US Chamber of Commerce calls on Biden to head off national railroad strike
On Wednesday, the US Chamber of Commerce issued an open letter to President Biden urging him to take measures to block a nationwide railroad strike. Railroad workers at all seven Class I major railroads have been without a new contract for nearly three years and are currently balloting to approve strike action.
The big-business body urged Biden to appoint a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) to impose a settlement on the railroad workers. A PEB is one of the last steps in the maze of legally required federal mediation steps under the Railway Labor Act, a pro-business law aimed at all but banning strikes. Under the law, Biden can move to appoint such a board as early as 12:01 AM on July 18, when a 30-day cooling-off period expires. It is widely expected that this is exactly what the White House will do.
Such a move was necessary, the letter said, to protect the “American economy,” the Chamber officials claimed. “The U.S. business community faces enormous challenges today from record inflation, labor shortages, and ongoing supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” it declared. “Any breakdown would be disastrous for U.S. consumers and the economy, and potentially return us to the historic supply chain challenges during the depths of the pandemic.” This professed concern for the American consumer is the same language a federal judge used to justify an injunction earlier this year to block a potential strike by BNSF railroad workers against the punishing new “Hi-Viz” attendance policy.
In reality, supply chains are being stretched to the breaking point as a consequence of the profit-driven policies carried out by capitalist governments in the US and around the world and their refusal to take any serious public health measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Tens of thousands of railroaders have been driven out of the industry in recent years due to sickness and impossible working conditions. As a result, the remaining workers have been pushed beyond their physical limits.
One former railroader who worked for six years in the industry told the WSWS: “The last five years we all saw the railroad plummet. The quality of life with family is nonexistent. Trying to ask off is like pulling teeth. It takes forever to get a decent amount of vacation and when you do ask off, management puts a guilt trip on you or just flat out denies your vacation. They preach about safety in every briefing we had, but in the next sentence they wanted us working in the most unsafe conditions. One supervisor said, ‘I don’t care how you get it done, just get it done and get the cars up the hill!’
“After I got furloughed last year, I made a very hard decision to not go back, and it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It’s very sad to see the bigwigs make millions of dollars and then on top of that they get million-dollar bonuses. At the same time, while they are making their multiple million-dollar salary, tons of railroaders are busting their ass, or worse, getting furloughed.
“The railroad definitely needs an attitude adjustment and I hope the boys stick together and strike. I will support them all the way and will encourage them to stand up for themselves and make a stand against the greedy corporate men and women.”
The fact that the nation’s preeminent business organization is calling upon the government to intervene to prevent a strike is wholly expected. But in fact, the Chamber of Commerce is trailing after the Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood Of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the other 11 unions in the United Rail Unions bargaining coalition, which have been pushing for the appointment of a PEB since late May.
Even though it has been compelled to call a strike vote due to rank-and-file anger over brutal scheduling and stagnating wages, the unions have no intention of calling a walkout. Instead, they are working hand-in-glove with the White House and corporate America to essentially illegalize strikes and impose a settlement favorable to the railroads.
The Biden administration is accelerating its corporatist policy of drawing the unions and the corporations more closely into government structures in the name of defending “national interests.” The aim of this is to suppress the resistance of workers to corporate-government demands that they pay for the capitalist economic crisis and the massive cost of war against Russia and ultimately China. Biden’s plan is to use the corrupt, pro-corporate trade union bureaucracy as an extension of state repression against the rising wave of strikes and working-class resistance.
The developments in the railroads come amid an extraordinary intervention by the White House to block a strike on the West Coast docks. Administration officials are in daily discussions with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the employers’ group the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). In a joint statement last month with the PMA shortly after Biden’s visit to the Port of Los Angeles, the ILWU declared that it had no intention of even preparing for a strike. Instead, it has forced 22,000 dockworkers to stay on the job a week after the expiration of their previous contract on July 1.
Numerous business groups have issued similarly nervous statements about the potential of a dock strike, urging even more direct involvement by Biden in the name of preserving “the integrity of American supply chains.” In reality, they know that a struggle at either the docks or the railroads would have immense impact on workers around the country and the world. Last month, nationwide strikes took place in the British railways and in the ports of Germany and Greece.
The United Rail Unions (URU) would have workers believe that the PEB would be a neutral body or even favorable to railroaders. In a joint statement last month, it called on workers to call their Congresspeople “to voice their support for a labor-friendly PEB, and if necessary, labor-friendly legislation to bring this round of bargaining to a successful conclusion.”
But the same White House is backing the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes aimed at driving up unemployment, even to the point of sparking a recession, to drive down wages. The federal judge’s strikebreaking injunction against BNSF workers earlier this year was met with a guilty silence from the White House, which hypocritically claims to defend “workers’ rights.”
Indeed, the URU is compelled to acknowledge in the same statement that even if the White House fails to enforce a settlement, Congress would likely intervene to pass a law preventing a strike. While it is certain to respond favorably to requests from the unions and the Chamber of Commerce to appoint a PEB, the White House did not bother to respond to a groveling union letter to intervene against Hi-Viz.
Among railroaders, a different mood is taking hold. They are fed up with the endless days and bureaucratic maneuvers and are determined to wage a struggle. In response to the impending PEB, one worker said, “If it takes [union officials] going to jail [for striking in violation of the RLA], then go to jail. A lot of us are willing and ready to walk off the job, no matter what the PEB board says. If they don’t get what we need, then I will throw away my 20 years on this job and start a new career in a different industry.”
Another worker told the World Socialist Web Site,“It’s time to change these things. It’s time to make the railroads realize exactly who makes the record profits that they enjoy, and who is really in control of their destiny. The proverbial pie is getting bigger, but the piece that the actual workers are given to divide is getting smaller. It’s time to make the necessary changes.”
A real fight must begin not by subordinating workers to the government and the Railway Labor Act but from rejecting this completely undemocratic and illegitimate framework. Workers are up against not only the railroads but against the union officialdom and the US government which, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, is the tool of big business. A fight to defend the needs of workers necessitates a fight against the ever expanding US proxy war against Russia, which threatens to erupt into a world war.
Everything depends on the independent initiative of workers themselves. The strike vote, which is expected to be near unanimous, cannot be a worthless gesture. Workers are ready to fight but they need to organize a nationwide rank-and-file strike committee, independent of the union apparatus, to outline their demands for inflation-busting wages, an end to intolerable schedules and dangerous working conditions and other critical improvements. This strike committee should also communicate with and coordinate joint action with dockworkers, truck drivers and other critical sections of the working class.
Strike called at General Dynamics Mission Systems plant in Marion, Virginia after workers vote down tentative agreement
Are you a General Dynamics Mission Systems worker in Marion, Virginia? Fill out the form at the end of the article and tell us what you think about the UAW’s role in the strike, the tentative agreement and what your working conditions are like. We will protect your anonymity.
Late Friday night, July 1, members of United Auto Workers 2850 went on strike after they rejected a tentative agreement between General Dynamics Mission Systems in Marion, Virginia and Local 2850. The action was called after a month of negotiations with the defense systems manufacturer.
Though the unions’ official demands are not public, according to UAW Local 2850 president Alan Keesee, a cost-of-living adjustment is a central demand by workers. The last contract was agreed five years ago. Now with surging inflation, workers pay is being sharply eroded.
There are over 250 employed at the Marion plant. According to the company website, General Dynamics Mission Systems “provides mission-critical solutions to the challenges facing defense, intelligence and cyber security customers across all domains.”
Additionally, the website states, “We build products and deliver technology for platforms like combat vehicles, submarines, aircraft, satellites and advanced systems that can sense danger, quickly act on threats and share lifesaving information.”
As the United States ramps up its war machine as it takes aim at Russia and China, profits in companies like General Dynamics are soaring.
In January of this year, General Dynamics reported “Record-high revenue and operating earnings from the collective defense segments for the year.” The company garnered net earnings of $3.3 billion on revenue of $38.5 billion.
Workers at the Marion plant correctly surmise that there is plenty of money to fairly compensate employees generating those profits from the factory floor.
In preparation for the strike, a special meeting was called of the Marion Town Council at which Police Chief John Clair informed elected leaders that his department was prepared for the strike. The Marion Police are in force on the picket lines where 100 workers are gathering under portable sun shelters.
Strikers do not rule out tensions erupting in the July heat. They recalled the last strike, in 2008, when workers walked out against cuts to benefits and in particular, their pensions. Union officials were arrested and charged with identity theft after names, salaries and Social Security numbers of management employees were displayed on structures and signs of the strikers.
However, General Dynamics workers should beware. The UAW sabotaged a series militant struggles by workers at Volvo, John Deere and Dana in 2021, and this year, at parts maker Ventra Evart. Despite massive rank-and-file rejection of the companies’ “best and final” offers, the UAW forced votes on the concessionary contracts under dubious circumstances, which resulted in ratification, sometimes by hair-thin margins.
In opposition to the pro-corporate unions, workers in these companies have formed rank-and-file committees to organize their demands independently of the union bureaucracy and to unify their struggles to break the isolation and information blackout of the UAW.
The direct election of the UAW’s president and executive board this year is itself only taking place because the revelations of the federal investigation confirmed what workers had already long suspected: The UAW is bought off by the corporations.
Because of the failure of the UAW bureaucracy to fight for its members, rank-and-file worker Will Lehman, employed at Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, has submitted his declaration of candidacy to run for president of the United Auto Workers.
Will outlines his plan to abolish the pro-corporate union bureaucracy which has abandoned the workers whose dues they gladly collect. In its place Will calls for “Full rank-and-file control and oversight, including over all bargaining, vote-counting and safety.”
General Dynamics Mission Systems workers should take their cue from workers at Ventra, Volvo, John Deere, and Dana who have organized rank-and-file committees to demand the wage and benefits increases to make up for decades of concessions handed over by the unions while the corporations who continue to rake in record profits.
Union shuts down strike against impending closure of Ford India assembly plant
The strike of 1,500 militant, mainly young workers have mounted against the plans of the transnational Ford Motor Co. to close its assembly plant on the outskirts of Chennai, the capital of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, has been suppressed and betrayed by the Chennai Ford Employees Union (CFEU).
Working in collusion with Ford management and Tamil Nadu’s DMK government, the CFEU called off the five-week-long strike on July 2, without any discussion with, let alone vote by, the striking workers.
Under an agreement reached with Ford behind the workers’ backs, the union completely abandoned the workers’ demand for job security. Underscoring its opposition to the workers’ struggle, the union has agreed that Ford can slash the severance pay of any worker who henceforth engages in job action or seeks to impede production at the plant before its planned permanent closure at the end of this month.
Although the union has done the company’s bidding, Ford has not restarted the plant’s second shift, meaning 1,300 of the 2,638 permanent workers are now without work and wages. It is expected Ford will maintain one-shift production until it ceases production on July 31. This will allow it to keep many of the younger, more militant workers who initiated the strike on May 30, independently of the CFEU, out of the factory until it is shuttered.
In the months immediately following last September’s closure, Ford got rid of a thousand contract workers at the assembly plant piecemeal. When workers at ancillary auto parts plants are included, the closure of the plant is predicted to lead to the loss of some 40,000 jobs, most of them in the Sriperumbudur industrial belt outside Chennai.
However, the unions, including those led by the Stalinists and Maoists which have a sizeable presence in Tamil Nadu, have mounted no struggle against the impending closure of the Ford factory nor sought to unite the Ford workers with their class brothers and sisters at the feeder plants.
Similarly, the Stalinist-led labour federations, the CITU and AITUC, did nothing to mobilize workers in support of the strike at the Ford India plant, thereby facilitating the CFEU’s efforts to isolate and end the strike.
The Ford workers at the Chennai plant showed great militancy, repeatedly defying threats from management and the police. Faced with a fait accompli, the CFEU sanctioned the strike, but from the beginning it refused to raise the workers’ demand for job security, focusing instead entirely on urging management to provide a few more crumbs in severance pay.
The CFEU continuously worked to isolate the strike, demoralize the workers and finally end the strike by signing the orders of management dictated in the form of an agreement made before the Assistant Labour Commissioner in Chennai. Having signed the agreement without consulting striking workers, the CFEU did not even put it up for any democratic discussion and vote by workers and just ordered them to return to work. The agreement says that for those workers who continue the protest, the severance package would be reduced to its initial offer, i.e., 87 days of base wages per year worked, and it also points to the union’s agreement with the advice of the Labour Commissioner to avoid any protest or sitdown strikes until production is completed.
Contrary to the union’s claims that management has agreed to increase the severance package from its later offer of 115 days to 121 days of base wages per year worked, the agreement says nothing concretely about the compensation. It says only that exact severance packages will be decided later through mutual discussions between the management and the union. The agreement also says nothing about management’s earlier offer on continuation of current medical insurance until March 2024.
While workers were demanding job assurance, since that is their only means of livelihood, the management with the help of the union have now pressured the workers to continue production in order to complete the remaining cars and to accept its proposed settlement package. These moves by Ford India management to crush a strike by the militant young workers who fought for more than a month and had completely halted car production was attainable only through the treachery of the unions, who isolated the workers’ militant job action. This includes not just the officially-recognized CFEU in the Ford Chennai plant but also the complete silence of the Stalinist-led union federations—the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), and also the Maoist-led LTUC (Left Trade Union Congress) which have a substantial presence, especially in Sriperumbudur Maraimalai Nagar industrial areas. Affiliated respectively to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CITU and AITUC have a substantial membership in Tamil Nadu as across India, including in the auxiliary and supplier industries of Ford plants in India.
This again proves the warnings given by the WSWS during the course of the strike about the role of unions in the era of globalised production. On June 28, at an online meeting with striking Ford workers in Chennai who were interested in forming rank-and-file committees, Jerry White, WSWS Labor Editor explained the international significance of the struggle of Chennai Ford workers and pointed out that Ford is also threatening to close its plant in Saarlouis, Germany. Unions like IG Metall have rejected any real struggle to defend the jobs, living standards and working conditions of more than 5,000 workers at the plant, thereby guaranteeing the orderly winding down of production. He emphasized that the allies of workers at Ford Chennai and Ford Saarlouis are workers all over the world who are resisting corporate and government attacks everywhere and they can only defend their jobs through a rebellion against Ford’s co-managers in the trade union bureaucracy and by organizing themselves independently and establishing international collaboration through rank-and-file committees, uniting Ford workers in Valencia (Spain), Cologne (Germany), Craiova (Romania), Turkey, the US, etc.
Saman Gunadasa, Assistant Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka, explained how the Sri Lankan workers have shut down nearly the entire country during general strikes on April 28, May 6 and 10, demanding the resignation of the Rajapakse government. He pointed out specifically about the criminal role of unions, saying that the unions are preventing the working class from mobilising its industrial and political power and developing it into a challenge to capitalist rule. He then emphasized the urgent need to break free of the political and organizational control of the pro-capitalist trade unions and build rank-and-file committees as genuine fighting organizations of the working class.
Ramesh, who participated in this important meeting, commented later on the union’s suppression of the strike: “I came to know that the strike was called off by the union only a few hours later through my colleague. The union never asked our opinion about the agreement it signed with management, nor was any discussion held about calling off the strike. These actions were taken arbitrarily by union leaders themselves. Your [WSWS] analysis is fully vindicated. Union, management and government are acting together against the interests of workers and cheating us.”
Ram, a permanent worker said: “The majority of workers still demand job security. It is our union that had said it’s a useless and unattainable demand. But now, to restart production, it is trying to convince workers that those who still demand a job can go through legal means using the courts once the production target is completed, after July 31. It’s clear the union leadership is acting on behalf of management.
“I agree that there is a need to join hands with Ford workers in Germany, Spain and other countries, breaking with unions so as to challenge the Ford corporation.”
The workers either in India or in Germany or in Spain or anywhere in the world must draw the lessons from past years. Ford workers can only achieve their rights by linking with workers internationally in a network of fighting action committees and to fight against the capitalists, to place their corporations under public ownership and to reorganize the world economy based on a socialist programme that places social needs over private profit. So, we urge Ford workers across the world to form their own rank-and-file committees to join with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), independent of the treacherous trade unions in order to protect their jobs and working conditions.
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