After the GM-Fiat deal:
Stoppages at the GM and Fiat plants throughout Europe!
The close co-operation General Motors and Fiat that was agreed some months ago (and which might effectively end in a take over of Fiat by GM), has alarmed Fiat and General Motors workers throughout the continent.
GM and Fiat want to use the deal to rationalise their companies, increase productivity and reduce costs. A number of sites are threatened with closures or mass redundancies.
As usual the management and the right wing trade union leaders try either to diffuse fears or to mobilise workers of one site against each other. This goes hand in hand with hardly any concrete information given to the workers about the future of their jobs.
This non-information by the management proved as an important rallying point for mobilising workers in GM and Fiat plants in Europe.
On 14 June. all three shifts at the German plant in Bochum stopped working (about 10.000 blue collar workers all together). Production also stopped in Kaiserslautern, Rüsselsheim and Antwerp.
At the same time workplace meetings were held at Fiat plants in Italy and Poland, where currently rejects any negotiations on new wage contracts with trade union (NSZZ Solidarity).
The workers in Bochum have been in the forefront of action over the previous weeks with a number of stoppages. 14 June, however, was the first European wide co-ordinated action. This has been a big step forward, particularly since many national union leaderships or members of work place councils are either opposed or only half-heartedly following the action.
During the 14 June most plants went back to work, declaring their actions as a ”warning”. The plant in Bochum still stood still on 15 June Workers demanded that their rights to a elect works councils and their existing wages and work conditions must be secured in the current restructuring of GM/Opel in Europe.
Given the interrelation, just in time production between the 17 GM sites in Europe and the strategic importance of Bochum as a supplier, it is expected, that most GM factories will have to stop production within the next one or two days. Some are already running at half of their production capacity since they ran out of components produced in Bochum.
The bosses threatened the workers with a lock-out. At the same time negotiations between the management, the union and the works councils too place. On Thursday evening this ended with a partial retreat by General Motors who secured a number of the demands of the workforce in a treaty signed by the management, IG Metall and the Betriebsrat.
The workers at Bochum need to maintain the pressure on the bosses and on the Betriebsrat and on IG Metall, exercised by regular general meetings and all out (unofficial) strike action. Their actions should be a spark for all car workers throughout Europe, for co-ordinated international action to prevent that crisis of the car industries will be solved on the back of the workers.
Solidarity with the workers of VW South Africa
Britain: Rover Longbridge plant could close