The War on Labor

You don't hear much about the War on Labor. It's not something corporate America likes to brag about. And it's certainly not something the mainstream media is going to cover. Nevertheless, the War on Labor rages on. In the latest move Delphi, the nation's largest auto supplier, has filed for bankruptcy.

This just a day after Delphi "sweetened the severance packages of 21 top executives" and yet they had the nerve to blame high labor costs: From Today's Story:

In a letter sent to UAW members last week, local union leaders in Indiana said Delphi wants to cut hourly wages from $27 to $10-$12, slash vacation time and make workers contribute more for their own health care. The letter warned that cuts under a bankruptcy judge could be even worse.

Can you imagine taking a pay cut like this? Delphi has over 50,000 US employees. They are hoping to remake the industry model:

James McTevia, a restructuring expert who is representing Delphi suppliers in the bankruptcy proceedings, said Delphi could set a new model for the entire industry by scaling back its hourly work force and its U.S. manufacturing capacity and giving lower wages and benefits to the workers that remain.

What a wonderful idea: hire fewer workers and pay them much less. Meanwhile you get the opportunity to deal a devestating blow to one of the nation's largest unions, the UAW; and send a loud and clear message to the greater labor movement that nearly every advantage that we fought so hard to get over the past 50 years is under attack.

The American labor movement is in dire straights. Things continue to worsen for the American worker. The number of unionized workers is mostly stagnate or in decline, with only about 8% of the American workforce organized.

I remain optimistic, however. An old Rage Against the Machine lyric comes to mind: The hungry won't stay hungry for long. There is a vitality in the labor movement that I haven't seen for some time. But it is essential that we start educating people to understand that we have a choice. We can go back to a type of feudalism in which everything is owned by the few and the rest of us slave away for them; or we can begin to organize and take back the wealth we work so hard to create: Workers of the world: Unite!

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