NASHVILLE, TN, February 20 — Much is being written about the loss suffered by the UAW in the union election at the Volkswagen (VW) assembly plant in Chattanooga, TN. The plant is one of only three non-union VW plants in the world (the other two are in China). This campaign was the key to a strategy of organizing a number of foreign-owned auto plants, including BMW in South Carolina, Mercedes in Vance, Alabama, and Nissan in Canton, MS. (The State of Mississippi passed three anti-union laws just days after the VW vote, targeting the UAW Nissan campaign). The UAW has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), challenging the interference of Tennessee’s top elected officials, but that could linger for years before it is resolved.
The election reflects just how far down the road to fascism the U.S. has travelled, and how workers are caught in a crossfire between right-wing, Tea Party union-busters and a union leadership that sees its main job as guaranteeing the bosses’ profits.
VW and the UAW signed a neutrality agreement, where the company agreed not to oppose the union campaign and the union agreed to “maintain VW’s competitive advantage.” In other words, the UAW promised to maintain the same anti-union advantages that the right-wing politicians gave to VW in the first place! This was the result of many trips to Germany to meet with the company and with IG Metall, the German metal workers union.
There was a very active union committee inside the plant. VW workers from around the world were brought to Chattanooga to meet with workers and show international solidarity for their campaign. The union was confident. Yet, on the 77th anniversary of the victory of the Flint Sit-Down Strike, which won union recognition at General Motors after a 44-day plant takeover, the UAW lost the VW vote 712-626. A swing of 44 votes would have changed the outcome.
Along the way, the UAW ran into what John Logan (Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University) called, “a firestorm of interference” from a fascist coalition led by Grover Norquist. In an openly racist appeal to the mostly white workforce, billboards referred to the United Auto Workers as the United Obama Workers, and pictures of abandoned Detroit factories were displayed as the work of the UAW.
One racist group even compared the union campaign to a Civil War battle in Chattanooga where the Union Army was defeated. “Let’s stop them again,” was the message. Anti-union town hall meetings were held in the area and the top elected officials threatened the loss of jobs if the union won. These threats, made during the voting, are the basis for the UAW’s NLRB challenge to the election.
This reflects one of the fault lines in the U.S. ruling class, the anti-tax, anti-union billionaires, led by the Koch brothers vs. the liberal rulers who want to maintain some safety net and raise the minimum wage. This struggle reflects that, at least for the moment, the more open fascists have a mass base and a plenty of clout in the South.
But even more important, convincing workers that bosses and workers have the same interest, and our security lies in the bosses being fat and rich, is also leading the workers to fascism. In a period of growing imperialist rivalry, trade wars and the growing threat of shooting wars, unity with the bosses will lead to going to war against other workers to guarantee markets and profits for “our” bosses.
The fact is, workers and bosses have nothing in common! The bosses profit from our exploitation. We can only secure our future by abolishing wage slavery and building a communist world, where we produce for the needs of our class, not the profits of the shareholders. We should view these organizing campaigns, from auto to fast food workers, as opportunities to sharpen the class struggle and to win more workers to PLP.
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Bowing to Bosses Brings UAW to the Brink
The UAW has been collaborating with the auto bosses for over 60 years, especially in the 1970s, again in the financial crisis of 2008 and the auto bailout of 2009.
Anti-Asian Racism Rampant
The more U.S. auto bosses were threatened by international competition, the more the UAW came to their defense. Instead of “Workers of the World, Unite,” the slogan was “Buy American!” In the 1970s, anti-Japanese racism was rampant; local unions would charge $1/shot to smash an imported Japanese car with a sledge hammer. The racism hit a fever pitch when a young Chinese student, Vincent Chin, was beaten to death in a Detroit bar by two Chrysler employees who thought he was Japanese! Foreign cars were banned from UAW parking lots, and tires slashed.
Meanwhile, the UAW forced through billions in wage and benefit concessions to help U.S. bosses compete against the “foreign competition.” While factories and union halls closed, the palatial UAW/GM Training Center was being erected on the Detroit River. The threat moved from opposing imports to Asian and European auto bosses building factories in the U.S., mostly in the South, where they still enjoy a huge labor cost advantage. The UAW has failed to organize any of them. The union became so tied to the auto bosses that they would share their fate.
Then in the economic crash of 2008 and the auto bailout of 2009 the UAW agreed to the “restructuring” of the industry, meaning that 70 years of hard won gains would be wiped out for new workers. As the UAW shrunk from 1.5 million members to 380,000 (only half of that manufacturing), the union became the target of the growing anti-union Right to Work (RTW) movement. With the GM, Ford and Chrysler (Fiat) contracts expiring next year, over 50 percent of the UAW membership is in RTW states, including Michigan (60 percent if Ohio goes). When these contracts expire, union membership will be voluntary. Thousands of new workers, doing twice the work for half the pay, with diminished health care and no pensions, may very well leave the union.