Bitter outcome of UAW sabotage of 2008 strike: Detroit American Axle plant to close

[Hannah Bell]

On Tuesday, United Auto Workers officials announced that auto parts-maker American Axle will close its Detroit-Hamtramck factory — the largest of its US facilities — and lay off between 500 and 600 workers. UAW officials claim these jobs are being moved to Mexico...

Last May, UAW officials smothered a three-month-long strike by nearly 4,000 workers in Michigan and New York against American Axle, telling workers the only way they could save their jobs would be through major wage and benefit cuts.

At two closed-door meetings on Tuesday evening and Monday afternoon, local UAW officials did not propose to do anything to stop the plant closing, according to workers who were in the meetings. Nor did they bother to explain the failure of their strategy to “save jobs” through last year’s giveaways. The officials limited discussion to what workers might expect in severance pay and benefits, and lamely suggested that the union might file a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board.

It is now clear that the isolation and defeat of the strike by the UAW was to buy time for American Axle to carry out a major restructuring, which included widely rumored plans to close the Detroit plant. Since workers returned, the company has been removing material and machinery...At the end of January, CEO Richard Dauch announced his intention to cut production in American Axle’s US operations by 70 percent and increase capacity overseas by 150 percent. The company also announced its intention to wrestle further concessions from its Detroit workforce...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/axle-a30.shtml

[Sherman A1]

1. Unfortunate to be sure

As strong as I support unions, we all have to remember that just like everyone else they sometimes have their own agenda. At times that agenda does not seem to include the best interest of their members. Unions are organizations of human beings and therefore have their flaws just as does any other thing created by humans. As to the particulars of this situation, I am unfamiliar, but it appears to be very unfortunate.

[Hannah Bell]

2. UAW = company union for many years. when is the last time they took anything but

a symbolic action?

they're noticeably silent in this latest round of fuck-the-workers.

[DainBramaged]

3. We're fucked once again. They should have buried American Axle, but as usual, gave in

Now, they have unemployment. I said on this forum not to trust that fuck Dauch. And when he got a raise AFTER the strike was over and announced new plants overseas AFTER the strike was over, I wondered how the local missed it?


Strikers resent Axle CEO's raise
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080325/AUTO01/803250317/1361/UPDATE

American Axle workers denounce UAW concessions offer
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/axle-a09.shtml

[Romulox]

4. The OP is nonsensical. A strike wouldn't have stopped AA from moving jobs to Mexico.

[michreject]

5. I worked there when Chevrolet owned them

and when Saginaw Steering took it over. I transfered to the Tech Center when AAM took over.

[GliderGuider]

6. The true allegiance of unions, according to John Zerzan, is not to the workers.

Anarchist theorist and philosopher John Zerzan has written a devastating critique of unions and their hidden agenda, some of which can be seen in Organized Labor versus "The Revolt Against Work". In Zerzan's analysis, unions were initially developed to short-circuit workers' resistance to the factory regimentation imposed during the Industrial Revolution, and were largely allied with the owners in that effort. Zerzan maintains that this covert convergence of interest between unions and management at the expense of workers still exists today. I agree with him, and see this closure as yet more evidence of the truth of his analysis.

I recommend Zerzan's book Elements of Refusal as a primer on this topic.