Wednesday, February 6, 2019

GENERAL MOTORS DUMPS WORKERS - STOCK HOLDERS APPLAUD!

Jobs bloodbath at Ford and GM

Ford announces 1,000 job cuts as GM begins mass layoffs

US automakers began their jobs bloodbath on Monday as General Motors started dismissing 4,250 engineers, technicians, managers and other white-collar workers and the news emerged that Ford will eliminate the second shift at its Flat Rock, Michigan assembly plant by April 1, wiping out more than 1,000 hourly jobs.
GM plans to close five factories in the US and Canada, including major assembly plants in Detroit, Lordstown, Ohio and Oshawa, Ontario, and destroy more than 14,000 production and salaried workers’ jobs.
Ford workers leave after a shift change in Chicago
In response, autoworkers and their supporters are preparing a demonstrationthis Saturday in front of the GM headquarters in downtown Detroit. “We are determined that workers are not going to be the forgotten men and women,” said Jerry White, the editor of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, in response to the layoff announcement.
“No matter whether white collar or blue collar, all workers are part of the 90 percent of society that are the victims of corporate capitalism gone rampant,” he added.
Workers left the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan carrying their belongings. The worker carrying the houseplant said she had been laid off Monday.
“The latest round of mass layoffs is another testament to the betrayal at the hands of the corporate stooges who run the United Auto Workers.” White said. “The 40 years since the first concessions contract at Chrysler have made clear that their actions are not an accumulation of mistakes, but a deliberate policy of imposing the dictates of management on the workers.
“We are calling this demonstration as the first step in the mobilization of the working class throughout the United States, North America and the world in defense of workers’ social rights."
Throughout Monday, white collar workers at the GM Tech Center in the Detroit suburb of Warren and other locations were called into meetings and told whether or not this would be their last day of work. Workers left the front door of the complex with personal possessions, including office supplies and indoor plants. The refrain, “I lost my job,” was heard over and over.
“The situation was tense inside,” one worker told the WSWS. “We read about the layoffs in the Detroit Free Press but nobody knew who was going to be hit.” Another said, “It was horrible and there are going to be more tomorrow.”
Workers leave the GM tech center in Warren
Throughout the day, workers posted anonymous statements on thelayoff.com. “I was one of those that was escorted out and I asked why. No answer could be provided other than: a vague: it's a rough decision, business reasons, nothing personal. etc. I always had great performance reviews, I knew nobody was safe, but I was not expecting this. Some people let go today had over 20 years with General Motors. It's sad. It's the end of the road here.”
“We've watched it countless times over two decades, people walked out like criminals,” another post said. “Box in hand, walk you out to your car. I guess reality hits people sooner than others.”
Last November, GM announced that it was eliminating more than 6,000 production jobs and another 8,000 white-collar jobs this year to save $6 billion by 2020. After more than half of those offered exit packages refused to be pressured into “voluntary retirement,” the company moved ahead with the mass firings.

This week’s layoffs were launched in advance of Wednesday’s release of GM’s 2018 profit report, which is expected to show a reduction from the $11.9 billion the company made in 2017. The timing of the firings is designed to reassure Wall Street that company executives are determined to accelerate their brutal cost-cutting.
The scheduled plant closings are at the same time being used as blackmail to extract major concessions from 154,000 GM, Ford and Chrysler workers whose four-year labor agreements expire in September.
Even as white collar GM workers were being marched out of the Tech Center and other locations, a local ABC News affiliate in Detroit reported that Ford sent a notification on January 25 to the Michigan state government of a “mass layoff” of 1,012 workers planned for April 1 at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant in the downriver suburbs of Detroit. More than 3,500 hourly workers currently build the luxury Lincoln Navigator SUV and Mustang sports car at the Flat Rock plant.
The company, which last month reported North American profits of $3.7 billion in 2018, is carrying out a restructuring of its global operations, which could affect 25,000 or more workers in Europe, Latin America and the US. This includes the shutdown of plants and mass layoffs in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Russia. Last month, the layoff of 12 workers at a Ford Brazil factory sparked a wildcat strike, forcing the company to rehire the workers.
According to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining) notice, the Flat Rock layoff would be “indefinite” and would affect 560 hourly nonskilled workers, 440 hourly nonskilled temporary workers and 12 salaried employees. A Ford spokesman claimed that while full-time workers would be offered transfers, likely to the Livonia Transmission plant, temporary workers, some who have worked at the company for years, are not eligible to transfer.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) made it clear that it would do nothing to oppose the shift elimination at the Flat Rock plant. UAW Vice President Rory Gamble told the Free Press, “We have been informed by Ford that due to sales, there will be scheduled work reductions at the Flat Rock, Michigan and Louisville, Kentucky plants. Our collectively bargained contract provides for the placement of all members displaced by the shift reduction and, after working with Ford, we are confident that all impacted employees will have the opportunity to work at nearby facilities.”
Gamble said nothing about the fate of the hundreds of temporary part-time workers, who are forced to pay dues to the UAW but have absolutely no rights. In the last UAW-Ford agreement, the union sanctioned a vast increase in the number of these low-paid disposable workers.
Ford Flat Rock workers contacted by the WSWS expressed skepticism that they would, in fact, be able to transfer. There were also concerns about keeping their seniority if they did move to the transmission plant. Workers also expressed concern about TPT (temporary part-time) workers at the Livonia plant who would likely be fired to make way for full-time workers.
The mass layoffs underscore the bankruptcy and betrayal of the UAW and the Unifor union in Canada, which have claimed for decades that wage and benefit concessions would “save” jobs. The unions, which function as the industrial police force for the auto companies, have opposed any genuine fight against the plant closings and mass layoffs. Instead they are peddling economic nationalism, blaming Mexican and Chinese workers for the layoffs, even as tens of thousands of workers in Matamoros, Mexico are fighting the same globally organized corporations.
The February 9 demonstration, sponsored by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter and the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees, will call for the building of factory committees, independent of the United Auto Workers and the Unifor union in Canada, to unite workers throughout the US, Canada and Mexico with workers throughout the world to fight the plant closings and mass layoffs.
The demonstration will begin at 2:00 pm EST. GM headquarters is located at 300 Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, Michigan. To sign up for updates, go to wsws.org/auto.




GM Starts Laying Off Thousands of American Workers


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/04/gm-starts-laying-off-thousands-of-american-workers/

In this Nov. 28, 2018 photo, Tom Wolikow, a General Motors employee who is currently laid-off, left, takes a phone call at home alongside his fiance Rochelle Carlisle, right, in Warren, Ohio. It was working-class voters who bucked the area's history as a Democratic stronghold and backed Donald Trump in …
AP Photo/John Minchillo
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Executives at General Motors (GM) have started laying off American workers in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas, while the multinational corporation is reportedly expanding production in China and Mexico.

In what insiders are calling “Black Monday,” American workers at GM — those in factory, financial, and other white-collar jobs — have started being laid off by the corporation with workers posting firsthand accounts online.
The Monday layoffs of at least 4,000 GM white-collar American workers in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas is just the latest component of the corporation’s laying off of 14,700 workers in North America — including at least 3,300 American factory workers.
This year, GM is stopping production at four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland. This comes after GM laid off about 1,500 American workers in Lordstown in 2018, while their Mexico production remained unaffected.
Online, American workers experiencing the layoffs are detailing what they are witnessing. A U.S. worker posted about the layoffs at GM’s corporate office in Roswell, Georgia:
Half of Team let go so far. Our team had 25-30 people. So far our 2 managers, all our senior devs, and a handful of NCGs have been let go. A few other key people in our space have been let go as well. We are pretty sure they are dropping our whole org.
One U.S. worker at GM’s Detroit, Michigan Renaissance Center wrote that about 15 employees had been fired all at once in a meeting room nearby. Another worker replied to the post, “Yes. I was one of them.”
A number of U.S. workers at GM said the corporation increased security at all facilities and offices where layoffs are occurring in order to escort those being laid off out of the area.
“Is there really a need for more security? I find that the whole increased security thing is a major overreaction on part of GM,” a U.S. worker posted. “What is it they expect us to do exactly? It just seems like adding insult to injury.”
Similarly, laid-off American workers posted their frustrations that despite their decades-long loyalty to GM, the loyalty was not returned despite the federal government and U.S. taxpayers bailing out the corporation to the sum of more than $13 billion in 2008.
“Loyalty means nothing to GM anymore,” a U.S. worker wrote. “Two decades count for nothing … Escorted out like common criminal … I was naive enough to think I was safe.”
“I was just laid off, promptly escorted off the property, I’ve spent 18 years with GM and all gone in a snap,” a U.S. worker at GM’s Grand Blanc Township, Michigan office wrote, continuing:
I was one of those that was escorted out and I asked why. No answer could be provided other than a vague: It’s a rough decision, business reasons, nothing personal. I always had great performance reviews, I knew nobody was safe but I was not expecting this.
Some people let go today had over 20 years with General Motors. It’s sad. It’s the end of the road here. I hope I bounce back quickly but I was 1000% invested in GM (professionally, emotionally and financially – this will change now).
A U.S. worker at GM’s Warren Tech Center in Warren, Michigan wrote that he was the “last man standing” of his “entire project team.”
“The entire project team I am on was walked out one at a time today,” he wrote. “Just waiting for my cardboard box. I wish my name had come up sooner so I could be enjoying a beer now.”
Another worker in Warren, Michigan wrote that he was called into a conference room two hours before posting about the layoff online. He said GM managers and human resource executives had him “sign a separation agreement” before being given his severance package.
“Whole thing only took about 20 minutes,” he wrote. “Turned in my laptop and badge and headed straight to the closest bar. Had lunch now am drinking heavily. Expect to stay here until they close. Turned off my phone. Not a good day.”
Some speculated why the layoffs were occurring at the beginning of February.
“I noticed in the paper it said GM wanted to do this before the quarterly earnings were released,” a U.S. worker posted. “I bet they had a really good quarter and it would have looked really bad for them to release all of these people which at the same time reporting big profits.”
Others slammed GM CEO Mary Barra who has continued raking in about $22 million a year despite laying off thousands of Americans and outsourcing production to China and Mexico.
“The actions from the top are SICKENING! Where is [Mary Barra] today? Come and get a front row seat for your ‘show,'” a U.S. worker wrote. “Open seating, escorting people to [conference] rooms, buses, metro cars escorting people out. Sad and sick. This MASS termination could have been prevented. [Mary Barra] needs to STEP DOWN!!! Don’t preach integrity [Mary Barra]. Don’t ask for people to work casual overtime. Same as 2008, this could have been handled in a better way.”
A U.S. worker who started at GM in 2000 in his early 20’s recalled how the corporate culture had dramatically changed and how he would miss his job after being laid off.
When I started out it was the year 2000, I was a technician and listened carefully to the engineering teams that had the experience and expertise, that is how I learned, by closing my mouth.
Also learning from the other technicians that were around my age or a bit older than me. I had a lot of respect for all of the engineering guys and the stories they had, almost all of them drag racers or one guy was a cheif engineer and broke land speed records at Bonnevilles salt flats, I was 24 at the time and I have fond memories from those days.
My experience is you really have to ignore all of the distractions going on in the company and keep your nose to the grindstone, anything else is just wasted energy. Listen to everyone of all ages, I’m a car guy and passionate about automotive, listening to the guys and the stories they had from all age groups really lit the fire for me.
I’m in my 40s now, GM is what I basically grew up with and now I’m out of a job for the first time in my life, I hate it because I’ve never not worked. Point is no one is safe no matter how good you are, we all know that there is no guarantee in life, it’s a crapshoot, I miss my work a lot and this just sucks big time. I made it through the bankruptcy in [2008] but this time not so lucky.
While GM lays off thousands of American workers, its production in Mexico and China is ramping up. Specifically, GM is looking to manufacture an electric Cadillac in China and continue manufacturing its Envision compact vehicle in China.
The made-in-Mexico Chevrolet Blazer will soon arrive in U.S. markets. Last year, GM became the largest automaker in Mexico last year as it has cut jobs in America and increased production to Mexico.
Offshoring production out of the U.S. to Mexico has proven cheaper for GM executives, as American workers earn $30 an hour while Mexican workers earn about $3 an hour, a 90 percent cut to wages that widens the corporation’s profit margins.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is now urging American consumers to boycott GM vehicles that are manufactured in Mexico, noting that such products’ Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) begin with the number “3.”
“Companies like General Motors have an obligation to build where they sell and stop exporting jobs abroad,” UAW President Gary Jones said in a statement. “After all, we invested in General Motors in their darkest days. Now they need to invest in us.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder


DON'T BUY INTO IT!


UAW IS A CORRUPT AS THEY COME AND HAVE LONG BEEN DOOR MATS TO GM AS THEY PARTNER TO FUCK OVER THE AMERICAN WORKER.


UAW Invokes Trump’s ‘Buy American,’ Urges Boycott of GM’s Outsourcing to Mexico


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The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is invoking President Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” platform in its efforts to urge consumers to boycott GM for outsourcing U.S. manufacturing and American jobs to Mexico, China, and Poland.

Since GM executives announced the multinational corporation would lay off 14,700 workers in North America — including at least 3,300 American factory workers — the UAW is hitting back, invoking Trump’s economic nationalist agenda of “Buy American, Hire American.”
“The President has taken important steps to adhere to the concept that the U.S. government and consumers should Buy American,” UAW President Gary Jones said in a statement. “When consumers invest in the products of U.S. workers, we each make an investment in all of us.”
“And it’s not just government,” Jones said. “Companies like General Motors have an obligation to build where they sell and stop exporting jobs abroad. After all, we invested in General Motors in their darkest days. Now they need to invest in us.”
In 2019, GM will stop production at four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland. This comes after GM laid off about 1,500 American workers in Lordstown in 2018, while their Mexico production remained unaffected.
Next week, at least 4,000 American GM white-collar workers are set to be laid off. At the same time, GM CEO Mary Barra continues raking in about $22 million a year.
Meanwhile, GM is ramping up production of electric cars in China and offshoring its American workforce overseas, where the corporation will be able to cut hundreds of millions in labor costs to widen their profit margins.
In Poland, GM builds the Buick Cascada coupe but sells the vehicle in the U.S. Similarly, GM is manufacturing its Buick Envision compact SUV and Cadillac CT6 sedan in China while manufacturing the Chevrolet Cruze, the Chevrolet Equinox SUV, the Chevrolet Trax compact SUV, the Chevrolet Silverado, the GMC Sierra, the Chevrolet Blazer SUV, and the GMC Terrain SUV all in Mexico.
In a new ad campaign, the UAW is slamming GM for their outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs and U.S. manufacturing, urging American consumers to boycott all GM products manufactured in China and Mexico.
“As profit and Wall Street shareholder gains soared and as other automakers retooled and invested in the U.S., GM started pulling investments from the U.S.,” the ad states. “Now after making $12 billion last year, GM is ripping the rug out from under the communities, the taxpayers, and the workers that invested in them.”
“GM is making a choice to put enormous profits and Wall Street ahead of American workers, but they don’t have to,” the ad continues. “UAW members and American taxpayers invested in GM and saved the company, now it’s GM’s turn to invest in us.”
The Canadian auto workers union Unifor will run their ad against GM’s outsourcing to Mexico, China, and Poland during the Superbowl. That ad slams GM, stating “You may have forgotten our generosity, but we’ll never forget your greed. You want to sell here. Build here,” according to the Detroit Free Press.
In addition to the video ad, the UAW has put up a series of billboards around the Detroit area, urging GM to remain in the U.S. and asking consumers to boycott the corporation’s Chinese, Mexican, and Polish-made vehicles.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder


WALL STREET, GLOBALIST, BILLIONAIRES and the OPEN BORDERS ADVOCATES FINISH OFF MIDDLE-AMERICA.


Ryan asked how much longer will the working-class not matter “because it’s becoming impossible for them to keep their nose above water.”

“Where’s the social compact that we used to have between corporations and their workers? Where’s the social contract between the government and our workers?” asked Ryan. “I mean, it’s like the worker — there’s always an excuse that the worker is going to get hammered, that they’re going to lose their pensions, they’re going to lose their jobs, they’re going to have to move. Meanwhile, corporations, in this instance, General Motors got $157 million in tax cut just last year. I mean how much longer are we going to do this to where the worker doesn’t matter? And I hope this is a real wake-up call for us to say, workers, white, brown, black, gay, straight, working-class people have got to come together because it’s becoming impossible for them to keep their nose above water anymore.” REP. TIM RYAN

GENERAL MOTORS DUMPS THOUSANDS OF WORKERS AND CLOSES PLANTS   -  Stockholders celebrate!

"It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as “Medicare for all,” raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of “economic freedom,” i.e., the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything else that impinges on the oligarchy’s self-enrichment."


“The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documentsa sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.”

"The American phenomenon of record stock values fueling an ever greater concentration of wealth at the very top of society, while the economy is starved of productive investment, the social infrastructure crumbles, and working class living standards are driven down by entrenched unemployment, wage-cutting and government austerity policies, is part of a broader global process."

"A defining expression of this crisis is the dominance of financial speculation and parasitism, to the point where a narrow international financial aristocracy plunders society’s resources in order to further enrich itself."

GM to lay off 4,250 salaried workers in North America starting Monday

General Motors will begin laying off 4,250 North American salaried workers Monday morning as part of a sweeping restructuring announced in November that includes the closure of five plants and the elimination of 15,000 jobs. The plan includes the destruction of 15 percent of the company’s 54,000 North American salaried jobs.
According to one press report, the jobs massacre will take the form of “rolling layoffs” that will continue until the end of the month. Three assembly plants—Lordstown, Ohio; Detroit-Hamtramck; and Oshawa, Ontario—along with Warren Transmission in Michigan and a propulsion plant in Maryland—are slated to close by the end of the year, devastating entire towns and cities.
One report said that GM management was determined to begin the layoffs before the company releases its fourth quarter 2018 and full year 2018 earnings reports on Wednesday, which are expected to show a drop in profits. This underscores the fact that Wall Street is cracking the whip on GM and the rest of the auto giants to press ahead with cost-cutting and stepped up attacks on the workers in order to drive up stock prices and the speculative profits of the banks, hedge funds and big investors. GM has said the job cuts and plant closings will free up $6 billion in cash, but the automaker has spent $10.6 billion since 2015 buying back its own shares in order to fatten the portfolios of the financial oligarchs.
The cuts have generated enormous anger and opposition among autoworkers in the US and Canada, who have never recovered from job cuts and concessions imposed with the collaboration of the auto unions as part of the Obama administration’s 2009 forced bankruptcy and restructuring of GM. The cuts will further impoverish regions in both the US and Canada that have been ravaged by decades of deindustrialization.
Last month, workers at the Oshawa assembly plant staged a five-hour sit down protest after GM CEO Mary Barra announced that she would not reconsider the decision to close the factory. Workers took the action independently of Unifor, terrifying the union officials and sending them scrambling to quash the rebellion.

February 9 demonstration in Detroit against GM plant closures

The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter and the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees have called a demonstration for February 9 outside GM headquarters in Detroit in opposition to the plant closings. It has called on workers to mobilize independently of the UAW and Unifor to defend their jobs and living standards and link up with the struggle of 70,000 Mexican autoworkers in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, who have been carrying out a wildcat strike for nearly three weeks.
The demonstration is not an appeal to GM and the corporate bosses, but rather a call for workers to mobilize their strength and fighting determination through the formation of rank-and-file committees independent of the pro-corporate unions and the corporate-controlled politicians and parties. (See: “February 9 demonstration against auto plant closures in Detroit: The program and strategy to defend jobs”).
The call has garnered widespread interest and support. A central theme of this action is the unity of US, Mexican and Canadian workers against job cuts and concessions and against all attempts to divide workers along national lines.
This means an implacable struggle against the economic nationalism promoted by the unions. The response of the United Auto Workers and Unifor in Canada to the plant closures is to spew nationalist poison. This week, the United Auto Workers announced that is joining a boycott of GM vehicles assembled in Mexico previously initiated by Unifor.
These same organizations oppose any industrial action by GM workers to fight the layoffs. They plan to use the threat of plant closings to blackmail workers into accepting new concessions that will be demanded by the auto companies in contract negotiations later this year.
The call for a boycott targeting the jobs of Mexican workers is an attempt to divert workers from a struggle against the real enemy—the transnational auto companies and the profit system as a whole—and instead channel their anger against their fellow workers south of the Rio Grande. In this way, the unions line up behind the Trump administration’s fascistic attacks on immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America.
The announcement of the GM closures takes place against a background of growing worker militancy around the word, including strikes by autoworkers in Hungary, yellow vest protests in France, a general strike in India and a walkout by 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles.

Of particular concern to the UAW and Unifor is the strike by the maquiladora workers in Matamoros against sweatshop conditions at auto parts manufacturers and other industries. To this date, the UAW has not said a word about the heroic actions of the Matamoros workers, who launched their strikes independently of and in opposition to the official unions.
A worker at the Ford Sterling Axle plant outside of Detroit told the WSWS in response to the UAW’s call for an anti-Mexican boycott, “It is not the fault of Mexican workers. It is corporate greed. They just want more profits.
“We haven’t heard a word from [UAW President] Gary Jones since he got elected. He doesn’t want to piss off the car companies because he is afraid of losing perks. They are invested in GM through the retiree health care fund.”
Referring to the blackout of reports about the strikes in Matamoros, he said, “They don’t want us to get any ideas. What the Mexican workers are doing is sticking together and saying enough is enough. They don’t want us to find out because they don’t want us raising our own demands.”
A General Motors worker at the Delta Township assembly plant near Lansing, Michigan said he planned to attend the Feb 9 demonstration. “It is not the Mexican workers’ fault. They are trying to provide for their families.
“GM is closing five plants, but they are making record profits. They are trying to force the older workforce to retire by placing them in other plants and making them drive long distances. It leaves them little time for their families. They can’t just relocate and buy new homes. It forces them to retire.
“You haven’t heard anything from the UAW about Canadian plants being closed. We should work on how you hurt them by sticking together. You should have Mexican, Canadian, US workers all united together.”
In another demonstration of the UAW’s lineup with the Trump administration, on Thursday UAW President Gary Jones announced his support for Trump’s executive order titled “Strengthening Buy-American Preferences for Infrastructure Projects.” In a brief statement Jones declared, “Companies like General Motors have an obligation to build where they sell and stop exporting jobs abroad.”
Meanwhile, Unifor says it plans to run ads promoting its anti-Mexican boycott during this Sunday’s Super Bowl football game. These ads are extremely costly, reportedly $5.25 million for a 30 second spot, or roughly the equivalent of the monthly dues contribution of 100,000 workers.
The nationalist “Buy American” and “Made in Canada” campaigns of the UAW and Unifor are both reactionary and absurd. They ignore the global character of production, which makes it impossible to determine the “nationality” of any given vehicle.
After ignoring the strikes in Matamoros for weeks, Unifor President Jerry Dias announced his “support” for striking Mexican autoworkers in a perfunctory statement this week. This followed determined attempts by the establishment media, pseudo-left groups, Unifor and the UAW to black out all news of the strike by Mexican workers.





Black Monday: GM to Layoff 4K American White-Collar Workers


Venus Walker, of Warren, Ohio and a GM employee with 12 years at the Lordstown plant, prays during a vigil outside the Lordstown GM plant, on Nov. 29, 2018.
William D. Lewis/The Vindicator via AP
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Executives at General Motors (GM) announced Friday that about 4,250 white-collar workers would be laid off, the vast majority of whom are in the United States, as the multinational corporation continues shifting production overseas and to Mexico.

GM executives are set to start the layoffs on Monday of next week, with an investment strategist declaring the day “Black Monday” as thousands of workers in the U.S. and Canada will be terminated from their positions.
“Black Monday at General Motors,” David Kudla wrote online. “To those who are about to separate, we salute you.”
The Monday layoffs of thousands of GM’s white-collar American workers in Michigan and Ohio is just the latest component of the corporation’s laying off of 14,700 workers in North America — including at least 3,300 American factory workers
In 2019, GM expects to stop production at four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland. This comes after GM laid off about 1,500 American workers in Lordstown in 2018, while their Mexico production remained unaffected.
Though GM promised to hire recently laid off American workers for jobs at its Fort Wayne, Indiana manufacturing plant, the company has continued employing temporary workers. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is now suing.
Despite the layoffs, GM’s CEO Mary Barra has continued raking in about $22 million a year.
Breitbart News has learned from insiders that layoffs of American workers are to occur at the Warren Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, the GM plant in Pontiac, Michigan, corporate workers at GM’s Austin, Texas office, as well as layoffs at GM’s Detroit, Michigan Renaissance Center.
In message boards, American GM workers raged online, posting in real time their experiences with the mass layoffs.
“Signs on most of the conference rooms in my building already,” one GM worker in Pontiac, Michigan posted. “The signs all say ‘conference room not available, do not enter’ … looks like [layoffs are] happening Monday.”
Another worker wrote that the layoffs will occur “over in the next 2 weeks.”
“Probably not breaking news, but told by a very reliable source it is going to take place over the next 2 weeks, not on just a single day,” the worker wrote.
At GM’s Austin, Texas, offices, a worker wrote on the message board that rumors inside the company indicate about “400+ people will be let go in Austin.”
An American worker not being impacted by GM’s mass layoffs wrote a heartfelt note to those who would soon be laid off by the corporation:
We’ve been aware that this was happening, but on Monday it becomes reality. The company will be a very different place after this, at least in my eyes. Just want to say that my heart goes to the ones that are affected, and my hopes are that you all find new jobs, better jobs. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure working with you, and let us hope that no other company will disappoint you the way GM did.
While GM lays off thousands of American workers, its production in Mexico and China is ramping up. Specifically, GM is looking to manufacture an electric Cadillac in China and continue manufacturing its Envision compact vehicle in China.
“2019 will be a pivotal year for GM — one in which we will see how a 100-year-old auto company takes drastic steps to convert from (internal combustion) to electric,” Kudla wrote. “It’s a huge bet.”
Offshoring production from the U.S. to Mexico and China has proven cheaper for GM executives. For example, American workers earn $30 an hour, while Mexican workers earn about $3 an hour, a 90 percent cut to wages that widens the corporation’s profit margins.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder




GM Sought to Outsource 2.8K U.S. Jobs to Foreigners While Laying Off Americans



HAMTRAMCK, MI - OCTOBER 11: Assembly line workers assemble Chevy Volt electric vehicles and Opel Amperas at the General Motors Detroit Hamtramck Assembly Plant October 11, 2011 in Hamtramck, Michigan. Officials from the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration toured the plant today …
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
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Multinational corporation General Motors (GM) sought to import nearly 2,800 foreign workers in the last three years to take U.S. jobs while laying off American workers.

GM will be laying off at least 4,250 of its white-collar workers in Canada and America — with the vast majority in the U.S. — starting next week.
The layoffs are just a small component of the corporation’s mass layoff scheme of 14,700 workers in North America — including at least 3,300 American factory workers. Meanwhile, GM is ramping up production of electric cars in China.
In 2019, GM expects to stop production at four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland. This comes after GM laid off about 1,500 American workers in Lordstown in 2018, while their Mexico production remained unaffected.
At the same time GM has been laying off American workers, the corporation has been importing foreign workers from countries like India, China, Brazil, and South Korea.


Between 2016 and 2018, GM attempted to outsource nearly 700 American jobs in Warren, Michigan, to foreign workers brought in on the H-1B visa. The corporation also tried to outsource 167 U.S. jobs to H-1B foreign workers in Detroit, Michigan, another 154 U.S. jobs in Milford, Michigan, an additional 82 U.S. jobs in Pontiac, Michigan, and about 20 U.S. jobs in Roswell, Georgia.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.
Last year, alone, U.S. businesses attempted to outsource nearly 420,000 American jobs to foreign workers, a population that exceeds the total population of Tampa, Florida.
The U.S. high-paying jobs GM outsourced to foreign workers while laying off American workers over the last three years include nearly 320 electrical engineering jobs, nearly 320 mechanical engineering jobs, more than 220 software developer jobs, and about 66 commercial and industrial designer jobs.
GM even outsourced nearly 150 U.S. jobs at its financial services wing in Arlington, Fort Worth, and Irving, Texas, as well as financial jobs in Detroit, Michigan, and Charlotte, North Carolina. The vast majority of these foreign workers imported to take these jobs were from India.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has launched a campaign urging consumers to boycott GM for their offshoring and outsourcing business practices that is leaving thousands of American workers laid off just years after the corporation was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers and received a massive tax cut.
“Companies like General Motors have an obligation to build where they sell and stop exporting jobs abroad,” UAW President Gary Jones said in a statement. “After all, we invested in General Motors in their darkest days. Now they need to invest in us.”
As Breitbart News previously reported, more than 2.7 million H-1B foreign workers have been approved to come to the U.S. to take American jobs between 2007 and 2017. During that same period, businesses tried to outsource almost 3.5 million American jobs to foreign workers instead of hiring Americans.
About four million young Americans enter the workforce each year, many looking for white-collar jobs in the STEM fields. Those Americans’ prospects of finding work are crippled by the country’s legal immigration process, which admits more than 1.5 million immigrants and hundreds of thousands of foreign visa workers annually.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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