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'76 AUTO Contracts-A Time to FIGHT

By VVAW

From the beginning of the September Ford Motor Co. strike and continuing through the Chrysler and GM battles of October and November, rank and file autoworkers have put up a stiff fight not to have sellout contracts pushed down their throats.

After a strike of 4 weeks, United Auto Workers (UAW) top officials signed a contract with the Ford Motor Company that stunk. The shorter work week is a shuck, 13 more days off spread over three years, but five less paid days at Christmas vacation over the life of the contract. The highly advertised "jobs for the unemployed," supposedly created by some extra days off, will go up in smoke as the contract dumps certain restrictions on forced overtime. At the same time, cost of living (COLA) money is taken from active workers' paychecks to give $600 to retirees, who didn't even end up with COLA on their pensions. The wage increase is pitiful, 3% a year with only 11 cents new money and more part-timers, less union rights for probationaries.

Ford workers, who struck over real grievances like wages, speed-up forced overtime and others, nearly rejected the contract. A 40% "No" vote by production workers was one of the largest rejection votes in UAW history--and 11 plants voted it down altogether, staying out over local issues. This vote margin was even tighter among skilled trades (and in some places the vote was stolen outright as more "yes" votes recorded then even voted). In some locals, workers walked out in disgust as the UAW International tried to whitewash the sellout and some UAW rank and file stood in aisles of union meetings ripping up their copies of the proposed agreement.

From the beginning of the struggle, the UAW top leadership did its best to disorganize and demoralize the rank and file, to confuse the issues of the strike and to set workers up for the kill. This was the only way they could accomplish the sellouts.

But there were also some big victories in the strike. Through the course of their struggle Ford workers came to understand much more clearly that they're up against a two headed monster--not only the company, but also a handful of traitors heading up their union. Unity, especially between skilled production, and between Black and white grew, and the rank and file became more organized.

Much of this was due to the efforts of Auto Workers United to Fight in '76 (AWUF), a rank and file group working within the UAW. Beginning last February, the group worked to expose how UAW president Woodcock's talk about shorter work weeks was an attempt to side track the rank and file and avoid real issues. Before the strike AWUF advanced a set of contract demands that did deal with real needs of auto workers around the contract, encouraging workers to fight for those demands and build organization to do it. AWUF used leaflets, demonstrations, and press conferences to put a harsh light on the maneuvers of the UAW negotiators, exposing the ugly facts about the contract terms before the final touches were put on it.

Most importantly, AWUF took on the problem of a phony strike. When the Ford workers went out, the UAW leadership made no attempt to shut Ford down tight, allowing Canadian Ford plants to continue production, not settling up 24 hour pickets, and allowing outside contractors, foremen and salaried personnel into the plants to work. AWUF organized a number of different actions and joined in others to build the strike. They organized pickets that no one dared cross, helped shut down a Ford complex the UAW International had ordered to continue working.

AWUF helped to focus the anger of thousands of auto workers. During its nine month existence, it has grown from a couple of chapters in the Detroit area to 22 chapters nationwide today.

The sellout nature of the union leadership, and the lengths they were willing to go in order to get over was seen at Chrysler. Workers there were kept in the dark about the progress of their negotiations until a half-hour before the strike deadline. They had been told in almost every plant that if their national or local contract was not settled by the deadline, the plant would go on strike. But the tip union officials changed their tune just before the strike deadline and told everybody to stay on the job even though the majority of local contracts were not settled and the national agreement was not fully worked out. When, on November 5, the Chrysler workers were handed the terms of the sellout agreement, patterned after the Ford contract 30,000 workers wildcatted. This was the largest wildcat in the history of the auto industry. UAW officials were so afraid of a "No" vote they held the ratification vote in their plants, hoping for a larger "yes" turnout. Even then, 33% of production workers and 39% of skilled traders voted "no."

The UAW officials stalled around the GM contract battle. The strike deadline was set for Thursday, November 18 at 5PM. But when the deadline came around instead of a company wide shutdown, the international called for a "mini-strike," closing only sixteen of GM's 119 plants. The idea was to shutdown sixteen different plants for four days (Friday thru Monday) until a settlement was reached. The initial 16 plants hit were not the ones that really damaged GM production but those which the UAW leadership felt were most firmly in the grip of their chosen hacks. But the strike itself only lasted some 13 hours, when a settlement was announced following the lines of the Ford agreement. Included in this sellout is an exchange of letters from the union and GM, saying that GM will neither "discourage nor encourage" the union's effort to organize its plants in the South, and on the union's part, that they won't badmouth GM "as an organization nor its representatives as individuals." The ratification vote for this contract is set for December 6th.

The gains made so far in rank and file organization and understanding in the course of these '76 auto contract battles have significance for the entire working class. The struggle shows it's possible to fight the two-headed company/union-traitor monster, even when one part is as entrenched and centralized as the top UAW officials, and make headway. Of course, the capitalists are not going to settle in and wait for this consolidation to take place. Already AWUF is under sharp attack in some areas, hit by firings, but the auto workers' struggle is growing and with a leadership that unites all who can be united against the real enemies of the workers, these difficulties, too, will be overcome.