[lbo-talk] P-9 and meatpacking deunionization (was: The raids against immigrant workers)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 12/20/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 20, 2006, at 1:40 PM, Eric wrote:
>
> > Stop caring about GM's and Ford's state of fuckedness or
> > unfuckedness? This tactic of unions strategizing and siding with
> > capital hasn't worked out real well for the former, has it?....
> > This is a very strange turn you are taking here. Sounds like you
> > are advocating a revival of the postwar capital-labor truce.
>
> No, exactly the opposite. That truce was based on labor renouncing
> any intrusion in management; I'm saying that management has proved
> itself hopelessly foolish (even from the POV of the stockholders
> <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=GM&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=&c=%5EGSPC>
> and the workers need to step in.
>
> I don't get your position. The workers should just stand back and let
> GM & F go under, or outsource them out of jobs? It simply will not to
> to make militant noises with no strategy other than a Gompersian
> "more!" Or Gompersism for an age of diminished expectations:
> "the same!"

You mean auto workers coming up with ideas for better, environmentally
friendlier automobiles for the old Big Three to sell?

There's this:
<http://www.greenmachinestour.org/>.  That seems to me to be too
little, too late, though.

Or you mean turning UAW members' and retirees' battles to save their
health care, pensions, and so on into a general battle for social
programs that a welfare state in any rich country, including Japan and
Germany, provides?  If the latter, rank-and-file activists at Delphi,
GM, etc. have been doing precisely that, but they have not been able
to get the general public's attention, though they have probably
managed to get GM to offer better buyout packages to both GM and
Delphi workers than it would have offered without their campaign.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>