[ad_1]
The following appeal was issued and distributed prior to the factory meeting held at Ford Motors in Saarlouis, Germany on December 14.
Dear Brothers,
Today is the last factory meeting of the year. Over the more than 50 years of our factory’s existence, 2022 has been the most important and instructive. But based on a bold drawing of last year’s lessons, 2023 will be the most important year yet. This is the year that Ford workers in Saarlouis will free themselves from the grip of the IG Metall union and its works council and take our livelihoods into our own hands.
The main lesson of the past year is clear: Our jobs cannot be defended by IG Metall and its works council led by Markus Thal. If the struggle remains in their hands, it will lead to disaster.
As early as autumn 2021, the Ford group was apparently considering closing its plant here in Saarlouis. The last letter issued by the outgoing general works council chairman, Martin Hennig, announced a divisive bidding competition among Spanish Ford workers in Almussafes, Valencia, at the beginning of October 2021.
Thal supported and organized this shameful maneuver. On January 27, he and his Spanish counterpart, works council president José Luis Parra, presented their respective bids to management. Both worked together on the Ford European Works Council for many years.
Thal and Parra said there was no alternative to playing our workers against each other and making huge cuts in cooperation with their respective managements—without even informing us. Thal still hasn’t told us what far-reaching cuts he plans to impose on us in Saarlouis and other Ford workers in Cologne and Aachen.
Then, when the decision against Saarlouis was announced, the union and works councils organized a pseudo-protest away from the factory gates, thus preventing any hope of occupying the gates or even the entire factory to enforce our demand to keep our jobs. The mood of many of us fell late in June.
Although Thal never tires of emphasizing how he feels cheated, he continues to work closely with the “tricksters” to conclude a “socially acceptable” deal, i.e., for the extermination of the plant. We are told that we must put our trust in Ford, the Saarland state administration, IG Metall and the works council. Anyone who criticizes Thal and his soldiers must be silenced and opposition to his path will be met with intimidation. This has been particularly clear in this year’s council of works elections, whose results are reminiscent of the types of elections held in dictatorships.
At the last factory meeting in October, when Ford pledged to keep at least 500 jobs, Thal announced that at the next meeting, which means today, Ford’s “compass for the first half of 2023 should point in the right direction direction.”
His own “compass” points in only one direction – in two and a half years Ford car production in Saarlouis will end. He doesn’t care what happens to us, our family and our livelihood. Thal will probably try to sell us so-called replacement jobs to finally seal the factory closure. In return, Thal and his colleagues will no doubt be compensated for their services with new posts, salaries or both.
This year, however, not only confirmed the treacherous role of the council of works—it also showed a way to fight back. In early January, many workers banded together to form the Ford Action Committee to fight not only the corporation, but also its stooges in the works council and union.
In our first statement on January 29, 2022, we made it clear: “Concessions do not save jobs! All our concessions in the past and all the concessions already made at all Ford locations are worthless now. In principle, we reject blackmail and brutal competition between us and workers in other plants. Playing one against the other leads to disaster.”
This warning is fully justified. Our Action Committee formulated a mass opposition to the workers in eight subsequent statements and appeals. From the very beginning:
-
rejected the bidding competition and instead proposed joint action with our colleagues at Almussafes,
-
called for revoking the mandate of the works council to speak and negotiate on our behalf,
-
insisted that our jobs should not be sacrificed to satisfy the profits of the corporation and its shareholders, and we defended our interests above those of the capitalists,
-
It was emphasized that our factory can only be defended on the basis of a global struggle against the corporation.
We did this with full awareness that the attacks on us at Ford in Saarlouis were part of an international development. Amid our own struggles, Ford announced plans to lay off 9,000 workers in the US, while in India, the Ford plant in Chennai was closed.
The attacks on Ford’s international workforce are part of a general offensive by corporations around the world. Jobs are being eliminated, wages are being reduced and working conditions are tightening in every sector—in the auto industry, as well as in the chemical, steel and aerospace industries, in railroad workers, in the health sectors and education, etc. Attacks on the living conditions of workers around the world have been intensified first by the coronavirus pandemic and now by the war in Ukraine.
In every country, unions are aligned with “their” corporations and governments. Here in Germany it has taken the form of “Concerted Action,” in which the various parties in the ruling coalition government—social democrats, Greens and neoliberal FDP—cooperate with large corporations and unions to implement new attacks. to our workers.
This universal experience of workers around the world testifies to the fact that there is no individual solution. We face problems that we can only face and solve together. A few jobs retained at Ford, and other car companies and/or a new investment partner is not a solution, but only postpones the task at hand: to unite worldwide against corporations and subordinate their interests to ours.
We didn’t just talk about international unification in the Action Committee, we also initiated it. Colleagues from Saarlouis held talks in July with Ford colleagues from India who have been on strike for weeks in defense of their factory – against the will of their unions.
At the same meeting we also spoke with Will Lehman, the auto worker from Mack Trucks in the US who bravely fought against the bureaucracy of the UAW (United Auto Workers) union. He ran for election as president of the UAW on a platform of eliminating the hated bureaucracy and giving all power to the workers on the shop floor.
In our last statement we explained the importance of his struggle. At our meeting in July, he stressed: “It’s not enough to be angry; have to fight. I can’t do it for you; you have to do it yourself!” On this basis, he calls for the establishment of action committees in the US and around the world to organize the necessary struggle. Despite all the efforts of the UAW bureaucracy to silence him, he receives 5,000 electoral votes.
The Ford Action Committee’s record is also positive. We don’t have to take back a sentence we taught the workforce. All our assessments and warnings have been confirmed. However, we cannot rest on our laurels. There is still much to do.
So again, we call on you to join the action committee. If we want to defend our jobs, we have to organize, no one else is going to do it for us.
The conditions for conducting international struggle are more favorable than ever. Wider sections of the working class are conducting international protests and struggles against war, inflation, layoffs and the pace of work. These struggles must be unified and unified to succeed. Labor unions try to prevent exactly that by seeking to confine us within national borders.
We stand against it!
Contact via Whatsapp message on: +491633378340 or fill the form. This is the only way to make 2023 the most important year in more than half a century of our factory’s existence.
[ad_2]
Source link
