Tuesday, October 20, 2015

UAW FUCKS OVER THE AMERICAN WORKER - The significance of the Fiat Chrysler workers’ fight

The significance of the Fiat Chrysler workers’ fight

The significance of the Fiat Chrysler workers’ fight

20 October 2015
Forty thousand Fiat Chrysler (FCA) workers in the United States are voting today and tomorrow on a new pro-company agreement backed by the United Auto Workers union, following the overwhelming vote by FCA workers earlier this month to defeat the first sellout deal agreed to by the UAW.
Workers should reject this agreement just as emphatically as they did the first. A “no” vote would set a powerful example for General Motors and Ford workers and create the conditions for a counteroffensive by workers in the US and internationally against the relentless, decades-long attack on jobs, living standards and working conditions.
The experience of autoworkers over the past month has made clear that the fight against the companies requires the creation of independent organizations of working class struggle and a new political strategy to counter the anti-worker united front of the Big Three auto companies, the UAW and the ruling class as a whole.
If anything, the second deal is even worse than the first. Stunned by the two-to-one rejection of the first contract, the UAW and FCA conspired to work out an amended contract that adheres to all of the basic demands of the company. The two-tier wage and benefit system is expanded and the framework is established for permanently and drastically lowering the wages and benefits of all Big Three workers. This includes the permanent elimination of cost-of-living increases, the phasing out of pensions, drastic cuts in health benefits, and forced overtime with no premium pay.
The deal, which Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne calls a “transformational” agreement, lays the basis for the destruction of all of the gains won in bitter struggle by previous generations of autoworkers and the transformation of autoworkers into a super-exploited, cheap-labor workforce. Once the older, higher-paid workers, whom Marchionne has called a “dying class,” are driven out of the plants, the entire workforce will be paid near-poverty wages and subjected to relentless speedup.

New and stunning revelations about the contract, concealed by the UAW, have sparked widespread anger among rank-and-file workers. These include the fact that the contract allows a doubling of the number of low-paid temporary workers, a major step toward the reduction of most of the workforce to casual laborers with no job security or benefits.
The UAW is pulling out all of the stops to prevent another “no” vote, which, in the words of the Detroit Free Press, would leave the union in “uncharted territory.” The union has hired a public relations firm to spin the deal as “the richest we have ever negotiated.” It is using a combination of lies, job threats and red-baiting attacks on the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter in an effort to wear down the opposition.
Rejection of this new sellout deal is only the first step. A successful struggle requires a clear understanding of the forces arrayed against autoworkers.
Behind Marchionne stand the Wall Street banks, determined to extract every dime possible from the workers to funnel into the stock market. The entire political establishment, Democrats and Republicans alike, supports the company offensive. Obama, the so-called “candidate of change,” has orchestrated the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in US history while initiating an attack on health care in the form of his Affordable Care Act.
The UAW is itself a business, selling its services as a labor police force in return for fat salaries and expense accounts for its hundreds of upper-middle class bureaucrats. It, like the rest of the official unions, is not a working-class organization. It has pursued a decades-long strategy of integrating itself into the framework of corporate management.
As it colluded in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs, losing more than half of its dues-paying members, it developed other sources of income, such as joint company-union slush funds, stock holdings in the auto companies, and control over a multibillion-dollar health care trust. It has a direct financial interest in helping the auto bosses increase the exploitation of the workers it claims to represent.
Working in tandem with the UAW are phony “labor lefts” organized in outfits such as the Autoworker Caravan, the Labor Notes publication, and pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organization, Workers World Party and Socialist Alternative. Fearing a rebellion by workers against the union apparatus, the Autoworker Caravan, which is comprised of lower-level UAW functionaries, has not even called for a “no” vote, telling workers instead to “vote their conscience.” The more the workers rebel, the more these groups defend the organizational stranglehold of the unions.
The UAW cannot be pressured into reforming itself. Its decades-long degeneration and transformation into an arm of the corporations and the government stems not from the subjective corruption and cowardice of its leaders, but the failure of its pro-capitalist and nationalist program. What the UAW has long denied is becoming clear to millions of workers: society is divided between two main classes: the working class, whose collective labor produces society’s wealth, and the capitalist owners, who appropriate that wealth to further enrich themselves.
Autoworkers have powerful enemies. But they have millions upon millions of allies who are potentially more powerful. The resounding “no” vote on the first contract was an expression of the deeply felt opposition of the working class in the United States and around the world to the looting of society by the financial aristocracy.
Whatever the outcome of this week’s vote, autoworkers, to carry forward their struggle, need new organizations, independent of the UAW, which reject the capitalist framework and the lie that there is no money to secure the social rights of the working class. Workers should elect rank-and-file factory committees to prepare a counteroffensive, demanding the right to secure and decent-paying jobs and full employer-paid health care and pensions.
The struggle for these basic necessities raises the political question: Who will rule? If the fate of humanity is left in the hands of financial aristocrats and money-mad speculators, their quest to squeeze every last dime out of the working class will inevitably lead to industrial slavery, dictatorship and war.
The alternative is a political struggle by the working class to take power in its own hands in order to break the economic and political dictatorship of the super-rich, place the banks and basic industries under the collective ownership and democratic control of working people, and reorganize the world economy to end social inequality and raise the material and cultural level of humanity.
Jerry White




UAW caught covering up plan to double temporary workers in new Fiat Chrysler agreement

By Eric London 
14 October 2015
With a week remaining before workers at Fiat Chrysler vote on a new contract, the UAW has been caught in a cover-up with the company to hide a bombshell buried deep in the agreement.
Bloomberg Business reported yesterday afternoon that “Fiat Chrysler can double its use of lower-paid temporary staffers under a new labor agreement being voted on by the UAW.”
The new agreement allows the company to use temporary workers for eight percent of work hours instead of the four percent figure listed in the first proposed agreement. Temp workers can now be used 365 days a year.
According to Bloomberg, “The new rules on temps weren’t in the highlights distributed to union members.” To put it another way, the UAW and FCA tried to sneak one past the autoworkers in order to ram through another sellout deal.
“I haven’t been this shocked in my life,” a Toledo Chrysler worker told the WSWS. “For the UAW to bend over and let FCA do this is wrong.”
The revelation undercuts all the lies being put forward by the UAW and its propaganda public relations firm BerlinRosen.
First, while the UAW claims that the deal creates “a clear path to traditional wages,” new temp hires will max out at just $18.41 at the end of the proposed four-year (48 month) contract (pp. 282-3 in the pdf file). Those temp workers hired before ratification will reach $21 at the time that the contract term expires.
Second, while the UAW says that this agreement is “huge progress toward eliminating the gap,” this deal will create a permanent low tier of new temporary workers.
Third, while the UAW claims that the contract “strengthens job security,” the doubling of temp positions will pave the way for a massive reduction in higher-paid, permanent positions. This also underscores the real character of the so-called “job growth” that the UAW and the company promise—the UAW is helping the company transform the auto industry so that low-wage, temporary work is the new standard.
One GM worker in Colorado said that this was part of the UAW’s plan to maintain a lower tier by bringing in “temps with lower wages and no benefits. For them it’s a new Burger King—‘have it your way.’ The union takes union dues from them and doesn’t represent them.”
A Mopar parts worker in Michigan said, “It’s a new tier 3, or whatever number tier it is now. Why would they ever hire a permanent worker again? Some of the temps took a massive pay cut during the bankruptcy. They were at $23 an hour and were told if they didn’t hire in at base tier-two rate as full time they would not be called into work ever again.”
According to Kristin Dziczek, director of the Center for Automotive Research, “This will cause some tension with the membership. Taking on more temps is part of the compromise to get the tentative agreement and they could agree to more for a new deal. FCA has a limit on what they will spend on labor.”
For that reason, workers want to know: What are the other secret giveaways in the contract that the UAW has kept from the workers? Why wasn’t this important piece of information in the highlights?
In its conspiracy with the company, the UAW’s aim is becoming all the more clear. It has sought to split tier-two workers and pit them against one another by giving more appealing, front-loaded raises to workers with 4-8 years experience and a $1,000 bribe to tier-one workers. All of this is aimed at passing a sellout deal that is effectively the same as the one that workers have already rejected.
The UAW is employing divide-and-conquer tactics not only within Chrysler; it is also seeking to prevent workers at Ford and GM from uniting with their allies at FCA.
In a letter sent Monday, UAW Vice President James Settles told workers at Ford to “allow [FCA workers] the time to discuss their agreement amongst themselves… I respectfully ask that you wait to pass judgment until we reach a tentative agreement at Ford.” He implored Ford workers to “fight together, not against each other.”
Workers at Warren Stamping in the Detroit suburbs are also reporting that the UAW is engaged in a fierce intimidation campaign against tier-two workers. One tier-two worker said that the UAW’s intimidation was “terrifying,” and that workers are being told if they don’t vote “yes” they will be fired.
This treatment shows what is really behind the UAW’s public relations campaign. The UAW is paying the New York/Washington DC firm BerlinRosen over $115,000 to create a handful of social media graphics spreading lies about the contract.
One Toledo Jeep worker told the WSWS, “If the UAW was for the workers and for the truth, why would they hire a PR firm to push this contract?”
As the details of the deal trickle through the UAW-FCA information blackout, workers are growing increasingly opposed to the proposed agreement.
“Sergio Marchionne said American workers had to give up their ‘culture of entitlement’ and accept a ‘culture of poverty,’” the Toledo Jeep worker said. “It’s my blood, sweat and tears that creates their wealth. You can’t sit on top of the pillar and push everyone else down. I make you rich and I have to worry about what my kids won’t get, what bills I can’t pay. It’s obscene.
“If we don’t fight now it’s going to affect our children’s children. For the last eight years, and now if this deal passes for a total of 12, this contract has been a movement for the rich. I don’t want to see people losing their homes and living in the gutters.
“If we don’t stand up then what we say about loving our children and doing anything for their future is meaningless. Instead, it’s going to be, ‘I love you son and daughter, get ready for enslavement and try these chains on for size.’”

UAW hires public relations firm to sell Fiat Chrysler deal

By Eric London
13 October 2015
The United Auto Workers has hired New York City-based public relations firm BerlinRosen Public Affairs to conduct a propaganda campaign aimed at securing the passage of its new contract proposal with Fiat Chrysler. The goal of the $115,000 campaign, complete with online graphics and Facebook postings, is to rebrand a product that has been exposed as dangerous to workers’ health.
The Detroit Free Press, a mouthpiece for the auto bosses and the UAW, praised the move, noting that “the UAW is devoting resources to providing more details and controlling the message this time—before someone else does.”
“Controlling the message” has nothing to do with telling the truth. On the contrary, it means attempting to reassert the monopoly over information by the UAW and the corporate-controlled media, which was broken when rank-and-file workers used Facebook, Twitter and other social media to exchange information from the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter and other sources to defeat the first sellout by a two-to-one margin.
BerlinRosen is made up of several former Barack Obama campaigners and administration officials and has previously worked for a host of Democratic Party campaigns, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. In 2014, it helped the Ford Foundation push through a union-backed “Grand Bargain” during the Detroit bankruptcy, which slashed the pensions and health benefits of thousands of retirees.
According to federal labor records, the PR firm did $4 million in business with “labor clients,” such as the Service Employees International Union and the Communication Workers of America.
The company’s website boasts: “we are quick, discreet, and experienced, helping clients prepare ahead of time for potential crises, and, when that’s not an option, jumping on board in urgent situations to get the story under control with our disaster recovery specialists.”
In the eyes of the UAW and the auto bosses, the resounding defeat of the sellout contract was certainly a “disaster.” Now they are scrambling to provide a new spin on the deal because if workers knew the truth, they would reject this deal as they did the first. As one FCA worker at the Toledo, Ohio Jeep plant told the WSWS, “If the UAW were about protecting the workers and telling the truth, then why would they need to hire a PR firm?”
It is worth reviewing some of the lies contained in the UAW’s new Madison Avenue campaign.
UAW Lie #1: “A clear path to traditional wages”
Under the proposed deal, a second-tier worker would have to wait eight years before reaching $29 per hour, or roughly the same rate in nominal terms that a first-tier worker makes right now. By contrast, in 1970 it took a newly hired UAW worker 90 days to reach standard pay.
The aim of the company and the UAW is to set a new, permanently lower “traditional wage” after higher-paid older workers are driven out of the industry. Moreover, any promises of increases four years after the expiration of the contract are not worth the paper they are written on. This was shown by the worthless pledge by the UAW to restore caps on the percentage of second-tier workers in 2015, and countless other promises over the last four decades that were dropped due to “economic circumstances.”
UAW Lie #2: “Huge progress toward eliminating the gap”
The new deal actually creates many different tiers. New hires will be brought in at $17 per hour, reaching just $22.50 by the end of the contract. There will then be a different tier for each “years of service” bracket, with only those with over four years reaching the pay cap.
What’s more, according to pages 256 and 257, new Mopar hires will top out at only $21 at the end of the contract, with axle workers reaching only $19.86. Page 277 of the contract notes that temporary workers will max out at $21 and new temporary hires at $18.41 after four years.
UAW Lie #3: “Health Co-op eliminated in this tentative agreement”
The UAW took the health co-op out of the deal while promising the company it will help enforce a similar cost-cutting program after ratification. The UAW has agreed to help FCA “reduce costs” in line with the imposition of Obama’s Cadillac Tax on supposedly over-generous insurance plans.
This includes the introduction of first-ever deductibles of hundreds of dollars for workers who refuse to sign up for inferior health plans. Second-tier workers already pay high out-of-pocket costs. The deal also includes an agreement between the UAW and FCA to transfer the health care plan for workers from Blue Cross Blue Shield to some other provider, with the clear intention of reducing costs and coverage.
UAW Lie #4: “Job security is strengthened and job growth promised”
The contract explicitly sanctions the destruction of over 3,000 jobs at the Warren Truck factory in suburban Detroit and other plants. The UAW has made a big deal of FCA’s supposed agreement not to “close, nor partially or wholly sell, spin-off, split-off or consolidate or otherwise dispose in any form, any plant, asset or business unit of any time constituting a bargaining unit.”
In fact, a letter of agreement between UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell and FCA executive Glenn Shagena nullifies this, adding an escape clause (page 129) that says:
“It is understood that conditions may arise that are beyond the control of the company such as acts of God, catastrophic circumstances, market-related volume declines or significant economic decline concerning the subject. Should these conditions occur, the company will discuss conditions with the union.”
UAW Lie #5: “Moratorium on outsourcing”
On page 196, the contract gives the company the right to determine sourcing actions based on “cost, technology, timing, quality, statutory requirements, proprietary rights, overall financial stability of affected facilities…” It simply requires the company provide “written notice” to the UAW for such plans, which the UAW will keep “confidential,” i.e., secret from workers. (Page 204)
The UAW can then force workers to accept massive wage cuts to keep work at the plant. “The National Job Security, Operational Effectiveness and Sourcing Committee, comprised of Company and Union representatives will act on requests from Local Committees to waive, modify or change National Agreement provisions when such action would result in the preservations or increase of job opportunities.” (Page 197)
These passages prove that the UAW is involved in a conspiracy to lie to the workers on the company's behalf. Nothing the UAW says can be trusted, and the above list is far from exhaustive.
As one worker said on the UAW International Facebook page: "This agreement is the same as the first. People, you have been shown fancy numbers to make your mouth water. The UAW did listen to our complaints on the first tentative agreement. That's how they made the same agreement look a lot better and renamed it to the new agreement."

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