Labor Day Scorecard- 2008

COMMENTARY

CONTINUING TOUGH TIMES FOR THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT- AND THAT IS NO LIE

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

This writer entered the blogosphere in February 2006 so this is the third Labor Day scorecard giving his take on the condition of American labor as we approach Labor Day. And it is not pretty. That, my brothers and sisters, says it all. There was little strike action this year. The only notable action was that of the autoworkers last fall that I made comment on then and have reposted here. The situation since then for the beleaguered auto workers has only gotten worst, as the dramatic decline in auto sales and the energy crunch have kicked in.

Once again there is little to report in the way of unionization to organize labor’s potential strength. American workers continue to have a real decline in their paychecks. The difference between survival and not for most working families is the two job (or more) household. In short, the average family is working more hours to make ends meet. Real inflation in energy and food costs has put many up against the wall. Moreover the bust in the housing market has wrecked havoc on working people as the most important asset in many a household has taken a beating. Once again forget the Federal Reserve Bank’s definition of inflation- one fill up at the pump confounds that noise. One does not have to be a Marxist economist to know that something is desperately wrong when at the beginning of the 21st century with all the technological advances and productivity increases of the past period working people need to work more just to try to stay even. Even the more far-sighted bourgeois thinkers have trouble with that one. In any case, here are some comments on the labor year.

*The key, as it was last year, to a turn-around for American labor is the unionization of Wal-Mart and the South. The necessary class struggle politics that would make such drives successful would act as a huge impetus for other areas of the labor movement. This writer further argues that such struggles against such vicious enemies as Wal-Mart can be the catalyst for the organization of a workers party. Okay, okay let the writer dream a little, won’t you? What has happened this year on this issue is that more organizations have taken up the call for a boycott of Wal-Mart. That is all to the good and must be supported by militant leftists but it is only a very small beginning shot in the campaign (See archives, dated June 10, 2006). National and local unions have taken monies from their coffers not for such a worthy effort as union organizing at Wal-Mart but to support one or another bourgeois electoral candidate. Some things never change.

*The issue of immigration has surfaced strongly again this year, especially in presidential politics. Every militant leftist was supportive of the past May Day actions of the vast immigrant communities to not be pushed around, although one should also note that they were not nearly as extensive as in 2006 or 2007, a sure sign that the norms of electioneering by the affected ethnic leaderships have put a damper on such extra-parliamentary actions. Immigration is a labor issue and key to the struggle against the race to the bottom. While May Day and other events were big moments unless there are links to the greater labor movement this very promising movement could fizzle. A central problem is the role of the Democratic Party and the Catholic Church in the organizing effort. I will deal with this question at a latter time but for now know this- these organizations are an obstruction to real progress on the immigration issue. (See archives, dated May 1, 2006 for a recap on this factor)

The Auto Workers Struggles of the Fall of 2007

COMMENTARY

NO TWO- TIER WAGE RATES- EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

The big labor news this fall has been the fight by the United Auto Workers (UAW) for new contracts with General Motors, Chrysler and now Ford. I have already discussed the GM and Chrysler settlement and now as of Friday, November 3, 2007 Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative agreement. That agreement is along the same lines as those ratified by GM and Chrysler (barely) - a new two- tier wage system for new hires who will get one half the average pay of senior autoworkers and union takeover of the health and pension funds. As I have lamented previously these contracts are a defeat for the autoworkers. Why? The historic position of labor has been to fight for equal pay for equal work. That apparently has gone by the boards here. Moreover the pension and health takeovers are an albatross around the neck of the union. No way is this an example of worker control not at least how any militant should view it. After all the givebacks its time to fight back even if this is a rearguard action in light of the previous votes AND the futility of the 'apache' strategy. Any illusions that the give backs will buy labor peace and or/avoid further layoffs, close downs or outsourcing got a cruel comeuppance in the previous contract negotiations. No sooner had those contracts been ratified, and well before the new contracts were even printed, Chrysler announced layoffs of 8000 to 10, 000 and GM had previously announced about 1500 layoffs. FORD AUTOWORKERS VOTE NO ON THIS CONTRACT.

I HAVE REPOSTED THE NOTES ON THE GM AND CHRYSLER SETTLEMENTS TO GIVE A PERSPECTIVE OF HOW THE HOPES THAT ORGANIZED LABOR COULD START TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE TIDE OF GLOBALIZATION HAVE FADED AS THE PROCESS HAS UNFOLDED THIS FALL.



A SHORT NOTE ON THE CHRYSLER AUTOWORKERS SETTLEMENT

Commentary

The Wal-martization of the Once Proud UAW

Yes, I know that we are in the age of ‘globalization’. That is, however, merely the transformation of the same old characters like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler in the auto industry that we have come to know and love moving away from mainly nationally defined markets to international markets. In short, these companies allegedly are being forced to fight their way to the bottom of the international labor wage market along with everyone else. As least that was the position of these august companies in the on-going labor contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW). And the labor tops bought the argument. In the General Motors settlement GM was nicely absolved from having to administer its albatross health and pension funds. Now autoworkers are held responsible for deciding what autoworkers get what benefits. This is not my idea of workers control, not by a long shot. Based on those provisions alone that GM contract should have been soundly defeated. That it was not will come back to haunt the GM autoworkers in the future.

Now comes news that, as of October 27, 2007, the Chrysler workers have narrowly (56%) ratified their contract, although some major plants voted against it and the labor skates pulled out all stops to get an affirmative vote. If anything that contract is worst than the GM contract because it also contains a provision for permitting a two-wage system where ‘new hires’ will be paid approximately one half normal rates. So much for the old labor slogan of 'equal pay for equal work'. If the GM contract will come back to haunt this one already does today. Remember also that Chrysler was bought out by a private equity company that has a history of selling off unprofitable operations, driving productivity up and then selling the profitable parts for huge profits. That, my friends, is what the global race to the bottom looks like in the American auto industry. This contract should have been voted down with both hands. Ford is up next and based on the foregoing that contract should also be voted down.

Look, every militant knows that negotiations over union contracts represent a sort of ‘truce’ in the class struggle. Until there is worker control of production under a workers government the value of any negotiations with the capitalists is determined by the terms. Sometimes, especially in hard times, just holding your own is a ‘victory’. Other times, like here, there is only one word for these contracts-defeat. Moreover, this did not need to happen. Although both strike efforts at GM and Chrysler were short-lived (intentionally so on the part of the leadership) the rank and file was ready to do battle. The vote at Chrysler further bolsters that argument. So what is up?

What is up is that the leadership of the autoworkers is not worthy of the membership. These people are so mired in class collaborationist non-aggression pacts and cozy arrangements (for themselves) that they were easy pickings for the vultures leading management. The epitome of this is the ‘apache’ strategy of negotiating with one company at a time. If in the era of Walter Reuther, at a time when there were upwards of a million union autoworkers, that might have made some sense today with reduced numbers it makes no sense at all. Labor’s power is in solidarity and solidarity means, in this case, ‘one out, all out’. Beyond that it is clear a new class struggle leadership is needed, just to keep even, and it is needed pronto. Those rank and filers and, in some cases, local union leaders who called for a no vote at Chrysler are the starting point for such efforts.



VICTORY TO THE GENERAL MOTORS AUTOWORKERS!


COMMENTARY

THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM BEGINS HERE! CALL
OUT THE WHOLE UAW!

As of September 24, 2007, after a break down in negotiations the General Motors autoworkers went out on a nation-wide strike. In the old days, in the 1930 and 1940’s, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union was created and solidified by fierce class battles. This action evokes memories of those times although then the fight was centrally around wages and working conditions. Today, in the age of ‘globalization’ (meaning, in reality, most of the same capitalists like GM fighting it out in the world market rather than in nationally isolated markets) the fight is against the corporation- driven race to the bottom. The issues of health care, pensions, outsourcing and job guarantees are what drive today’s struggles. And the prospects are not pretty.

Take the case of heath care provision. General Motors (and ultimately the other auto makers) want to foist that responsibility onto the union with some kind of trust fund arrangement. I think an unidentified UAW local president in Detroit made the most eloquent response to that idea. His response: Why should the union be responsible for cutting off the health benefits to its own membership as health costs continue to spiral or a member reaches the plan maximum. Make no mistake this scheme is not some step in the fight for workers’ control of working conditions. The company is merely trying to bail out from its own mistakes. Ditto on the under- funded pension plans. However, GM is more than happy to try to lock the union into an agreement on outsourcing to their other plants internationally in order to cut costs. This they know how to do as the decline in membership of the UAW dramatically shows. In the end that means poorer working conditions not only here but also internationally. To mitigate the problem of outsourcing it is not enough to call for job protection. Also necessary is an international organizing drive to unionize all autoworkers.

One of the most compelling pieces of data that I have run across lately on the labor movement is from an article on globalization in which it was stated that today there are as many auto workers as in the past but only about a third of them are organized. Today GM has 73,000 UAW autoworkers. In the past there were several times that number. As we support the current UAW action let us remember this for the future. The same can be said for the other members of the Big 3. And while we are at it since all autoworkers will ultimately be affected by the GM action- extend the picket lines to the other Big 3. Call out the whole UAW to defend this strike. VICTORY TO THE GM AUTO WORKERS!

*Wall Street, Washington Shaft Auto Workers- A Guest Commenatry

Click On Title To Link To International Communist League Website.

Guest Commentary

Workers Vanguard No. 938
5 June 2009

UAW Tops Enforce Obama’s Raw Deal

Wall Street, Washington Shaft Auto Workers

JUNE 2—Global auto giant General Motors, for decades one of the pillars of American capitalism, yesterday followed Chrysler into Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the guiding hand of President Barack Obama’s Wall Street cronies in his “auto task force.” The plunge in sales brought on by a global economy going to hell left the automakers scrambling for federal aid to stave off financial ruin. From the outset, we have opposed the bailout of the auto bosses, underlining that it “will be purchased through the further destruction of the jobs and livelihoods of working people” (“Bosses Declare War on UAW Workers,” WV No. 926, 5 December 2008). This is precisely what’s on order with the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies—to reshape the industry to again make it a lucrative source of profits for Wall Street by breaking the back of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

Obama, whose election was bankrolled to the tune of $5 million by the sellouts who head the UAW, celebrated “the beginning of a new G.M.” But for tens of thousands of auto workers it is the end of the line. Under the “bailout” deal, GM and Chrysler have announced that they will shut down 20 to 28 plants. The UAW, which was once the symbol of union power in the U.S., will be a shadow of its former self. The UAW’s membership has already withered from a high of 1.6 million in the 1960s to less than 500,000 today, with a scant 140,000 working for the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler). In the 1970s, GM alone employed nearly 400,000 workers. With the plant closings the workforce will be reduced to fewer than 40,000. The gutting of the UAW is a heavy blow against all workers, organized and unorganized.

The UAW misleaders are helping to foot the bill for “restructuring” the automakers—at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs—by accepting worthless stock in GM and Chrysler to fund over half the union’s retiree health care trust (itself a sellout brokered in the 2007 contract to save the company $3 billion a year in health care costs). The head of the “New GM” boasted that this was a “defining moment” that would, as the New York Times (2 June) noted, allow the company “to ‘permanently’ unshackle itself from the cost of supporting hundreds of thousands of retirees.” Those “lucky” enough to keep their jobs will be shackled by a “no strike” pledge for the next six years while the auto bosses continue to hack away at their wages and benefits to bring them into line with labor costs at non-union auto plants.

Here is the bitter fruit of the trade-union bureaucracy’s program of class collaboration, which has long tied the interests of the unions to the profitability of their capitalist exploiters. “I’m very comfortable,” UAW head Ron Gettelfinger told National Public Radio on May 1, the day after Chrysler entered Chapter 11. “It’s not like we’re going into this bankruptcy fighting with Chrysler and [merger partner] Fiat and the U.S. Treasury. We’re going in there in lockstep to put our agreements in place.”

Gettelfinger’s agreements make the union joint stockholders in bankrupt GM and Chrysler. An article in the New York Times (2 June) titled “G.M.’s New Owners, U.S. and Labor, Adjust to Roles,” pointed to “industry experts” who “predict that the union, far more than before, will help management increase profitability—with the goal of pushing up the automakers’ stock prices.” In other words, as a “co-owner” the UAW will directly have a hand in ratcheting up the rate of exploitation of its own remaining members.

The attacks on the UAW highlight the attacks on all workers, in the U.S. and internationally, amid the world economic crisis. The auto industry’s devastation is a stark example of the anarchy and decay of capitalist production for profit to which there is no simple trade-union solution. But one thing is clear. If the unions are to fight not only in their own interests, but in the interests of the mass of unorganized workers and the unemployed, there must be a new leadership of labor, one armed with a program of class struggle. This is an integral part of the fight to forge a revolutionary workers party that champions the cause of black people, immigrants and all the impoverished masses brutally ground down under the heel of America’s capitalist rulers. As we wrote in “Auto Bailout Means Union Busting” (WV No. 931, 27 February):

“The fight for jobs is equivalent to the fight against the devastation of America’s working people. What is necessary is a massive program of public works at union wages to rebuild the dams, bridges and roads that are in an advanced stage of decay; to tear down and replace the crumbling public schools in the nation’s inner cities; to create an America that looks like a place that its inhabitants could survive in. It is necessary to call an end to the layoffs by shortening the workweek at no loss in pay, as part of the struggle for jobs for all.

“All must have full access to medical care at no cost and unemployment benefits must be extended until there are jobs, with all pensions completely guaranteed by the government. Such demands, the elements of which were laid out in the 1938 Transitional Program, the founding document of the Trotskyist Fourth International, will not be granted by the rapacious capitalist rulers. The capitalist state exists to defend the rule and profits of the bourgeoisie. It cannot be reformed or wielded to serve the interests of working people. The catastrophe of joblessness, threatening the disintegration of the working class, can be effectively fought only by a workers movement led by those committed to the struggle for socialist revolution and the establishment of a workers government where those who labor rule.”

Capitalism’s Labor Lieutenants

In return for allowing the automakers to cut in half the billions owed the health benefit program, the UAW will get 55 percent of the equity in the “New Chrysler”—and one seat on the board—and up to 20 percent in “New GM” once the companies emerge from bankruptcy. But what’s 55 percent of nothing? Until the private equity firm Cerberus bought Chrysler in 2007, the UAW head had sat on the board for almost 30 years. Chrysler first offered the UAW tops a seat when it was threatening bankruptcy in 1979, all the better for UAW chief Doug Fraser to help shove concessions and plant closings down the workers’ throats. Now, the UAW rep on the Chrysler board is obligated to vote “in accordance with the direction of the independent directors.”

Round after round of concessions from the labor traitors have greatly undermined union organizing, as workers rightly expect something to show for being members of a union. In 1982, GM closed its assembly plant in Fremont, California—a relatively new facility built in 1968—dispersing the heavily black workforce. The company reopened the plant as a joint venture with Toyota, with no union. After cutting a “sweetheart” deal with the automakers in 1985, the UAW got back into the plant. Now one Fremont UAW worker told WV that workers increasingly don’t see the benefit of the union. The very survival of the unions demands a struggle against the class collaborationism of the labor bureaucracy.

For Gettelfinger & Co., the overriding concern is not the livelihood of the UAW membership but the “competitiveness” of U.S. automakers. In testimony before Congress last year, the UAW chief went so far as to boast that “the gap in labor costs” between the Big Three and the non-union “foreign transplant operations will be largely or completely eliminated by the end of the [2007] contracts.” This is what the union misleaders’ poisonous “America First” protectionism means: railing against “outsourcing” of jobs abroad while not lifting a finger to organize the mass of unorganized auto workers in “foreign transplant operations” in the American South and elsewhere.

In an e-mail to UAW members at GM, the UAW bureaucracy called on Obama to “maintain the maximum number of jobs in the U.S. instead of outsourcing more production to foreign countries.” Such protectionism undermines struggle by poisoning workers’ class consciousness and solidarity, scapegoating foreign workers for the loss of jobs in the U.S. while reinforcing support to the American capitalist order.

The UAW bureaucracy has long been a leading force tying the working class to the capitalist rulers through support to the capitalist Democratic Party. A New York Times article (30 April) quoted Walter Reuther, who became UAW head in 1946, saying, “We have to fight both in the economic and political fields, because what you win on the picket lines, they take away in Washington if you don’t fight on that front.” For the social-democratic Reuther and his UAW successors, the Washington “front” has always meant subordinating the union to the Democrats. In service to this class-collaborationist alliance, the union tops have all but given up the class-struggle methods that built the unions in the first place.

The only way the labor movement can be revitalized is by returning to the road of class struggle. Immediately posed is the fight to organize the mass of unorganized workers, particularly in the “right to work” South. This will require actively combating black oppression, long used by the capitalists to divide and weaken labor as a whole. Against the government’s anti-immigrant raids, which have derailed one organizing campaign after another, the union movement must fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Key to all such battles is the fight for the political independence of the workers from the capitalists and their government and political parties. Break with the Democrats! For a revolutionary workers party!

Reformist Nationalization Schemes

Having joined the labor bureaucrats in hailing Obama’s election, the reformist “socialists” now “hope” that he’ll bail out working people. Socialist Worker (6 April), newspaper of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), baldly stated: “Instead of using its billions to help auto executives push through attacks on workers or to create small surges in demand, the Obama administration could use its leverage as the auto industry’s creditor of last resort to implement a comprehensive plan that includes taking over the auto industry.” Obama is “taking over the auto industry” precisely to “push through attacks on workers.” The Obama administration is littered with Wall Street financiers—from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to National Economic Council head Larry Summers—whose program is trillions for the capitalists and sacrifice by the workers.

Appealing to this bankers’ cabal to nationalize the auto industry, the ISO wrote in International Socialist Review (May-June 2009): “Nationalization of industries under threat of bankruptcy has historically been a demand of the socialist movement as a means to save jobs and ensure the provision of needed services.” The ISO would be more honest if it said that this has historically been a demand of social democrats who seek to tinker with and administer the capitalist state. Such nationalizations amount to nothing more than giving failing enterprises a new lease on life. The nationalization of the losers of capitalist competition has nothing in common with the socialist expropriation of the means of production by a workers government. Taking over and subsidizing bankrupt firms to “save jobs” was for many years a standard practice of British Labour Party governments by which they sought to promote the interests of British imperialism.

As our comrades in the Spartacist League/Britain observed in “New Labour Fleeces Working People” (Workers Hammer No. 205, Winter 2008-09): “In the context of British imperialism’s loss of hegemonic power, the nationalisations of coal, steel and other industries by the [post-World War II] Clement Attlee Labour government were in reality giant capitalist bailouts designed to help British capitalism to compete in the world market.” In competition with more efficient private firms, nationalized enterprises require massive subsidies financed by immiserating the working class through, for example, high taxation.

Polemicizing against reformist “socialists” who put forward nationalization schemes to rescue failing capitalist enterprises, Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky declared:

“We can say to the miner, you wish nationalization. Yes, it is our slogan. It is only a question of conditions. If the national property is too burdened with debts against the former owners, your conditions can become worse than now. To base the whole proceedings upon a free agreement between the owners and the state signifies ruin of the workers. Now you must organize your own government in the state and expropriate them.”

—“Conversation on the Slogan ‘Workers and Farmers Government’,” Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1938-39

The program of the labor bureaucracy and its reformist tails—defined by what is “practical” under capitalism—has led to disaster for the working class. We Marxists put forward the revolutionary strategy offered by the Transitional Program, where Trotsky declared: “The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization, and ruin…. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish.” The burning necessity is for a proletarian revolution to rip the productive wealth of society out of the hands of the greedy capitalist rulers and build a collectivized, planned economy where production is based on social need, not profit.