Ford workers oppose new concessions

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Workers at Ford Motor Company attended informational meetings and voted this weekend on proposals by the United Auto Workers (UAW) to reopen the 2007 contract to impose new concessions. Meetings and voting will continue through next week as the union rushes to meet the March 31 deadline, imposed by the Obama administration, for restructuring the US auto industry to achieve profitability.

A document circulated by the UAW to summarize and justify this latest round of concessions opened with a letter signed by Ron Gettelfinger, UAW president, and Bob King, UAW vice president for Ford. They begin by citing the global crisis of capitalism. "Because of the current global banking and financial crisis," they argue, "no further private financing is available."

Without explanation, as if there were no alternative, the union officials accept the demands of Wall Street and the new administration. "Without substantial restructuring," they continue, "... Ford cannot survive on a long-term basis." After the usual claims of equality of sacrifice, the bureaucrats conclude that workers must take their medicine so that Ford, and by the logic of the argument, global capitalism itself, can return to profitability.

Workers who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site on Saturday and Sunday opposed the concessions. "I'm most worried about the overall implications of it," said Jim at Wayne Assembly in Wayne, Michigan. "If they cut out the middle class worker," he explained, "all that will be left are the very rich and the very poor. There is already a war being waged by the rich against the poor."

Auto workers are well aware that the wages of other workers, as well as the living standards of broad layers of small business owners, rest on the gains that were won through the historical struggles of industrial workers. "It is bad for everybody," Jim said. "The people who have mom-and-pop shops will not have any business when the union jobs are gone. There is no security for anyone."
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FULL ARTICLE
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/ford-m02.shtml

[TBF]

1. In solidarity with the workers. Enough concessions. n/t