Lead Article from News and Letters newspaper
August-September 1998

GM strike shows labor doesn't buy capital's expansion at any cost

by Andy Phillips

Detroit--Burgeoning labor actions in the U.S. give notice of the increasing determination by American workers to confront the power and problems created by the globalization of capital and the threats to job security. In doing so, they are facing management's expanding arsenal of weapons designed to suppress and crush this worker opposition.

The recently concluded 53-day strike by the United Auto Workers union against General Motors Corporation, the longest GM strike since 1970, is the most prominent. The strike began on June 5 at GM's Flint Metal Center where body parts are stamped out by huge presses, and spread to the Flint East Delphi auto parts plant on June 10. It involved 9,200 workers.

Hundreds of grievances involving health and safety, job speed-up and outsourcing had piled up, and GM had failed to honor its previously negotiated contract commitment to invest $300,000 to upgrade production equipment, of which only $120,000 had been invested. GM in turn demanded increased productivity and work rule changes that would slash the work force in half. And just before the strike, GM had stealthily taken body-molding dies out of the Metal Center and moved them to Ohio, directly threatening Metal Center jobs.

Previous strikes at GM parts plants had been quickly resolved since just-in-time production practices eliminated the warehousing of parts, which in turn results in the quick depletion of supplies and plant shutdowns. Expectations were the same for this strike when it first started, but with each passing week the stakes were raised and positions hardened until by mid-July, 27 of GM's 29 assembly plants were down, 200,000 of its 224,000-strong work force were laid off, and negotiations took on national implications that involved many other plants, especially two Dayton, Ohio, brake plants which struck two years ago and halted all GM production.

CHALLENGES TO GM'S EMPTY PROMISES

Spirits of the strikers remained high, and they received widespread support not only from other laid-off GM workers, but also from other segments of labor. In fact, nine workers at GM's Romulus engine plant in Michigan who protested installing spark plugs from a non-union source instead of the usual Delphi plugs were suspended from their jobs. And Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, declared his support by announcing that no workers at GM's very profitable Oshawa, Ontario, truck plant would assemble trucks from parts made in Ohio by dies taken from the Metal Center.

Pickets remained combative throughout the strike. As one Black woman picket told News & Letters, "You just can't trust GM. We've had plant meetings where they tell us how important it is for us to cooperate, and in the next breath tell us we have to work faster and that they're moving jobs out of the plant. They must think we're stupid. They want us to cooperate ourselves out of our jobs, while they sit back and rake in their billions."

Since l978, GM has built more than 50 auto parts plants in Mexico and is that nation's largest private employer, with 72,000 workers who are paid $1-2 an hour doing the same jobs as Delphi workers getting $20 an hour. Delphi workers know this, but spoke of helping them. "We have to help them raise their living standards," a picket stated. "By helping them we also help ourselves."

Another picket with a historical perspective noted, "First there was Caterpillar, then the Detroit newspapers. If we lose this one, it's all over."

On July 21, GM moved its attack to the courts, marking the first time courts have been involved in contract negotiations since the l936-37 Flint sit-down strikes that created the UAW. GM charged that the strike was illegal, involving job-outsourcing and investment decisions, which were non-strikable issues, and a Federal judge put the dispute into the hands of a mediator. The UAW countered by moving to obtain additional strike authorizations from GM's Saturn plant, the only assembly plant still operating, a truck plant in Janesville, Wis., and the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky. The UAW already had strike votes from the Dayton brake plants.

The first break in the standoff came the third week in July when GM and the UAW agreed to a weekly work rotation of 550 strikers at the Delphi plant to produce parts for non-GM customers like Harley Davidson and Wal-Mart. The second break came on Sunday, July 26, when GM returned the dies taken from the Metal Center. The strike ended the next day, July 27.

On the strike issues, GM won a 15% increase in productivity at the Metal Center, job cuts and changed work rules, plus job speed-up and job cuts at Delphi. But most importantly, GM got a no-strike pledge for the two Dayton brake plants, thus succeeding in re-opening the contract and putting a stranglehold on those workers until the end of l999. GM can now exploit them at will without fear of a strike--a sellout of those workers who had no vote on this giveaway. The Delphi workers got the promise that GM would not close or sell the plant until the end of l999, and at the Metal Center, GM promised to honor its $300,000 investment commitment--which had already been negotiated in the existing contract. The UAW got GM to drop its court action and to pay workers for the July 4th week they would have gotten as paid vacation days if they had not been laid off. This money comes from a joint UAW-GM fund that costs the company nothing. (As we go to press, GM has announced plans to sell its Delphi parts operations.-Ed.)

Financially, GM lost $3 billion in profits, this year's second quarter earnings plummeting 81%, from $2.1 billion last year to $389 million this year. Its market share also suffered and is probably down to 30%, compared to 35% five years ago. However, GM's production capacity is geared for 35% of the market, which means it is producing nearly a million more vehicles than it can sell.

UAW WORKERS LOST SOME $1 MILLION IN WAGES, BUT MUCH MORE THAN FINANCES WERE INVOLVED. THEY GAINED A NEW SENSE OF SOLIDARITY, CONFIDENCE AND POWER, AND PROVED ONCE AGAIN THAT THE STRIKE WEAPON CAN SHUT DOWN THE BIGGEST CORPORATION IN THE WORLD.

UAW workers lost some $1 million in wages, but much more than finances were involved. They gained a new sense of solidarity, confidence and power, and proved once again that the strike weapon can shut down the biggest corporation in the world.

A Delphi woman worker said that on the first day back on the job, bosses were looking over their shoulders and speeding up the work. They also had taken over for production a rest area the union had negotiated for workers to use for their rest periods, setting up an immediate worker-management confrontation. "It's worse than it was before the strike," the worker said.

The job speed-up and horrific overtime GM will schedule to try to recoup lost profits is sure to result in increasing injuries and other health problems. Instead of bringing peace, the strike sets the stage for future war.

NATION JOINS A PRIVATIZATION FIGHT

Other significant labor actions demonstrating the growing fighting spirit of workers include a general strike in Puerto Rico, a huge labor demonstration in New York that paralyzed the city, a 40-day Philadelphia transit workers' strike, and international show of solidarity for workers at a Mexican Hyundai auto supplier plant, and the biggest union organizing victory in 20 years.

In Puerto Rico, 6,400 telephone workers fearing huge job losses went on strike on June 18 to protest plans by Gov. Pedro Rossello and his ruling party to sell the national telephone company to a consortium headed by U.S.-based GTE Corporation. The workers, with the near unanimous support of the entire 3.8 million population, demanded a national referendum on the sale.

Rossello, who had already privatized government-owned hotels, utilities, prisons and hospitals and supports a voucher system for education, rejected a referendum. As support for the strikers grew, the Board Committee of Labor Organizations representing some 50 different unions, joined in preparation for a general strike on July 7-8, the first general strike in the island since l932 when sugar cane workers walked off their jobs.

ON JULY 7, AN ESTIMATED 500,000 PEOPLE JOINED IN THE STRIKE, BLOCKADING THE AIRPORT ROADS, CLOSING BANKS, RETAIL STORES, HOTELS, AND THE ISLAND'S HUGE SHOPPING MALL, CAUSING CANCELLATION OF SCHEDULED CRUISE SHIP STOPS, AND THE BARRICADING OF THE UNIVERSITY BY SUPPORTING STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS.

While the strike shut the island down, Rossello refused to budge, and signed legislation authorizing the sale although the price went up from $1.8 billion to $2 billion after a Spanish phone company put in its own bid on the company.

Rossello, who supports U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico, hopes his privatization policies will result in Congressional approval for a vote at the end of this year to determine the island's status: to remain a commonwealth, become an independent nation, or become a U.S. state. While the 41-day strike by the telephone workers is over, they have vowed to continue their protests with sporadic one-day strikes.

In New York some 40,000 construction workers and their friends brought the city to a standstill on Tuesday, June 30, from 8 a.m. until noon. The demonstration was sponsored by the New York Building and Construction Trades Council to protest the award by the Metropolitan Transit Authority of a $32.6 million contract to a non-union contractor to build a new command center.

The huge turnout, however, took the union leaders, police, and city administration completely by surprise. Instead of dispersing after the 8 a.m. rally, the workers spontaneously began to march to the command center site, overwhelming police on horseback and on foot who tried to stop the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas, bringing traffic to a complete halt and closing hundreds of other construction sites in the city.

Led mostly by young workers who opposed both their union leaders and police who tried to stop them, the demonstration inspired a new sense of confidence in both the construction workers and other city laborers, especially since three previous rallies of one to two thousand workers had flopped.

So frightened were the labor leaders over their loss of control over the workers that another scheduled rally was called off, and a furious Mayor Giuliani vowed to crush any future city disruptions.

In Philadelphia, a Transport Workers Union strike of 40 days by 5,000 workers ended on July 10. The strike, which shut down all buses, trolleys and subways that daily affected 435,000 passengers, was the second longest in Philadelphia transit history and was marked by many demonstrations, arrests, injunctions and lawsuits.

Job security dominated the struggle, with the transport authority demanding work rule changes that would result in hiring part-time workers, increased use of part-time workers, job speed-up, and cuts in other benefits. The question of part-time workers, unresolved at the strike's end, was instead referred to arbitration and remains a bitter point of confrontation.

CROSS-BORDER SOLIDARITY

In Mexico an international display of labor solidarity mushroomed from a strike for an independent union by Mexican workers employed at Hyundai's Han Young auto supplier plant. Workers at the plant contacted labor support groups in the U.S., which in turn contacted other groups in America and other countries, resulting in support responses from groups in San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Boston and New York, as well as Brazil, Bangladesh and Spain.

IN PORTLAND, ORE., A SUPPORT GROUP CLOSED THE HYUNDAI PORTS FOR A DAY. ONE SUPPORTER DECLARED THAT IF GOVERNMENTS CAN CROSS BORDERS TO EXPLOIT WORKERS THROUGH TREATIES SUCH AS NAFTA AND GATT, WORKERS HAVE TO CROSS BORDERS TO PROTECT EACH OTHER THROUGH SOLIDARITY ACTIONS DURING STRUGGLES.

At United Airlines, in what is the greatest U.S. union victory in 20 years, over 19,000 reservation takers, ticket sellers and gate agents won recognition to join the International Association of Machinists, the same union demanding increased job security and other benefits for their Northwest Airline union members

The United Airlines victory was the culmination of a year-long effort by the IAM, which promised to redress the service workers' complaints that included a three-tier wage system, with the lowest tier, representing 40% of the work force, receiving fewer vacation and sick days and less health care coverage than the other employees.

Meanwhile, departing William Gould, who resigned in July as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, blasted both interfering Congressmen and the four other negligent board members for the failures and delays in settling hundreds of pending unfair labor practices cases.

He confirmed what many workers know-especially Black southern women workers who have been trying to organize their work places-that filing an unfair labor practices charge against management is almost always a losing battle. Exposing these delays in detail, Gould stated that the only way that workers can get justice is by rewriting the present law to remove the many known loopholes for employers.

A case in point involves more than 3,000 workers at the Avondale shipyard in New Orleans who voted five years ago to join the New Orleans Trades Council. They are still waiting because owners and management have effectively used legal loopholes to block and delay union recognition.

These same tactics have been used by the Detroit newspaper owners to deny re-employment of over a thousand workers who struck over unfair labor practices that have been upheld but continuously appealed for over three years. The majority of the Labor Board members is so blatantly anti-labor that the agency is now known as the graveyard of union organizing.

Despite all of the obstacles, the new challenges by American labor are sure to grow as the effects of the national and international economic crises are felt. Already evident are falling U.S. production and profits caused by the economic collapses in Asia, accounting for one-third of the world's economic output and one-third of U.S. exports. Faced with increasing job insecurity, workers will be forced to seek their own solutions to the ever-growing divisions in American society.

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