[lbo-talk] A Delphi worker on Delphi

[Marvin Gandall]

I believe the UAW is on record as favouring national health insurance. It
doesn't campaign around it. But, then again, apart from campaigning against
trade deals and for the Democrats during elections, the US labour movement
doesn't seem to campaign these days around much of anything. The
hemorrhaging industrial unions in all of the advanced capitalist countries
are badly dispirited, and their aging members, facing an undertain
retirement, seem mostly interested in salvaging whatever pension and health
benefits they can out of their shaky collective agreements. So they're
probably more inclined to deal-cutting than wildcatting. A revival of trade
unionism will have to originate within the younger service sectors - a
breakthrough at Walmart would likely be what GM was to the 30s - and I think
we all know this. But I'd also love for the Delphi workers to surprise and
galvanize other American workers around this issue.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 10:14 AM
Subject: [lbo-talk] A Delphi worker on Delphi


>> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>
>> >GM, Delphi, etc., *if* they lose their attacks on unions, have an
>> >incentive to push for national health insurance; if they win and
>> >bust unions (through lockouts) or cut unionized auto workers' wages
>> >and benefits (through the UAW's concessions) to the level of
>> >meatpacking workers', they won't have any incentive to push for it
>> >AT ALL.
>>
>> Shouldn't the union be taking the lead on this, rather than hoping  that
>> some dying industrial dinosaurs might? It's hard to imagine a  Wal-Mart
>> associate getting behind the struggle of $100,000/year   autoworkers as
>> long as the autoworkers' struggle isn't presented as  a broad class
>> project.
>>
>> Doug
>
> The top leaders of the UAW aren't interested in "a broad class  project."
> Given a chance, they would sacrifice Delphi workers in  order to save GM
> workers, as Gregg Shotwell suspects, except that  concessions to Delphi
> will only embolden GM rather than mollify it,  contrary to what they hope
> for.
>
> Autoworkers can fight back only if they manage to build horizontal
> communication networks among militants in different locals, networks
> strong enough to push the UAW to take on that "broad class project."
>
> Anyhow, defeat of autoworkers -- especially a defeat as decisive as
> meatpacking workers'  -- will dim the prospect of national health
> insurance in the near future considerably.  To the extent that
> autoworkers and other industrial workers can sock health care costs  to
> corporations, they give the rest of us -- including those of us  who work
> for Wal-Mart -- political leverage to fight for national  health
> insurance.  Their fight is our fight.
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi