Workers' Liberty

Supported by Luton Trades Union Council.

GM’s Crisis is of GM’s making. We must not pay the price for our incompetent bosses.
NO PAY CUTS FOR DOWN DAYS!
GM’s imposition of Down days at Luton will be a concern for workers at the plant. We know that GM would like to get away with cutting workers pay for non-productive days and so far the union has resisted this. Today GM’s crisis looks deeper than ever. Last Thursday its shares crashed 31% and its share price dropped to its lowest level for 60years. Worth $52bn at its peak in 2000 it dropped below $2.7bn in market value. Less than it was worth at the beginning of the Great Depression! Company Directors who in March awarded themselves multi million dollar salaries have gone cap in hand to the White House for a Bankers style handout. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner is expecting to pocket $2.2 million for his 2008 salary alone. Having lost $38bn last year GM is working to cut $10bn in costs and raise $5bn from the sale of ‘assets’ like the gas guzzling Hummer brand. Haven’t they heard of Global Warming? Did they know Asian carmakers were producing smaller more fuel efficient vehicles? Where is the planning, the foresight and the concern for the environment and workers jobs?

When GM was making record profits car workers did not receive big pay increases and were told profits would be reinvested in the industry. Now the Bosses expect workers to pay for their greed and incompetence. The Union must continue to fight for full pay during Down days and prepare and organise from the bottom to the top of the Union to resist any threat to pay or jobs. The government should be told that they will face massive protests if thousands more jobs are allowed to go to the wall.

Gordon Brown has shown that when the free market is in crisis and the profits for the fat cats are plummeting he can find tens of billions to bail them out. If it is good enough for the Bankers who produce nothing what about those of us who work in the real economy? A recession is looming the scale of that recession can only be guessed at but what is certain is that if jobs at this plant are thrown away alternatives will be few and far between.

There are encouraging signs elsewhere that other workers are not going to accept the bosses and governments demand that workers pay for their crisis. Bus workers across London have been voting by massive majorities to strike over pay and picket lines have been fantastically well supported in stopping all but a couple of scab services. Public sector workers have voted to strike against below inflation pay restraint. We should call on the union to join up with other unions to build a movement to fight redundancies, cuts in pay, house repossessions and to start to build a world that does not rely on the waste and madness of capitalism to determine our future.