UAW Strike: More Questions Than Answers

 

Source: Globe and Mail

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

10-17-23

 

It’s hard to keep abreast of all the struggles taking place today, but the UAW strike against the big three automakers, Ford, GM, and Stellantis, formerly Chrysler is, extremely important. Not simply due to the importance of the auto industry to the US economy and therefore profits, but as part of what appears to be a resurgence of the organized labor movement.

We recently had a change in the leadership of the Teamsters Union and the UAW. This is not insignificant. What is significant though, is the program and policies of the new leaderships. What will they do differently? And for this writer, all the tough talk is meaningless if the most destructive aspect of the labor hierarchy’s strategy, the Team Concept, is not publicly condemned and abandoned. This view argues that workers and capitalists (bosses) have the same interests and has many titles, labor management partnerships, Interest based bargaining, quality of life circles and so on.

 

In addition to the UAW/Auto strike. I pointed out in a commentary a few weeks ago that, at the time, there were some 600,000 workers either on strike or contemplating a strike. The Teamster/UPS strike has been settled as has the strike in the entertainment industry. But for the average worker we need to recognize the immense potential power of organized labor despite the decline in union density.

 

We learned during the Teamster/UPS strike that UPS transports an estimated 2% of the world's gross domestic product and 6% of US GDP daily. Think about that.

 

The US economy is even more dependent on the auto industry and the workers in it: “….over 1.7 million people are employed by the auto industry. In addition, the industry is a huge consumer of goods and services from many other sectors and contributes to a net employment impact in the U.S. economy of nearly 8 million jobs. Approximately 4.5 percent of all U.S. jobs are supported by the strong presence of the auto industry in the U.S. economy. People in these jobs collectively earn over $500 billion annually in compensation and generate more than $70 billion in tax revenues.” Center for Automotive Research

 

The possibility of a railroad strike back in December 2022 terrified the US ruling class and the representatives in their two political parties, as a rail strike could have “frozen almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight…” and cost the US economy $2 billion a day. I’ll return to this but bear with me a moment, I’m long winded. Alongside this, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union which represents West Coast dock workers, and I think some on the Gulf of Mexico, has been in negotiations more than a year. What could potentially be a huge class battle has basically been kept out of the news and here’s why: “More than 40 percent of the total containerized cargo entering the U.S. arrives through California ports. And nearly 30 percent of the nation’s exports flow through our ports.” CA.Gov. Plus there’s Washington and Oregon to our North.

 

Am I’m supposed to accept we have no power.

 

A major aspect of the UAW strike apart from the change in leadership, is that the newly elected president of the union, Shawn Fain, says, it’s the first time the “Big Three” US auto giants, GM, Ford and Stellantis, have struck at the same time. Usually the UAW has singled out one, often GM, and once that’s settled hopefully the other two fall in line.

 

It is historic that all three struck together. But they have not walked out together, or struck together to be accurate. Brother Fain has introduced a new strategy called “The Stand up Strike” where selected plants are pulled out and the employers are left to guess which are next. Last time I checked and things may have changed, about 30,000 of the 90,000 or more the UAW represents were out.

 

Earlier this month, the UAW President announced a “significant deal” getting GM to agree that workers in the plants that make batteries for electric vehicles will be represented by the UAW. His explanation for GM caving on this issue was the threat to strike one of GM’s biggest plants, the assembly plant in Arlington Texas that makes SUV’s for domestic and export markets:

“We were about to shut down GM’s largest money-maker in Arlington, Texas. The company knew those members were ready to walk immediately. And just that threat has provided a transformative win,” Fain said. Spectrum News 10-06-23

 

Brother Fain did explain the strategy with regard to the Arlington plant in a little more detail, “We’ve been very careful about how we escalate this strike, and we have designed this strategy to increase pressure on the companies — not to hurt them for its own sake, but to move them to get them to say yes, when they want to say no. Today is a perfect example of that,”

 

I am in the dark about how important the EV issue is to the rank and file UAW member today when compared to the tiers, the shorter workweek (Fain has said most auto workers work 56,60, or more hour weeks) and wages. I do know that there will be fewer workers for these plants and the production of Lithium for the batteries is proving to be an environmental disaster, not to mention the working conditions in these mines. Also, does averting a strike at this plant in order to get this concession from the auto bosses, mean this plant can no longer be struck in the event other important issues are not forthcoming? I have no idea but if that is part of the deal it’s a serious mistake surely as major concerns are still on the table.

 

I admit to being a little cynical after 30 years active in the labor movement and walking many picket lines, suffering through many defeats, due not to a any dedication and willingness to sacrifice of the rank and file member, but the failed strategy of the labor hierarchy, their concessionary policies and consequently a reluctance to bring the real power of organized labor and the working class in general to the table and this also means organizing the unemployed.

 

What got me started on this commentary was the comment from Sara Nelson, a message of solidarity that the UAW Facebook page shared. Sister Nelson wrote:

"There’s no argument that working people have fallen way behind our parents/grandparents. There’s no disputing we’re working crazy hours or that our productivity and stolen wages have fed more greed. Especially now, there’s only one acceptable position: 'I’m with the workers.'" — Sara Nelson, President AFA-CWA

 

But what does this mean? “I’m with the workers”.

 

Sara Nelson is a major figure and an official in the national trade union federation to which most unions are affiliated.  If one is considered a bit of a rebel or oppositionist as I think Nelson is. What’s the point belonging to a national federation or making statements about solidarity and how workers must stick together if you are not engaged in an open political struggle within the organized labor movement to change the top leadership’s disastrous policies of class collaboration? Along with Sara Nelson, Elizabeth Shuler, the AFL-CIO president, is the first woman leader of the US labor movement’s national body. This is considered a major step forward for the working class if identity politics is one’s barometer.

 

My few examples of the major strikes we’ve seen in the last year or so reveal where our power lies. And there were others I didn’t mention like the Crane Operators strike in Washington State. John Deere, Nabisco, the Volvo Plant. Too many to mention.

 

The problem is that Sara Nelson, though she’s considered a radical, supports the Team Concept, which includes a commitment to the market and capitalism. So does Shawn Fain. There is never a question of the bosses not being bosses. There is never a challenge to the right of the investors and other social parasites to own these crucial industries and instead taking them public under workers control and management. Instead of EV’s for example we need mass transit. EV’s are not a solution to workers’ issues and certainly not climate change.

 

It’s this world view that prevents Shawn Fain from shutting down the industry altogether. Neither Fain, nor Sara Nelson or any other top official will admit it; the boss has rights. They talk of workers getting our due when profits are being made. And they will be telling members they have to tighten their belts when profits are down.   This is not corruption as some argue. They are ideologically corrupt. That’s different. They have no alternative to capitalism so for them to mobilize the immense potential power of labor could only lead to chaos.

 

If Shawn Fain pulled out the entire membership. If the heads of organized labor brought all these strikes and disputes together backed up by real unity in action they know what will happen. Biden will do to them what he did to the rail workers. He’ll go to the legislature and make the strike illegal, and if the law is challenged they’ll go to the police and their media will be spreading its usual lies as it is at the moment with the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s monstrous regime. Workers are terrorists, we are being misled by communists and outside agitators.

 

I cannot imagine the UAW not winning something here, the consequences in the present climate are too great. But any gains today will be very temporary.

 

The reality is that we cannot avoid a fight. We cannot win without violating the law. Without violating injunctions and court orders; without relying on our own strength, our ability to shut down the economy and profit taking through mass direct action.  And we can’t move forward without having our own independent political party.

 

We cannot win without international solidarity in action and that means opposing our own government’s maniacal foreign policy that supports thugs and dictators throughout the world all in the interests of profits and capital accumulation.

 

We cannot keep quiet.