The most urgent and basic problem facing the autoworkers today is how to reverse the strategy of retreat by the UAW leadership.
To do this, it is absolutely necessary to invoke the emergency powers described in the UAW constitution for the purpose of expanding the Chrysler Division negotiations into industry-wide bargaining in order to put the whole weight of the union and its huge membership behind the besieged Chrysler workers. This can and must be done.
In the meantime, every day that the present strategy of retreat continues to dominate the thinking and action of the UAW hierarchy, the more it instills and makes pervasive a spirit of passivity, pessimism, and general despondency, not only in the ranks at Chrysler, GM, and Ford, but throughout the working class in general.
The retreat strategy of the UAW is of a hurried, makeshift, and spontaneous character which has put the union and its leadership on a downhill course. Of course, in a protracted struggle between capital and labor, such as has been going on between the UAW and the auto barons for decades, one can easily understand the correctness and propriety of tactical retreats as the situation may warrant. The purpose of a valid retreat, however, in military as well as in civil struggles, is to move on to a more secure and defensible position, previously prepared. This is to enable the union to fortify itself, redeploy and gather its forces, so as to open a timely counteroffensive in order to regain what it has had to yield.
In order to lessen the devastating effects of the concessions demanded by Chrysler, Fraser is reported to have urged corresponding concessions such as shortening the duration of the present contract and canceling some of those concessions in the event Chrysler rebounds (Detroit News, December 28, 1980).
Shortening the duration of the contract under the present conditions of a raging capitalist crisis does not in and of itself put the union in a more secure or defensible position, which should be the primary object of a valid and necessary retreat. On the contrary, it makes the Chrysler workers more vulnerable to attack and also imperils by negative example other workers in the industry. The vulnerability is inherent in the very nature of the new arrangement Fraser seeks, which is based on the contingency of Chrysler's profitability.
If Chrysler rebounds, Fraser says. If, if, if. There is no way of knowing if it is possible for Chrysler to survive in the midst of a capitalist crisis without more and more concessions from the workers, if the present strategy of retreat continues to prevail. The strategy is faulty in substance as well as in form.
As the telegram that Fraser fired off to Reagan shows, this strategy is being pursued under conditions of thoughtlessness and panic.
"Our nation," said Fraser's telegram, "faces the literal collapse of one of its most crucial industries."
This Fraser tells Reagan!
Of course, a moment of sober calculation would have revealed to Fraser what he and all the union leadership know already: that the industry by no means "faces literal collapse."
GM doesn't face collapse. On the contrary, it stands to profit enormously by the collapse of Chrysler. Ford, too, while seeming to unite with Chrysler on the fraudulent import issue, in reality can only hope for the collapse of Chrysler as the easiest way of salvaging itself.
Ford, even if Chrysler were to collapse, might still be on the skids. This would enable General Motors to emerge as the supreme juggernaut, much as AT&T emerged as the overriding telephone monopoly.
Is it possible that all this completely escapes Fraser and the UAW leadership? Is it not a common phenomenon that one sees every day in U.S. industry?
This talk of the catastrophic collapse of the industry is phony scare propaganda. When the weak capitalist firms are swallowed up, the larger ones predominate in the end.
This is a century-old, remorseless and relentless process: the concentration and centralization of capital, where the larger units invariably tend to swallow up the smaller ones. It is the process of capitalist accumulation, which ends in monopoly. The ruling class has no solution but more monopoly and struggles among the largest industrial and financial oligarchies to divide and redivide the material and human resources of the country. The Senate has heard thousands of hours of testimony at hearings on the concentration of capital, to which the UAW leadership has given convincing and persuasive testimony to prove this point. If, however, Fraser and the other UAW leaders are unaware of this, they need go no further than the supermarket to find examples.
For example, the collapse of one or even two supermarkets in a city with three supermarkets does not mean the collapse of the grocery industry. It means the predominance of the largest and most powerful -- and the layoffs of hundreds if not thousands of workers (not counting the domino effect upon many thousands more). This is so common, one can scarcely avoid noticing it.
But it is also ridiculous to speak of the literal destruction of the auto industry. The industry itself is not at all collapsing. It is only the capitalist form of the production of automobiles for profit that is collapsing on a world scale at the present time. The industry -- that is, its physical plants and equipment -- is among the finest, if not the finest, in the world, except for Japan and West Germany which have made certain innovations in auto production to meet the oil crisis. The physical plants and equipment of the U.S. auto industry are fit for production on a huge and ever-larger scale, but not necessarily under the capitalist form of production for profit.
The industry as such is not collapsing. Under workers' control of production for use instead of profit it could thrive and develop and at the same time renovate itself in an orderly fashion without invoking any cataclysmic collapse (as though the earth were collapsing from under the industrial plants and equipment of the auto industry).
Should insolvency or bankruptcy be the only alternative to the industry giants, then it must be made absolutely clear that the union is ready, willing, and able to take over the management, operation, and ownership of the Chrysler company. The industry giants must be told that the alternative to scuttling Chrysler is not the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of workers but firm workers' control and operation of the industry -- with the union as trustee in bankruptcy.
Be that as it may, this argument does not impress the UAW leadership. If, however, autoworkers are to talk about the industry as a whole and especially if they are to address themselves to the Reagan administration, it is necessary to first talk among themselves, not merely as the Chrysler Division, but as the entire UAW, including GM and Ford workers.
If it is an industry-wide problem, as Fraser would put it, then it is necessary to mobilize the union membership industry-wide. Proceeding on the outmoded one-at-a-time strategy of dealing with the Chrysler Corporation and the Loan Board on a unilateral basis deprives the Chrysler workers of the support of the entire union membership. It puts an artificial wall between them and the GM and Ford workers.
This is what a militant autoworker on the UAW negotiating team would immediately realize in a practical way.
But how has the Fraser leadership proceeded? First the union leadership opens up the contract. This is a dead giveaway that they'll be making concessions. Later, it meets the chairman of the Loan Board, who will try to further whittle down the union contract and get even more concessions from the union. And then it meets, as Fraser puts it, "by ourselves" to consider what to do. This is putting the cart before the horse.
The whole negotiating process is being carried out in a disorderly and chaotic manner. There seems to be no room in the present strategy for the union to sit pat even for a while.
Collapse of the Chrysler Corporation would mean more layoffs and more dismantling of the plants by cutting them to the bone. Under these circumstances, the balance of power between the UAW workers as a whole and the auto barons would be changed radically.
What must be realized is that this is the most profound change in the relationship of forces between the UAW workers as a whole and the auto industrialists.
A collapse of Chrysler means that one of the firm pillars of the UAW, the Chrysler workers, will be broken down. On the other hand, the two industry survivors, GM and Ford, would be that much more strengthened against the autoworkers as a whole.
The UAW would therefore have much less flexibility in dealing with the two surviving giants and less room to maneuver against them. It just stands to reason that both GM and Ford, by the very logic of the situation, not only hope for the sinking of Chrysler but are secretly collaborating with the forces of the capitalist state against not only the Chrysler Corporation as such, but more importantly against the UAW -- the autoworkers who are bearing the brunt of the attack.
It should be remembered that these three auto giants have a long and rich record of secretly collaborating and conspiring among themselves, notwithstanding the fact that they are also fierce competitors. The long history of government antitrust suits and investigations against them is merely one indication of their methods of operation. The UAW leadership once knew this only too well.
It would be absolutely naive to believe that GM and Ford have not thrown their weight, together with the capitalist government, against the Chrysler workers and in this instance are not acting as one.
The conclusion is therefore inescapable that the entire UAW, encompassing GM, Ford, and others, must act as one in a combined challenge to the auto barons.
That challenge requires first of all calling a halt to any retreat by the UAW leadership in the Chrysler struggle. Every autoworker -- every worker at Chrysler, Ford, GM -- will ultimately be affected by what happens in the Chrysler struggle. The well-being, the livelihood, not to speak of the job security of every autoworker, is jeopardized unless a reversal of the strategy of retreat is imposed on the leadership by the million-fold membership.
"But how can this be done," one is prompted to ask, "when our hands are tied by the contract, at GM and Ford most of all?"
The terms of a contract generally endure for the period stipulated in the contract. That's of course all too true. However, when there is a drastic and fundamental change in the conditions of the workers and in the country as a result of economic crisis, the contract should not be understood to be inviolate. When workers' conditions undergo such a tremendous change, they are entitled to seek ways and means to rectify the situation by reopening the contract.
In May 1950 the UAW signed what was then considered a pretty good contract with Ford, Chrysler, and GM. A month later, the Korean War broke out and the economic situation in the country began to change, spurred by inflation and the rising cost of living. It was said at the time that the union was stuck with a five year contract and could do nothing about it.
However, the spur of the high cost of living and of high inflation forced the union leadership to demand the reopening of the contract.
It took a considerable amount of planning and work stoppages but the auto barons finally gave in. The contract was reopened, although somewhat late in its duration.
Today's UAW leaders, however, have permitted the auto industrialists to use the union's attempt to partially rectify conditions by reopening the contract as justification for demanding concessions from the workers. They should never have allowed this to happen. There are the strongest grounds for denying the concessions and pointing out that the radical change the Chrysler crisis has made in the workers' conditions makes it incumbent to invoke the emergency powers invested, not in the capitalist government, but in the constitution of the UAW.
These emergency powers were framed with a view toward meeting precisely such a condition as now exists, where the auto industrialists are inflicting a catastrophe on the Chrysler workers.
The emergency powers not only spell out the conditions which the constitution envisages, but also spell out specifically what the union leadership and membership ought to do under such emergency conditions.
Just in case the UAW leadership has forgotten what is in the constitution, it is worthwhile to reproduce it in its entirety:
Article 50, Sec. 8. In case of great emergency, when the existence of the International Union is involved together with the economic and social standing of our membership, the International President and the International Executive Board shall have authority to declare a general strike within the industry by a two-third vote of the International Executive Board whenever, in their good judgment, it shall be deemed proper for the purpose of preserving and perpetuating the rights and living standards of the general membership of our International Union, provided under no circumstances shall it call such a strike until approved by a referendum vote of the membership.
The intent and language make it crystal clear that when this constitutional provision was made, the UAW had in mind a situation exactly like the one which now prevails in the auto industry, as demonstrated by Chrysler. There is no doubt, as the constitution states, that there is a "great emergency." Nor is there any question about the economic and social standing of the membership as a result of the economic crisis.
Without any evasion, without any quibbling, or abstruse equivocal language, the constitution clearly authorizes the executive board to declare a general strike in time of great emergency. The language fits precisely the current situation which Fraser himself considers an emergency (otherwise he would not characterize the industry as on the verge of collapse).
It is worthy of note that the general strike provision of the constitution makes reference to first getting approval of the entire UAW membership in a referendum vote. The constitutional provisions of a union are an implied condition of the union's contracts. This sanctions any reopening of the union contract for purposes of industry-wide worker solidarity with the Chrysler workers to ward off any further incursions by the Chrysler Corporation.
There is no need to immediately begin general strike agitation. What is needed most of all in order to reverse the retreat strategy of the union leadership is to begin a campaign among the various union locals in the country calling upon the leadership for a referendum vote of solidarity with the Chrysler workers and an end to the retreat strategy.
The very fact of rank-and-file workers meeting in various local unions throughout the country and bombarding the leadership with various resolutions demanding a referendum vote would in itself be the greatest stimulus toward transforming the current mood of passivity into one of aggressive solidarity against the auto industrialists.
For the union leadership to have in its hands the weapon of a referendum vote would in itself strengthen the position of the union and substantially help to reverse the character of the negotiations. A referendum vote is the kind of language the auto barons and the capitalist government behind them would understand.
The cry of "emergency" which the bosses and the capitalist politicians were the first to invoke in order to get concessions from the workers must now be thrown in their teeth in order to stop such concessions.
In order to effectuate industry-wide collective bargaining, it is necessary to convene an emergency UAW conference so as to let the voice of resistance from the workers be heard loud and clear by management, the capitalist government, and the Loan Board. Then they would fully understand that they are not dealing with an isolated segment of the UAW but with the full force and power of the entire union and its membership.
Last updated: 29 April 2018