"REBUILDING AND REENERGIZING THE LABOR MOVEMENT"
Labor Panel -Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
San Francisco, CA - July 24, 2009
Panelists: David Bacon, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Maria Guillen, Frank Hammer
Comments by Frank Hammer
I'm going to address three themes today, and add a P.S. I'm going to give you a flavor of the autoworkers' movement as I've experienced it in the last six months; I will comment on the breathtaking events surrounding the GM bankruptcy; and I will elaborate on a proposal that has some promise for movement building. My P.S. will consist of a suggestion for continuing to fight for an internationalist perspective on the part of autoworkers.
As a working class movement activist – when things look dreary – I remind myself that the work that I am doing, that we all are doing, is inside the belly of the beast. We are working inside the most powerful imperial power the world has ever known. If we are not further along in the trajectory of liberating "United Statians" – I refuse to refer to ourselves as "Americans" – you can chalk it up to the weird warp and bends of living inside the materially richest country on earth. Some days I'm satisfied that we are giving this monster a big belly ache and thereby supporting other, perhaps more advanced struggles around the world.
The stark reality of the difference of our circumstances here and, say, the formerly colonized world came home to me during a visit to Porto Allegre, Brazil in 2006. The Metalworkers Federation arranged for me to meet GM and Delphi autoworkers employed at Gravitai – a modern behemoth out in the middle of nowhere. During our discussion I was asked why there wasn't more of a fightback among autoworkers in the U.S., and I responded that workers were taking "buyouts." I explained that GM was paying some workers $140,000 to "buy out" their seniority. They were visibly stunned. And I sure felt awkward and humbled, understanding that they wouldn't see that much money in a lifetime. It's like we live on different planets, linked by the fact that GM could afford the payments by extracting superprofits from the Brazilians.
Three years before, as part of the 2003 UAW negotiations with GM, I sat in a sub-committee on outsourcing. There were maybe two dozen GM and UAW reps at the table. One of the union reps voiced objection to work being outsourced to Mexico. The retort was something to the effect that GM outsourcing to Mexico was enabling GM to pay the wages and benefits to UAW-represented members in the US. The room fell silent and then proceeded with other subjects. This implicitly shared truth, now made explicit, of course concealed the other edge of the sword that is undoing the UAW's industrial base.
Earlier this year, as part of a loose coalition – the "Autoworker Caravan" – we organized a picket of 150 people [at the North American International Auto Show, Detroit] with many rank and file workers participating. All brought their own signs. One in particular caught my attention: a former member of my local now working at another GM facility (a white male) carried a sign saying "I am not a foreign autoworker." Had he held a sign in a previous era saying, "I am not a negro autoworker," it surely would have sparked a response or debate. This worker's sign sparked none. This brother understood the essence of the erosion of his status. It was his personal expression of the entire edifice of appealing to an alliance with capital for privilege vis a vis workers of the Third World.
Fast forward to a demonstration in Lansing on June 1st calling for the preservation of the "American Dream" called by Lansing [MI] mayor Virge Bernero, and featuring Jesse Jackson (a demo boycotted, incidentally, by my union). There were UAW members nevertheless. As we marched to the state Capitol, union members – African American and white – were chanting "we are the union, the mighty, mighty union…" A staffer from Operation PUSH with a bullhorn changed the chant to "We are Americans, mighty, mighty Americans…" The union chant and its substitute remained in contention throughout the march. Once at the Capitol, both were expressed.
In a slightly different example, on June 16th, workers from the Autoworker's Caravan participated as part of a 4-day "People's Summit" organized in response to a "National Business Summit." Two hundred people – one third autoworkers – demonstrated in front of the GM headquarters, the first demonstration of its kind. Some of the autoworkers traveled from Toledo, Lansing, Grand Rapids, some carrying U.S. flags. It was quite a sight to see the intermingling of the stars and stripes with picket signs demanding an end to foreclosures, an end to racism, support for health care, etc. Unlike the Lansing rally and the "Keep it Made in America" rallies organized by the steelworkers, there were no "buy American" banners.
I bring this all up to emphasize as fundamental that we must find the practical ways that we can win unionized industrial workers to the understanding that our fate is bound up with the fate of foreign workers. With the expansion of globalization, we are all foreign workers.
Let's talk about the Big 3 – and I don't mean the 3 gambling casinos that now stand among the ruins of Detroit. To illustrate what's happened, I will refer you - by way of example - to Iraq and specifically to the Ma' Dan, – Iraq's marsh Arabs. These were Shi'tes who made their living in the wetlands and rebelled against the tyranny of Sadaam Hussein in 1991. One of Hussein's responses was to have Sunni workers build dams, dikes and canals to dry the wetlands. This I believe is what's going on in the U.S. heartland as auto plant after auto plant is closed. This is part and parcel of the neo-liberal agenda to eradicate the unionized sector of the auto industry. Never mind that in the process – as pointed out in a recent NY Times article – the ranks of the black industrial working class are being decimated. Hussein's actions became part of the mandate for his overthrow. The actions here of the corporations directed by finance capital is politely called "bankruptcy restructuring."
Now, make no mistake about it – this process proceeded seamlessly in the transition from the Bush administration which, already in December 2008, was talking "bankruptcy restructuring." In fact, under Obama the demands for concessions from autoworkers were increased up to and including giving up the right to strike, which the UAW did. Result: 21,000 more workers are losing their jobs, contracts are being stripped, and retiree health care diminished. While we can be glad that GM and Chrysler live on for another day, I am worried that this "restructuring" will negatively impact on the support that Obama won throughout the rustbelt – support that he won in places like Macomb County, the home of the "Reagan Democrats." That support is fragile, at best.
To Obama's credit – and where he distinguished himself from his predecessors – he stated on 3/30 as follows:
"When a community is struck by a natural disaster, the nation responds to put it back on its feet. While the storm that has hit our auto towns is not a tornado or a hurricane, the damage is clear, and we must likewise respond."
We in the Autoworker Caravan began last December to articulate a new vision for Detroit and the auto-based towns of the Midwest which certainly would apply [to the Bay Area] if they proceed to close the manufacturing capacity at the UAW plant in NUMMI [the GM joint venture with Toyota]. Our starting point is the conviction that we do not have the luxury to address the various crises engendered by capitalism separately. Specifically, we cannot put off the crisis of global climate change to another day while we work to stop foreclosures, etc.
If Jim Hansen's [Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist] words are true, we face an irreversible tipping point where what humans do [to reverse global climate change] will have no impact on global warming, regardless. So we put forward the idea, articulated in a letter to President Obama, especially now that GM stands for "Government Motors," that the government take possession of shuttered plants and convert them for production of mass transit and clean energy – to reduce or carbon footprint. We suggest in the letter that there is precedent in the conversion of auto plants, citing the rapid conversion to military production at the beginning of World War II.
We know how the Bush administration dealt with New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. The Obama administration can demonstrate how – in the face of this dry Katrina [hitting the US auto cities and communities] – he can make a difference.
In all of this we must continue to affect the consciousness of autoworkers in their responsibility to support workers around the world in their own self interest. For the last 4-5 years, a labor caucus has formed to add a labor component to the movement to close the School of the Americas (SOA). Brother [Bill] Fletcher in his book [Solidarity Divided] cites that [AFL-CIO President John] Sweeney was unable to address U.S. foreign policy in facilitating corporate globalization. Obama opened the door during the campaign when he stated he would not endorse a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia and cited the deaths of union organizers in that country. The SOA is behind those assassinations. Union members should swell the ranks of labor in the annual vigil this November 20-22. A global alliance of workers is the only answer to the global corporate alliance that's already in place.
Frank Hammer
UAW International Representative, retired
