The entire labor movement throughout North America and beyond should throw its active solidarity and energetic support behind the United Auto Workers on strike against General Motors in Dayton, Ohio. Their struggle for jobs and against the grinding erosion of health and safety and other working conditions is reinforced right now by the strikes of public employees in Canada and the resistance by workers and peasants in Mexico.
GM executives have declared they are willing and prepared to fight the union's attempt to prevent the cutting of 125 jobs in the two brake parts plants in Dayton, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the UAW. The number one auto giant enjoys the confidence and backing of other employers, the government, and Wall Street - as the continuing rise of GM stocks is showing.
As interimperialist competition sharpens in a period of depression, GM is leading the Big Three to continue downsizing and cost-cutting in order to shore up the U.S. auto giants' profit rates and gain a greater edge over rivals in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. This profit drive means a terrible wear and tear on the bodies of those who produce the wealth GM owners expropriate. Job combinations, speed-up, reduction in equipment maintenance, and rising mandatory overtime are the order of the day. General Motors says it will not back off this course.
As the shortage of brake parts began to affect production due to the walkout, GM responded with a well-prepared, de-facto lockout and a vicious economic assault on workers. So far, the company has idled over 160,000 assembly and parts workers - in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
On top of that, the GM bosses are trying their best to cut state unemployment benefits to laid-off employees. So far, only Texas has gone along, a move the labor movement must protest vigorously and fight to reverse. The difficulty GM is having convincing other state governments to immediately go along with its plan is testimony to the value of fighting tooth and nail to protect and expand entitlements such as unemployment benefits - conquered through bloody battles by the labor movement.
The UAW members on the picket lines in Dayton are also determined to fight and hold their ground. They protest not only the job cuts, but demand the settlement of hundreds of grievances over deteriorating health and safety on the job and the hiring of more workers to alleviate the burden of forced overtime. Their fight is in the interests of the entire working class.
Solidarity is the key to facing the bosses. GM workers who are laid off are already setting an example by showing up in growing numbers at the picket lines in Dayton. UAW members in Local 696 there also need the solidarity of other workers, students, civil rights and women's rights groups, and all democratic-minded people. In this class warfare the lines are drawn clearly.
The GM strike also shows the potential power of the labor movement to break down divisions among workers across borders, throughout North America. Tens of thousands facing a similar assault by the same employer in Canada, Mexico, and the United States can put meat on the bones of the slogan "an injury to one is an injury to all."
This is the answer to the reactionary, nationalist appeals by ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan, who is trying to dupe the strikers behind his "America First" demagogy by portraying their battle as a struggle to preserve "U.S. jobs" - that is, a struggle against workers in Mexico and other countries.
UAW strikers in Dayton have as much of an interest in identifying with their fellow workers at GM in Mexico and other working people in that country - who are fighting imperialist super-exploitation on top of GM's assaults - and with Canadian workers as they do with UAW members across the United States. This is a moment for the labor movement to begin raising demands such as canceling Mexico's foreign debt, which is used by the same Wall Street sharks who stand behind GM today to siphon off the wealth workers and peasants produce in that country. Such a stance can cement much needed bonds of working- class solidarity across borders.
The working class truly has no country, only our united strength against the bosses.
All out to support the UAW strikers in Dayton!