More misery for Ford workers

May 8, 2008

THE FORD Motor Company actually made some money in the first three months of 2008, netting $100 million, it reported on April 24.

How did they pull themselves out of the red? Not by selling more cars. Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, is restoring the company to profitability on the backs of current and future workers. He laid off 4,200 workers during the same first quarter of 2008, bringing total layoffs at Ford to about 40,000 over the past two-and-a-half years, and he has promised to "size that production capacity to that [falling] demand"--in other words, lay off more workers.

But as the New York Times points out, "this time around Ford is trying to persuade workers to leave so that it can hire replacements at significantly lower wages, under the contract it signed with the United Automobile Workers union last fall," which allows Ford to pay new hires about half as much as current employees and cut their benefits. According to the Independent, "Investors reacted warmly to the results, sending Ford shares up more than 10 percent by lunchtime in New York."

The situation at Ford provides a clear example of how the interests of capitalists and workers are totally opposed. Workers who've spent their lives making Ford's investors and executives rich are thrown out to look for work in an economy shedding about 80,000 jobs per month.

Meanwhile, this translates into major gains for Ford stockholders, most of whom have probably never even seen the inside of a Ford factory, let alone worked a shift on a dangerous assembly line. Alan Mulally, for example, made $22.5 million in total compensation last year, over 700 times the salary of new hires who'll be making about $14 per hour.

The layoffs also highlight the absence of true democracy--that is, democracy on issues that actually impact working peoples' lives--under capitalism. Ford workers can choose between voting for the Democrats, who have accepted $406,870 in contributions from Ford since 1999, or the Republicans, who have only received $349,747 from Ford during that time.

But they don't get to vote on whether or not they get laid off, or how much of Mulally's $22.5 million and the $100 million in profits should go to improving the lives of the workers who created that wealth or what they produce, or how and when. Democracy stops at the door of our workplaces, where most of us spend a huge chunk, if not a majority, of our time.

As the economic crisis deepens, we can expect the capitalist class as a whole to deepen its attack on the working class in order to restore profitability at our expense, like we're seeing at Ford. They have no problem laying us off, kicking us out of our homes, deporting those of us who are undocumented, oppressing us, denying us our right to health care and sending us to kill and be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as long as it translates into more money in their pockets.

All of this is not inevitable though: Workers organized, fought back and won gains during the Great Depression and we can do it again today.

We should look to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and their many allies--who shut down the West Coast ports on May 1, calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the defense of immigrant and workers rights--for inspiration and an example of the power of the working class to withhold our labor in order to pressure the bosses to meet our demands.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.

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