Big three bosses plan more auto layoffs

“One team. One plan. One goal. One Ford.”

This slogan is one big load of horse manure from the pen of Ford CEO Alan Mulally. In a published letter to all Ford employees, Mulally—who was paid $22 million last year while UAW members swallowed enormous contract concessions—informed “the team” that more job cuts are coming. Since early 2006, Ford’s “Way Forward” has eliminated 47,000 positions.

The cuts, carried out with additional buyouts and possibly involuntary layoffs, are expected to be finalized by Aug. 1. Without giving specific numbers, the May 22 memo states that “We will need to make additional reductions in U.S. automotive personnel and other salaried-related costs.”

What might Mulally be referring to by “other salaried-related costs?” Workers need to read between the lines and be ready to fight any attempt by Ford to extract pay and benefit cuts along the lines of the drastic concessions in the American Axle contract.

UAW members should not be taken by surprise if Mulally—or for that matter other CEOs, Chrysler’s Bob Nardelli or General Motors’ Richard Wagoner—picks up where AAM’s Richard Dauch left off and demands “a competitive wage.”

Chrysler has already announced it may cease production of some large vehicles ahead of schedule, citing the price of gas and the unwillingness of consumers to purchase these gas guzzlers. This would mean additional layoffs. The 2007 agreement between Chrysler and the UAW creates a new dilemma for laid-off workers.

Several hundred in Michigan, now in the “job bank” and receiving most of their weekly pay, have been offered jobs at plants out-of-state. They have just four days to decide whether to move. After two years or the fourth offer, the worker who does not relocate will be treated as having quit, and will lose his or her job bank paycheck, health insurance, and right to be recalled when jobs open up.

Soon Ford workers will be forced to make similar painful decisions. Unlike Chrysler and GM workers, they will cease to be Ford employees after only the second offer of work at another plant.

One might have naively thought that the Big Three bosses would be grateful to their UAW-represented employees for the sacrifices they have made. Since 2005 well over 100,000 jobs have been eliminated, driving the active (employed) UAW membership to its lowest levels in over 60 years. The contracts signed last year, according to GM’s figures, will slash labor costs by 50 percent in the next four years. This represents a huge transfer of wealth—totaling about $650,000 an hour—from the workers to the bosses. Even under the old contracts labor costs averaged only 8.4 percent of the price of a car or truck.

When is enough ever enough? Under capitalism, never. Profits are increased when the cost of labor power—compensation to the worker in the form of wages and benefits—is decreased.

The workers and the bosses are not, nor have they ever been, “one team.” Mulally’s message to the workers, stating that their “tireless efforts and commitment to our company are truly appreciated,” is pure hogwash.

The drastic wage and benefit cuts the American Axle strikers reluctantly agreed to can only whet the appetites of the Big Three for more “sacrifices” on the part of the workers.

However, the incredible solidarity and power of the AAM workers during their 13-week strike, which shut down 30 GM plants and cost GM $2.8 billion, points to tremendous possibilities. The crying need is for an unequivocal break with the fruitless strategy of cooperating with the companies, and for elevating the class struggle to a higher level among the hundreds of thousands who must revive the militant tradition of the United Auto Workers.