NEW YORK CITY, December 23—When General Motors announced the closure of four U.S. and one Canadian auto plant late December, workers in Canada walked out!  Almost 16,000 jobs were at stake. As capitalist corporations compete with each other to maximize their profits, workers suffer. Investors loved the cost-cutting news as GM stocks shot up by almost eight percent.
At the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Canada, workers had a different response. They walked out and then blocked the gates to prevent supplies from getting in and finished cars from getting out. Auto workers from Canada, the U.S.,Mexico and worldwide will have to organize many more such actions to fight the auto bosses. They will get no help from politicians or even their own union ‘leaders.’ Canadian President Justin Trudeau tweeted “I spoke with GM (Chief Executive) Mary Barra to express my deep disappointment in the closure” (Reuters.com, Nov 26, 2018). President Trump said “he was ‘not happy’ with the decision and spoke ‘very tough’ to Barra about the moves” (Autonews.com, 12/23/2018). The union leaders also talked tough with no plans for action.
Auto bosses get government bailout; workers get layoffs and low wages
The auto industry has had eight straight years of big profits thanks to the $60 billion Barack Obama bailout of 2009 and billions more from United Auto Workers (UAW) union concessions. But now comes the crisis of overproduction, a regular feature of capitalism and the auto industry in particular. The plants slated to close are all operating below full capacity. In the global cutthroat competition for markets, resources and cheap labor, the bosses ruthlessly pursue profits. At some point those factories not functioning at full capacity become a drain on those profits. In these closings, all five plants were operating on one shift. Entire shifts had already been laid off. And according to the Detroit Free Press, GM has four of 12 plants, Ford has three of nine plants, and Fiat Chrysler has two of six plants operating below capacity. More closings are likely.
This reflects yet another restructuring of the global auto industry. Sales have dropped in North America and China and the world’s auto bosses have been losing money in Europe and South America. More than 1,000 Nissan workers are losing their jobs in Mexico and Ford could soon announce its own job-cutting plan, which could wipe out as many as 25,000 jobs.
Fight for more jobs,
higher wages and communism
With the GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler contracts set to expire in the U.S. and Canada in Sept. 2019, the bosses and the UAW leadership will use these cuts to divide workers and play them against each other.After the national contracts are resolved, each local plant negotiates its own local agreement. That is where the union and the company “whipsaw” the workers against each other into accepting labor agreements that boost corporate profits, each hoping that the most profitable arrangement will get more work assigned to that factory.
As we head toward the contract talks, let’s follow the lead of the workers in Canada and make 2019 a year of militant fightback. Workers are already angry after a major corruption scandal involving UAW officials accepting bribes from Fiat Chrysler officials during the last contract negotiations. While UAW officials accepted tens of thousands of dollars in cash, gifts and trips, sell-out auto contracts opened the floodgates to lower paid, temporary and part-time workers in assembly plants. This, in an industry already flooded with low wage jobs in the supplier industries. Workers could decide to take matter into their own hands. Wildcat strikes could return.
As communists, members of the Progressive Labor Party will support any rebellion in the ranks against the bosses. At the same time we fight for a communist world where production is based on the needs of the international working class, not the profits of the war-making bosses and bankers.