“We want equality!” That’s how one worker described the strike of 50,000 GM workers, women and men, black, Latin, Asian, and white workers in the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. A big red salute to GM strikers. Their courage serves as an inspiration for workers everywhere. At least 12 strikers were arrested in Spring Hills, TN for attempting to stop car haulers from moving finished cars out of the company lot. From Michigan toTexas strikers confronted the police, whose historical role has been to protect property and attack organized labor.  
Capitalism is the antithesis of equality. A system rooted in exploitation cannot bear the fruits of equality. Only communism can cultivate a worker-run system that will eliminate racism, sexism, and nationalism. For that, workers need an international party, Progressive Labor Party.
Two-tier wage system
Seven percent of the 430,000-strong workforce is made up of temporary part-time workers (TPTs), who earn about $15 an hour, the same as the New York City minimum wage. They do the same work as fulltime workers. Meanwhile, GM CEO Mary Barra made $28 million last year.
GM wants to expand the use of TPTs, who are referred to as “in progression” workers that have not been accepted as fulltime even after working for 5 or more years. They work unpredictable schedules, cannot build seniority, and are subject to arbitrary discipline and firings without union protection, even though they pay union dues. It’s a slave labor system. The strikers want them hired as full-time and the TPT classification ended!
Awash with record profits, they closed four plants, demand further concessions in order to cut costs by $4.5 billion by the end of 2020 and reduce capacity. “The strike could be costing GM $75 million-a-day, according to JPMorgan analysts” (Business Insider, 9/21). This reflects both the power that workers have collectively, and the level of exploitation under the racist profit system. “It’s a staggering figure, but it pales in comparison to GM’s whopping $26 billion in profits in 2018.” (Business Insider).
This also points out the need to abolish wage slavery with communist revolution, where we will produce for the needs of the working class, not the profits of capitalists.
Capitalist competition hurts workers
GM is caught in the sharpening competition for cheap labor and markets as the global auto market heads into a systemic downturn. They have to reduce capacity and make big investments in electric cars or face extinction. It’s also estimated that Trump’s trade war with China has cost GM and Ford roughly $1 billion each in North America. Workers everywhere will pay a much higher price as the U.S. and China continue on a collision course to another world war.
UAW leadership in bed with bosses
The corruption of the UAW leaders is hanging over the strike like a toxic cloud. The UAW and Fiat-Chrysler executives were charged for a bribery scheme. UAW president Gary Jones and former president Dennis Williams are also the targets of a federal criminal complaint “in a conspiracy to embezzle more than $1 million of member dues and spend it on Palm Springs villas, steakhouse dinners, cigars, more than 100 rounds of golf and $400 bottles of Cristal Champagne” (Detroit News 9/18). UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson, who succeeded Jones as Regional Director, was recently arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.
Nationalism is a capitalist idea
The unions in the U.S. are a shell of its former self. In the absence of a communist movement and the then-beacons of working-class power, Soviet Union and China, nationalism and reform consumed the unions. Decades of economist fights and patriotic, anti-worker slogans of “Buy American” have crippled working-class fightback. The union bosses serve to negotiate the exploitation of workers with the capitalists. These unions have in effect become ruling-class institutions.  
On the other hand, there are 50,000 workers who are fighting back, following the strike wave of teachers, hotel, fast food, and Stop & Shop workers.
PLP supports the strike by going out to picket lines with whatever bosses’ organization we are in: unions, schools, churches, community groups, hospitals, and transit. There is always a potential to turn strikes into schools for communist ideas and practices.
Workers want equality. Workers can build equality when we smash capitalism and build a dictatorship of the working class. Smash GM! Fight for communism!