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    Vol.62/No.28           July 28, 1998 
 
 
Auto Strikers Are Resolved To Fight GM  

BY JOHN SARGE
FLINT, Michigan - As the strikes by 9,200 workers at two General Motors (GM) plants here enter their second month, the world's largest auto maker is taking new steps to pressure the workers and their union, the United Auto Workers (UAW). While attempting to deny jobless benefits to some 120,000 workers laid off as a result of the strikes, the company is trying to get the parts produced that it needs to resume production of its most profitable models.

The stakes in this labor battle are high. GM "needs to cut more than 50,000 U.S. hourly positions - or 22 percent of the workforce - to become as competitive as its rivals, even though it has already shed 64,000 jobs since 1992, according to people close to GM," said a major article in the July 7 Wall Street Journal. This is typical of coverage in the big-business press these days. "GM officials say they can't agree to any accord that would block the company's efforts to increase productivity and reduce the number of workers plant by plant," the Journal continued.

Strikers and others in this city, who have seen GM's downsizing for well over a decade, are responding with anger and acts of solidarity. UAW Local 651, with 5,800 members on strike at the Delphi East complex, is selling a cap declaring "One day longer." Vehicles around this city of 134,000 sport bright yellow and white UAW flags. Numerous local merchants have signs in their parking lots declaring "We support the UAW" and offering discounts to strikers. And drivers along both Dort Highway and Bristol Road make conversations difficult on the picket lines because of the blare of car and truck horns. The picket lines, nine at Delphi East and two at the Metal Fabrication Center on Bristol road, are well staffed around the clock. Strikers are assigned four hours of picket duty a week but many spend extra hours there.

Strike attracts fighting workers
The strikes continue to draw workers looking to fight back against their bosses from around the country. Two workers from St. Louis spent the Fourth of July holiday on the picket line. Gary Lomax and his wife Cheryl dropped off a letter of support from UAW Local 136 at Chrysler's St. Louis North Assembly plant. Two days earlier members of UAW Local 36 at Ford's Wixom Assembly Plant near Detroit delivered $1,372 collected from workers there in the days before their vacation shut down.

In describing his five hours walking the picket line, Lomax said, "I felt like it was a real honor. This is where it all started, this is where it needs to stop." Flint was the site of key battles in the fight to forge the auto workers union, including the 1936-37 "sit-down" strike at General Motors.

The current battle began June 5, when 3,400 members of UAW Local 659 walked out of GM's Flint Metal Fabrication Center over health and safety issues, outsourcing, subcontracting, and working conditions. The members of UAW Local 651 walked out at Delphi East June 11 over similar issues. By the beginning of the annual two-week vacation shutdown June 29, the auto maker has shuttered 26 of its 29 North American assembly plants and sections of over 100 parts plants. This is the 10th strike at GM facilities over the last two years against the company's productivity drive.

GM tries to resume production
Reports began hitting the press July 2 that GM is looking for independent auto parts makers to supply the reopening of up to 10 assembly plants by early August. USA Today reports that the GM wants to resume production of trucks, sport utility vehicles, and cars, which have been disrupted by the strikes. This may be difficult because many parts suppliers are running near capacity due to the sales boom for auto makers in North America.

In another move designed to pit workers idled by the strike and strikers against each other, GM vice president Donald Hackworth, in what has become a weekly recorded update to salaried employees, revived its threat to cut off the remaining health-care benefits for laid-off workers in the United States.

GM also has filed challenges to unemployment benefits for the nearly 120,000 UAW members laid off during the strike. GM filed similar petitions in 1996 during the 17-day strike at its parts plant in Dayton, Ohio, and every state but Texas rejected GM's challenge. The UAW has therefore already decided to pay strike benefits to the 1,400 members of the union in Texas.

International competition in a world market that suffers from a crisis of over production contributes to GM's demands for productivity increases." The value of the yen accelerates the downsizing that GM needs to do," by making Japanese imports cheaper the July 7 Wall Street Journal quoted Davis Littman, chief economist at Comerica Inc., a major bank in Detroit. He told the newspaper that GM had pledged to reduce its work force to 200,000 by now and hasn't. "The market is very unforgiving for not meeting targets," he said.

Peregrine Acquisitions announced July 7 that it plans to close two of the five plants it bought from GM in 1996. The two plants, located here and in Livonia, Michigan, employ more than 1,500 UAW members. It also announced that it plans to sell a factory, purchased in the same deal in Windsor, Ontario, that employs 1,100 members of the Canadian Auto Workers.

The decision by union officials to allow more than 200 workers at the Delphi East Complex to return to work to make non-GM parts is a hotly debated issue on the picket lines along Dort Road where those workers enter the plant. While some workers argue that the fight is only against GM and it is correct for the union to protect other customers, many others think that the union allowing anyone to cross the picket line weakens the strike. A worker with 20 years in the complex, who asked not to be identified, explained, "The company called me to come to work. But I won't cross a picket line. We're stronger if we all stand together." She went on, "You know that GM will do anything they can to get what they want. They have lied to us repeatedly. Why should we believe them when they say they are only making parts for other companies? They're still getting paid for them."

John Sarge is a member of the UAW Local 900 in Wayne, Michigan, and the Socialist Workers candidate for Congress in the 14th District.  
 
 
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