This leaflet was handed out to GMH workers at the Elizabeth plant in South Australia.
Holden is a major icon of
Elizabeth and South Australia. It is a
much-loved local car that many Australians identify with.
However,
no solution yet put forward in relation to GMH has really addressed the future
for workers at the plant.
Both
“voluntary separations” and the spectre of closure threaten to scatter a
skilled workforce to the winds.
This must
not happen.
But
neither should an ailing industrial dinosaur ask its workforce to make huge
sacrifices for “guarantees” that cannot be trusted.
We must
seek a solution that goes beyond what the employer and politicians deem to be
acceptable.
There
is nothing wrong – in fact, there’s everything right – in workers advancing
their own independent agenda with the support of the broader community.
Corporate
Blackmail
GMH
has blackmailed successive state and federal governments to get one financial rescue
package after another, with the threat of closing its Australian operations –
as other multinationals like Chrysler and Mitsubishi did before them. And
finally, inevitably, Mitsubishi didn't get enough – and abandoned South
Australia anyway. Who's betting GMH will do any different?
Meanwhile,
after having been promised $275 million dollars by the SA, Victorian and
Federal governments, Holden has demanded a doubling of government investment in
building its next generation Holden Commodore and Holden Cruze
here, otherwise it will close its local manufacturing operations in 2016.
That's another quarter of a billion dollars ransom.
It
has also attacked its workforce on previous occasions, cutting out shifts and
reducing workers to a four day week. It has cut 400 job cuts at Elizabeth and
100 at its Port Melbourne engineering plant.
Recently it sought a direct wage cut of up to $200 per
week. Now it demands a three year wage freeze, cuts to shifts, overtime rates
and leave provisions.
What
that amounts to is, move your wages and conditions downwards towards those of
the lower-wage countries, or we move there anyway. It is simply outrageous that
one of the biggest corporations in the world can make demands of this nature.
It is clearly past its use-by-date as a global entity as its US government
rescue packages and its closure of plants such as the GM Opel plant in Bochum,
Germany with 3000 job losses, announced in April, show.
This
was followed, at the start of August by the closure of its Opel Australia
distribution arm. Prior to that, South
Korean brand Daewoo, also owned by General Motors, was killed off locally.
GMH
is in crisis, a crisis of over-production and a crisis of capital investment
and production costs. It treats its workers as one more just-in-time production
component, laying off and hiring workers according to the anarchic whims of the
market.
The
Alternative – Nationalise and Plan for Australia's Future Needs
The
only answer to the problems besetting the manufacture of vehicles in Australia
is to nationalise without compensation the entire industry and rationalise and
plan its production to the needs of the market.
If General Motors pulls the pin, plant and equipment
should stay here.
Workers,
who have more than paid for the cost to General Motors of plant and equipment
through the millions of dollars profits from Australian workers shipped back to
the USA since General Motors-Holden Ltd was formed in 1931, should also stay
here!
Let
the millions of tax-payer dollars earmarked to ensure the flow of profits to
shareholders in Detroit be used to create a network of advanced manufacturing
and research centres based around Elizabeth, Fishermans Bend and the Ford plant
at Geelong. This can be done!
What do urban Australians need in the way of a small,
green energy car?
Build
it to meet that need.
What do Australian primary producers and urban
tradespeople need in the way of a utility vehicle?
Build
it to meet that need.
What vehicles are required for better public transport?
Design
and build trains, trams and buses to meet that need.
What can be done with these big manufacturing facilities in the way of research and development for advanced manufacturing capacity?
Provide
the funds and unleash the creativity of the workers both manual and
intellectual.
What can be done for the workers?
Give
them the responsibility to control the process and intensity of production, and
to determine the social purposes to which their surplus value (profit) is put
instead of seeing it disappear overseas.
Economic and political independence for Australia
Of
course, to follow this alternative, Australian workers need to mount a decisive
campaign through unions and community organisations for their own independent agenda.
The
grand vision of a genuinely independent Australia based around the needs of its
working people must be brought to realisation, and an advanced manufacturing
base under government protection will be a central component of our Australia!
Produced
by the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
www.vanguard.net.au
Contact: cpaml@vanguard.net.au
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