---------- From: Sid Shniad To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: general motors strike Date: Thursday, July 30, 1998 10:39PM >Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Bacon) >Subject: general motors strike > >GENERAL MOTORS -- A POLITICAL STRIKE CONFRONTS THE GLOBAL ECONOMY > >By David Bacon > > SAN FRANCISCO, CA (7/26/98) -- Ending the strike of two auto parts >plants near Detroit -- a process which used to take just a few days -- has >instead lasted weeks. But delay and stubborn conflict is not the most >unique factor marking this strike. It's the fact that General Motors has >accomplished what generations of leftwing activists in the factories were >never able to achieve. The company has provoked a political strike. > The conflict in Detroit is not directed against a government. In >that way, it's still not the same as the political strikes now gripping >South Korea, Russia, or even Puerto Rico. But this conflict is political >nonetheless. GM strikers have been forced to confront the decision-making >process governing the world economy -- determining where investment flows, >which plants grow and which ones die. > The strike shows the shape of conflicts to come. Pushed by their >employers, U.S. workers are slowly but surely joining labor movements >abroad, who are also shoved against the wall by the global economic system. > GM began by reneging on a commitment to the local union at the >Flint Metal Center near Detroit, whose huge presses stamp out body parts >for almost all the company's vehicles. Three years ago, GM management >offered to trade a work practice, one which has made life on the line a >little more human, for new investment which would guarantee the factory's >future. > For decades, workers at Flint have worked at a manic pace through >breaks and meals, so they could get off work a few minutes early when their >production quota was filled. GM wanted workers to stay a full eight hours >on the line. > In return, the company promised, it would bring new machinery into >the plant, making it as productive as its newest factories in Mexico and >Brazil. But despite its promise, new investment never materialized. >Eventually the workers walked out to force the issue. When they stopped >producing parts, two dozen other plants that depended on them were forced >to halt production as well. > The strike started as a fight over jobs. The union at the Flint >Metal Center knows well that without new investment, production will >gradually be transferred to those plants where the company has installed >new machinery. Falling production means disappearing jobs. > But in order to protect those jobs, workers had to challenge GM's >strategy for corporate investment. GM has chosen to gradually abandon its >U.S. factories, and concentrate on building new facilities elsewhere. A >week after the strike started in Flint, a leaked company document detailed >corporate plans to increase production in Mexico from 300,000 to 600,000 >vehicles by 2006. GM's Delphi parts division, whose Delphi East plant >struck along with the Flint Metal Center, is already Mexico's largest >private employer, with 72,000 employees. > According to University of California Professor Harley Shaiken, >"the productivity of workers in Mexican plants is on a par with plants in >the U.S. Investors get first-world rates of productivity, and a workforce >with a third-world standard of living." > While 150,000 U.S., Canadian and Mexican workers have been idled by >the strike, they have generally viewed the cause as their own. Even in >Mexico, where wages are a tenth those in Detroit, workers are told the >company can find a cheaper place to build the next factory. GM's >investment priorities are the central problem workers face in every plant. >If the union wins in Flint, it will be easier for them to face the same >dilemma. > The strikers don't propose to prohibit GM investment in Mexico or >other countries. They're not protectionists. They simply demand that the >company invest enough in the U.S. to maintain the existing level of >production, and a comparable level of technology. > But that simple demand has made the strike political, and very >difficult to settle. GM will not have its workers participate in decisions >over investment strategy -- to the company, this is a sacred right >bequeathed by capitalism. > Workers outside the U.S., however, are looking at the GM strike, >wondering what took U.S. workers so long to take up the issue. > Visiting the U.S. last spring, Yoon Youngmo, a leader of the >militant South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, chided his >counterparts here for not fighting harder for their own jobs. "You make it >more difficult," he said, "for us to defend our jobs in Korea, because the >government and the chaebols constantly tell us to look at America. 'In >America,' they say, 'unions don't try to stop layoffs or job elimination, >and they're the most advanced unions in the world. Be more reasonable.'" > For two years the KCTU has been locked in a bitter battle against >the government over exactly this issue -- jobs and corporate investment. >Especially since the Asian economic meltdown, the South Korean government >has sought to implement an austerity program based on high unemployment and >vast cuts in the public budget. > The authors of this program, the International Monetary Fund and >World Bank, have dictated the same prescription throughout Asia and Latin >America. U.S. policy, which the IMF and World Bank enforce, encourages >countries to bid for new plants, production and technology, by creating >favorable investment conditions. Where wages are high, whether in South >Korea or the U.S., unemployment and job loss are used to lower workers' >expectations. > U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently reiterated >that Asian governments must accept the "bitter medicine" of economic >reforms. President Clinton has repeatedly threatened economic sanctions >against countries like Indonesia, which hesitate. > Whether governed by dictators or democrats, in every country the >same rules apply. When the KCTU threatened a general strike last week to >force the government to stop the massive unemployment engulfing South >Korea, former pro-democracy campaigner President Kim Dae Jung issued arrest >warrants for 100 trade union leaders, and threw the head of the KCTU in >prison. > In Flint, Michigan and Seoul, South Korea, unions are no longer >striking over wages and benefits, but over the rules which govern which >factories shut down, and how many workers will see their jobs disappear in >the process. > Flint and Seoul are not exceptional. Puerto Rico just endured a >2-day general strike over the privatization of its telephone system, which >threatens to eliminate thousands of jobs. In Russia, hundreds of coal >miners have camped in front of Yeltsin's White House for months, calling on >him to resign over policies which will close half the country's mines, and >which cannot even assure the payment of miners' wages. Yeltsin, the >democrat, now threatens to rule by decree to enforce the IMF's austerity >plan. > U.S. workers for decades viewed themselves as exceptions to all >this -- not subject to the same class conflict which has radicalized >workers elsewhere. But they're being taught a new reality. Capital flows >where the profits are highest. All countries must compete to create the >most favorable conditions for investment. > Union organizers have a saying -- "the boss is the best teacher." > General Motors is proving them right. > > - 30 - > >--------------------------------------------------------------- >david bacon - labornet email david bacon >internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1631 channing way >phone: 510.549.0291 berkeley, ca 94703 >---------------------------------------------------------------
