Delphi Workers Square Off With Bosses

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Leaders of the United Auto Workers say they will strike if auto-parts maker Delphi goes ahead with its plan to have a bankruptcy court throw out the union contract. General Motors spun off Delphi in 1999, and Delphi remains GM’s main auto-parts supplier. A long strike would shut down GM and could push the staggering giant into bankruptcy as well.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the 33,400 unionized workers at Delphi. The company plans to close down 21 of its 29 U.S. factories and lay off 20,000 workers, shipping many of those jobs overseas. The remaining workers would see their wages slashed from an average of $27/hour to $16.50 by fall 2007 (or $12.50 if the almost-bankrupt GM doesn’t keep its promise of financial help for Delphi).

These attacks add up to devastation for Delphi workers, their families, and their entire communities. But aside from some tough talk by UAW officials, there’s been no on-the-ground preparation for a strike at Delphi, despite repeated calls from union members to organize strike votes and planning meetings in the locals. Many Delphi workers worry that UAW leaders are all bark and no bite.

GM is openly stockpiling parts to weather a strike at Delphi. Meanwhile, UAW leaders refuse to counteract this ominous company tactic with a work-to-rule slowdown, whereby workers could prevent stockpiling.

Such leadership methods – raising expectations of a fight-back with no plan to follow through – is the worst kind of betrayal, yet all too common of today’s labor leaders.

The impotence of the UAW leaders is translating into growing support for Soldiers of Solidarity, the high–profile, rank-and-file movement at Delphi opposing the cutbacks (see interview with Todd Jordan below). A still-small but dynamic group, SOS has taken it upon themselves to prepare the ground for a strike.

Through protests, mass meetings, leafleting, and websites, SOS used every twist and turn of the Delphi bankruptcy proceedings and the negotiations between GM, Delphi, and UAW leaders to educate and mobilize their coworkers. Win or lose, SOS has already put down an important historical marker, showing the way forward for organized labor by helping rekindle the ideas of class-struggle unionism.

Bargaining for Concessions
The deep hostility of SOS supporters toward the UAW leadership is well-deserved. The UAW bureaucracy has been at the forefront of the “partnership” counter-revolution in the U.S. labor movement. They see no alternative to capitalist competition, to the global race to the bottom, and basically accept the old lie that “what’s good for GM is good for America.”

Across the auto industry, the UAW is agreeing to massive concessions and layoffs. Most recently, they agreed to a buyout plan at GM designed to shed 30,000 of GM’s 113,000 workers. The buyout offers range from $35,000 to $100,000 (before taxes), depending on seniority. These lost jobs will not be replaced, and the already-struggling communities built up around the company will be further wrecked.

Despite all this, it remains possible UAW leaders will call a strike if Delphi unilaterally moves forward to void their contracts. However, it will take more than an ill-prepared work stoppage at Delphi to prevent layoffs and concessions.

The UAW leaders must move now to fully mobilize the membership for a strike that completely shuts down production at both Delphi and GM. It is only a legalistic fiction that Delphi is a separate company from GM. The 1999 spin-off of Delphi was designed to fail from the outset, as part of an over-all strategy to divide and conquer GM’s workforce. If necessary, the UAW must be prepared to defy the anti-labor laws and organize alongside Delphi a strike of GM workers against the bosses’ assault.

But the fight-back cannot be limited to Delphi and GM. They claim the UAW must accept concessions so they can compete with non-union, lower-waged auto plants in the south and in the “third world.” No doubt, the massive growth of non-union auto production has exerted a powerful downward pressure on the wages and benefits of UAW workers.

This opens up two roads for the UAW – accept a race to the bottom or link the battle at Delphi and GM with an all-out campaign to unionize the unorganized U.S. autoworkers and bring their wages and conditions up to union standards Unless the UAW wages a serious battle to defend the wages and conditions won in unionized auto plants, it will have no attraction to non-union workers, who will see no benefit in fighting to unionize.

Public Ownership
The starting point for any serious campaign to stop layoffs and concessions must be a flat refusal to accept the logic of the capitalist market, the idea that GM or Delphi must be “competitive” with non-union or sweatshop production.

There is enough wealth in the U.S. to guarantee every worker a job and a comfortable living standard. If GM and Delphi can’t guarantee that to their workers while satisfying their filthy-rich investors at the same time, they clearly are unfit to manage the auto industry. Maintaining good union jobs, stable communities, and the industrial base of our country is far more important than maintaining the luxurious lifestyles of the rich.

The UAW, with the backing of the entire labor movement, should launch an all-out campaign for public ownership, under democratic workers’ control, of the auto industry.

A publicly-owned auto industry, no longer solely guided by a lust for profits, could be integrated into a broader public transportation industry, with production democratically planned to take into account social and environmental needs. This is the only lasting alternative to the capitalist race to the bottom.

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