World Socialist Internet Website reporters spoke this week with autoworkers on the Ford plant in Saarlouis, Germany. They met with members of the Ford Motion Committee and distributed leaflets on the manufacturing facility gates with an article detailing the position of IG Metall in getting ready the plant’s closure.
The article they handed out defined how the works council in Saarlouis, chaired by Markus Thal, and the chairman of the Central Works Council Benjamin Gruschka negotiated wage cuts and job cuts behind the backs of the staff in Saarlouis and Cologne, as much as and together with the potential closure of the plant in Saarlouis.
Twice per week, they focus on assaults on the workforce with firm administration in Cologne so as to win the contract for the development of the subsequent electrical car from 2026, as a part of a inside Ford bidding struggle between the Saarlouis plant and the Almussafe plant in Valencia, Spain. For the reason that works councils submitted their first proposals in each vegetation on the finish of January, they’ve undercut one another’s gives repeatedly. What the German works council has supplied to the highest administration— in jobs, wages, working hours, holidays, flexibility, and many others.—is being saved strictly secret.
The article cited an attraction by the Ford Motion Committee, which employees in Saarlouis have joined to wage a “actual struggle” towards the coverage of the IG Metall Works Council.
The article acquired sturdy help. Employees expressed their frustration and anger on the works council and IG Metall. Even a longtime union store steward confirmed that the leaflet was appropriate. “That’s the way it works,” he stated.
The temper within the plant is extraordinarily tense and explosive. Nearly everybody spoke out towards the bidding struggle between them and their colleagues in Almussafes (Valencia). A younger employee described the widespread uncertainty: “It isn’t good that we’re performed off towards one another right here in Saarlouis and Valencia. However we don’t know something. In politics, we’re by no means requested after they resolve something.”
Everybody agreed that they need to unite with their colleagues in Valencia and defend jobs collectively.
However that is what the works councils wish to stop in any respect prices, regardless of paying lip service on the contrary. A employee instructed the WSWS at lunchtime: “The leaflet you distributed this morning induced fairly a stir.” It “ended up within the fingers of the precise folks through inside mail,” i.e., with IG Metall store stewards. The officers exploded, ranting and raving towards the leaflet, the employee recounted with satisfaction.
He stated that for years, no correct works council work has been executed. “There are cuts and extra cuts, and the works council simply holds up its fingers. We have now been working lowered hours right here for a very long time now, virtually constantly in latest weeks,” he stated. Regardless of the employees rising productiveness, this has been accompanied by giant wage losses. “Do you assume IG Metall will ever give you the concept of lowering our dues? They’re simply cashing in.”
This query was raised by a number of employees throughout the marketing campaign. A lot of them should not essentially within the union by selection. The excessive diploma of unionisation within the plant is because of the monumental strain of the IG Metall works councils and their most devoted representatives. The works council creates “worry and terror right here, in order that nobody seems up,” the employee reported.
For that reason, just one former Saarlouis Ford employee participated within the distribution of the leaflets so as to not expose the lively members of the Motion Committee to the repression of the corporate police drive. Two WSWS reporters have been additionally photographed “secretly” by two staff when distributing the leaflets.
A employee who has been following the WSWS’s protection of Ford for about six months instructed us after the tip of the shift how the works councils exert strain on the workforce.
They wouldn’t overtly threaten however function extra subtly, he defined. They make a suggestion that may’t be refused. “They are saying, ‘Imagine us, colleague. We simply need what’s finest for you. And that is what’s finest for you. Anything could be worse,’” the employee stated. In the event you oppose or reject the “recommendation” from IG Metall, you rapidly end up in essentially the most depressing jobs, the employee added. That is consistent with the expertise of the Ford Motion Committee employees.
As a result of uncertainty concerning the future and their very own office, many staff are already searching for different jobs. A number of employees, particularly youthful employees, have been outraged that the severance scheme is at present suspended. Formally, the works council argues that this is able to enhance the strain on the employer, as a result of it finds it tougher to chop jobs.
Nonetheless, the previous Ford employee and different employees assumed that the purpose of suspending the severance scheme was to have the ability to produce automobiles till the plant is closed. The youthful employees have been searching for different jobs and needed to go away, employees defined, however this had a unfavourable affect on manufacturing capability.
An older employee, who’s already in semi-retirement, spoke a couple of 30-year-old co-worker who want to go away and who already had a job provide. Since no severance funds are at present being made, he has stayed. The works council thus ensures that manufacturing can proceed till the final day of the plant.
To keep away from closure, Ford employees should arrange themselves and take motion. The pronouncements and actions of the works council are supposed to stop an actual battle to defend the plant.
For instance, within the largest regional newspaper, works council chairman Markus Thal lamented over the “most brutal capitalism” of Ford administration, the identical administration he meets with twice per week. His newest proposal was to ask German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats, SPD) and EU Fee President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to the corporate’s headquarters in the US to petition Ford.
Anke Rehlinger, the brand new Minister President of the German state of Saarland and in addition the previous state Minister of Financial Affairs, and Jürgen Barke (SPD), the present Minister of Financial Affairs, have already submitted to this pathetic endeavor. They flew throughout the Atlantic final week and visited the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, southwest of Detroit, Michigan. Previous to the journey, Rehlinger and Barke “as soon as once more coordinated intently with the worker representatives of Ford Saarlouis,” they stated. In a video alternate, they’d talked to Thal, amongst others.
The chief govt of Ford, Jim Farley, did even not take time to fulfill with the delegation from Saarland. As a substitute, after a journey of 6,600 kilometres (4,100 miles), the state politicians sat down with European CEO Stuart Rowley, the managing director of the German Ford vegetation Clemens Doepgen and two different Ford managers.
Rehlinger promoted the Saarlouis plant, situated in Saarland, Germany. However these appeals fell on deaf ears. “It’s true. Firms resolve about their areas and about 1000’s of staff and their households,” she stated. She added that she beforehand skilled this. “In an effort to save [the Halberg Guss plant in Saarbrücken], I threw the whole lot that the Saarland had into it.”
The Ford employees must be warned by these remarks. The Halberg Guss plant was closed on the finish of March 2020. Previous to that, IG Metall and the works council broke off strikes by employees in Saarbrücken and Leipzig after seven weeks and not using a end result and marketed the corporate on the market to buyers. Most not too long ago, the automobile provider declared insolvency and did not pay the severance funds agreed to 6 months earlier and, finally, the wages as properly.
Rehlinger defined, “It is very important mitigate unfavourable results and no less than to compensate for them by constructive developments” as a result of “the financial success of our state just isn’t depending on one firm.”
Thal could whine about “brutal capitalism,” however in actuality he and different works councils profit from it. They’re properly paid for his or her position as firm police. Not like the staff, they’ve a mushy touchdown. Certainly, the works councils of IG Metall assert that “firms can resolve about their areas and about 1000’s of staff and their households.”
However employees should not permit shareholders to resolve on the areas of their manufacturing services within the curiosity of their income. The staff themselves should be capable of decide the destiny of vegetation that present for the livelihoods of 1000’s of staff and their households.
This precept have to be fought for. Within the period of globalisation by which international firms can merely shift their manufacturing from one nation to a different, no strain on firms helps whether it is restricted to 1 nation. The battle to defend the livelihoods of 1000’s and, in the end, hundreds of thousands of working class households have to be fought internationally.
The unification of Ford employees in Saarlouis and Almussafes is a crucial first step on this route. To realize this, the Ford Motion Committee have to be expanded.
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