Delphi: Is there an alternative to concessions and closings?
In 1999, General Motors spun off its parts division and created the Delphi Corporation. Most workers retained the wages and benefits of General Motors workers. On October 8, 2005, Delphi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest manufacturing bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Bankruptcy
Delphi 's bankruptcy was one of several in the auto parts industry this year. With $28 billion in sales Delphi is the biggest parts supplier. But Collins &Aiken ($4 billion), Tower Automotive ($3 billion) and Meridian Automotive Systems ($1 billion) have also all filed for Chapter 11. Other parts suppliers, such as Lear, plan to close 20 plants and eliminate 7,700 jobs. Dana will eliminate 600 jobs. Visteon, the parts spinoff from Ford, will probably be closing plants too.
Bankruptcy is the latest in a series of legal maneuvers that companies can use to tear up union contracts, reduce salaries of other employees, and rip off small businesses that supply them. Bankruptcy, once an embarrassment for business owners, is now another mechanism to increase profits.
The Delphi bankruptcy is a maneuver. Only the Delphi operations in the U.S. (employing some 50,000) are involved. Delphi wants to eliminate as many as 24,000 of the 33,650 hourly jobs in the U.S. or drastically reduce wages and benefits. Delphi employs 185,000 world-wide. It is the single largest private employer in Mexico with over 70,000 workers, mostly on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Factory closings, demands for huge wage cuts, longer hours without overtime, reduced benefits, have been cancers spreading throughout the communities of unionized workers since 1979 when the owners of Chrysler closed the Dodge Main factory in Hamtramck , Michigan . Since then, there have been major local struggles to stop these attacks on worker's rights: at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin , Minnesota in 1985; the Greyhound bus strike from 1991-93; at the Staley, Caterpillar and Firestone plants in Decatur, Illinois in 1993 where at one point, 1/3 of the city's residents were either on strike or locked out; at the Detroit newspapers in 1995 and many others.
While these struggles did not end in victory, in each one a small group of workers were radicalized and became labor activists. Some became sympathetic to the various socialist or radical groups, some joined the Labor Party, and some—seeing the inability of the union bureaucracies to halt managements attacks on workers— became sympathetic or active in union opposition groupings like Teamsters for a Democratic Union. full story.
Murder in New Orleans:
The true face of the Democrats and Republicans
Dr. John, a well known New Orleans funk pianist, was in Detroit for the free International Jazz Festival held Labor Day Weekend. He said in his set: “my city did not die a natural death. It was cold-blooded murder.” He emphasized that 9 of 10 people abandoned by the relief effort were Black. He went on to explain that the rerouting of the Mississippi River by the Army Corps of Engineers to make it easier for corporate shipping contributed greatly to the increased impact of the hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
Why did he call it murder? Because the people of New Orleans, the city of New Orleans, are not suffering because of Katrina of its effects. They are suffering because of decisions made by Democratic and Republican governments, by the Bush administration. They are suffering because the central cities of the United States and many of their first ring of suburbs are full of poor, working class people who don’t count for much in a United States so completely controlled by the owners of multinational corporations. full story...
The Split in the AFL-CIO: what does it mean for U.S. workers?
The AFL-CIO, the union federation, split at its annual convention in Chicago. The split was the biggest since the trades-based American Federation of Labor (AFL) joined with the industrial-based Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955. Four key unions representing about one-third of the AFL-CIO membership left. They are: Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), Unite-Here (the recent merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They were joined by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBC) with one-half million members that left the AFL-CIO about a year ago.
The departing union leaderships have formed the Change to Win Coalition. In their founding statement called “Restore the American Dream, Building a 21st century Labor Movement that Can Win” they state their case. We think it is important that people hear what they are saying in their own words so we quote extensively from their statement. full story...
Utility cutoffs, homelessness, layoffs, school closings …
Another Detroit is possible!
The current set of crises facing Detroiters -- thousands without heat, water or homes, layoffs of city workers, school closings and more layoffs -- are not a natural disaster. They are made by people and people can end them.
Detroit and Detroiters have, over the past 100 years, generated billions in profits for corporations. The rich have abandoned the city, punishing the people of Detroit for their audacious struggles. Detroiters and Detroit have the right to a better life. The Bush administration and Congress continue to spend billions on the foolish, immoral and unwinnable war in Iraq. That money belongs to the people of Detroit and it should be spent in Detroit to help solve our problems.
The Michigan Citizen (www.michigancitizen.com) reported that nearly $1 billion of the total expenditures of the city and its units go to banks for debt interest and principal. When the mayor and the city council talk of “everybody” sacrificing for the sake of the city, the banks are never included. Heaven forbid we should offend the bankers. full story ...
The lessons of the 2004 Elections
George Bush has been re-elected. Workers in the United States and around the world will suffer another 4 years of Bush. Why was Bush re-elected? What lessons can workers learn from the struggle against Bush in the election? What is the road forward?
Why was Bush re-elected?
Bush was reelected for two reasons: 1. He was one of the two candidates of the rich owners in the elections; the other was the Democrat, John Kerry. The election of either candidate ensured the continuation of the corporate agenda: war against Iraq; job eliminations; increases in poverty, decreases in social services, further inroads of rights and liberties. 2. The most powerful social movement in the U.S. coming up on the elections, the movement against the war in Iraq, was divided. All other progressive movements suffered a similar division. One wing decided to support Kerry even though Kerry's party, the Democratic Party, his own political history and the platform on which he ran supported the war against Iraq. The Democratic Party, Kerry's own political history and the platform on which he ran did not support the struggle against NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and other trade deals that eliminate jobs; they didn't support the struggle against poverty, for national healthcare. full story ...
Join the "Million Worker March," Washington, D.C., October 17!
Vote Nader/Camejo November 2!
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10, is organizing a "Million Worker March" in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, October 17. Militant labor unionists aim to organize and mobilize workers to fight for jobs, a higher minimum wage, publicly-funded health insurance, and other things working people need. The organizers argue that workers can't rely on Bush or Kerry to take the steps necessary to defend working people, that workers have to organize and mobilize themselves in an independent way. While the AFL-CIO leadership has refused to endorse the march, dozens of local unions have endorsed and are organizing transportation for their members.
We urge young and working people to support and participate in this march. It's an opportunity to make your voice heard, get to know like-minded workers, and learn more about the radical labor movement.
We also urge you to campaign and vote for Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, independent, pro-labor candidates for president and vice president. full story...
Should workers and oppressed people of color
vote for Bush or Kerry?
Working class people of all ethnic groups and peoples of color of all oppressed classes are extremely concerning about the situation in the United States. Upper class people of European origin are cutting taxes for the rich, increasing subsidies to the rich, laying off workers, closing workplaces, cutting public funds for healthcare, schools, housing, transportation, and attacking affirmative action programs designed to compensate for some of the oppression and persecution of women and peoples of color. Many hold Bush and the most pro-corporate Democrats responsible for this situation. Thus it's not surprising there is a profound desire in the U.S. to oust Bush and replace him with someone else, virtually anybody else. Nor is it surprising that both labor leaders and leaders of color are saying the road forward lies in voting for Kerry, or whomever the Democratic Party selects as it candidate for U.S. president.
The most thoughtful leaders say, of course, voting for Kerry by itself won't solve problems; workers and peoples of color have to keep on organizing, mobilizing and fighting for their rights. But they continuing saying that ousting Bush and replacing him with "Anybody But Bush" is important; we must all get out and campaign and vote for the Democrat in November.
We disagree. full story...
Is a vote for Nader a vote for Bush?
Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, Independent candidates for U.S. president and vice president, are campaigning for:
-- Money for jobs, schools, and healthcare, not for war
-- Public programs to provide jobs for the unemployed, rebuilding cities, towns and neighborhoods
-- A higher minimum wage, at least $8/hour
-- Publicly-funded programs to provide health insurance and scholarships to all who need them
-- Bring U.S. troops home from Iraq
-- Repeal tax breaks for the rich, NAFTA, and the Patriot Act; continue affirmative action; reparations for African-Americans; abolish the death penalty, mandatory minimum sentencing, and "three strikes and you're out"
These are things that millions of young workers, students, working women and working men of all ethnic groups and nationalities are for.
Unfortunately, Bush, Kerry and their supporters are doing their best to discredit Nader's independent campaign. They don't want the millions of people suffering because of Bush-Kerry's policies to think that Nader's independent campaign constitutes a real alternative. So, both Republicans and Democrats say: "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." full story...
