Workers hit with one-two punch By Tim Wheeler Daimler-Chrysler Corporation's announcement this week that it will eliminate 26,000 jobs is one of many signs that the U.S. economy is sliding toward a recession. The cutbacks will include the closing of six Chrysler plants, five in Mexico and South America and one engine plant in Detroit. Chrysler will also furlough thousands of workers by terminating a shift at six plants in the U.S. and Canada. Daimler had been reporting losses as car and truck sales plummeted in recent months and inventories of unsold vehicles soared. But Daimler is only the tip of the iceberg. For instance, just in the last two months: * Union Pacific railroad has announced plans to lay off 2,000 workers * Montgomery Ward is going out of business, closing 250 stores and putting its 37,000 employees on the unemployment lines; * General Motors is terminating its Oldsmobile production, destroying 15,000 jobs; * Whirlpool laid off 6,300; * Aetna terminated 5,000 * and Lucent Technologies announced elimination of 16,000 jobs. In the first 11 months of 2000, there were a total of 480,000 layoffs. More than 36,000 dotcom employees were laid off in the second half of 2000. The trend picked up speed as George W. Bush was sworn in as president. His prescription is quick enactment of a $1.7 trillion tax cut that will go mostly to the rich, plus a Wall Street raid on the Social Security trust funds, which he claims is needed to further stimulate the economy. Bush, an even more fanatical free marketeer than President Clinton, is urging NAFTA-like trade policies that resulted in the export of 450,000 manufacturing jobs. Bush also proposes termination, privatization or cutbacks of federal safety net programs that will be sorely needed if the nation slips into a recession. The auto industry is the main customer of the steel industry so the sharp contraction in auto sales is hitting steel hard although little news of this has appeared in the media. The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) warned last week that 47 steel companies have declared bankruptcy and immediate federal action is needed to save jobs and steel communities from a steel industry collapse. The warning came in a five-page statement issued Jan. 23 by the USWA's Basic Steel Industry Conference (BSIC) meeting in Pittsburgh. The BSIC consists of the presidents of basic steel union locals representing 130,000 USWA members. "As we meet today, the American steel industry is facing a crisis of extraordinary dimensions," the statement declared. "Without immediate and comprehensive action, we could easily witness the permanent loss of millions of tons of steel-making capacity, tens of thousands of jobs and pension and insurance benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees and their widows." The statement recalled the "brutal" 1980s when scores of steel mills were shut down and 380,000 steelworkers lost their jobs permanently. An equal number of auto workers were permanently furloughed. The USWA urged enactment of a Steel Revitalization Act with a $10 billion loan fund administered by the U.S. Commerce Department. The fund would be overseen by a panel that includes the USWA to insure that the money is used to save jobs and steel communities, not to feather the nests of Wall Street financiers. The USWA statement pointed out that since the Asian economic crisis in late 1997, 14 steel companies have filed for bankruptcy, six in the last three months, with the crisis getting worse. "Many others are on the brink. And while three companies have managed to emerge from bankruptcy, Gulf States Steel has been forced into liquidation, destroying 2,000 jobs and devastating Gadsden, Alabama, and its surrounding communities." In the week ending Dec. 30, 2000, the steel industry operated at less than 65 percent of capacity, its lowest operating level in over 14 years. Prices for steel products are now below their level at the worst of the Asian economic crisis "and there is no relief in sight," the statement continued. On the issue of collective bargaining, the statement rejected steelworker concessions. "Time and again our members have been asked to sacrifice on behalf of this industry. But the reality is that in today's environment, further lowering our standard of living will not save the steel industry. Our concessions would simply line the pockets of Wall Street financiers and the giant companies that buy steel ..." The statement denounced as "criminal" schemes by the steel corporations to use bankruptcy to terminate pensions and other retirement benefits for retired steelworkers. "There is simply no case * legal, moral, political or otherwise * for placing the interests of financiers and speculators above those of retirees. This union will never abandon those who came before." The statement called for stronger enforcement of import quotas to stem the influx of foreign steel, which now accounts for 25 percent of steel consumed in the United States. It also called for "regulation of foreign ownership" of steel mills in the U.S., reflecting bitter battles such as Japanese-owned AK Steel's drive to destroy the union at its mill in Mansfield, Ohio. Another example is LTV's joint ownership with British Steel and Sumitomo of the new, non-union Trico steel mill near Decatur, Alabama. Not mentioned, however, is the USX purchase last November of a modern, integrated mill in formerly socialist Kosice, Slovakia, which USX predicts will export 3.6 million tons of steel in 2001. Workers at that mill are paid $2 an hour. Bethlehem Steel owns a steel mill and shipyard in Singapore with similar rock-bottom wages. Paul Kaczocha, a steelworker at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor, Ind. mill and a rank-and-file union activist, warned against illusions that the Bush administration will take any steps to secure the jobs of steelworkers or the communities where they live. "Bush is a buddy of all the steel executives but the administration's attitude is screw the steel industry, screw the public infrastructure," he said. "They know they can get all the steel they need anywhere in the world from mills where the workers are paid starvation wages." USWA organizer Bruce Bostick is spearheading a project in solidarity with striking Titan Tire workers in Chicago. "The bottom line is that leaders of the steel union are meeting and proposing a fight to save the steel industry," he said. "If we don't fight, the entire steel industry in the U.S. could be shut down." Bostick hailed the USWA's rejection of concessions as well as the proposal for the creation of a fund to revitalize steel under federal authority. But what is not mentioned, he said, is the imperative need to create demand for structural steel in rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure * low-cost public housing, mass transit, public schools and hospitals, bridges, sewers and water mains. "Back when the Martinez Jobs Bill was pending in Congress in the late 1990s, there were studies that 80 percent of the bridges in the U.S. were in need of repair. We need to drastically expand mass transit in this country. Our schools are falling apart," Bostick said. "If we launched a program to rebuild our public infrastructure, a lot of it more than a century old, we would not have enough domestic steel-making capacity to meet that need." _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
