Shamus Cooke: “The alarm bells should be ringing day and night about what’s being prepared at General Motors — the ripple effects could produce tidal waves.”

The Obama administration has made clear its plans for GM: the Chrysler bankruptcy was the “test case,” and now Obama’s Wall Street buddies inside the Auto Task Force plan to replicate it. … the greatest single attack on American workers since the Great Depression, the precedent of which will reverberate loudly through business-labor relations in the country — that is, if workers at GM and its parts suppliers don’t put a stop to it.

Why was Chrysler so important? Most significant was the fact that workers were scared into accepting large wage and benefit reductions. They were told by the U.A.W. “leaders” that, unless workers conceded to accepting the wages and benefits of non-union workers, bankruptcy would be unavoidable. The workers conceded, and the very next day it was announced that the company was headed towards bankruptcy. …

Applying this type of “restructuring” to GM is hard to imagine. GM is a global conglomerate with factories and suppliers all over the world — a monster when compared to puny Chrysler. The new sell-out labor contractbeing negotiated between Gettlefinger and Obama on 5/21/09 has yet to be released to the public, though the results have already been leaked, and they would be crushing for GM workers, in a “…deal that would cut [GM's] labor costs by more than $1 billion a year and reduce its $20 billion pledge to the United Auto Workers to cover health-care obligations [by ten billion]…” (Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2009).

Not only this, but 20,000 more GM jobs would be cut. Dealerships and suppliers all over the world would close as well, producing immediate job losses in the hundreds of thousands, and indirect job losses that are impossible to calculate.

Also, GM will likely be split into two companies: one that will build cars with cheap labor for the world marketplace and the other consisting of factories and machinery that will be sold for scrap metal. Instead of this tremendous productive power being used to create a much more rational mass transit system, the company is downsizing itself, laying off thousands of workers and filling landfills.

… Obama’s autoworker precedent will encourage other companies to destroy union contracts via bankruptcy; the stage is being set for a colossal attack on the American working class. Already wage cuts are being implemented throughout the U.S., alongside massive unemployment — Obama’s technique is simply a way to hasten the process, so that the speed and scope of the recession is equally matched by reductions in wages and benefits.

The economic crisis has put corporations into “fight or flight” mode. In order for them to stay “viable” on the world market, they are slashing wages and benefits, led by Obama and the Wall Street insiders among his administration. It will take a U.A.W. rank and file upsurge to repel these attacks, aided by workers everywhere, since labor in general now faces incredible challenges. They could demand the nationalization of the auto industry so that workers would be bailed out, not the banks. Then these companies could be retooled in order to produce not only mass transit vehicles but an alternative energy infrastructure that could both save jobs and help save the planet from global warming.

Obama cannot be “pressured” into doing the right thing. He’s surrounded himself with people representing the big corporations and banks, entities that are intrinsically anti-worker. The Democratic Party must also be tossed aside, since their total silence on this most important of issues is one of utter complicity. Labor must now, more than ever, take an independent stance in defending their interests. The fate of the labor movement hangs in the balance.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21543

Tom Stephens
www.peoplessummit.org