Resolution to the Detroit meeting against GM plant closures

No to GM plant closings! Mobilize the working class to stop layoffs and concessions!

12 December 2018

The following resolution was unanimously adopted by delegates at the December 9 meeting in Detroit called by the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter to oppose plant closings and layoffs. The meeting was attended by more than 80 people, including delegates from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas. (See “Detroit public meeting resolves to organize fight against General Motors plant closures”)

1. The plan by General Motors (GM) to lay off 15,000 workers and shut down five plants in the United States and Canada, along with two unspecified plants internationally, will have devastating consequences for tens of thousands of autoworkers, their families, and all workers who depend on the auto industry;

2. The actions by GM are part of a global restructuring of the auto industry and an attack on the international working class, driven by the demands of Wall Street for ever greater profits that will worsen record levels of social inequality;

3. The GM plant closings further expose the lies that concessions contracts would “save jobs,” peddled for decades by the UAW and Unifor. These organizations have long functioned as tools of corporate management used to block every struggle by workers;

4. Opposition among auto workers to plant closings, declining wages and work conditions is part of resurgence of class struggle throughout the United States and internationally;

Therefore, this meeting:

1. Resolves to establish rank-and-file action committees, independent of the UAW, Unifor and other unions, in all the affected workplaces, factories and neighborhoods, to organize opposition to the plant closures, including preparations for a demonstration in January.

2. Declares that such committees will:

• Advance the interests of workers in opposition to corporate management;

• Mobilize workers on the basis of their own demands, including abolishing the two-tier wage and benefit system, transforming temporary into full-time workers, rehiring all laid off and victimized workers, and fighting for industrial democracy;

• Demand that workers have unrestricted access to all corporate and union financial records and oversight over all negotiations and contract votes; and

• Establish lines of communication and collaboration with all workers—including auto parts workers, teachers, Amazon workers, service workers and others—and fight for the unity of American workers with our class brothers and sisters in Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.