Ontario (USA) September 2023—Stellantis and GM workers on strike
Behind the US Auto Strike: Competition Over Electric Vehicles Attacks Workers for Profit and World War
LOS ANGELES (USA), September 30— Biden joins striking autoworkers on their picket lines!? Many wonder why a filthy-rich capitalist politician would do such a thing. The media portray him as the workers’ friend, but he serves the owners of GM, Ford and Stellantis.
Two comrades visited UAW picket lines at parts distribution centers with forced 10-hour shifts. We said that fighting now for the 8-hour-day after it had been “won” 137 years ago and became law in 1938, showed the futility of fighting for reforms. Several strikers agreed with us.
We also said that the US conversion to EVs (electrical vehicles) was not because auto bosses care about the environment. It’s because they are panicked at the growing Chinese imperialist dominance of the global auto industry, EVs. We talked about exploitation, war, and communist revolution. Some strikers disagreed sharply about communism, but nobody forcefully defended capitalism. These workers were not strongly patriotic or xenophobic. Most gladly took Red Flag and our communist leaflet.
The key strike issues relate to the 2007 government bailout. The US rulers needed to save the auto industry for future war production. Obama’s bailout included taking away workers’ cost-of-living raises and introducing the hated two-tier system, starting new hires at $15 an hour. Now workers are striking, in part, to reverse these attacks.
Capitalist mouthpiece Nick Kristof wrote in the New York Times that “Unions are as imperfect as capitalism itself, and just as essential.”
Many workers and youth question whether capitalism is “essential.” They seek radical alternatives. The word “revolution” is becoming popular. Many see the fight against racism, sexism, islamophobia, and xenophobia as crucial to unite the working class to fight for permanent change. When we take communist literature to rallies and picket lines, we see they are open to the vision of a communist world.
Communism will eliminate capitalism’s money, wage slavery, and markets. Production will be for use, not profit. Nothing will be bought or sold. We will produce only for workers’ needs, globally. We’ll organize work collectively and as safely as possible. That will require mass struggle against capitalist ideas and practices, and for communist ones.
This won’t be easy at first because revolution will come amidst war, likely nuclear war. But communist masses will gladly contribute whatever is needed to organize society to meet everyone’s needs.
This work will be useful, rewarding, and creative, however hard. There won’t be speed-up, supervisors, or bosses. There will be no 10-hour shifts, except when masses decide collectively that we need them. And no backbreaking jobs requiring pain pills.
Auto Industry: Central to Profits
The world’s automakers compete fiercely and brutally for market share and profit. World War II reduced Europe’s and Japan’s industries to ashes. Then the US produced three-quarters of the world’s autos. Japan, with newer plants, overtook the US in 1980.
China surpassed Japan as top auto producer in 2009. It has the most advanced industrial plants and tools. Last year, China produced three times more cars than the US. China dominates the electrical vehicle (EV) and battery markets, which are the future.
EVs have fewer parts. They require 30% fewer workers. That means massive layoffs and lower wages for auto workers worldwide.
Chinese EVs sell for one third the price of Tesla cars and one quarter the price of European EVs. The European Union complains that China is flooding their markets. EU capitalists have put a 10% tax on Chinese EVs [in the US 27%]. They threaten even higher tariffs.
Auto Industry: Indispensable for Imperialist War
War results inevitably from capitalism’s competition. Trade wars turn into shooting wars. When protective tariffs don’t work, they resort to war to destroy their rivals’ factories.
Profits become secondary as imperialist war production becomes critical. For four years, during World War II, the US produced not a single passenger car – only tanks and other military vehicles.
Chinese imperialists are guaranteeing the survival of their auto industry by creating a strong internal market. Already 14% of new cars sold in China are EVs. By 2025 it will be 80%.
US automakers are panicked about losing market share. However, the top imperialist rulers are more terrified about losing their auto industry.
Ford’s CEO said the company would go out of business if it gave auto workers what they want while converting to EV production. So Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gave Ford $billions to convert to EV production.
Trade Unionism Is a Deadly Trap.
Communism Is Our Future.
Kristof and the US rulers find unions “essential” to control angry workers, tie them to reformism, and win them to patriotism. Union officials spew the rulers’ anti-communism to try to keep workers away from revolution. They will help impose the unbearable working conditions, low wages, and multiple tiers the auto companies need to survive.
Let’s mobilize to turn the capitalist war for profits into revolution for communist workers’ power. Communist masses will create and use new technologies to produce climate-friendly mass transit instead of producing for individual use.
In communism, technology won’t lead to mass unemployment and misery. Instead, it will increase the time we have to spread revolution, socialize, rest, travel, and educate ourselves. Billions who are unemployed today will be able to use their hands and brains to better life for everyone.
Auto workers and all workers worldwide: Join the fight to end capitalism, its wage slavery, and all its unending horrors!
Read our Pamphlet :
“We Make Cars, They Make Profits,” here
Front page of this issue
