By Barry Sheppard
As the 190,000 idled General Motors workers were returning to work following the end of the strikes at two plants in Flint, Michigan, management announced that GM would sell off its parts subsidiary, Delphi. This move ups the ante around one of the issues that was central to the Flint strikes — job security.
By spinning off Delphi, GM hopes to lower the pay for workers producing parts that are later assembled in GM plants. At present, Delphi workers are paid the same wages as assembly plant workers. By setting up a new company, the United Auto Workers' contract with GM would no longer apply. Delphi could force down wages, even if it recognises the UAW, because non-union parts makers pay only half as much as Delphi workers currently receive.
Management waited until the strikes were settled before making the announcement — a slap in the face of auto workers. The Flint strikes are more clearly seen now as battles in a war that will continue until September, 1999, when GM's contract with the UAW expires.
GM is hell-bent on restructuring to eliminate jobs, increasing speed-up, and outsourcing.
"Should GM decide to proceed with the sale as announced, the UAW's record is clear: we can and will aggressively work to protect the rights and interests of UAW members impacted by the sale", said Richard Shoemaker, the union's vice-president for GM issues, in a statement.
As part of the settlement of the Flint strikes, the UAW agreed to more "jointness" programs with management, which are supposed to improve relations. The announcement of the Delphi sell-off without even telling the UAW is one more example of how "jointness" is seen by the company — the workers are supposed to "join" the company in slashing jobs, conditions and pay.
GM's determination is reflected in the fact it lost $2.8 billion in profits and $12 billion sales as a result of the two Flint strikes, which cut the supply of many parts used in assembly plants throughout Canada, the US and Mexico, and caused the shutdown of most of those plants.
One of the struck Flint plants was a Delphi plant. Part of the settlement that ended the strike there was management's agreement not to spin off the Delphi plants in Flint, and in Dayton, Ohio, before January 2000. In turn, the union agreed not to strike at those plants in the interim. How the new GM announcement will impact on this agreement is unclear. A similar deal was made concerning two brake plants in Ohio.
The settlement of the Flint strikes was basically a draw. "Nobody really won", UAW president Steve Yokich candidly declared. "We had to strike over what we'd already negotiated for."
The company reneged on pledges of job security it had made previously. In the settlement, GM agreed to invest the $180 million it had earlier agreed to invest in one of the Flint plants but hadn't. The company has been in constant violation of the 1996 agreement to preserve 95% of the work force over the life of the current contract. The GM hourly work force dropped from 220,000 in 1996 to less than 200,000 in 1997.
The strikes showed that local concerns have become national and international ones, and have to be addressed at those levels. To date, however, the UAW has let each of the 17 local unions that have struck since 1994 go it alone — even when they close down the company's whole operation. Some of these strikes have won gains, but even when they get an agreement they have to fight to make management live up to it.
The right to strike over local issues is important, but to deal with today's international onslaught, the issues facing auto workers need to come under the protection of the national agreement or a national framework.
The strategy of the union also needs to be North America-wide. Greater coordination with the Canadian Auto Workers would be a good start. In its last two contracts, the CAW won steps toward shorter work time and work force level guarantees from GM.
The union also needs to work with Mexican workers, in support of independent unions which are struggling against the corrupt system of government-controlled unions which put Mexican workers in a straightjacket.
GM, Mexico's largest private employer, plans to double car and truck production in Mexico to 600,000. The UAW leaders' answer has been to adopt a chauvinist stance, charging GM with "putting America last".
During the battle, GM was telling its Mexican workers that the UAW wanted to take their jobs away, back to the US, further pitting Mexican workers against US workers. The UAW must adopt the opposite strategy and support the struggles of the Mexican auto workers. There is no other way to fight GM's globalisation.