"THE MOST important repercussion of the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies will be a new union" [View All]

When workers lead the way

Autoworkers are the ones who are going to suffer, as the UAW leadership allows the union to be gutted, writes Gregg Shotwell, a retired autoworker and UAW dissident.

June 11, 2009

...An arbitrator, rather than collective bargaining, will determine the next UAW contract with the Detroit Three. Per the UAW-GM-Chrysler 2009 agreements, the arbitrator's benchmark is parity with nonunion transplants. The UAW is effectively debarred...

THE BANKSTERS who destroyed the economy with criminal negligence and reckless indifference were not forced to make concessions. They didn't lose bonuses or retirement packages. Their contracts are sacred.

But retirees who purchased a health care plan with 30 years of hard labor and cost-of-living adjustment diversions don't have a contract that the government respects, because the government doesn't respect labor. And members who pay union dues don't have reps that the company respects because the government has outlawed collective bargaining for autoworkers at GM and Chrysler.

The U.S. government gave Chrysler, an American icon and the creator of Jeep, to an Italian company for no money down. The U.S. government sponsored the GM scheme to import cars so they could compensate for plant closings in America. A wino could come up with a better plan.

Ikki Yamakawa, a reporter from Japan's largest daily newspaper, interviewed me in my home. I asked him if the Japanese government would ever pay Toyota to close factories in Japan, ship the means of production to Indonesia, and import the autos back to Japan for sale. He didn't answer me. He just laughed. Americans are suckers. Everybody knows it.

In the U.S., we don't protect manufacturing, but we zealously protect the health insurance industry, a money-sucking parasite whose only product is paperwork...

A confrontation is in order...

Necessity, not philosophy, drives change. We won't get change by whining. We won't get change by waiting for Congress to pass laws that make union organizing safe. We won't get change waiting for UAW Vice President Bob King to remember where he came from. We won't get change following rules designed to keep us pacified and powerless.

We'll get change when Congress is afraid to pass laws that hurt working people. We'll get change when Bob King can't forget where he came from because he's back on the line, wishing he had an extra six minutes of break time. We'll get change when UAW members overthrow the Concession Caucus by force. We'll get change when we break all the rules that keep us chained to the heart attack machine that cranks money out of poverty, illness and war.

We'll get change--real change--when workers lead the way.


http://socialistworker.org/2009/06/11/when-workers-lead-the-way