Wednesday, December 11, 2019

GENERAL MOTORS FIRES WORKERS WHO SPOKE OUT ABOUT GM'S CRIMES

Fired Mexican GM workers issue open letter to American workers

 urges workers to support the General Motors workers at the Silao, Mexico factory who were fired for supporting the 40-day strike by GM workers in the United States in September and October.
Cervantes, Rosales, Gutierrez, Fernandes, Mosqueda, Perez, Ramírez
In the weeks leading up to the walkout, GM sought to increase production at the Silao complex, where 6,000 workers manufacture the company’s most profitable vehicles, the Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks, for $2.25 an hour. But GM’s strikebreaking plans were disrupted when the Silao workers refused to accept speedup and forced overtime. Fearing that resistance would spread to other GM plants in Mexico, corporate executives in Detroit quickly shut down the Silao plant.
For their courageous act of solidarity, GM and the gangster-ridden Confederation of Mexican Workers union tracked down the leaders of the rebellion and fired them. The victimized workers included several who had more than 20 years of seniority at GM.
After the end of the strike, GM refused to reinstate the workers. Exploiting the economic hardship workers would face without a job or an income, GM pressured several to accept “voluntary” severance packages instead of fighting their terminations. The remaining workers have been blacklisted by GM and area employers have refused to hire them.
The Silao workers have set up a defense fund to support their families and pay for legal assistance while they fight to get their jobs back. In an open letter to US workers, the Silao workers, who called their group the “Generating Movement,” have appealed for support.
To donate: visit https://www.paypal.me/israelcervante, select a currency and amount and enter your payment information.
Left to right: Mauricio Negrete Pérez, Arturo Martínez and Israel Cervantes Córdova
The following is their statement:
We, the group of fired workers at General Motors Silao Complex who joined hand in hand and strongly supported our fellow workers in the strike at General Motors in the United States, are continuing our struggle against the employer and our union leaders, resisting their pacts and alliance with the authorities. Our struggle is not over, and we are not willing to take a step back, which is why we are requesting your solidarity and your support for our defense fund. The economic situation is hitting us hard, and the main purpose we are asking for your help is to keep going, fighting for our reinstatement and for a democratic movement of workers at GM Silao.
The labor authorities in Mexico have not shown any willingness to address the lawsuits we have filed against the transnational corporation General Motors at the Silao Complex. Those same authorities have deals with the conciliation and arbitration boards to obstruct our lawsuits and close our path. That is why we request your support for our workers’ movement and our fight for the livelihood of those workers fired at General Motors Silao Complex.
In advance, we thank you for your solidarity and understanding.
We are still fighting!
For the international unity of workers at GM!
Not one step back!
Signed,
Dolores Israel Cervantes Córdova
Pilar de la Luz Torres Rosales
Ramón Rodríguez Gutiérrez
Arturo Martínez Fernández
Javier Martínez Mosqueda
Mauricio Negrete Pérez
María Guadalupe Ibarra Ramírez
Generating Movement
* * *
The United Auto Workers union has not said a thing about the fired Mexican GM workers. That is because the corrupt criminals who run the UAW fear nothing more than US, Canadian and Mexican workers coming together to fight the attack on jobs, wages and conditions that all autoworkers confront. For years, the UAW depicted the Mexican workers as little more than industrial slaves who were supposedly stealing “American jobs.” But now it is clear that the Mexican workers, just as much as their US brothers and sisters, want to join together and fight the efforts by the corporations and the unions to pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom.
For 40 days, GM workers in the US fought on the picket lines. Far from unifying GM workers with Ford, Fiat Chrysler and other workers, in the US and internationally, the UAW deliberately isolated GM workers, put them on starvation-level strike pay, and then rammed through a concessions contract that will close plants, force out thousands of higher-paid workers and replace them with temps who, as one Lordstown worker said, “are treated no better than Mexican workers.”
Like the Silao workers, dozens of GM workers in US plants were also fired for “strike-related activity.” This includes 61-year-old Juan Gonzales, a Flint Assembly worker with more than 20 years at GM, who was terminated the first day back after the strike, allegedly for statements he made on social media. “They want to force those workers into poverty, just like us, in order to shut us up,” Juan told the Autoworker Newsletter. “We are all building the same cars for the same companies. These cars have parts from all over the world. We need to get together and unite no matter what country we are from.”
All over the world, workers increasingly understand that it is impossible to organize an effective strike, let alone a broader social movement against inequality and capitalist exploitation, without collaborating across national borders. Earlier this year, 70,000 auto parts and electronics workers in the maquiladora sweatshops in Matamoros, Mexico, revolted against the corrupt unions, carried out wildcat strikes to demand higher wages and shorter working hours, and marched to the US border to appeal to American workers to join their fight.
Maria Guadalupe Ibarra Ramírez
The Mexican workers stood up for American workers. Now it is the duty of American autoworkers to defend their courageous class brothers and sisters in Mexico. The fight to support these workers and demand their reinstatement will only strengthen US workers.
This means organizing independently of the UAW, which is nothing but a bribed tool of corporate management, and building rank-and-file factory committees, led by the most class conscious and militant workers, who are democratically elected and accountable to workers, not the profit interests of the corporations.
To fight the global strategy of the auto companies, workers need to reject the nationalism of the UAW, Trump and the Democrats, and adopt an international strategy to unify autoworkers around the world.
To donate: visit https://www.paypal.me/israelcervante, select a currency and amount and enter your payment information.

Who are the Silao Seven?

Dolores Israel Cervantes Córdova, 13 years at the plant, fired on August 28, 2019
After winning several acknowledgements for repair work in final assembly, Cervantes, an outspoken opponent of the company-controlled union, was fired after GM falsely claimed that he had failed a drug test. He used his own money to take an independent test, which proved that he had no drugs in his system. Afterwards, Cervantes refused to sign a “voluntary” severance package management told him to sign and instead decided to fight for reinstatement. “I have three children, one who is trying to go to the university, one who is in high school, and one in kindergarten,” Cervantes told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter. “I’m still paying for my home through Infonavit [state loan], while helping my 86-year-old mother and 83-year-old father.”
Pilar de la Luz Torres Rosales, 8 years at the plant, fired on September 13, 2019
Rosales, who was active in the militant Generating Movement, was fired by GM after she returned from a medical leave due to a shoulder injury she sustained at work. In a statement to US workers shortly after her firing, Rosales said, “I join you in your strike, fellow GM workers, to fight together and in support of each other against unjustified firings. Let’s do this through an independent workers’ commission and not through the same unions.”
Strikers at GM's Flint Assembly plant
Ramón Rodríguez Gutiérrez, 23 years at the plant, fired on September 20, 2019
Before being terminated, Gutiérrez was a co-worker of Israel Cervantes in the same work area and one of the first participants in the militant workers group. “Two people depend on my income, my wife and a daughter who is studying in Irapuato, where we live,” Gutiérrez told the Autoworker Newsletter .
Arturo Martínez Fernández, 23 years at the plant, fired on September 20, 2019
Fernández was among those fired summarily the day after the Siloa workers group announced they would oppose speed-ups and forced overtime in order to support the strike by US GM workers. “I worked in final repairs, paint and final processing. We worked in a shop in the back called the ‘fleet’ where we re-painted pieces, did ‘spots’ and the final repairs on any imperfections. I have five dependents: my wife, an 18-year-old son, a 13-year-old daughter, a 10-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter,” Fernández said.
Javier Martínez Mosqueda, 24 years at the plant, fired on September 24, 2019
Before being fired Mosqueda worked in the final assembly area and was a team leader of seven workers. Two supervisors began harassing him for organizing with other Silao workers in the Generating Movement group, compelling him to file a complaint. Rather than addressing his grievance, management demoted Mosqueda and sent him to an area of the plant with heavier workloads. “I was unable to move and stuck doing one single operation,” he said, adding that management’s aim was to force him to resign. Unable to break him, management fired Mosqueda after four weeks and the union refused to help him. That day, Mosqueda sent the following appeal to US workers, “Today, I’m laid off but in solidarity with you and your strike and my fellow GM workers in any part of the world. I’m convinced that we must fight together.” Since being terminated, Mosqueda has been unable to find another job because he has been blacklisted.
Mauricio Negrete Pérez, 21 years at the plant, fired on October 1, 2019
After years of discussions, Pérez and Israel Cervantes co-founded the militant rank-and-file group in April 2019 to break free from the company-controlled trade union. Pérez received several warnings from supervisors after he refused to work overtime during the GM strike in the US and was ultimately fired. “My activities in the plant were assisting the assembly people when they had issues with the machinery,” he told the Autoworker Newsletter. “As maintenance workers, we had to do preventative care on any day of the week, even Sundays and holidays. I’m from Salamanca, so I would wake up at 3:45 a.m. and return home at 7:30 p.m. I have two children. One is sick with a severe cognitive deficit. My wife and I need medical care, but we lost that right when I got fired.”
María Guadalupe Ibarra Ramírez, 8 years at the plant, fired on June 5, 2019
A member of the Generating Movement and an outspoken critic of GM and the company union, Ramírez was terminated without compensation while on medical leave for a severe back injury sustained when she picked up a heavy box in the transmission area. Ramírez worked in several areas of the Silao complex, including bodywork, general assembly, paint, machinery and transmissions. “They claimed there was no operational area where I could work and that they couldn’t relocate me since they are running 12-hour shifts,” she told the newsletter. “I’m the head of a household, in charge of two children and my mother and I’m now selling candies to cover part of the daily expenses.”
Silao GM complex

GM workers in US speak out to defend victimized Mexican workers

During the historic 40-day GM strike, workers on the picket lines in Flint, Detroit and Ft. Wayne, Indiana expressed their support for the fired Silao workers. A veteran Flint engine worker said, “I believe it’s going to be the workers of the world that have to unite against the corporations to protect ourselves. It’s not just the US anymore or the Canadian workers, it’s all of us in the same fight.”
A third-generation autoworker at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant said, “All my brothers and sisters in Mexico, we are all fighting for the same thing. We, American workers, are fighting for you who were fired to get your jobs back. We stand in solidarity with you.”
A worker at the Ft. Wayne, Indiana plant, which produces the same Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks as the Silao factory, said, “It is awesome that the Mexican workers took a stand with us. We are one, it’s one company and GM should treat everybody equally no matter what country we work in. The Mexican workers are trying to provide for their families too. We’re tired of being treated like crap no matter where we’re working, in the US or outside. It’s wrong.” Asked what she would say to the victimized Silao workers, she said, “Keep up the good fight. We are proud of you and thank you for taking a stand for us, and we will stand with you.”


GM sends termination notices to 48 TPT workers in Indiana less than two months after UAW signs concessions contract

By Jessica Goldstein
7 December 2019
Forty-eight temporary part-time (TPT) workers at the General Motors Marion Stamping Plant in Marion, Indiana, are being given notice that they will be terminated, according to a Facebook post by WMTV Channel 27 Marion News Thursday evening.
GM Marion Metal Center, Marion, Illinois (file photo)
According to the station’s sources—likely the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which negotiated the workers’ contract with General Motors (GM) in October—thirty-five of those workers were eligible for full-time employment in January.
“Union reps were lied to and this is happening throughout all GM plants,” reporters were apparently told.
The original post has over 675 comments, 880 reacts and 1,100 shares. It links a photograph of the termination “walking” letter allegedly sent to TPT workers, signed by Denise Monnier, site human resources/labor relations director at the Marion Metal Center.
Termination letter received by TPT workers at GM Marion Stamping Plant [Source: Facebook]
Most workers will not believe the nonsense that the UAW was blindsided in this shameless firing of the most vulnerable workers. The UAW-GM contract passed October 18 was carefully worded to allow the company to lay off and rehire temporary workers at will, so that they never qualify for full-time employment with benefits.
The so-called “path to full-time employment” in the contract highlights touted by the UAW is no guarantee of full-time work, but a giant loophole: temps will be hired in at full-time positions only after three “consecutive” years of employment. If temporary workers are laid off for 30 days or more and then re-hired, they must start again from the beginning.
The announcement makes clear the class character and bankruptcy of the UAW, which betrayed 48,000 workers who sacrificed for 40 days on strike in October by negotiating a contract that wrested deeper concessions from the workers to serve the profit interests of GM and the banks and financial institutions behind it.
The agreement, passed in October amid widespread UAW intimidation, was widely opposed by rank-and-file workers. It allows the company to expand its low-paid temporary workforce and sanctions the shutdown of three factories and one parts facility: the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant; the Warren and Baltimore transmission plants; and the Fontano, California, parts distribution center.
After the sellout contract was pushed through, GM immediately took action to fire militant workers who had spoken out on social media against the concessions contract. The workers received no protection from the UAW.
Those termination moves came after GM fired workers at its complex in Silao, Mexico who refused to increase production of the highly profitable Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks to offset the company’s lost profits during the strike. The Mexican workers took this action to support their working class brothers and sisters in the US.
The TPT layoffs at GM Marion Stamping are a part of the corporation’s international strategy to beat out its rivals in the automotive industry in a race to lower the cost of labor in the battle to win market share for the development of electric and self-driving vehicles.
On Tuesday, GM announced that 814 hourly and salaried workers at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Michigan will be laid off beginning February 28. According to the company, these workers will be forced to uproot their lives and families for alternative opportunities elsewhere in Michigan and Ohio while the plant is retooled for production of electric vehicles, due to begin in 2021.
This attack was also sanctioned in the UAW-signed contract. The Detroit-Hamtramck plant was originally slated for closure, but the contract “negotiated” a deal that would allow it to remain open with a $3 billion investment to produce an electric pickup truck and van model. After retooling, the plant will allegedly have 2,225 employees.
GM announced Thursday that it will partner with South Korea’s LG Chem to build a new $2.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant near the site of the shuttered Lordstown complex. This plant will be operated under a separate UAW contract, where workers will earn substandard wages. The majority of the 1,600 workers at the closed Lordstown plant were forced to relocate while others took a paltry buyout offer.
The UAW itself is steeped in crisis after corruption allegations began to emerge in early 2018, leading to a number of officials being charged and implicated in bribery scandals, and revelations surfacing of top officials, including former UAW presidents Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, spending workers’ union dues on personal luxuries.
Jones resigned from his position as UAW international president and from membership in the UAW after a lawsuit was brought by GM against rival automaker Fiat Chrysler (FCA) which provided further evidence on the UAW corruption case. Jones had been implicated in the scandal and was under investigation by federal authorities while overseeing the drawing up of sellout contracts at both GM and Ford.
On Friday, acting UAW President Rory Gamble announced that the UAW will disband the 17-state UAW Region 5 in an attempt to put a “reform” gloss over the badly discredited union by distancing itself from the corruption of Region 5 leaders such as Jones and his former aide and ex-Region 5 director, Vance Pearson, who was charged in September with embezzlement of union funds, money laundering and fraud.
Gamble’s move is a way to buy time for an organization on its last legs. Gamble has deep ties to leaders at the top of the apparatus who have committed outright fraud, serving as Region 1A director in southeast Michigan before climbing his way up to the UAW-Ford vice presidency in 2018.
The contracts negotiated at GM and Ford and that currently being negotiated at Fiat Chrysler have been drawn up by criminals in the UAW and corporate ruling elite. They should be considered null and void. Rank-and-file workers must themselves organize a fightback against all of the attacks imposed under these contracts. No trust whatsoever can be placed in the UAW or any unions in the AFL-CIO for reform.
There is only one way forward for autoworkers in this fight. Workers in auto plants throughout the US must form rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions and pro-corporate Democratic and Republican parties, and hold meetings to democratically discuss and decide upon their own demands. These demands should include, but not be limited to, a guarantee that all TPT workers be made full-time with full pay and benefits, that all closed plants be reopened, and all terminated workers rehired with no further plant closures or layoffs, and a 30 percent wage increase and free health care benefits for all workers.
The UAW’s strategy to force through concessions was based on the tactics of isolation. Not only did they isolate GM workers on strike from workers at Ford and FCA and other workers in the US, they isolated them from the immense strength of the international working class by pitting workers of one country against another.
For this reason, rank-and-file committees must demand the rehiring of the fired workers in Silao, Mexico and build international bonds with other sections of workers, including autoworkers, around the world.

No comments: