In an attempt to secure Federal monies to aid the rapidly deteriorating American auto industry, the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Ron Gettelfinger, announced to the media that the UAW is willing to make major contractual concessions to management. These included the suspension of the “jobs bank” program, the delay of $7 billion from General Motors paid into the Health Care Trust, the slashing of 30,000 more jobs over the coming years, and the closure of another 9 factories in North America.

The content of the new round of concessions has its basis in the 2007 obligations, which the UAW leadership agreed was acceptable, to both management and the workforce. (See our previous article, “Crisis in the Auto Industry: A Workers’ Response is Necessary” for specifics on the 2007 contract.) The announcement comes at a time when Ford Motor, General Motors, and Chrysler, LLC are “collectively bargaining” with Congress for a requested influx of $34 billion in Federal loans and lines of credit. General Motors appears to be in the most precarious situation compared to its counterparts. General Motors said Tuesday that it was in such dire straits that it would cut jobs, factories, brands and executive pay as part of its plea to get $12 billion in federal loans – including $4 billion immediately – and an additional $6 billion line of credit. Congressional Democrats, however, want assurance that the new measures will ensure greater competitiveness with overseas manufacturers like Toyota Motor Corporation and Honda Motor Co Ltd before administering any funds. This is where the UAW comes in.

New York Times reporter Bill Vlasic writes that the average UAW member costs General Motors approximately $74 an hour in combination of wages, health care, and the value of future benefits, like pensions. Toyota, by comparison, spends the equivalent of about $45 an hour for each of its employees in the United States. Base wages between the Big Three and the foreign companies are roughly comparable, with a veteran UAW member earning $28 an hour at the Big Three compared to about $25 an hour at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Ky. (Toyota pays less at its other American factories).  But the gap in labor costs becomes larger when health care, particularly for thousands of retirees and surviving spouses, and job security provisions are considered. This, of course, is the crux of the matter. But if it is the job of the UAW leadership to defend and extend the gains won by the workers through their struggles with the capitalists, then why do they always back down in the face of crisis? Their cowardice stems from their two-faced relationship with the workers they, supposedly, represent.

The UAW bureaucrats understand that in order to maintain their parasitic existence as a caste over and above the rank-and-file membership, they must actively seek collaboration with management and comply with their overall wishes. Refusing to do so could hurt them in two potentially disparate ways. If they encourage the workers to resist the attacks of the capitalists, they run the risk of losing control of the struggle and this poses a threat to their very existence as “negotiators” between the workers and the capitalists. On the other hand, if they refuse to obey the wishes of management, they could find themselves in a very similar predicament. In other words, they could be out of a job. Therefore, the success of the bureaucratic caste rests on their ability to assuage both management and the workers while maintaining the overall status quo. They must ensure that the capitalists can turn a profit and at the same time work to expand and increase the social gains of their membership. This contradictory unity is not only the secret to their success; it is also the source of their inevitable downfall. Aside from membership representation, the UAW bureaucracy, above all, is concerned with ensuring its own survival. They draw their power and wealth from the continuation of capitalism, not its abolition.

The UAW bureaucracy’s tendency to lean on the capitalists and their apologists for their own preservation may be misconceived. Perhaps Jim Cramer, the host of the CNBC’s Mad Money, came closest in recent memory to embodying the capitalistic competitive spirit for greater profits when, as a guest on the CNBC television show Hardball with Chris Matthews, he maniacally censured the UAW. Jim Cramer ranted, this is all about breaking the union [UAW]. You break the union, you save the company [General Motors]…This is about saving American manufacturing [!] and the only way you’re going to do it is you break that UAW.

One would do well to take seriously the words of capitalist apologists like Jim Cramer. Their vision of America is nothing more than a constant “race to the bottom” with ever increasing poverty on one side and superfluous wealth on the other. The capitalists will do everything they can to prevent workers from joining together to fight for their common interests. In reality, the unions are all we have to defend ourselves with against the onslaught of ever increasing capitalist exploitation. They came into existence precisely because of this fact. As hard as they try, the capitalists will never fully succeed in eliminating unions because as long as the preconditions for the existence of wage labor exist, the workers will band together to protect their livelihoods.

REVOLUTION calls on the workers in the UAW to press their leaders to take action against the attacks by the capitalists. We say that if the UAW bureaucrats refuse action and simply go along with the wishes of management, then the rank-and-file members must take action into their own hands. The workers must utilize an array of tactics to prevent the capitalists from encroaching on their social gains. From workplace stoppages to job site occupations, the workers must act to prevent the bosses from cutting wages, health benefits, and retirement funds. The creation of democratically administered workplace and strike committees with instantly recallable representatives are essential in order to successfully counter attacks from the bosses. Potential strikes should stop only when the workers themselves decide they should stop. We call for the amalgamation and nationalization of the entire auto industry under the control the people who labor in the factories and workplaces. When the bosses prove incompetent, the workers must take the initiative and run the enterprise to meet their needs, not the capitalists’.

Bill Vlasic, “Big Three survival bailout requests rise to $34B: Nov. auto sales sink to worst level since 1982,” http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/12/03/1203autos.html (accessed December 4, 2008).

Vlasic, “U.A.W. Makes Concessions to Help Automakers,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/business/04auto.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th (accessed December 4, 2008).

Jim Cramer, “interviewed by Chris Matthews, September 25, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5RAu0XejvU .