THE battle lines are being drawn up in the United States between the vanguard of the working class in the auto industry and the big bosses of General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler.
At stake are the living standards that the whole of the American working class has built up in the last 50 years.
All three motor car giants are desperate to return to profitability by battering down the wage levels, and the healthcare and retirement benefits that the auto workers have built up in the period.
Playing the role of arch provocateur in this struggle is the US car parts producer Delphi, employing over 33,000 workers, and until recently a part of General Motors.
The company has applied for bankruptcy and wants to cut wages from $26 an hour to $10 an hour, a 60 per cent wage cut, and at the same time slash all health and retirement benefits for all workers and retirees.
It is seeking the permission of the court to ‘modify’ all of its agreements with the UAW.
GM has already obtained from the UAW leaders cuts of three billion a year in health care provision and Ford and Daimler Chrysler are demanding the same treatment. But this ‘compromise’ has just whetted the appetite of the Big Three for more ‘concessions’.
This week the leader of AFL-CIO trade union federation, its President, John Sweeney said: ‘The attempt by Delphi Corp to use the bankruptcy process to slash wages and benefits for workers and then award company stock and nearly $90 million in cash bonuses to managers and executives is obscene. . .
‘It is a threat not only to the wages, benefits and job security of every industrial worker in America, but to the company’s shareholders, suppliers and customers.
‘The AFL-CIO stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Delphi workers and their unions. Not only can they count on the 5.5 million active and retired members of the six unions that formed the Mobilising@Delphi coalition, they can count on the support of the entire 9 million member AFL-CIO.
‘Together we will fight to force Delphi management to change the company’s anti-working family strategy.’
The UAW has calculated its agreement with Delphi will remain in full force and effect until at least January 24, 2006.
It states: ‘Until that time, all active and retired Delphi members will continue to be protected under the terms of the UAW-Delphi Agreement.
‘Should the Court ultimately issue an order granting Delphi’s Section 1113-1114 motions providing for rejection of the UAW-Delphi Agreement, the Union would then have a legal right to strike.’
Just two and a half months away is the biggest showdown between labour and capital in the US since the class war days of the organisation of the industrial trade unions in the 1930s and 40s.
There are things that must be done to prepare for this struggle.
The UAW must decide on strike action by all of its members from January 24th 2006 to defend the jobs wages and conditions of all Delphi workers, and the AFL-CIO and Change to Win trade union federations must call a general strike from January 24th to support that action.
Both trade union federations must take action to form a Labour Party to take up the political struggle to defend workers’ jobs by fighting for socialist policies.
Marxists in the United States must form a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International to guide the struggle of the US working class and organise the struggle for a socialist revolution in the US.
