We reported back in June 2009 on one of the world’s largest car manufacturer, General Motors, filing for bankruptcy. Now GM, implementing its restructuring programme has commenced a brutal campaign of plant closures and job cuts in Europe. The first to go is the plant in Antwerp, Belgium where 2,600 are employed at the Vauxhall/Opel plant. The plant, producing the Vectra and Astra models, will be closing down over the next few weeks and the production of those models will be allocated to other plants across Europe.
GM has announced that it will cut 8,300 jobs in Europe alone in a bid to reduce its capacity by 20% due to the collapse in demand following the onset of the recession. Antwerp with its 2,600 workers was the first plant to go with a long line of other cuts to follow in the coming months.
Nick Reilly, Opel’s chief executive said, “We have to take a plant out and, unfortunately, it is Antwerp” but he also added that the restructuring programme would affect all plants across Europe. GM also operates in the UK, Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria and Hungary where the future of workers has been uncertain since the company declared bankruptcy and announced it would reduce its production. German workers are especially anxious because around 4,000 are expected to lose their jobs there.
Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, CSC general secretary Walter Cnop said that the plant closure was a disaster for Belgian workers. “To close a productive factory like this is a crime.” Unions have raised concern about the way GM has conducted its affairs. The closure of the Antwerp plant was not even discussed with unions or the Belgian government. This demonstrates that, under capitalism, those who own the means of production, the capitalist class have ultimate power, even over the state itself.
Once again, the Marxist analysis of capitalist over-production for profit is vividly and blindingly made obvious. Marxism explains that productive capacity under capitalism repeatedly becomes too great for the purchasing power of the masses. This is due to the fact that the minority who owns the means of production siphons off a large amount of the value produced by the working class as profit. Having taken this money from the masses the bosses are shocked to discover that these same workers cannot now afford to buy all the goods they produced even if they wanted to. Even during the last ‘boom’ the car industry was becoming notorious for its insane levels of over-production with many companies being warned that sales, even those fuelled by cheap credit, could not be collectively maintained. However the lure of huge profits was too much and the car industry just assumed that, as long as someone else went bust and got merged, things would be alright. But sooner or later the reality of unsold goods facing workers who cannot buy them must come to the fore. When that happens panic sets in as finance is withdrawn, confidence plummets and firms try to stay afloat as they struggle to meet their bills. Closures and job cuts follow in an orgy of destruction. For the car industry, with its car parks full of unsold cars even during the good years, they were always going to be particularly vulnerable given that high price cars are usually classified as luxury items and, as such, are more expendable compared to say food and clothing.
The fall in car sales worldwide has made a huge dent in the car industry. GM is one of many companies that have commenced savage attacks on worker’s jobs and conditions in a bid to reduce their losses and become profitable again. But there lies a curious contradiction; when the UK government was subsidizing the car industry with the “Scrappage Scheme” the industry saw a temporary revival. This is an indication that there is a demand for cars. But people cannot afford to buy without subsidies – the prices are simply too high for people already being squeezed as a result of the recession.
Bourgeois economists have claimed that most of the world has now come out of recession. Indeed, there are signs of recovery in some sectors and the GDPs of some countries have started to grow again. But who is benefiting from this recovery? Unemployment is high and public spending cuts are on the agenda. While the bosses start to make profit again, working class people’s suffering deepens.
The bosses of GM have declared open warfare against their very own workers. Misery, austerity and idleness are heading the way of the GM workforce in Europe. There is only one solution; the workers need to organise in their trade unions and resist this onslaught with every means at their disposal. We are passing through an epoch where the ruling class has come to the realisation that their privileged position in society is under threat. They are aiming to consolidate their power by attacking worker’s pay and conditions. Many militant struggles have erupted across Europe and the GM workers will see that the only way to defend their jobs and living standards is to struggle. But victory can only be achieved if workers unite: we are only strong together.
