White House ‘recovery’ plan: Lay off more workers

It is now clear exactly what type of “recovery” the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry has in mind: layoffs and more layoffs. On top of the long list of factory closings that have ravaged autoworkers over the last years, General Motors and Chrysler suddenly announced they would soon close 2,600 and 800 dealerships, respectively. Employing on average 50 workers, that means 170,000 workers are at immediate risk.

Steve Rattner, Obama’s pick to head the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, pressured the UAW to make crippling concessions.

The government and corporate media present massive cutbacks as a painful but necessary process to right the ship. But layoffs do not stop the bleeding—they continue it. There is hardly a town or suburb in the country that does not have a car dealership. In many places, they are some of the best jobs available and workers there contribute significantly to the local economy and tax base. Without a struggle to drastically reform the country’s tax codes—to make sure that the rich pay in full for the crisis they created—that means another round of cuts in education and other social services.

The dealership announcement came just two weeks after Chrysler announced a White House-engineered bankruptcy. There were indications since last December that the big banks, ruling-class politicians and even the auto companies themselves were pushing for some type of bankruptcy. The financial problems of the Big Three auto manufacturers were falsely blamed on the workers’ benefits, which were earned through decades of union struggle. Instead of blaming the corporate executives and bankers, the workers were universally vilified for daring to hold onto their basic right to retire with health care. Thankfully, the UAW did not bend under this pressure and they refused to reopen its contract.

Although the UAW worked tirelessly to help Obama win several mid-Western states, he selected Steve Rattner, a former top banker at Morgan Stanley, to lead his Task Force on the auto industry. Rattner pressured the union to accept the bankruptcy, under which Chrysler was absolved of half its debt to the retirees’ health care fund. Instead, United Auto Workers will be given 55 percent of the company’s stock to sell on the open market—shares it will then sell to finance the health care fund. In effect, by elevating the union to the position of a junior owner, retirees’ health benefits will now be insecure, left to the whim of the market.

This is not just an issue of union leaderships being afraid to go on strike. Look at American Axle workers in Detroit, who last year struck for three months to defend their jobs and wages. The workers ended up conceding half their wages and a year later, the bosses are closing the factory anyway.

It is time to think bigger. What is needed is a universal health care plan—which the White House plan most definitely is not—to take the profit motive and the instability of the market out of health care. What is needed is a resurgent social movement to give confidence to and unite workers who want to occupy their own factories and run them independently. Garment workers in Chicago and Rochester have recently taken votes to authorize precisely such actions.

The banks and corporations should have no right to decide the fate of millions of working families. Right now, the government is using our tax dollars to bail out auto companies on one condition: that they promptly lay workers off! What the U.S. government should do is take ownership of the auto industry altogether, guarantee every auto worker their job and retool the factories to produce mass transit and fuel-efficient vehicles.

The central issue is that capitalist production is not centrally planned with the goal of meeting society’s needs for autos, trucks, rail cars and other vehicles. Rather, vehicle production is carried out by competing companies whose only goal is to make profits for investors. Now is the time to explain to millions of workers: the system needs to go.