One-sided class war in auto meltdown

Detroit--As the Big 3 auto makers teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, their chief executive officers have been pleading for billions of dollars from Congress to sustain their operations. The squabbling in Senate and House hearings at their first request for loans to weather the credit crunch, centered on the CEOs taking private jets to Washington to plead poverty, seemed petty when the thunderbolt news hit that 533,000 workers had lost their jobs in November.

At their second trip to Congress GM CEO Rick Wagoner requested $18 billion, Ford CEO Alan Mulally $9 billion and Chrysler CEO Robert Nordelli $7 billion--for starters. These amounts, as large as they were, were only a bridge till the Obama administration begins.

All indications were that a $16 billion stopgap measure, to be taken from $25 billion previously approved for auto technological improvements, would be passed. But lame duck Republican Senators blocked the loan package on Dec. 11, demanding that UAW members give up benefits that exceeded conditions in foreign-owned non-union plants before money could flow. Ironically, the only chance for financial relief to auto this year is Bush and the $700 billion bank bailout that earlier he had refused to make available for manufacturing.

If this situation only affected the corporations, it would be easy to say that they brought this on themselves and let them fail. But the number of people who would be affected is from four to 10 million, including 14,000 auto dealers who employ 740,000 people, the parts suppliers employing 600,000 more, extending to restaurants and stores in every state.

At least 35 parts suppliers have filed for bankruptcy already this year. Even if the Big 3 get their loans, they may face damaging delays because of parts shortages.

At Congressional hearings on the loan requests, there has been a loud chorus among Republicans for the Big 3 to go bankrupt. They know that corporations have used bankruptcy to destroy unions and benefits that workers have won over long years of battle, and see this as an opportunity to deal a crushing blow against what still remains as a strong, if weakened, United Auto Workers union.

The UAW has lost hundreds of thousands of workers in the past three decades, and continues to lose them almost daily. But instead of representing the workers, the union has long been working hand-in-glove with the auto companies.

It has made concessions in the last five years, including a two-tier wage system that creates divisions among young and older workers, lost healthcare and pension benefits, agreeing to take responsibility for the Voluntary Employee Benefit Association (VEBA) to relieve healthcare obligations from the companies, lost vacation days and a host of other work-place issues that workers face daily on the production line.

Instead of blasting the corporations for their failures and defending the gains made by the workers, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger called a special national conference of union leaders in Detroit the first week in December to modify the union contract by giving more concessions to the companies. This time, he is proposing to help the companies by eliminating the job bank, which paid laid-off union employees if they were not called back to work for two years, and affects 3,500 union workers. He is also proposing that the auto companies defer billions owed to the union in VEBA payments until 2010.

The auto companies have already had to lay out plans to Congress regarding their ability to compete. They emphasized production of hybrid vehicles (which they all bitterly fought in past years) and reducing costs. Restructuring would include elimination of thousands of dealerships and suppliers, closing many plants, laying off thousands more of their workers and negotiating new cost-reducing contracts with the UAW.

Ford said it would close four plants by 2011. GM's plan would close 11 North American plants and cut its work force from 96,000 to below 75,000 by 2012. All of these plans guarantee much more unemployment, even if the companies survive.

Workers themselves, especially those who have already lost their jobs, have bitterly denounced the bailouts that Congress has been handing out in the billions and now is talking about trillions to try to save this collapsing capitalist system. They say: "Where is my bailout? They bail out the millionaires and leave us to starve."

It is in this resentment and anger and the aspirations for a human society that the future lies and that the union leaders do not understand, or they would be in the forefront of those who are calling for a total change in the way that this economic system operates. The first requirement of any economic system is that it must provide a livelihood for all of its citizens. If it cannot do that it must be replaced.

During the Great Depression of the l930s, a topic of everyday conversation became: "Do you think we'll have a revolution today?" This may very well be the topic that will arise as the global crises of capitalism continue to increase and deepen.

--Andy Phillips

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