Join the fight! Volume 4 Number 23a WSWS.ORG 21 September 2015 Contact the Socialist Equality Party WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE Email: [email protected] Call: (313)-409-8083 A program of action Autoworker Newsletter The Socialist Equality Party calls for auto workers to set up rank-and-file commit- tees, independent of the pro-company Reject UAW sellout! UAW and big business politicians, to de- fend their interests. These committees should demand: Build rank-and-file • Abolish the two-tier wage system! A house divided against itself cannot stand. Unite all workers—first and second tier, tem- committees to fight the porary and contract workers, assembly and parts workers—to guarantee secure good- paying jobs for all. union-company conspiracy • For a 30 percent wage increase and the restoration of cost of living! No layoffs and plant closures! A good-pay- against autoworkers! ing and secure job with full health care and pension benefits is a social right, not a privi- lege. Job security for every worker is a fun- By Jerry White cess in building a quality product and its damental necessity of life in modern society. The World Socialist Web Site and the ability to sell such product. To these ends the Company and the Union encourage • End the Alternative Work Schedule! Socialist Equality Party call on autowork- ers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) to to the fullest degree friendly and coop- The AWS disrupts family life and under- erative relations between their respective mines workers’ health. Overtime pay after begin organizing now to defeat the rotten eight hours and weekends must be restored. deal agreed by the UAW and FCA. The representatives at all levels and among all Shorten the workday with no loss in pay in UAW is mobilizing whatever resources employees.” order to hire more workers. it can to lie to and threaten workers into Indeed, the UAW and the FCA have • For workers’ control over production! backing the contract and is planning “friendly and cooperative relations”—re- Abolish the labor-management committees votes as early as this week. lations directed at boosting the profits of the UAW runs on behalf of the auto bosses With the auto corporations and corpo- the company and the payout to its execu- and establish genuine workers’ democratic rate CEOs like Sergio Marchionne reap- tives and Wall Street investors by increas- control over work conditions, line speed and ing the exploitation of the workers. health and safety. ing record profits, the UAW is pushing a deal that will establish permanently low- The main components of the contract in- • Put the auto industry under public ownership! er wages, shift the costs of health care clude: Corporate executives and Wall Street para- onto workers, encourage back-breaking • The preservation and expansion of sites can no longer be allowed to hold the speedups in the factories and set the needs of workers and society as a whole hos- the hated two-tier wage system stage for a new round of layoffs and plant tage to their selfish demands for more money. None of the caps promised by the UAW The auto industry, built by the labor of genera- closings. to move low-paid workers into the first tier tions of working people, should be national- Facing widespread anger from auto- ized under the democratic control of the work- have been honored. Second-tier workers workers, the UAW has responded to the will continue to make near-poverty wages ing class in order to guarantee decent jobs demand advanced by the WSWS Auto- and working conditions and safe, reliable and and receive substandard medical and affordable transportation for the public. worker Newsletter that workers have the pension benefits. It will take seven years right to study the contract by releasing • For the international unity of the working class! for a new-hire, with a starting wage of the full text of the agreement. However, $17 per hour, to earn the new maximum Reject the nationalist “Buy American” cam- it only underscores the rotten character paigns of the UAW and unite with our broth- of $25.35 per hour (which in real terms will of the deal that the UAW is trying to ram be worth only $20.50 by 2023, according ers and sisters in Europe, Asia, Latin Amer- through. ica and around the world in a common fight to inflation estimates). against the global auto giants. The UAW-FCA conspiracy against au- Even this rate is not guaranteed for work- • Break with the Democrats and Republicans! toworkers is revealed at the very begin- ers who do not reach the cap by the end To wage a struggle against the auto bosses ning of the contract, which states: “The of the four-year contract, creating the and the Wall Street banks, workers must parties recognize that the success of the conditions for a multi-tier workforce. break with the two parties of big business Company and the job security of the em- and build a mass political party to fight ployees depends on the Company’s suc- Continued on page 2 against inequality, war, police brutality and other attacks on democratic rights. The cap- italist government must be replaced with a government of the workers, by the workers Subscribe to the weekly digital newsletter and for the workers. Sign up at: wsws.org/autoworkers 02 AUTOWORKER NEWSLETTER —Published by the World Socialist Web Site WSWS.ORG Reject UAW sellout! Build rank-and-file committees to fight the union-company conspiracy against autoworkers! continued from page 1 mass struggles in the 1930s and 1940s. The fight to improve living standards Workers hired before 2007 will see a raise The deal also provides larger pay raises to places workers in a direct struggle not of only 6 percent over four years. This “team leaders,” encouraged by the UAW only against the auto bosses, but against breaks down to a 1.5 percent hike per to crack the whip. the entire capitalist economic and political year for workers who have suffered a de- The contract gives the green light for new setup, including the Obama administra- cade-long pay freeze, which resulted in a layoffs and plant closings. It also signals tion, whose economic policy is based on 22 percent decline in real wages. The two the UAW’s willingness to collaborate in a transforming the US into a cheap-labor $2,500 bonuses in the off years will be merger with GM or some other company platform. more than eaten up by taxes, union dues that would destroy tens of thousands of Autoworkers have many potential allies in and increased health care costs. jobs, as long as the merged company this fight: the working class of the Unit- The Alternative Work Schedule, no over- pledges to continue to work with the ed States and internationally. An appeal time pay after eight hours and cuts in UAW. should be sent out to all workers—steel- relief time are still there. There will be no The agreement is not the result of talks workers, Verizon telecom workers, postal restoration of cost of living increases for between the company and an organiza- workers, teachers and others facing simi- current workers or retirees. The company tion that represents the workers. It is the lar battles—to unify the working class in a will be free to exploit temporary part-time result of a conspiracy between two busi- common struggle. An offensive by auto- workers and other third-tier workers. ness entities to more effectively structure workers would be a powerful impetus for FCA’s operations so as to boost profits a struggle of workers and young people Meanwhile, early retirement and other throughout the world against social in- “voluntary” separation packages are be- and the UAW’s share of the spoils. This includes the shifting of production to low- equality and the relentless corporate- ing offered and absentee and tardiness government attacks on the working class. policies tightened to drive out what Mar- er-wage centers and the potential closure chionne has called the “dying class” and of “troublesome” plants with more militant At the same time, autoworkers must re- eliminate higher-paid positions forever. workers. ject the nationalism of the UAW and fight That the UAW can peddle such a rotten to unite with our class brothers in Mexico, • An attack on health care in the form Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America and of the union-run “co-op” agreement as a “substantial gain” only underscores the fact that it is a tool of the Africa against the global corporations and As a reward for impoverishing workers, corporations and an enemy of the work- banks. the UAW will be given control of another ers. It is not a “workers organization,” but The working class must not pay for the multibillion-dollar investment fund (“co- a police force, labor contractor and health capitalist economic crisis or the criminal op”) and will take over the provision and insurance business. decisions of the corporate and financial rationing of health care benefits. The pro- elites. Instead, workers must organize as posal is modeled on the Voluntary Em- FCA workers around the country have rightfully responded to this sellout with an independent political force in opposi- ployee Beneficiary Agreement (VEBA) set tion to both big business parties and the up for retirees in 2007. contempt and anger. The question is: What way forward? profit system they defend. Under a mandate by the corporations and A successful fight requires organization, All of the political parties and institutions the Obama administration to slash medi- of big business, from the Democrats and cal costs, the UAW-run health care co-op but this means the organization of work- ers in opposition to the UAW. The WSWS Republicans to the courts and the police, will impose sharp increases in copays, function as tools of the rich. That is why deductibles and other out-of-pocket ex- urges workers to form rank-and-file action committees to establish lines of commu- workers must build an independent politi- penses. In other words, workers will be cal movement, uniting every section of the forced to pay back whatever meager nication between every factory, organize demonstrations and protests and mount working class behind a program to seize wage increases they get to “UAW Health the ill-gotten gains of the billionaires; es- Insurance, Inc.” a campaign in opposition to the threats and ballot-stuffing of the UAW. Workers tablish public ownership and democratic, • Increased speedup and corporate re- should insist that no votes be held until working class control over the banks, ma- structuring they have time to properly study the con- jor corporations and natural resources; and reorganize the economy in the US The UAW will oversee relentless speedup tract independently of the lies and sugar- and internationally to guarantee the social in the factories and a new performance- coating of the UAW. rights of workers—for secure and good- based scheme that will pay second-tier A “no” vote is only the beginning. A re- paying jobs, health care, education, hous- workers bonuses if the company attains jection of the contract will not make the ing, leisure time, a comfortable retirement increased profit margins. This will en- UAW come back with a better deal. On and a future for the next generation free courage a ruthless competition between the contrary, the union will collaborate from poverty and war. workers in line with the notorious piece- with the employers to threaten the jobs of work system abolished by autoworkers in militant workers.

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