GM Strike: The Auto Workers Are Up Against Global Capitalism

On the Line in Flint. Has the UAW leadership been in the front lines of the struggle against poisoned drinking water?

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Member DSA

"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."  Jack Henning, Executive Secretary California State Labor Federation opening address to the 1994 state convention. *

Unfortunately, as correct as the statement above is, Henning limited his activity on this issue to speeches. I was a delegate to this convention and he opposed my union’s resolution for an independent labor party based on the trade unions.

So we’re in the 19^th day of the UAW strike at General Motors and I was told by one auto worker that the UAW leadership should walk away from the table. The longer the strike goes on the harder it will be for the rank and file member on the picket lines, out of work and getting $250 a week strike pay.

I did read an article yesterday by Jane Slaughter, the former editor of Labor Notes and there was little to inspire much hope there. It was basically just reporting on events with a few quotes from workers on the picket lines and a call to show solidarity by visiting picket lines with links to where those lines are. While she did refer to the labor hierarchy as a “pro-cooperation leaders” the piece is basically a cheerleading effort aimed at making people feel better in a tough situation; a report on events. A socialist and any group or individual vying for leadership must have an alternative I believe.

From what we can get through the mass media, the sticking points are the temporary workers, the tier system, health care, job security and a greater share of the profits. The UAW leadership did get tough the past week according to reports I read, threatening to take a vote of “No Confidence” in GM CEO Mary Barra and, gasp, making it public.  

While making temporaries permanent and giving them equal pay immediately plus back pay they have stolen from them, would be a welcome victory, it is not likely to happen. GM needs temporaries and the UAW leadership agrees with them.

A strike of 46,000 workers at GM has the potential to transform organized labor in the US and the balance of class forces nationally. Thousands of workers in other plants and in connected industries have been furloughed and the longer the strike goes the more workers along the supply chain will be affected.

The strike should have not been limited to GM only. Extensions were given Ford and Chrysler/Fiat and the disastrous jointness programs between the UAW and the other two corporations were kept in place. The negotiations are secret and the ranks are basically kept out of the loop, just carrying picket signs and losing money. Imagine what could be done with 46,000 workers, their families, friends and allies building a real offensive against the auto-bosses and ensuring this strike hurts them and their class as a whole. As big as the numbers out imply, this strike is still isolated and contained and the potential power and conscious involvement of workers and our families kept under wraps.

The UAW leadership, wedded as they are to the Team Concept (labor management cooperation) and the so-called free market (capitalism) want this over as quickly as possible and hope that they can get some small consolation prize from GM to pacify the ranks and get everyone back to work--------till the next time. What is guaranteed is that the bosses won’t stop this assault on organized labor.

The auto workers can make major gains and we can transform the capital/labor situation in the US, but not with the approach we are witnessing here. We have to look at the big picture. The GM bosses and faceless investors do.

I watched a report on the strike last night that didn’t say much at all but what was said was crucial and this should be our starting point as workers. A columnist said that: “If GM can’t be competitive, they go out of business”.

This is not some tactic to get the workers to back off. It’s reality in a global capitalist economy. Let’s see what big business and a serious journal of capitalism says about the situation.

The Wall Street Journal of September 27^th had this to say: “For the UAW, there’s no avoiding the harsh reality of a wider transition taking hold across the auto industry: Building electric vehicles requires far fewer workers, making it near-impossible to avoid job losses and wage cuts. In addition, fewer components are needed, and many of them are imported.”( My added emphasis)

The journal stresses that, “…electric cars have fewer moving parts and are less complex to assemble, requiring roughly 30% fewer workers to build compared with a gas-engine vehicle, analysts and industry executives say. Morgan Stanley estimates widespread adoption of electric vehicles globally could eliminate 3 million auto-industry jobs.” (my added emphasis).

The Journal points out that GM is “redirecting capital” to produce 20 new electric models in the next few years “mostly in China”.  The plant closures and other cuts will fund this production GM says. And it is not simply the cheaper labor in China either that compels them to do this, it is the struggle for markets against its competitors like VW, BMW and the Japanese auto-producers. Ford is also cutting costs freeing up capital to spend some $11 billion on electric car production. This is what capitalism is.

And as a compliment to the quote above from the columnist, Mary Barra, the GM CEO told auto industry analysts earlier this year that, “We are willing to make tough and strategic decisions to not only meet our commitments but to secure the company’s future,”. The present strike is a response to Barra’s “tough decisions”. The problem is, that the UAW leaderships approach to the tough decisions is a very conciliatory one. It imposes extreme hardship on the rank and file worker on the picket line with very limited, if any reward. I’ll bet the union negotiators and paid officials are not on strike pay.

What the GM workers are up against here is global capitalism. There can be no talking of defending the interests of all workers or saving our future if we do not recognize that we are confronting global capitalism and that means refusing to accept in our own minds that we cannot win unless we change the very nature of work and society. We can’t win if we accept that we have to compete with other workers and we do that by accepting jointness programs and the Team Concept which means we join with our individual employers to help them drive their competitors from the marketplace.

This makes regional, north against the south, and unionized auto against non union, or solidarity between workers internationally a very difficult task. GM has plants all over the world; in some countries the auto companies hire goons and killers to terrorize and/or murder union activists. The workers in these plants are our potential allies and are crucial allies if we want to confront this capitalist offensive. The Team Concept and Labor/Management partnerships make this impossible.

As long as we accept that the market rules, that profits are sacrosanct then we lose. GM produces in Mexico, China Brazil or Eastern Europe because workers there are cheaper; capital abhors borders. In some countries autocratic governments ensure that unions are kept out.  The only way for US workers to compete with workers in these countries is for our material conditions to fall to their level, to accept lower wages and declining living standards. The alternative is to join with workers internationally to raise us all up.

There is the potential for mass support for the auto workers here in he US and internationally and even an opportunity for mass strikes. But UAW president Gary Jones explains why cooperating with the auto bosses is more important than a ferocious struggle to defend his members and all workers “We want new investment in technology and products to help keep us on the cutting edge, and training to make sure our workers are competitive,”

There you have it. UAW President Gary Jones is completely in sync with the strategists of capital.  On the important issues he supports the auto bosses and the investors they represent. It is a recipe for disaster.

This narrow-minded approach is the source of all the betrayals and outright class collaboration from the heads of organized labor. We do not own capital that is invested in production in any form. We don’t own the factory, we don’t own the technology, and we don’t own, control and manage the labor process which encompasses all of these. Innovation and technology is also a job killer. We see that everywhere. As an example, “Between 1982 and 1994 manufacturers in the US slashed 4 million jobs still employing roughly the same number of production workers as they did in 1946 but producing approx 5 times as many goods.”  

Whether we actually need what they produce  (we don’t own the product of our labor power) is another thing, but the amazing productivity of labor means we could easily work three or even two day workweeks. The technology the capitalist class owns simply makes the exploitation of labor more efficient.

So we have to make it clear that in the capitalist mode of production there is no such thing as job security. “Workers deserve a car in that plant, not some phony battery plant,” said one GM worker in opposition to GM’s alternative to hire a few hundred laid off workers to make batteries. While I sympathize with this brother’s predicament, it’s a horrible experience to have to go through, but what workers “deserve” doesn’t enter in to the marketing strategy of a global corporation.

GM made $35 billion in profits over the past three years and UAW members want a bigger cut of it, “It’s just not fair” another autoworker said. But as I wrote last week, “The capitalist is under no obligation to “share” profits with the worker. From the perspective of the owners of capital, profits is their just reward for investing in a particular industry. If we as workers don’t grasp that we can never arrive at a winning solution.”

The UAW leadership is incapable of organizing a serious fightback because they see the world the same way the bosses do. Capitalism is the only form of social organization and if GM can’t compete it will go out of business and there will be no jobs and no union.  I will repeat once again, when capitalism goes in to crisis, when profits are threatened, the trade union hierarchy’s immediate strategy is to bail it out and they turn to the members for that. It’s not just in the US. German labor leaders convinced workers to take a cut in their annual bonuses to persuade Porsche management to build its first all electric car in the plant they wanted.

The Electric Car is No Answer
There is yet another opportunity for organized labor to go on the offensive and build on the recent teachers/educators struggles that were rank and file led, violated the law and were not exclusionary. This is what will begin to reverse the decades of defeats. There are 46,000 workers that are not participating in turning this strike in to a more generalized struggle through which it would not be impossible to make some real gains. A demand for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay has to return to the forefront of any strike especially when it comes to layoffs. But we are in a new era, the world has changed and we cannot continue in the old way.

With auto we are talking about transportation, how we travel for one place to another whether for work or leisure. The answer to the inefficient fossil fuel guzzling auto is mass transit. “I don’t know where to spend money anymore” says GM President Mark Reuss arguing that capital allocation for gas engines has no future. And think profits when he says this. But the electric car is not the future either.

The president of GM doesn’t know where to spend money in the auto business? The production of mass transit is where we can spend money, allocate vital capital and human resources. But capital is in private hands. Workers do not decide where the wealth in society is allocated any more than we decide whether a factory closes or moves to a community where labor power is cheaper. Workers do not decide what we build or when we build it, what we grow and how we farm it.

The only solution that will offer any future is mass transit. It was GM that created a front company, bought many of the efficient electric tram systems it could in order to shut them down and advance the production of the auto. The taxpayer and public money built the freeways just like we build football stadiums that make owners billionaires and develop new drugs from which executives at big Pharma profit

The only viable solution is for the auto industry to be taken in to public ownership control and management by workers as workers and as consumers and the industry completely re-tooled in order to produce mass transit that serves a social need. The necessity for transportation in a modern economy with millions of people cannot be left to the market. What was Roosevelt’s shift to war production but that.

The capitalist class, the faceless individuals that actually own this area of production and determine its practices will not do this. Their primary concern is profit and personal enrichment and will destroy the entire planet in pursuit of their interests. Only the working class, conscious of ourselves as a class and conscious of the fact that we have distinct material and economic interests in direct opposition to the owners of capital can save the day here. It’s that simple; capitalism cannot be made human and environment friendly.

We have to look this reality right in the eye. We have to understand it and also that in order to make this happen an important step is the emergence of a political party of our own and a break from relying on one of the two capitalist parties for our salvation. Manufacturing lost jobs the last quarter and a new recession or global slump is around the corner exacerbated by the US Predator in Chief Trump. When the slump hits all bets are off.

We have stated on this blog numerous times that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) with some 60,000 members, along with the Labor Notes organization that has been very successful bringing together thousands of rank and file union members, have the resources to help build on the movement the teachers/educators started, bring together the various struggles that are taking place throughout the country (including the climate strikes) and do what the trade union hierarchy refuses to do. It is not enough to simply act as cheerleaders in struggles like the present GM or the teachers’ strikes in California. The trade union leaderships failed policies have to be confronted and an alternative shown.