cars per hour, more layoffs and plant
closings.
The issue of a shorter work week with no loss in pay is long
overdue. It was 60 years ago--on July 3, 1943--that the UAW's
International Executive Board raised the slogan of 30 hours
work with no reduction in pay. It is time to fight for the
shorter work week and restore the vigor and vitality of those
years that made the UAW a great and powerful union.
The author, a member of UAW Local 122, has
been a skilled tradeswoman at DaimlerChrysler for
16 years.
Reprinted from the Oct. 16, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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