Speaking in favor of the auto industry bailout, Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW said that "for these companies to be competitive we had to make tough calls". The tough calls he is talking about are the massive concessions he has handed to the auto bosses over the past years. Obviously they didn't work, so they want more concessions in order to compete.
Meanwhile, in the Financial Times the other day, a special section on Mexico reported on one of the major concerns of the Mexican capitalist class that Mexico's workers "need to be more competitive". It appears that the bosses can find much cheaper human beings in Asia and just as lucrative working conditions, no real Unions, little regulation.
These comments alone prove that bailing out the bosses and their system means helping them become more competitive. It means helping our own individual or national employers drive their rivals from the marketplace. This is disastrous for working people as it is impossible to build the unity that is necessary to defend ourselves as we are forced to undermine each other for who can work cheapest, fastest and with the least obstacles to profit taking.
If Mexican workers are too expensive what does that mean for the future of workers in the US and other industrialized countries.
The solution is to unite with workers in Mexico, southeast Asia and throughout the world in order to raise all our wages and conditions and build a democratic socialist alternative to the capitalist system.
We will be told this is a nice idea but utopian. That's what the feudal aristocracy said about capitalism.
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