THE REASON 40 MILLION MEXICANS HAVE JUMPED OUR BORDERS IS BECAUSE EVEN MINIMUM WAGE IS 8xs GREATER THAN WAGES IN NARCOMEX!
UAW contracts sanction shift of small car production to Mexico
By Eric London
17 November 2015
Though the United Auto Workers has concealed this from workers, the UAW-Ford deal explicitly sanctions the company to shift more car production to its lower-wage factories in Mexico. The same is true for the agreements signed by the UAW with Fiat Chrysler and General Motors.Over the next decade, the number of small cars produced in the Mexican plants owned by the Detroit automakers will increase by 30 percent or more, according to reports in the industry publication Automotive News. The companies “are essentially giving up on trying to build mass-market cars profitably in this country,” the publication noted.
The move marks a major shift in the companies’ business models and exposes the lies by the UAW that the four-year labor agreements won “job security” for workers. Under the deals, the UAW upholds the corporations’ “right” to restructure their operations in any way they see fit, and further cements its role as a “labor partner” in destroying the jobs, living standards and conditions of the workers it falsely claims to represent.
From the beginning of the contract struggle, the auto bosses and the UAW have used the threat of moving production to Mexico to blackmail workers into accepting these sellout agreements. As opposition has grown to the FCA, GM and Ford deals, UAW officials have threatened that the companies would move “south of the border” if workers pressed to recoup years of UAW-backed concessions.
The UAW rejects any struggle to unify workers in Mexico, Canada and the US in a common fight against the transnational auto giants. On the contrary, it has played the key role in pitting workers against each other in a fratricidal struggle over who will work for the lowest wages and worst conditions.
A spokesman for Ford said the company is “committed to continuing to improve competitiveness and to invest where it makes the best sense for our business.” Workers know the corporations have only one interest: increase profitability by cutting labor costs. They also know that the UAW wholly accepts the fact that the corporate drive for profit supersedes protections for autoworkers.
“The UAW hasn’t told us anything about moving production to Mexico,” said one Ford worker in Louisville, Kentucky. Though production shifts are currently limited to small cars, there is no telling what moves the companies may make in the future about heavier vehicles and trucks.
According to AutoForecast Solutions, the Big Three “will collectively produce 45 percent of their small cars for the North American market in Mexico by 2020, up from 18 percent in 2014.” In the same article, the author notes, “the UAW declined a request for a comment for this story.”
In the US, the companies will largely focus on highly profitable pickup trucks, SUVs and other larger models, which bring in $10,000 or more in profits per vehicle.
Though sales of these vehicles may be high at the moment, the market is highly susceptible to shifts, including a hike in auto loan interest rates, rising gas prices and other factors. Once this happens, the companies and the UAW will use falling sales to tear up any so-called job commitments and use economic blackmail to demand even greater givebacks from workers.
Workers at plants with small car models have already been subjected to relentless cost-cutting and speedup overseen by the UAW, particularly since the restructuring of GM and Chrysler by the Obama administration. At GM’s Orion Assembly Plant north of Detroit, for example, the majority of workers are lower-paid second-tier workers and even lower-paid temporary and contract workers. The factory, which produces Chevrolet and Buick subcompacts, has the lowest labor costs of any of the Big Three’s US plants.
Total labor costs, including wages and benefits, average 129 pesos ($8) an hour in Mexico, compared to $58 in the US for GM, $57 for Ford and $48 for Fiat Chrysler.
Under the terms of the contract, the UAW has also agreed to post-ratification contract modifications to aid “in-sourcing” by slashing wages and benefits in the US even further. In other words, the coming months and years will see an endless reopening of the contracts to impose whatever further concessions are necessary to make plants “competitive.”
“There is a lot more resentment toward the UAW now than before the contract fight began,” the Louisville worker added. “A lot of people are talking about it. A UAW representative told someone here that wherever you are on the pay scale after four years, that’s all you’re getting. They’re not going to stick to the promises they’re making for what comes after the term of the contract. And the UAW and the company always try and pit us against autoworkers in Mexico. They say ‘screw the Mexicans,’ but we are all members of the working class.”
What is required is a fight to break from the divisive American nationalism of the UAW and the companies that are used as a tool to prevent workers from uniting in a common struggle. As one Chicago Ford worker told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, “Where I work they do everything to divide the workers, new against old, even among races. We’re no different and we should all have the right to earn a decent living.”
Indeed, only on the basis of a unified international movement can autoworkers defend themselves against the global auto giants.
The author also recommends:
US, Mexican and Canadian autoworkers face common fight[12 August 2015]
"It’s terrible, a slap in the face"
Kansas City autoworkers vote “no” on UAW-Ford contract
By our reporters
17 November 2015
Workers at the massive Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Missouri rejected the UAW-Ford sellout deal on Sunday, with 54 percent of production workers voting “no” and the skilled trades workers split 50-50.Opposition to the contract at Ford is widespread, with at least 45 percent of workers voting “no” thus far. Over 10,000 more workers from Ford Plants across the country will vote today, including those at the two large assembly plants in Louisville, Kentucky and at the Chicago Assembly Plant.
“It’s terrible, a slap in the face,” a KCAP worker told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter. “We gave up all those concessions in 2007 and we were lied to. The UAW and the company said it was supposed to be shared sacrifice, then as soon as we gave up the concessions, management and the executives got everything back and we got nothing.
“Now Ford is making more money than ever before in history, and we get this piece of crap raise? I’ve worked for Ford for 25 years. And what is this lousy offer for the second-tier workers? An eight-year promise on a four-year contract doesn’t mean anything.”
Having suffered a defeat in the first round of the Fiat Chrysler vote and a split vote at General Motors, the UAW has timed the vote at Ford in the weeks before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, hoping economic pressures will get workers to ratify the deal.
“I can see what they are doing,” said one Chicago Ford Assembly worker. “They are offering an $8,000 signing bonus just before Christmas. They want us to give up our long-term interests for a bribe. But what is going to happen next time? It is frightening.
“When I first started I got in the union and said, ‘I’m a man now. Someone’s got my back.’ But the UAW is a business. They are not even trying to defend us. With this ‘in-progression’ stuff they are prolonging the time it takes to reach top pay. It’s starting with eight years but in Canada they kept adding more years to it. In the next contract they will say due to the economic circumstances you’ll have to wait another three years. Soon it’s going to take 25 years to get the right to make it to the top tier.
“Workers are getting tired of this and they’re going to vote ‘no’ no matter what the signing bonus.”
A Louisville Ford worker added, “I need the money but I can’t fathom selling myself out for the next four years over $8,500 bucks.”
What’s more, the UAW has begun issuing threats toward workers for taking photographs of their “no” ballots as proof against a widespread belief that the UAW is carrying out election fraud to ram through the deal.
“They’re starting to threaten to charge people with misdemeanors if they take pictures of their votes,” said the Louisville worker, “but because of the distrust in the vote count many workers want to take pictures with their IDs to prove they’re voting ‘no.’ One guy came and put his hands over a worker’s ballot as he was trying to take a picture.”
“They’re supposed to be on our side and they’re totally going against us. If you don’t have anything to hide, why worry about who is taking photos of the ballots? What are they going to do, arrest all of us?”
At GM, the UAW has agreed to postpone riding roughshod over the skilled trades “no” vote until after Ford has voted so as to avoid generating widespread anger before voting elsewhere is wrapped up.
At each moment of the contract fight, the UAW has proven itself a sworn enemy of the working class and an agent of the Big Three auto companies.
The KCAP worker said, “I support building rank-and-file committees. We have to do something. It’s obvious that the international union is not on our side. They are doing what is best for the company.”
“I’ve seen a lot more anger at the UAW since I started reading the Autoworker Newsletter ,” the Louisville worker said. “This is the right time for workers committees, because that’s what people are looking for. It’s going to grow further because if this contract goes through the loopholes are going to show and we’re going to say, ‘I told you so.’ It’s starting to show to some people who thought that the committees would be crazy because the UAW already exists, but now they’re seeing the shady stuff the UAW is doing and it’s kind of switching them over to support committees that really represent workers. People are thinking beyond the contract to the actual struggle.”
No comments:
Post a Comment