Samuel Messidor
Stellantis is laying off thousands of workers at plants in Toledo, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. Stellantis blames California emissions standards for the need to reduce production of large automobiles like Jeeps, but the company had been signaling layoffs for years, citing investment costs in the “EV transition.” The company has also stated plans to shutter parts warehouses and to sell their Michigan headquarters building. The Toledo plant was the only Stellantis plant to reject the recent UAW contract during the “Stand Up Strike” and UAW contract negotiations.
For its part, GM is laying off 1,300 workers in Michigan as they phase out older vehicle models and retool the plants for EV production. GM says they will abide by the new national agreement to provide “job opportunities for all impacted team members” but EV production requires far fewer workers than internal combustion vehicle production. The drive for profits under capitalism generates unemployment among the workers.
Also in heavy industry, US Steel is laying off 600 workers at its Granite City, Illinois plant. This is in addition to the 400 workers already indefinitely laid-off from the plant. US Steel says the corporation will make up for the idled plant by increasing work at other facilities, and blames the layoffs on the UAW strike for reducing demand for steel. If this has any merit at all, it shows how individual capitalists can rationally plan production within their own operations but not within the economy as a whole, leading to the anarchy of production under capitalism.
The layoffs come amid the steel industry’s shift from labor-intensive blast furnace technology to new electric arc furnaces, which require fewer workers. Technological investment and invention necessarily results in layoffs and misery for workers as the capitalists race for greater profits.
The company says that the 600 workers may be laid off permanently by the end of January, as US Steel plans to sell the plant to a company which will retool towards pig iron production—iron which will be turned to steel in electric arc furnaces. The local USW president has told monopoly media he believes the new layoffs will be temporary. Considering the planned sale and transition to electric arc steel production, his reasoning is unclear.
