A huge step back for workers

In January the management of Ford Motor Co., led by CEO and board chair William Clay Ford Jr., proclaimed a new cost-cutting campaign called “Way Forward.” For Ford’s 75,000 hourly workers and thousands of salaried employees in North America, a better name would have been “Way, Way Back.”

Ford’s plan called for shutting down 14 plants and eliminating some 30,000 production jobs by 2012. Ford had already eliminated 4,000 salaried workers and bought out 6,500 members of the United Auto Workers.

This month, Ford Jr. scrapped “Way Forward.” He stepped down as CEO and hired Boeing head Alan Mulally as his replacement. Mulally then announced “Way Forward Phase 2.”

Even more brutal than Phase 1, it calls for terminating 10,000 additional salaried jobs by the first quarter of 2007—about one-third of what is left of Ford’s North American salaried work force, which numbered 46,000 at the beginning of 2006. Phase 2 plans to shut down or sell off more plants much sooner than 2012—the original projected date.

Now Ford is offering buyouts to its entire hourly workforce—75,000 employees. However, this payout, which eliminates good-paying union jobs and benefits, is chump change in a period of rising prices.

On Sept. 15—”Blue Friday”—production and engineering workers got the official word from Mulally and his Way Forward staff by e-mail.

Mulally, who was promised a total of $18 million to take the job, was hired for his expertise in downsizing. He cut the workforce at Boeing from 127,000 to 52,000 and shut down many operations before he left. The leaders of the International Association of Machinists, which represented Boeing workers, agreed to the cuts.

Will UAW President Ron Gettelfinger learn from the bitter experiences of Boeing workers? Apparently not. Gettel finger’s response to the hiring of Mulally was to laud him as fair-minded, reasonable and a credible individual. He had had previous contact with him in the aerospace industry.

When Gettelfinger was asked about Way Forward 2, he said that the union was still in discussions with the company about the first restructuring plan, but that “I’m sure we’ll be having discussions about the second Way Forward plan.” (detnews.com, Sept. 8)

What a sad commentary on the state of the UAW leaders and their failure to evaluate the further catastrophic attacks on the rank and file. Gettelfinger and the other UAW leaders are overwhelmed by this unprecedented restructuring and downsizing of the workforce. It is a monumental crisis faced by UAW workers across the entire industry.

“The automotive industry has shed more than 250,000 jobs since 2000,” wrote the Washington Post on Sept. 16. They were good-paying jobs with benefits that covered a broad range of salaried, non-union and union workers. The article describes the immensity of the current crisis among the Big Three North American auto giants:

“Ford’s broad restructuring reflects an industry malaise that was further underscored yesterday by DaimlerChrysler AG’s projection that it expects its Chrysler unit to lose $1.52 billion this quarter. Like Ford, General Motors Corp. has undertaken drastic measures to jettison workers and close plants to recover from steep losses.”

GM is cutting 30,000 jobs and closing a dozen plants. It will decide in the near future whether it wants to link up with a mer ged Japanese and French auto combine.

Producers versus exploiters

It’s critical for those who assemble cars, from the drawing board to the production line, to view the crisis from a broad-based class point of view. The separate classification of white-collar workers from blue collar, of salaried from hourly, of union versus non-union is divisive. It serves the interests only of corporate cliques and a cabal of Wall Street banks and financial institutions whose undying devotion is to the bottom line—and damn the laboring masses.

To learn who is calling the shots, check the board of directors. At Ford, three family members run the empire: William Jr. is married to an heir to the Firestone dynasty of rubber and related industries. Edsel R. Ford is a retired vice president who deals with financing and credit and is on the board of the Detroit branch of the influential Chicago Federal Reserve Board and privy to all insider information. And there is the family patriarch, William Clay Ford, father to William Jr.

They are taking care of themselves in this crisis. According to a New York Post article of Sept. 18, since Way Forward was announced “at least 18 top Ford officers and directors have been net sellers of Ford stock. ... The biggest seller of the bunch: Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., who sold more than 593,000 shares ... bagging close to $4.7 million.”

Joining the family parasites on the board is a group of Wall Street bankers. Representing Citigroup, the largest banking institution in the world, was Robert Rubin, a senior vice president who joined the bank in 2000 after ending his tenure as secretary of the Treasury during Pre si dent Bill Clinton’s administration. Recently, Rubin quietly resigned from Ford, citing a potential conflict of interest. Citigroup would like to get its hands on Ford Motor Credit Corp., a financial institution with deep pockets from loans and other services provided to Ford customers. Citigroup will continue to advise Ford on its strategic objectives: How will Ford be restructured? Will it survive as it is now?

Other key directors on Ford’s board include the chairperson of HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services groups with over 9,500 offices in 76 countries, and the retired CEO of KPMG, a worldwide accounting group operating in 144 countries.

Scratch the list of directors who run the boards at GM, Chrysler or any other giant corporation and you’ll find it’s only the names and the particular financial connections that change. The banks rule.

The Ford board has at its disposal a cash reserve of over $20 billion. GM and Chrysler hoard billions while autoworkers are forced into inhuman speedups leading to dangerous working conditions. Plant closings that eliminate tens of thousands of jobs are destroying a working class culture unique to autoworkers that is over a century old. The fabric of their lives, families, loved ones and communities is being torn up.

It doesn’t have to be. Autoworkers have a history of class struggle etched in their culture. Labor on the production line is reflected in their language and stories. They are the inheritors of the sacrifices and heroism of their ancestors.

There have been many downturns in the lives of autoworkers. During periods of crisis, new leaders sprang up from the ranks. At this moment in history they face another great challenge.

A job is a property right

Will private ownership of the plants, the machinery and the new technology by a few tyrants trump the labor power of autoworkers who built the plants and created the wealth?

It was the many who rose up and seized the GM plants in the mid 1930s. It was the many who defied Henry Ford, great grandfather of William Ford Jr., who swore that only over his dead body would a union be recognized. It was the many who by their actions proved they had a property right to their jobs, which was briefly upheld by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins during the Roosevelt administration.

It will take a bold and creative strategy to resist the plans of the Big Three automotive giants, who are determined to shut down dozens of plants.

Over 70 years ago, the ancestors of today’s autoworkers had a similar challenge. The issue was whether property rights and profits should prevail over human rights and job rights. The workers made the right decision. They seized the plants. The culture of industrial unionism and the defense of workers’ rights survived. Can this generation rise to the challenge?