Left: Workers protesting over the planned closure of Termini Imerese seven years ago when a decision by the Fiat Group to shut the Sicilian car plant was reversed right at the eleventh hour.
No matter where we live or what our nationality is, the bosses use terror and coercion to get us to work for less and under more dangerous conditions that further their ability to profit by putting us to work.
The giant auto company Fiat is threatening to close its plants in Italy and move them to Eastern Europe or North America if the Union that represents 12% of its workforce doesn’t cough up more concessions. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? With the help of the UAW leadership in the US, wages and conditions in US factories are beginning to appeal to investors and those who make money off the backs of working people. The Italians had better shape up as “Eastern European rivals have been working to improve conditions for investors” Bloomberg Business Week points out.
In Italy, the capitalist class is concerned that the politicians continue to “drag their feet on enacting labor reforms and slashing red tape” and accuse the Union of being “hard line”. Language has a different meaning depending on which side of the class divide you’re on; “Reform “ from our point of view as workers means an increase in our material well being as well as economic and political rights in society. For the capitalist class it means a decrease in our material well being, economic and political rights. It means speed-ups at work as well as longer hours, fewer safety regulations and protections on the job; what the capitalists call “red tape”.
The coupon clippers that own the auto industry in Italy aren’t making enough money. China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and other areas where human Labor power is cheaper and can be put to work under conditions more favorable to the buyer of Labor power than the seller of it are beckoning. Workers at a Fiat plant in Poland make 100 cars each a year on average while Italian workers make 30 according to a German car industry group that tracks such data. Meanwhile, Italian workers earn €27.69 an hour ($38.55) while workers at the Polish plant earn €7.52, almost 400% less. It is also possible that it is a newer more technologically advanced plant than the Italian ones.
Along with this, the economic slump has had serious repercussions in Italy as anyone who follows events beyond the lives of Hollywood celebrities knows. Presently, one third of Italian youth are unemployed. The Italian plants are operating at just 33% capacity compared to 73% for Fiat’s other European plants. This is what competition does for workers. Not only do we not need more cars, the plants built to make them are not operating at their full potential. The development of more environmentally friendly public transportation and the shortening of the workweek for all workers in that sector of society is what could be occurring.
Instead, workers are thrown in to completion with each other not only within each nation state but between nations as well. Marx’s call for workers of the world to unite was no empty phrase. He was right when he said that workers have no country. The Fiat bosses just like those here in the US and the world want more “flexible hours” and they want to “limit strikes” writes BW. And if they don’t get their way they’ll pull up roots and leave for somewhere where they can get these things. Capitalists have no allegiance to any nation or nationality except when it serves their interests to express such ideas like when they want workers to fight in their wars for control over the world’s resources and access to markets.
This small example of the international nature of the economic system we live in should be a reminder to all workers of the futility of making the argument that the solution to the crisis in one country is for workers to assist domestic capitalists, in other words, “our” bosses in their competitive struggle with their rivals for “market share”, for who wins the profit game. It is anti-worker as our collaboration with our bosses’ means driving the employees of their rivals on to the unemployment line. His rivals tell his workers they have to help him compete and we are thrown in to a life and death struggle with each in order to help the bosses out. We cannot build solidarity or unity in this way and it leads to a race to the bottom for all of us.
Profit has its source in the unpaid Labor of the working class and by joining with our bosses in the struggle with their rivals we are setting ourselves in opposition to other workers who are our class allies. This is the “Team Concept” on a global scale expressed through the demand that we “Buy American” or Japanese or German---it’s a disaster and a recipe for defeat. The same Team Concept is applied as workers in one state compete with workers in another state to retain businesses. We take a cut to help our boss out and eliminate the threat that he’ll move to Arizona and workers in Arizona (normally through the political representatives of the capitalists in the state) offer themselves more cheaply in order to get him to relocate. In the public sector where I worked the Union officials all of whom support the Team Concept, called it “Competitive bidding”. We were to work smarter and more efficiently than our brothers and sisters in the private sector.
In his opening address to the 20th bi-ennial convention of the California State Labor Federation in 1994 to which I was a delegate, then Executive Secretary, Jack Henning said:
"There should originate, in the leadership of the AFL-CIO, a call to the unions for the only answer that is noble: global unionism is the answer to global capitalism.
The giant auto company Fiat is threatening to close its plants in Italy and move them to Eastern Europe or North America if the Union that represents 12% of its workforce doesn’t cough up more concessions. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? With the help of the UAW leadership in the US, wages and conditions in US factories are beginning to appeal to investors and those who make money off the backs of working people. The Italians had better shape up as “Eastern European rivals have been working to improve conditions for investors” Bloomberg Business Week points out.
In Italy, the capitalist class is concerned that the politicians continue to “drag their feet on enacting labor reforms and slashing red tape” and accuse the Union of being “hard line”. Language has a different meaning depending on which side of the class divide you’re on; “Reform “ from our point of view as workers means an increase in our material well being as well as economic and political rights in society. For the capitalist class it means a decrease in our material well being, economic and political rights. It means speed-ups at work as well as longer hours, fewer safety regulations and protections on the job; what the capitalists call “red tape”.
The coupon clippers that own the auto industry in Italy aren’t making enough money. China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and other areas where human Labor power is cheaper and can be put to work under conditions more favorable to the buyer of Labor power than the seller of it are beckoning. Workers at a Fiat plant in Poland make 100 cars each a year on average while Italian workers make 30 according to a German car industry group that tracks such data. Meanwhile, Italian workers earn €27.69 an hour ($38.55) while workers at the Polish plant earn €7.52, almost 400% less. It is also possible that it is a newer more technologically advanced plant than the Italian ones.
Along with this, the economic slump has had serious repercussions in Italy as anyone who follows events beyond the lives of Hollywood celebrities knows. Presently, one third of Italian youth are unemployed. The Italian plants are operating at just 33% capacity compared to 73% for Fiat’s other European plants. This is what competition does for workers. Not only do we not need more cars, the plants built to make them are not operating at their full potential. The development of more environmentally friendly public transportation and the shortening of the workweek for all workers in that sector of society is what could be occurring.
Instead, workers are thrown in to completion with each other not only within each nation state but between nations as well. Marx’s call for workers of the world to unite was no empty phrase. He was right when he said that workers have no country. The Fiat bosses just like those here in the US and the world want more “flexible hours” and they want to “limit strikes” writes BW. And if they don’t get their way they’ll pull up roots and leave for somewhere where they can get these things. Capitalists have no allegiance to any nation or nationality except when it serves their interests to express such ideas like when they want workers to fight in their wars for control over the world’s resources and access to markets.
This small example of the international nature of the economic system we live in should be a reminder to all workers of the futility of making the argument that the solution to the crisis in one country is for workers to assist domestic capitalists, in other words, “our” bosses in their competitive struggle with their rivals for “market share”, for who wins the profit game. It is anti-worker as our collaboration with our bosses’ means driving the employees of their rivals on to the unemployment line. His rivals tell his workers they have to help him compete and we are thrown in to a life and death struggle with each in order to help the bosses out. We cannot build solidarity or unity in this way and it leads to a race to the bottom for all of us.
Profit has its source in the unpaid Labor of the working class and by joining with our bosses in the struggle with their rivals we are setting ourselves in opposition to other workers who are our class allies. This is the “Team Concept” on a global scale expressed through the demand that we “Buy American” or Japanese or German---it’s a disaster and a recipe for defeat. The same Team Concept is applied as workers in one state compete with workers in another state to retain businesses. We take a cut to help our boss out and eliminate the threat that he’ll move to Arizona and workers in Arizona (normally through the political representatives of the capitalists in the state) offer themselves more cheaply in order to get him to relocate. In the public sector where I worked the Union officials all of whom support the Team Concept, called it “Competitive bidding”. We were to work smarter and more efficiently than our brothers and sisters in the private sector.
In his opening address to the 20th bi-ennial convention of the California State Labor Federation in 1994 to which I was a delegate, then Executive Secretary, Jack Henning said:
"There should originate, in the leadership of the AFL-CIO, a call to the unions for the only answer that is noble: global unionism is the answer to global capitalism.
"We were never meant to be beggars at the table of wealth. We were never meant to be the apostles of labor cannibalism on the world stage. We were meant for a higher destiny. We were never meant to be the lieutenants of capitalism. We were never meant to be the pall bearers of the workers of the world."
Henning was an eloquent speaker but that was about it. Many Labor officials accept that international solidarity is crucial and some Unions are making efforts to build stronger links between nations. But as long as they support capitalism, worship the market and the idea that all of us within a nation are “one” with the same economic interests (Team Concept), they end up supporting “their” capitalists against their foreign rivals.
Michel Martone, an Italian professor of Labor law and mouthpiece for capitalism “senses that a day of reckoning is at hand” writes BW. “Something is really going to change in Italy,” he says. Indeed something is going to change but not the way the esteemed professor wants. The near fatal collapse of global capitalism was dragged from the edge of the abyss through the intervention of public funds---we bailed the system out. The answer to keeping jobs in the transportation industry which is what auto production really is, is for workers to occupy these plants and the production management and development of the means of social transportation to be a collective process, workers, engineers, the users of transportation will determine what is produced and what form it should take. It will become an industry based on social needs and harmony with nature not profit.
Henning was an eloquent speaker but that was about it. Many Labor officials accept that international solidarity is crucial and some Unions are making efforts to build stronger links between nations. But as long as they support capitalism, worship the market and the idea that all of us within a nation are “one” with the same economic interests (Team Concept), they end up supporting “their” capitalists against their foreign rivals.
Michel Martone, an Italian professor of Labor law and mouthpiece for capitalism “senses that a day of reckoning is at hand” writes BW. “Something is really going to change in Italy,” he says. Indeed something is going to change but not the way the esteemed professor wants. The near fatal collapse of global capitalism was dragged from the edge of the abyss through the intervention of public funds---we bailed the system out. The answer to keeping jobs in the transportation industry which is what auto production really is, is for workers to occupy these plants and the production management and development of the means of social transportation to be a collective process, workers, engineers, the users of transportation will determine what is produced and what form it should take. It will become an industry based on social needs and harmony with nature not profit.
The professor is in for a shock I think. The financial collapse has had effects throughout the world and while, like all movements, it may ebb or fall back for a period due to many things not least among them the absence of a global leadership that can unite the movement and take it forward; the movement will not go away and consciousness will certainly not retreat to where it was prior to the crash. The Middle East has changed forever and so has the consciousness of the US working class; great lessons have been learned in a short period of time. I believe it was Engels who commented “A living movement is worth a thousand programs”.
“People are starting to understand that there is no more time for ideological conflicts. It’s time to move forward.,” says the professor. But ideological conflicts are ever present. It’s just that they have risen closer to the top at the moment. The professor has the world upside down. Ideological conflicts are coming more in to the open because the class conflict is becoming more acute. The workers of the world, including in the US, are beginning to lift the boot of the banker off our necks. The global capitalist offensive has been put on the defensive; the coupon clippers are---for the moment---in retreat.
We are merely seeing ideological conflict that arises from the great contradiction in society, the struggle between capital and Labor. The ideological conflicts can be resolved when we win the ideological war and we can truly move forward.
We are merely seeing ideological conflict that arises from the great contradiction in society, the struggle between capital and Labor. The ideological conflicts can be resolved when we win the ideological war and we can truly move forward.
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