by Samuel Messidor
Image source: UAW Local 12
Automotive workers in Holland, Ohio ended their strike against Clarios, a car battery manufacturer, on June 14 after 6 weeks on the picket line.
The workers, organized under United Auto Workers, walked off the job after contract negotiations stalled around the reprehensible proposals by Clarios. They had mandated 12-hour shifts without overtime pay past the 8th hour and instead only overtime past the 40th hour in a week, and wage cuts in the form of reducing the piece rate “bonuses” for workers at the plant. The changes were to be limited to a second-tier of new hires according to the company, a failed attempt to pacify current employees.
While the first two proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by the UAW membership, the third proposal passed despite being almost identical to the former ones. This new work regime adds up to a paltry wage increase unable to keep up with inflation, increased labor tempo, decreased breaks, and reduced time for the cleaning and maintenance necessary for mitigating the danger of lead poisoning to the workers and their families.
Meanwhile, UAW contracts at the “Big Three” automotive manufacturers of Stellantis, Ford, and GM are set to expire on September 14. The Clarios strike was a dress-rehearsal for the battles to play out there, with tens of thousands of auto workers’ contracts up for negotiation.
The erosion of overtime rights should be seen as part of the ongoing attacks against basic workers’ rights. The bourgeoisie as a whole are eroding old reforms and ratcheting up work tempo to overcome the crisis of overproduction and reverse the declining rates of profit, moves that go hand-in-hand with their investments into new technologies like electric vehicles (EV).
As a part of this process are Joe Biden’s massive subsidies to US manufacturing concerns, of which a large proportion is going to EV production. Capitalists are investing in this emerging field because it is becoming increasingly profitable to produce these new vehicles, especially with state subsidies that off-set the costs in reworking their facilities from internal-combustion vehicle production to EV production.
The new UAW president Shawn Fain has posed as a hard-hitting leader for his union and the workers’ interests in an attempt to reflect the militant mood of the rank-and-file workers, making demands on the Biden administration to include stronger worker protections and unionization support at plants receiving these funds.But the sell-out contract at Clarios shows that posturing and fighting in the old, constrained ways is not enough to counteract the “race to the bottom” as Fain himself put it.
In the face of capitalist restructuring, militant strikes are needed—strikes that do not allow scabs to undermine it, that do not allow union bureaucrats to force through losing contracts or sell-out one section of the working class to the short-term benefit of another. This means organizing across industries, spreading strikes beyond a single industry and fighting not just for better conditions in this or that plant facing restructuring, but against the whole exploiter class sinking the working class further into misery.
