Auto workers face historic challenges

Since October 2005, when Delphi Automotive went into bankruptcy after its unions rejected management’s outrageous demands for a 65-percent wage cut along with Draconian benefit cuts and mass layoffs, the fight there has been closely watched by all who are actively engaged in the class struggle. Would the unions draw the line at Delphi against the massive cutbacks being imposed on workers in every major industry, and especially against the use of the bankruptcy courts as the new ruling-class weapon to accomplish this?

The objective conditions for a working-class victory seemed to exist. Unlike most bankruptcy situations where the workers are fighting an isolated and failing company, a strike at Delphi would immediately shut down General Motors operations at the precise moment when GM is introducing a new product line to regain its diminished market share.

Significantly, from the first bankruptcy announcement, the rank and file began mobilizing for the battle. They formed the organization Soldiers of Solidarity. They had meetings and demonstrations all over the country to galvanize the workers. They developed websites to keep the workers informed. And they staged slowdowns called “work to rule” at Delphi plants nationwide.

A recent UAW strike authorization vote passed overwhelmingly, as did a previous vote by Delphi members in the Inter national Union of Electrical Workers/ Communication Workers of America.

However, the prospects for a successful battle at Delphi were dealt a severe blow on the eve of the June 12-15 UAW convention. The UAW negotiated a “buyout” package at Delphi funded by General Motors.

This package is an attempt to remove the higher-wage workers at Delphi, and open the door for their replacement by new hires and temporary workers—who already come in at a wage scale more than $12 an hour below the current work force under the two-tiered wage scale previously negotiated.

In essence, this “buyout” package was a capitulation by the UAW leadership to the demand by Delphi management and GM to fundamentally restructure Delphi wages and benefits and eliminate three-quarters of the work force.

Is restructuring a “farsighted solution”?

In his speech to the convention delegates, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said, “They [GM, Delphi, Ford] demand new and farsighted solutions and we must be an integral part of developing those solutions.”

General Motors and Ford, egged on by Wall Street, are attempting to use this temporary shift in the U.S. market, and the losses they have suffered as a result, to fundamentally restructure the auto industry. They want to lower the wages and benefits of auto workers and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.

Delphi, which was part of GM until it was spun off in 1999, is the first step in this process.

In his report to the UAW convention, Gettelfinger correctly pointed out that the current crisis facing GM and Ford and their parts suppliers is not a product of a downturn in U.S. auto sales, which continue at relatively high levels. GM and Ford have lost market share simply because they continued to produce gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, where the rate of profit is highest, when the market for these vehicles started dwindling, especially with the rise in gas prices. As a result, they lost sales to their competitors like Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

Still, GM made profits of $2.8 billion in 2004, $3.8 billion in 2003 and $1.7 billion in 2002. Even from a bourgeois point of view, the idea that these corporations cannot operate profitably with a decently paid work force is a lie.

Buyouts—a bad choice

It appears that many Delphi workers are taking buyouts. They feel they have no choice when their union leadership is encouraging them to do so rather than offering a perspective on how to fight back against the corporate vultures.

Unfortunately, they may be in for a rude shock in the future. Many workers taking early retirement believe they will be getting a GM pension. But as Greg Shotwell, an organizer for Soldiers of Solidarity, wrote in his “Live Bait and Ammos” numbers 76 and 77, these workers will be getting a Delphi pension.

In other words, their future pensions will be dependent on a shrunken corporation that won’t hesitate to use bankruptcy to escape its benefit obligations. In fact, even in the best-case scenario, Delphi will have a $3.1 billion pension shortfall even if it gets the cuts the bosses want. More over, under the UAW-GM-Delphi Special Attrition Program, GM is obligated to cover health benefits for Delphi retirees only through October 2007.

In a June 18 report headlined “UAW Dissenters Speak Out,” the Detroit Free Press wrote: “Greg Shotwell is currently the most recognizable dissenter. Shotwell approached the center aisle microphone Monday with confrontation on his mind. ‘What happens if Delphi stops paying on the pension fund after the GM benefit guarantee expires?’ UAW Vice-President Richard Shoemaker shot back: [He] told Shotwell he was out of order but said he would answer the question privately.”

A dissenter from the group Members for Change said: “Power at the bargaining table comes from an involved, informed, empowered and mobilized membership and community support. We believe it’s time for a change.”

The corporations want to take advantage of the crisis to raise their rate of profit. Unfortunately, rather than fighting back, the Gettelfinger leadership seems to have accepted the need for what he termed in his convention report “structural challenges”in the automotive industry. Earlier this year, he negotiated unprecedented mid-contract cuts in health benefits at Ford and GM. Now the UAW leadership seems prepared to cave in to Delphi’s demands for a fundamental lowering of wages and massive job eliminations.

But the UAW workers’ struggle to maintain a living wage and decent benefits for themselves and to show the way for the entire working class is hardly over. For one thing, there is still no contract in place at Delphi. And next year, all the UAW—GM, Ford and Daimler-Chrysler—contracts are up. You can believe the battle lines will be drawn.

An interesting offshoot of the buyouts being offered by GM and Delphi is that many UAW local union leaders with loyalty to the Gettelfinger leadership are high-seniority workers who are taking advantage of these buyouts. Hence, a whole new leadership is about to emerge across the UAW. This is an opening for activists like those in Soldiers of Solidarity to rebuild a fighting leadership in the union.

At the convention they were successful in eliciting 35 delegates to sign onto a statement entitled, “Draw the line at Delphi.” This was a statement with a militant perspective against concessions and lay-offs. It advocated solidarity with the immigrant workers’ movement as well.

The upcoming battles in the UAW will have consequences for the entire union movement. The working class will find its way to reverse the tide of corporate takebacks and instead go on the offensive to win living wages and benefits for all workers in this, the richest country on earth.