GM, Ford, Chrysler buyout 'offers' signal new round of job cuts

[OhioChick]

Published Feb 3, 2008 10:59 PM
Promises, promises. Last fall promises of job security were enough to convince a majority of United Auto Workers members at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler to ratify four-year contracts they might otherwise have rejected. The contracts, which a sizable minority opposed, were the most concessionary of any in the auto union’s 73-year history.

By January the promises were revealed for their emptiness. Many thousands at all three companies, regardless of how they or the workers at their plant voted, were now laid off. News coverage reported mass anger.

Now the latest development is a new round of buyouts, enticing workers to quit or retire. This strategy serves the bosses in a number of ways. It lets Ford, GM and Chrysler permanently shrink the workforce and allows laid off workers to return, minimizing worker anger. At the same time, by creating an atmosphere of economic insecurity, the companies are encouraging lower-seniority workers to take one-time cash payments of $100,000-$140,000 and give up their good-paying union jobs forever. If enough workers leave, eventually there will be openings for new hires making half the pay of those who take the buyouts.

Ford and GM will give every single hourly employee a buyout “offer,” while the number of Chrysler workers being encouraged to leave will also be substantial. When the contracts were ratified last fall, UAW membership at the Big Three stood at a mere 173,000; with these new cuts the figure can be expected to drop well below 150,000. If not enough workers sign up for the buyouts—for which they are given just 45 days to make such a life-altering decision—it goes without saying that forced layoffs will continue. Executives such as GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner are hinting that more plant closings are on their agenda.


http://www.workers.org/2008/us/auto_0207/