GM strike

[Richard Gibson]

The UAW is not about to take on capital, and neither are their relatively
privileged members. If the UAW took this seriously (and of course it does
only in the sense that its leaders might lose some dues income) it would
shut down Chrysler and Ford, not merely GM. But the UAW allowed the key
dies to be shipped out of the plant, set up a   strike during a planned GM
shutdown. The UAW members from other auto plants and suppliers in my
classes. to a person, said they simply want the GM workers to go back to
work. They see no way out ofthis---and they do not want to take risks. 

So, between the "is" of capital seeking the highest rate of surplus value
regardless of national boundaries (except when it needs the army), and the
"ought" of an international minimum wage, what mediates this and what is to
be learned?

At 01:57 PM 6/26/98 -0400, you wrote:
>William S. Lear wrote:
>
>>On Fri, June 26, 1998 at 12:22:02 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes:
>>>I know the righteous thing to do is to support the Flint strikers, but
>>>there was a comment in one of the papers the other day from a Wall Street
>>>analyst who said something like, "In this world you can't sustain $44 an
>>>hour jobs assembling wire harnesses." Really, how can you?
>>
>>As Michael Moore said last night to Ted "The Hair, The Hair" Koppel,
>>with $26 billion (?) in profits over the past 5 (?) years?
>
>Yes, but that just won't cut it. GM is the laggard among the Big Three (can
>we still say that now that Daimler is about to own Chrysler?), and Wall
>Street is deeply unhappy with it. In other words, instead of $26b, it
>should probably be $52b. On top of that, if you can find equally productive
>workers in Mexico who are paid in a week what some U.S. and Canadian
>workers earn in an hour or two - well, you don't need an MBA to figure that
>one out. Sustaining those $44/hr jobs would require taking on capitalism
>itself, and I don't see the UAW about to do that.
>
>Doug
>
>
>
>
Rich Gibson
Director of International Social Studies
Wayne State University
College of Education
Detroit MI 48202

http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html

	Life travels upward in spirals. 

	Those who take pains to search the shadows

	 of the past below us, then, can better judge the

	 tiny arc up which they climb, 

	more surely guess the dim

	 curves of the future above them.