Richard Mellor
AFSCME Local 444, retired
July 20, 07

This week the leadership of the UAW is meeting with the heads of GM, Chrysler and Ford to discuss what the Financial Times refers to as a labor contract. What is really happening is that the big auto capitalists are meeting with the leaders of a workers’ organization that represents their employees in order to develop a plan that can maximize profits and shareholder value. This can only be accomplished by eliminating jobs and destroying autoworkers’ wages and benefits that were won through heroic struggles of the past. One doesn’t need a PhD in economics to realize that this is not good for working people, especially autoworkers in this particular instance. It is a given that they will not appreciate the likes of Clay Ford or Cerberus investors (1) making billions at their expense and there is always potential for a revolt. Along with their role as technical partners to the employers, the UAW leadership is there to ensure that rank and file anger doesn’t find an organized expression.

The employers are very confident they will be successful; recent history is on their side. The heads of organized labor in the US have shown their willingness time and time again to concede to the employer’s wishes. Rebellions among the rank an file, angry with their leadership’s cooperation in destroying wages and working conditions that took decades to win, have been successfully squashed by the labor bureaucracy with the help of an army of staffers and hangers on. This is not to say opposition groups within organized labor have not made mistakes; they have, many of them lack a clear program to fight back and tend to focus on union democracy alone. But overcoming a combined force of employers and the trade union leadership, not to mention the Democratic Party, is a formidable task. In the Trade Union movement we are facing two battles, one against the employers and the other more complex one against the policies of the present leadership. Their stifling hold on the apparatus may well lead to further declines in Union membership and increased struggles outside these traditional structures.

The UAW leadership’s partnership with the auto bosses has had catastrophic consequences. The Union’s membership has fallen by two thirds over the last 30 years to 538,000 members. (2) This figure could fall even lower as redundancies continue. The UAW leadership has been more than willing to cooperate further with the employers. At the parts supplier DELPHI, they agreed to cuts in wages from “$27 an hour to a maximum of $18.50; benefits will also be cut.” (3)

The Financial Times, like the WSJ, is a serious journal of finance capital; it is not for mass consumption. The headline in the article quoted above reflects the confident mood prevalent in the capitalist class: “Deal For Detroit?” it says with optimism. But if the Labor leaders were doing their job, this headline should read: “War With Organized Labor Inevitable”, with a subheading, “UAW leaders organizing mass protests and strikes/ three plants occupied so far.” The employers should fear the potential power of organized labor. But the employers are secure in their confidence. Goldman Sachs, the moneylenders, have added GM shares to its “buy” list says the Times, “on expectations that the UAW would, make significant concessions in the talks.” J.P. Morgan, competing moneylenders, also “upgraded” GM and Chrysler stock. The Labor leaders have assured them all is well.

The UAW leadership is among the AFL-CIO’s champions of class collaboration and the employers, like all employers, are very grateful. “The UAW is very innovative in the good times but it’s also very innovative in the bad times.” says one professor of industrial relations with confidence. (4)

Remember, this report in the Financial Times is the strategists of the bourgeois speaking to their class. It is one of their theoretical journals, a major one, and it brings good tidings. The concessions the UAW leadership handed over to GM and Ford in 2005 (increased contributions to health care and no COLA) will not end there, the article informs its readers, and further: “Mr. Gettelfinger has indicated a willingness to extend these arrangements to Chrysler after it parts ways with its deep pocketed owner. The UAW has also accepted more flexible work practices.” And this is before they even sit down; the betrayal can’t be any clearer than that.

Are UAW leaders on the take?
I have had many heated discussions with co-workers over the causes of the Union leadership’s complete failure to fight back. I have had even more heated discussions with people who would call themselves socialists and who have accused me of betraying socialism by not calling a spade a spade, not giving corruption and their obscene salaries an important enough role in the Union leaders traitorous behavior.

Hollywood would have us believe that our Unions were built and controlled by organized crime, but this is not the case. Like the red scare, the terrorist scare, and the ranting about the new bogeyman, Iran, it is in the interests of the movie moguls to portray organized labor this way; it is a good diversion tactic. There is no doubt that at the higher levels especially, there are corrupt labor leaders, and their obscene salaries, lifestyle and the milieu they hang around in obviously plays a role in their class collaboration, but it is a secondary one. In my experience in the labor movement over 25 years, I would argue that in the main labor leaders are not corrupt, in the sense that most workers mean it, that they take money or bribes. History is littered with great leaders who ended up betraying us. Why did Hoffa end up where he did? Or Huey Newton? These people started out as courageous figures, not afraid of much. There is no doubt that Hoffa initially played a progressive role in the US labor movement, working closely with Farrell Dobbs, a socialist and SWP member. What happened? Even when honest fighters for the working class do turn corrupt literally, and do take money. What causes this? I am not comparing Gettlfinger or John Sweeney to Hoffa or Newton. But they are subject to the same objective forces; we all are.

The Union leadership is corrupt, but they are ideologically corrupt, this is the issue. They accept the employer’s view of the world. They accept in their own minds that there is no alternative form of organizing social production except along capitalist lines where the forces of production are privately owned. They worship the market; they accept that an individual or group of individuals can own the means by which we produce the necessities of life and that the right to profit from the labor of others is sacrosanct. For them, the idea that workers can govern society, can actually rule, is absurd. Capitalists rule, capitalists own factories, capitalists alone must determine how the wealth created by labor should be distributed and exchanged. So for the heads of organized labor, mobilizing their members and the rest of the working class for a struggle against capital, even a small one to defend what we already have, can only lead to chaos, it will also lead to a loss of certain jobs----theirs.

The dominant ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class and the leaders of the organized working class have absorbed them completely, strengthened of course, by a lifestyle far removed from that of the members they claim to represent.

The Financial Times article makes it very clear why the UAW leadership is like it is: “Leaders of the UAW have a tricky course to steer” comments the Times, “On the one hand, they need to recognize the carmakers difficulties if they are not to face further plant closures and job losses.” The Union leaders are Union leaders though, and their social base is a section of the working class in the main. In the last analysis, “they have to sell it (the concessions) to the membership.” says Ronald Tadross, a B of A analyst. The employers are aware of this delicate situation, they know the labor leaders are “on board” that they sympathize with the bosses plight, and many ordinary workers may feel this way also, victims of ideological warfare. But material conditions, class interests, threaten at all times to force the ranks, the working man and woman, to overcome the obstacle of their own leadership and confront capital head on.

The Times points out that workers at Ford voted to accept health care concessions already accepted at GM by a narrow 51-49 percent margin. This is too close a vote. “The Labor leaders are not doing their job” say the bosses to each other. The auto bosses are well aware that the anger their employees feel toward them for destroying their livelihoods and their disgust with the Labor leaders that go along with it, could find an organized expression if a rank and file movement of any sort is not suppressed. A vote in favor of one’s own demise must have a wider margin than that for the employers to feel safe.

There is a small opposition within the UAW, a group called Soldiers of Solidarity. I have had the privilege of meeting some of these brothers and sisters; many of them long term autoworkers and genuine fighters. They are still a relatively small group of dissenters yet the fear of any threat to the present Labor leaders’ hold on the UAW is such that an important capitalist journal refers to them calling them a “small but vocal group of militants.” We should recognize the tremendous potential power that organized labor has despite its diminished ranks. The employers see it, this is why the leadership is so important to them, they know the damage that can be done to the US and world economy by a strong fighting US trade union movement and the pole of attraction it would be to all workers and youth. The auto industry is vital to the US economy and profit taking.

However, dissent, honesty, courage is not enough. More often than not reform groups in the labor movement limit their demands to the need for more democracy, an honorable goal. But what would they do differently if they found themselves in the place of the present moribund leadership? What program, demands and a strategy for winning them would they put forward to win the ranks to their side. What would they do to mobilize working class communities, low waged workers and the unemployed in to a generalized struggle against the employers? The employers will certainly mobilize them. This is the crux of the matter. Instead of limiting their demands to defending the standard of living of their own members (they have even been unable to do that) each individual conflict has to be broadened and demands made that will draw the working class as a whole in to the battle: a $15 an hour minimum wage, increased jobs through a shorter workweek, health care, housing, transportation, these issues have to be raised in each individual dispute. Anti-Union laws have to be challenged. But many genuine activists, influenced by the propaganda of big business echoed by the Union leadership consider such an approach as unrealistic. This is exactly what the Gettlefinger and company believe; but this approach is what built our Unions in the first place.

Like all employers, the auto bosses terrorize workers with threats of plant closings, outsourcing and job losses. The labor leadership backs them up, faced with a war on two fronts, most workers will take the line of least resistance and accept a bad deal; but the attacks will not cease.

Any opposition group that genuinely wants to drive back the present offensive of the employers but limits its program and demands to what is acceptable to the Democrats, the progressive academics and most importantly that refuses to challenge the laws of the market is destined to follow in Gettelfinger’s footsteps.

The only solution is the public ownership of the auto industry. Obviously this doesn’t happen simply because someone says so. It cannot happen without a political party of our own, for me this would mean a genuine revolutionary socialist party. But even in the present instance, in a market economy, a mass workers party taking the auto industry in to public ownership would be a major step forward. It would be a powerful blow to the private sector and would help to weaken the view, prominent in US society, that only the private sector works. The Democrats would never pursue such a policy. However, in the event of a movement of the working class that threatened the system itself, it could not excluded that the Democrats or any capitalist party would nationalize an industry in an attempt to derail this movement and shift the burden of the crisis on to the backs of working people. But while socialists should not oppose this form of public ownership, it would not be the kind of nationalization a socialist would advocate. For socialists the solution to the crisis in industry and society in general is nationalization under workers management and control within the framework of a socialist economy as a whole.

In the last analysis only the end of the dictatorship of capital and the horror of the market will offer a secure future to all.

It is a fact that socialist ideas have undoubtedly been weakened thanks to the horrors of Stalinism and the failure of workers leaders in the US and internationally to offer an alternative to the present system.
In the US, many of the groups claiming to be socialist or Marxist have also tended to turn workers off, primarily because they don’t orient to working people in the main, and when they do, not having an understanding of how we come to learn about the world around us, they tend to lecture and introduce socialist ideas in a stale and non transitional way; they do not understand the transitional method, starting from where we are and helping to bridge the gap between present consciousness and the need to understand that society can and indeed must be transformed if we are to survive.

Socialist ideas are nothing but bringing what we feel in our gut in to our consciousness, this is how one worker once described them. And it is worth remembering the words of Marx himself when reflecting on the various groupings that claimed his name, “Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.” (5)

Barring a revolt from below which appears unlikely, the present auto contract talks will end in further set backs for autoworkers and all working people. And there is no doubt we will suffer further defeats due to the role of the leadership. But globally, there is increased opposition to the capitalist offensive. From Latin America, to Bangladesh and other parts of the world workers are fighting back. There will inevitably be some major struggles in France in the coming period. There are literally thousands of protests in China against the regime there.

The US working class has a rich and militant history. It has waged war with the most ruthless capitalist class of all and made great strides forward. Due to our leadership we are on the defensive, heading backwards, but the US working class will at some point reverse course, a new movement will arise, I am confident of that. It will have its confusions, its reaction, but in struggle, there is a strong tendency among the working class to overcome class division. In these times, the enemy becomes clearer and there will be great moments of class unity and strides forward.

For those active in the movement this is a decisive moment. No one is exempt from the influence of alien class forces but a firm understanding of what must be done is the best defense against them.

(1) Cerberus is the Private Equity firm that purchased Chrysler
(2) Deal For Detroit: Financial Times, 7-18-07: www.ft.com/cms/s/f1e43ba0-34c7-11dc-8c78-0000779fd2ac.html
(3) ibid
(4) ibid
(5) Marx to Lafargue:” If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist]”