“If Whitmer were really concerned about COVID-19, she would never have allowed manufacturing to re-open”
Sterling Heights Assembly workers demand shutdown as coronavirus spreads in factories throughout US
Support is growing among autoworkers throughout the country for a nationwide shutdown of the auto industry to contain the spread of the pandemic.
On Sunday night, Michigan health officials acknowledged that manufacturing and construction sites were among the top locations for COVID-19 outbreaks in the state, but these were explicitly left out of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s partial lockdown measures.
Last week, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also admitted that outbreaks in industrial locations, including auto factories, meatpacking and food processing plants and logistics firms, were one of the chief drivers of the new surge.
In the Detroit area, the most significant outbreak appears to be taking place at Fiat Chrysler’s Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), the largest auto plant in the area. All of the shop stewards for United Auto Workers Local 1700 have been sent home to quarantine and at least one worker, Mark Bianchi, is already dead. A worker informed the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter that 25 people in the paint department alone were sent home on Friday due to exposure.
In opposition to the UAW’s support for management sacrificing workers’ lives for profit, the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant Rank-and-File Safety Committee issued a statement on Saturday calling for a work stoppage to halt production to save lives and to demand full compensation for all affected workers. The committee calls on workers not to return to work until all necessary safety measures have been taken, including daily testing of the entire workforce, full pay for workers under quarantine, the immediate publication of all cases in the plant and an end to company and UAW intimidation against workers who speak out to the media or on Facebook.
Just south of SHAP, the virus is also raging out of control at FCA Sterling Stamping Plant. Over 30 infections have now been confirmed. Yesterday UAW Local 1264 closed its union hall and several “committeemen, stewards and a benefit rep” have been sent home, according to the local. However, even as its own officials are being sent home to quarantine, the UAW is insisting that workers remain on the job to produce profits for the auto companies. A detailed analysis of the outbreak at Sterling Stamping was published last week on the World Socialist Web Site.
“We need to close down, test everyone and start over,” one furious Sterling Stamping worker said. “Also enforce mask mandates that a large percentage of our brothers and sisters are not following. Our senior workforce is very vulnerable!”
Workers are also reporting that major outbreaks are underway at other Detroit-area plants, including Warren Truck and Warren Stamping.
All of these plants are located in major population centers, heightening the danger that the disease is spreading outward from the factories into the surrounding communities. “There are [7,000] people inside this plant who travel here from all over the state,” one SHAP worker said. “They take COVID-19 50 miles north and spread it to their families and friends.”
Sunday evening, Governor Whitmer, a Democrat, announced a three-week partial lockdown for the state. The measures exempt manufacturing, construction and other workplaces even though the state Department of Health and Human Services said, “Michigan’s house is on fire,” and the governor warned that the state was on a path to see as many as 1,000 people dying every week. Michigan already has 251,813 confirmed cases and 7,994 deaths.
While in-person learning for older students at colleges and high schools will be suspended for three weeks, K-8 schools will remain open, in order to ensure that parents will be able to remain at work. The exception will be in Detroit, which was forced to end K-12 in person schooling last week.
Every serious public health care expert knows that the spread of deadly contagion cannot be contained unless non-essential production and schools and universities are closed. But the entire political establishment—from Trump and the Republicans, to Biden, Whitmer and the Democrats—are completely opposed to such measures. Within hours of calling for a six-week national lockdown, with all wages and income for workers guaranteed by the federal government, renowned infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, was forced to take back his statements after Biden transition officials made it clear the president-elect was against a national shutdown.
“If Whitmer were really concerned about COVID-19, she would never have allowed manufacturing to re-open in the first place,” the SHAP worker said.
Sunday’s announcement also explodes the desperate attempts by United Auto Workers (UAW) officials at Sterling Heights to prevent a job action by workers to halt production. Over the weekend, UAW Local 1700 officials circulated a statement combining threats against workers for their social media use with a call for them to look to Whitmer to enforce another lockdown, suggesting that she was responsible for closing the plants last March. Whitmer never shut down the Michigan auto industry, which was deemed an “essential business” and exempted from her executive order in March.
The auto industry was only shut down from late-March to May because of a wildcat strike wave, which included workers at SHAP and quickly spread throughout the country, initiated by workers outraged that production was continuing even as schools and restaurants were closed. By taking the initiative into their own hands and in defiance of the UAW, autoworkers were able to save countless lives.
There is growing support at SHAP and other factories for another wildcat. “I hope we stop production,” another SHAP worker said. “It’s terrible. There’s no safety. They are not notifying people if people are infected. It was only the walkouts by workers that helped us to close the industry. The union is not helping us, not keeping us safe.”
A third SHAP worker with six years at Fiat Chrysler said, “The plants should be shut down. We’re around our co-workers in the plant for a longer time than we are with our families. Right now, its boiling over at SHAP and also the Sterling Stamping plant. I don’t want to bring this disease home to my children or my parents.
“Workers who are exposed are being told they should not take time off. They’re saying you have to have been exposed to an infected person for 15 minutes before you can take off. It’s like they’re telling workers: ‘You don’t have it, get back to work.’ And a lot of the workers who are quarantined aren’t getting compensation.
“At the entrance they have a machine that takes your temperature but that doesn’t catch asymptomatic workers who can spread COVID inside the plant. We used to have additional break times to clean and sanitize our workstations, but they’ve taken most of them away.
“Now they are talking about running the plant 24 hours a day, with five or six eight-hour days, instead of four, 10-hour days. We’ll be on tag relief, with a shift coming in right after us with little or no time for social distancing.
“They want us to work through the holidays, saying we already had two months off when the industry was shut down. We’ll be working every weekend through New Year. There won’t even be time for the plant to air out.
“They don’t want to shut down the plant, they just want to keep car production going. But we’re going to have to make them close just like we did in March.”
Autoworkers at SHAP and other plants must take matters into their own hands by expanding the network of rank-and-file safety committees and fighting for the immediate shutdown of non-essential production and full compensation to workers, small businesses, the unemployed and all those affected by the pandemic. This means a fight to redirect the vast profits of the giant auto companies and the trillions handed over to Wall Street by both corporate-controlled parties to fight the pandemic and protect both the lives and livelihoods of workers and their families.
Corporate damage control: Detroit News parrots management, UAW lies about COVID safety conditions at US auto plants
As signs continue to mount of major and deadly outbreaks of coronavirus in the auto plants, the Detroit News published an article this week, based entirely on the self-serving statements of United Auto Workers bureaucrats and Detroit auto executives, claiming that the conditions in the plant are pristine, thanks to policies implemented by the union and management.
The piece by the favored newspaper of Detroit big business, “How automakers are reemphasizing COVID-19 protocols as cases rise” is a shameless attempt at damage control as the real situation, which is being documented by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, is spiraling out of control.
Our reporting has uncovered at least 26 infections at Fiat Chrysler's (FCA) Sterling Stamping Plant (a figure which has since risen), evidence of outbreaks in multiple departments at FCA Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, over 100 cases at the FCA Tipton Transmission north of Indianpolis and a major outbreak at the Faurecia Gladstone parts plant, also in Indiana.
In addition, a whistleblower at FCA Jefferson North Assembly Plant recently leaked a management report, which had been shared with UAW Local 7, showing at least 59 cases and two deaths in the Detroit plant. The document, which contains a detailed breakdown of cases, demonstrates that management and the UAW are carefully tracking the spread in secret, while workers continue to be infected on the line.
That major outbreaks are underway in the auto industry is hardly surprising, given that daily infections in the US are smashing previous records on a daily basis. On Friday, the US recorded more than 183,000 cases and nearly 1,400 deaths. Even Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was compelled to acknowledge that factories and workplaces are a key driver of the new surge in the pandemic. This is corroborated by the Autoworker Newsletter which found that cases in Sterling Stamping are rising significantly faster than in the surrounding community.
Though not explicitly mentioning the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, the timing of the article in the News suggests it was commissioned by the editors at least partially as a response to our exposures of major outbreaks of COVID-19 in auto plants, especially the recent report from Sterling Stamping, which has gained a widespread readership.
The News account of the pandemic in the auto industry is a lie from beginning to end. It begins by flatly declaring that the virus has been brought under control: “Mask wearing, symptom screenings and physical distancing have proven keys to avoiding COVID outbreaks in U.S. auto plants and keeping them running during the coronavirus pandemic,” it says.
It continues: “Factories across the country were shut down for two months—from late March to mid-May—in the first wave of the pandemic. That led the United Auto Workers to call for caution in reopening plans and widespread testing.”
Through this deft use of passive voice (factories “were shut down”), the News continues the cover-up by the corporate press of the wildcat strike wave which forced the shutdown of the industry. The first strikes took place at Sterling Heights Assembly only hours after the UAW announced a deal with the Detroit automakers to keep the plants running. Moreover, the strikes in the United States were part of a global strike wave in the industry spanning from Mexico to Italy against the attempts by the global auto companies to keep production going.
Blindsided by the explosive outrage of autoworkers, who quickly took matters into their own hands, the automakers and the union took advantage of the shutdown to try to ensure that such job actions would not take place again once production reopened.
While lying to workers and the public about the extent of the virus in the plants, management and the UAW are seeking to shift the blame for infections from themselves onto the backs of workers themselves. One of the more grotesque examples was a communique recently circulated in a Detroit area plant instructing workers to social distance from their pets.
Standing reality on its head, the News declares: “Detroit automakers are doubling down on efforts to reinforce the good behaviors of their employees—both inside and outside work—in hopes of avoiding future shutdowns and keeping their workforce healthy [emphasis added].”
The News passes on the bland statements by management and UAW officials that the work environment in the auto plants is completely safe. “‘The safety protocols are working,’” said Eric Welter, United Auto Workers Local 598 chairman for General Motors Co.’s truck plant in Flint. “‘Wearing a mask all the time is not a fun day, but it’s really important to keeping people protected and safe and healthy. It makes me sleep at night knowing not a bunch of people are getting sick in the factory.’” In fact, workers are bombarding the Autoworker Newsletter with information about how management is not enforcing the wearing of masks, with many supervisors walking the floor without proper personal protective equipment (PPE).
The author also cited the remarks of UAW press spokesperson Brian Rothenberg, who claimed: “[That the virus not spreading] is due to the fact that if someone is exposed outside of the plant, we continue to follow protocols including quarantines of those in the plant exposed to the person who contracted the virus.”
Parroting management PR the News continues, “Workers themselves, the companies added, have been good about opting out through their daily questionnaires when they feel ill or have been exposed to the virus.”
In fact, management is not even informing workers who are potentially exposed. Workers are forced to jump through hoops even to notify management that they have been exposed, and face the loss of income if they quarantine while waiting for test results.
Summing up the situation, one worker at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant told the Autoworker Newsletter: “We have had multiple cases, and some we don’t find out about until the people return or tell a co-worker. The managers don’t inform you—four people I work with closely have had it and I still haven’t been notified. [The screening] we have before entering is crap and everyone doesn’t always develop a fever—[there is] no safety, nothing really is being pushed.”
To provide a token semblance of “balance,” the News quotes a worker at the FCA Warren Truck plant paint shop. “I don’t feel as though the precautions they are taking are enough,” the worker said. “I’m homeschooling my child so that there are less germs coming into my plant. What else are we going to do? I've got to pay our checks and bills. It puts you between a rock and a hard place.” Warren Truck was one of the plants where work stoppages occurred in March.
The News cites a pro forma statement by a Ford official who declares, “If we do have a situation, we will do the right thing for the people. If we have to shut down, we'll shut down.” In reality, industry executives such as Mary Barra have categorically ruled out a new shutdown.
The fact that the News, seemingly out of the blue and after largely ignoring the conditions in the plants, felt the need to publish an article downplaying the dangers is a testament to the extreme nervousness of the automakers. Having restored the industry to profitability on the basis of a premature reopening and breakneck overwork, including 84-hour workweeks and forced overtime, they know very well that they are sitting on a powder-keg of social anger. It is worth noting that similar fluff pieces, ascribing a deep concern of the ruthless executives and well-heeled union bureaucrats for the safety of the workforce, had also appeared in March, in the days before wildcat strikes shut down the industry.
“It’s all about production,” another Dearborn Truck worker said. “They can’t care less about people’s lives or family when they want you at work to build them cars. It’s out of control; we will all be infected if nobody helps us. They need to shut down immediately; it’s getting worse and they are covering it up.”
As the WSWS explained in March in the week before the wildcats, all rational and scientific approaches to the virus, including a shutdown of nonessential production, collides against the capitalist profit system, which is prepared to sacrifice workers’ lives to defend the share values of the major corporations. The logic of this conflict must lead to a mass, international movement of autoworkers, together with workers in every industry, to shut non-essential production, with full compensation for lost hours, and for workers’ control over health and safety in the workplace. The massive profits of the auto companies and Wall Street should be used to provide full compensation to workers, small businesses and the unemployed impacted by safety shutdowns.
The Autoworker Newsletter and the Socialist Equality Party are helping workers build a network of rank-and-file committees, independent of and in opposition to the trade unions and democratically controlled by workers themselves throughout the world to prepare workers for this struggle. With prospects for a COVID vaccine growing, the fight against the needless exposure of workers is more critical than ever, rather than the enrichment of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Corporate damage control: Detroit News parrots management, UAW lies about COVID safety conditions at US auto plants
As signs continue to mount of major and deadly outbreaks of coronavirus in the auto plants, the Detroit News published an article this week, based entirely on the self-serving statements of United Auto Workers bureaucrats and Detroit auto executives, claiming that the conditions in the plant are pristine, thanks to policies implemented by the union and management.
The piece by the favored newspaper of Detroit big business, “How automakers are reemphasizing COVID-19 protocols as cases rise” is a shameless attempt at damage control as the real situation, which is being documented by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, is spiraling out of control.
Our reporting has uncovered at least 26 infections at Fiat Chrysler's (FCA) Sterling Stamping Plant (a figure which has since risen), evidence of outbreaks in multiple departments at FCA Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, over 100 cases at the FCA Tipton Transmission north of Indianpolis and a major outbreak at the Faurecia Gladstone parts plant, also in Indiana.
In addition, a whistleblower at FCA Jefferson North Assembly Plant recently leaked a management report, which had been shared with UAW Local 7, showing at least 59 cases and two deaths in the Detroit plant. The document, which contains a detailed breakdown of cases, demonstrates that management and the UAW are carefully tracking the spread in secret, while workers continue to be infected on the line.
That major outbreaks are underway in the auto industry is hardly surprising, given that daily infections in the US are smashing previous records on a daily basis. On Friday, the US recorded more than 183,000 cases and nearly 1,400 deaths. Even Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was compelled to acknowledge that factories and workplaces are a key driver of the new surge in the pandemic. This is corroborated by the Autoworker Newsletter which found that cases in Sterling Stamping are rising significantly faster than in the surrounding community.
Though not explicitly mentioning the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, the timing of the article in the News suggests it was commissioned by the editors at least partially as a response to our exposures of major outbreaks of COVID-19 in auto plants, especially the recent report from Sterling Stamping, which has gained a widespread readership.
The News account of the pandemic in the auto industry is a lie from beginning to end. It begins by flatly declaring that the virus has been brought under control: “Mask wearing, symptom screenings and physical distancing have proven keys to avoiding COVID outbreaks in U.S. auto plants and keeping them running during the coronavirus pandemic,” it says.
It continues: “Factories across the country were shut down for two months—from late March to mid-May—in the first wave of the pandemic. That led the United Auto Workers to call for caution in reopening plans and widespread testing.”
Through this deft use of passive voice (factories “were shut down”), the News continues the cover-up by the corporate press of the wildcat strike wave which forced the shutdown of the industry. The first strikes took place at Sterling Heights Assembly only hours after the UAW announced a deal with the Detroit automakers to keep the plants running. Moreover, the strikes in the United States were part of a global strike wave in the industry spanning from Mexico to Italy against the attempts by the global auto companies to keep production going.
Blindsided by the explosive outrage of autoworkers, who quickly took matters into their own hands, the automakers and the union took advantage of the shutdown to try to ensure that such job actions would not take place again once production reopened.
While lying to workers and the public about the extent of the virus in the plants, management and the UAW are seeking to shift the blame for infections from themselves onto the backs of workers themselves. One of the more grotesque examples was a communique recently circulated in a Detroit area plant instructing workers to social distance from their pets.
Standing reality on its head, the News declares: “Detroit automakers are doubling down on efforts to reinforce the good behaviors of their employees—both inside and outside work—in hopes of avoiding future shutdowns and keeping their workforce healthy [emphasis added].”
The News passes on the bland statements by management and UAW officials that the work environment in the auto plants is completely safe. “‘The safety protocols are working,’” said Eric Welter, United Auto Workers Local 598 chairman for General Motors Co.’s truck plant in Flint. “‘Wearing a mask all the time is not a fun day, but it’s really important to keeping people protected and safe and healthy. It makes me sleep at night knowing not a bunch of people are getting sick in the factory.’” In fact, workers are bombarding the Autoworker Newsletter with information about how management is not enforcing the wearing of masks, with many supervisors walking the floor without proper personal protective equipment (PPE).
The author also cited the remarks of UAW press spokesperson Brian Rothenberg, who claimed: “[That the virus not spreading] is due to the fact that if someone is exposed outside of the plant, we continue to follow protocols including quarantines of those in the plant exposed to the person who contracted the virus.”
Parroting management PR the News continues, “Workers themselves, the companies added, have been good about opting out through their daily questionnaires when they feel ill or have been exposed to the virus.”
In fact, management is not even informing workers who are potentially exposed. Workers are forced to jump through hoops even to notify management that they have been exposed, and face the loss of income if they quarantine while waiting for test results.
Summing up the situation, one worker at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant told the Autoworker Newsletter: “We have had multiple cases, and some we don’t find out about until the people return or tell a co-worker. The managers don’t inform you—four people I work with closely have had it and I still haven’t been notified. [The screening] we have before entering is crap and everyone doesn’t always develop a fever—[there is] no safety, nothing really is being pushed.”
To provide a token semblance of “balance,” the News quotes a worker at the FCA Warren Truck plant paint shop. “I don’t feel as though the precautions they are taking are enough,” the worker said. “I’m homeschooling my child so that there are less germs coming into my plant. What else are we going to do? I've got to pay our checks and bills. It puts you between a rock and a hard place.” Warren Truck was one of the plants where work stoppages occurred in March.
The News cites a pro forma statement by a Ford official who declares, “If we do have a situation, we will do the right thing for the people. If we have to shut down, we'll shut down.” In reality, industry executives such as Mary Barra have categorically ruled out a new shutdown.
The fact that the News, seemingly out of the blue and after largely ignoring the conditions in the plants, felt the need to publish an article downplaying the dangers is a testament to the extreme nervousness of the automakers. Having restored the industry to profitability on the basis of a premature reopening and breakneck overwork, including 84-hour workweeks and forced overtime, they know very well that they are sitting on a powder-keg of social anger. It is worth noting that similar fluff pieces, ascribing a deep concern of the ruthless executives and well-heeled union bureaucrats for the safety of the workforce, had also appeared in March, in the days before wildcat strikes shut down the industry.
“It’s all about production,” another Dearborn Truck worker said. “They can’t care less about people’s lives or family when they want you at work to build them cars. It’s out of control; we will all be infected if nobody helps us. They need to shut down immediately; it’s getting worse and they are covering it up.”
As the WSWS explained in March in the week before the wildcats, all rational and scientific approaches to the virus, including a shutdown of nonessential production, collides against the capitalist profit system, which is prepared to sacrifice workers’ lives to defend the share values of the major corporations. The logic of this conflict must lead to a mass, international movement of autoworkers, together with workers in every industry, to shut non-essential production, with full compensation for lost hours, and for workers’ control over health and safety in the workplace. The massive profits of the auto companies and Wall Street should be used to provide full compensation to workers, small businesses and the unemployed impacted by safety shutdowns.
The Autoworker Newsletter and the Socialist Equality Party are helping workers build a network of rank-and-file committees, independent of and in opposition to the trade unions and democratically controlled by workers themselves throughout the world to prepare workers for this struggle. With prospects for a COVID vaccine growing, the fight against the needless exposure of workers is more critical than ever, rather than the enrichment of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Corporate damage control: Detroit News parrots management, UAW lies about COVID safety conditions at US auto plants
As signs continue to mount of major and deadly outbreaks of coronavirus in the auto plants, the Detroit News published an article this week, based entirely on the self-serving statements of United Auto Workers bureaucrats and Detroit auto executives, claiming that the conditions in the plant are pristine, thanks to policies implemented by the union and management.
The piece by the favored newspaper of Detroit big business, “How automakers are reemphasizing COVID-19 protocols as cases rise” is a shameless attempt at damage control as the real situation, which is being documented by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, is spiraling out of control.
Our reporting has uncovered at least 26 infections at Fiat Chrysler's (FCA) Sterling Stamping Plant (a figure which has since risen), evidence of outbreaks in multiple departments at FCA Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, over 100 cases at the FCA Tipton Transmission north of Indianpolis and a major outbreak at the Faurecia Gladstone parts plant, also in Indiana.
In addition, a whistleblower at FCA Jefferson North Assembly Plant recently leaked a management report, which had been shared with UAW Local 7, showing at least 59 cases and two deaths in the Detroit plant. The document, which contains a detailed breakdown of cases, demonstrates that management and the UAW are carefully tracking the spread in secret, while workers continue to be infected on the line.
That major outbreaks are underway in the auto industry is hardly surprising, given that daily infections in the US are smashing previous records on a daily basis. On Friday, the US recorded more than 183,000 cases and nearly 1,400 deaths. Even Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was compelled to acknowledge that factories and workplaces are a key driver of the new surge in the pandemic. This is corroborated by the Autoworker Newsletter which found that cases in Sterling Stamping are rising significantly faster than in the surrounding community.
Though not explicitly mentioning the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, the timing of the article in the News suggests it was commissioned by the editors at least partially as a response to our exposures of major outbreaks of COVID-19 in auto plants, especially the recent report from Sterling Stamping, which has gained a widespread readership.
The News account of the pandemic in the auto industry is a lie from beginning to end. It begins by flatly declaring that the virus has been brought under control: “Mask wearing, symptom screenings and physical distancing have proven keys to avoiding COVID outbreaks in U.S. auto plants and keeping them running during the coronavirus pandemic,” it says.
It continues: “Factories across the country were shut down for two months—from late March to mid-May—in the first wave of the pandemic. That led the United Auto Workers to call for caution in reopening plans and widespread testing.”
Through this deft use of passive voice (factories “were shut down”), the News continues the cover-up by the corporate press of the wildcat strike wave which forced the shutdown of the industry. The first strikes took place at Sterling Heights Assembly only hours after the UAW announced a deal with the Detroit automakers to keep the plants running. Moreover, the strikes in the United States were part of a global strike wave in the industry spanning from Mexico to Italy against the attempts by the global auto companies to keep production going.
Blindsided by the explosive outrage of autoworkers, who quickly took matters into their own hands, the automakers and the union took advantage of the shutdown to try to ensure that such job actions would not take place again once production reopened.
While lying to workers and the public about the extent of the virus in the plants, management and the UAW are seeking to shift the blame for infections from themselves onto the backs of workers themselves. One of the more grotesque examples was a communique recently circulated in a Detroit area plant instructing workers to social distance from their pets.
Standing reality on its head, the News declares: “Detroit automakers are doubling down on efforts to reinforce the good behaviors of their employees—both inside and outside work—in hopes of avoiding future shutdowns and keeping their workforce healthy [emphasis added].”
The News passes on the bland statements by management and UAW officials that the work environment in the auto plants is completely safe. “‘The safety protocols are working,’” said Eric Welter, United Auto Workers Local 598 chairman for General Motors Co.’s truck plant in Flint. “‘Wearing a mask all the time is not a fun day, but it’s really important to keeping people protected and safe and healthy. It makes me sleep at night knowing not a bunch of people are getting sick in the factory.’” In fact, workers are bombarding the Autoworker Newsletter with information about how management is not enforcing the wearing of masks, with many supervisors walking the floor without proper personal protective equipment (PPE).
The author also cited the remarks of UAW press spokesperson Brian Rothenberg, who claimed: “[That the virus not spreading] is due to the fact that if someone is exposed outside of the plant, we continue to follow protocols including quarantines of those in the plant exposed to the person who contracted the virus.”
Parroting management PR the News continues, “Workers themselves, the companies added, have been good about opting out through their daily questionnaires when they feel ill or have been exposed to the virus.”
In fact, management is not even informing workers who are potentially exposed. Workers are forced to jump through hoops even to notify management that they have been exposed, and face the loss of income if they quarantine while waiting for test results.
Summing up the situation, one worker at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant told the Autoworker Newsletter: “We have had multiple cases, and some we don’t find out about until the people return or tell a co-worker. The managers don’t inform you—four people I work with closely have had it and I still haven’t been notified. [The screening] we have before entering is crap and everyone doesn’t always develop a fever—[there is] no safety, nothing really is being pushed.”
To provide a token semblance of “balance,” the News quotes a worker at the FCA Warren Truck plant paint shop. “I don’t feel as though the precautions they are taking are enough,” the worker said. “I’m homeschooling my child so that there are less germs coming into my plant. What else are we going to do? I've got to pay our checks and bills. It puts you between a rock and a hard place.” Warren Truck was one of the plants where work stoppages occurred in March.
The News cites a pro forma statement by a Ford official who declares, “If we do have a situation, we will do the right thing for the people. If we have to shut down, we'll shut down.” In reality, industry executives such as Mary Barra have categorically ruled out a new shutdown.
The fact that the News, seemingly out of the blue and after largely ignoring the conditions in the plants, felt the need to publish an article downplaying the dangers is a testament to the extreme nervousness of the automakers. Having restored the industry to profitability on the basis of a premature reopening and breakneck overwork, including 84-hour workweeks and forced overtime, they know very well that they are sitting on a powder-keg of social anger. It is worth noting that similar fluff pieces, ascribing a deep concern of the ruthless executives and well-heeled union bureaucrats for the safety of the workforce, had also appeared in March, in the days before wildcat strikes shut down the industry.
“It’s all about production,” another Dearborn Truck worker said. “They can’t care less about people’s lives or family when they want you at work to build them cars. It’s out of control; we will all be infected if nobody helps us. They need to shut down immediately; it’s getting worse and they are covering it up.”
As the WSWS explained in March in the week before the wildcats, all rational and scientific approaches to the virus, including a shutdown of nonessential production, collides against the capitalist profit system, which is prepared to sacrifice workers’ lives to defend the share values of the major corporations. The logic of this conflict must lead to a mass, international movement of autoworkers, together with workers in every industry, to shut non-essential production, with full compensation for lost hours, and for workers’ control over health and safety in the workplace. The massive profits of the auto companies and Wall Street should be used to provide full compensation to workers, small businesses and the unemployed impacted by safety shutdowns.
No comments:
Post a Comment