GM workers face layoffs

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1987 PINK SHIPS FRAMINGHAM, Mass.—On Nov. 4, 1987, some 3700 General Motors workers here, members of United Auto Workers Local 422, were shocked by GM's announcement that their plant will shut down indefinitely on Nov. 30.

The announcement came days after the workers ratified a contract that had been touted for ensuring job security. They expressed bitterness over the layoffs just before the holidays, having recently weathered a number of shutdowns.

"We just signed a contract on the premise we had job security," said Russ Turner. "I think all they're doing is trying to bring us to our knees. " Fran Nassi said, "I spend more time out of this place than I do in...my job is always insecure.' UAW Vice President Donald Ephlin asserted that GM did not break the new contract. He said, "General Motors has provided a satisfactory accounting of the volume-related conditions leading to what we hope will be a short-term layoff." However, plant manager J. Russel McCarthy said, "It is possible that we will never open."

The attack against the Framingham autoworkers is facilitated by current economic conditions which have left the giant auto company producing more cars than it can sell. Company spokesman Mark Leddy said that GM was "responding to market conditions in an economic climate that all U.S. manufacturers are experiencing.' By 1990, plants in this country owned by U.S. automakers will have the capacity to produce 4 million more vehicles beyond market capacity, according to John O'Donnell, an industry specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Unruly militant kids"

The Framingham plant, however, was the only one closed in the United States out of six plants that make the same "A Body" cars. GM officials have admitted that labor relations played a part in this decision.

The Framingham UAW membership has had strained relationships with GM management throughout the history of the plant. When the workers went out on strike in 1974 over local contract conditions, they were characterized by the plant manager as "unruly militant kids." And, in 1979, the Framingham autoworkers led all of GM's assembly plants in disciplinary layoffs and grievances filed.

The local's membership has rejected GM's "team concept," the company's tactic to change work rules and increase its profits at great expense to the workforce. Recently, Framingham apparently lost the chance to produce a new plastic minivan to the Terrytown, N.Y., assembly plant, which accepted the "team concept."

The Framingham plant closing will lead to an erosion of the living standards of the autoworkers. Benefits for the majority of workers will be reduced in a matter of months. And compensation will only be a fraction of that promised to the laid-off GM workers in their contract because the money in the national shutdown fund has already been depleted by over 45,000 GM workers thrown off their jobs.

According to Susan Ireland, managing attorney of the Massachusetts Office of United Auto Workers legal services: "These people are being told by lenders that they may have problems with their mortgage as a direct result of the shut down."

In literature for his Democratic Party presidential campaign, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis credits himself for saving Framingham autoworkers' jobs after a year-long shutdown in 1983. He also refuses blame for the 1987 plant closing.

Dukakis ducks the issue But Dukakis is unable to offer any "economic-miracle" solutions. His press secretary merely states, "General Motors has closed its plant because of market pressure and oversupply."

Car production, characterized by auto executives as cyclical in nature, is, in fact, spiraling downward toward economic chaos. Workers cannot rely on lawmakers or labor leaders to preserve or enhance their standard of living, but must turn to themselves for solutions to plant closings.

Vehicles will have to be produced for the needs of the majority and not for the obscene and destructive profits of the auto bosses.

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