UAW Forces Mail Vote After Workers Chase Sellouts

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, September 18 — After being run out of the Local 23 union hall by hundreds of angry GM stamping plant workers last month (see CHALLENGE, 8/22), the International UAW is trying to ram through a new contract that would cut wages in half. Rather than directly confront the workers again, they’re imposing a mail ballot, something never done in a factory where votes occur either in the hall or in the shop. The ballots, going out this week, will be counted on September 27.

As part of Obama’s GM bailout and restructuring, this plant is to be closed. JD Norman Industries made an offer to buy the plant, and sign a UAW contract, if the union agreed to a 50% wage-cut. Last May, the workers voted 384-22 against reopening the contract, but the International UAW and Local 23 President Ray Kennedy continued negotiations, reaching a deal not one of the “negotiators” will have to live with.

‘Traitor Go Home!’

They had scheduled a ratification meeting for August 15, but hundreds of angry workers drowned them out with shouts of “Traitor,” and “Go Home,” forcing them to slip out the back door.

Since the union hall isn’t safe for the sellouts, their senior partners at GM are allowing them into the plant to speak to the workers either one on one or in small groups, where workers are subject to GM disciplinary actions if they “act up.” This is what UAW President Bob King calls the “21st Century UAW,”
a boss-union partnership. (See Box)

The majority of workers here have high seniority and many are GM “migrants,” having moved from plant to plant as factories shut down. They don’t fear one more closing since they are eligible for transfer to another GM plant. They don’t want massive wage-cuts following them for the rest of their lives, although that die has already been cast.

Indiana Governor Threatens Workers

GM wants to sell this plant and turn it into a low-wage parts supplier. The UAW wants to hold onto more than 600 members, and they’re ready to sacrifice workers’ wages and health care to do so. Meanwhile, the scab Governor of Indiana has threatened to deny these long-term GM workers unemployment benefits if the plant closes because they reject the wage-cuts.

Decades of “concessions to save jobs” and partnering with U.S. auto bosses has reduced UAW membership from 1.5 million to under 350,000, with the domestic auto industry now more than 50% non-union. The recent bailout and restructuring has cost yet another 200,000 jobs and cut wages in half.

The racist nature of these attacks is evident in the streets of Detroit, Flint, Lansing and many other GM towns. Today it’s wages and jobs. Tomorrow it will be the lives of our sons and daughters in an endless war for control of Mid-East oil and pipelines that has already costs millions of workers’ lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will use the October 2 March on Washington to build the revolutionary communist PLP in the auto industry and in the UAW. J

‘A UAW for the 21st Century’:Boss-Union ‘Partnership’

On August 2, fresh from his coronation as head of the UAW, President Bob King delivered a talk to the Center for Automotive Research Conference, an industry group, where he laid out his vision for the union’s future:

• “We are deeply grateful to the Obama administration…for saving the American auto industry. Enabling our companies to survive and turn around has saved hundreds of thousands of good jobs that would have been gone forever.…UAW members took wage-cuts of $7,000 to $30,000 a year. Benefits were also reduced significantly. Restructuring resulted in the loss of nearly 200,000 jobs.”

• “The UAW of the 21st Century must be fundamentally and radically different from the UAW of the 20th Century. This is a new world, and we must reinvent our union….”

• “The 20th Century UAW fell into a pattern with our employers where we saw each other as adversaries rather than partners.…The 21st Century UAW no longer views…management as our adversaries or enemies, but as partners.…Our new relationships…are built upon a foundation of respect, shared goals and a common mission.”

• “So the keywords of the 21st Century UAW are flexibility, innovation, quality, teamwork, productivity, continuous cost savings and respect. The rigid demarcation between management and labor that was so entrenched in the old model is discarded.”

That’s it, from the horses’ mouth, proof positive of what PLP has always warned. The greatest threat to the workers and the revolutionary communist movement is not the gutter racists and open fascists, as bad as they are, but the liberals! The Tea Party or Sarah Palin didn’t wipe out 200,000 auto jobs and cut wages in half, although they certainly support it. It was Obama and the union leaders.

In a period of growing war and deepening economic crisis, “Shared goals and common mission” means doing whatever is necessary to maintain U.S. imperialism at the top of the heap. It means war and fascism, with a “thank” you from UAW President Bob King.