PEN-L message, Re: Auto plant no-shows

On the newsstand this headline was something like "Ford: Show up for Work ." So the newspaper monopoly, the JOA , the unionbusters are putting out Ford's message.

But the union is with the company at Ford.

Total bureaucratic unity.

Ain't that totalitarianism when the company, the newspapers, the union and presumably the gov'ment are all trying to make the workers do something ?

DEARBORN - Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers

^^^^ CB: Truly a company union<

<<<are cracking down on chronic absenteeism in an attempt to reduce soaring costs that are chipping away at the automaker's bottom line. Clip->>>>>>

Comment

The role of trade unions is a very complex issue debated continuously by Marxists, communists, anarchists, anarcho syndicalists, fascists and the bourgeoisie. Circumstances in the American Union has been such that communists, Marxists and progressives could opt to do a lifetime of work in the trade union movement and/or elected to run for office in unions.

My personal view is that the trade union movement since the second imperial world war has more than less resembled what the past generation of communist would describe as a fascist labor front . . . without fascism. On the other hand the trade union movement in America is drifting and heading towards a split . . . under the heavy blows of capital . . . and the historical process. The historical process means changes in the technological regime that cause the last major split and lead to the formation of the CIO and the domination of the industrial union form.

In auto . . . the Union negotiating team as opposed to the negotiating team of the company shaped the absenteeism program. The union negotiating team is one aspect of the Union bureaucracy . . . and is 99% composed of representatives who have been elected over and over and risen through the ranks. The negotiating team as does the union itself . . . tends to be dominated by the skilled trades . . . who behave and vote as a consolidated political mass.

The skilled sector of the work force and the higher seniority workers tend to report to work every day. In the skilled trades by the time one receives their journey man card and full certification . . . they has acquired five years and more of seniority . . . and have been conditioned to the industrial process. At least 85% of the workforce in every plant in auto experience no discomfort . . . zero . . . with the absentee program because people have been acclimated to the industrial system and show up for work.

Our plant . . . Mound Road Engine was one of the last plants in Chrysler system to institute the modern attendance system and programs . . . where computers automatically clock you in to work and time clocks were abolished or rather . . . regulated to the dustbin of history. Corporate forced the system on us because it simplifies book keeping . . . accounting. You really do not have to take your badge out of your wallet because the scanner hits you as you pass through the gate.

Auto does not have the harshest absentee program in my experience. The Casino's in Detroit . . . part of the UAW . . . are death on absenteeism . . . and everything else. The management system and "production process" in a Casino . . . compared with auto . . . is mind boggling. The black jack dealers in Detroit casino's are amongst the few on earth in a union . . . with I believe Australia having the largest union of Casino workers.

I personally believe that auto is well beyond the point where cutting labor cost can produce any significant change in profitability. DMS has the figures and they are somewhere in the archives of PEN-L . . . I stop tracking this years ago because the Company itself . . . at the top . . . will tell you point blank . . . the the only real savings they can make is on the basis of "fixed cost" or what the Marxists identify as "constant capital."

The company, union, media and government as such do not make the workers come to work. The bourgeois property relations and conditioning on the basis of industrial production is why 85% . . . really a little over 90% of the workforce in auto reports to work everyday.

"Company Union" once meant a union formed by the corporation. Today company union expresses the organic connection . . . the living bond . . . between labor and capital as political organization. The workers cannot break the bond without abolishing capital. Abolishing capital cannot take place on the breaking of the bond between employer and employed. The serf could not break his bond with his lord as landed property.

This of course does not mean that communists do not fight to win union members over to the cause of communism and wage the most fierce battle to protect the workers short and long term interest. The historic strategy of communists in respects to the trade union movement under bourgeois property has been to "organize the unorganized" . . . or extend the field of union organization as the basis for renewed vitality.

It is not that a section of workers do not want to break the bond between labor and capital using its political/economic form as trade union organization. The bond cannot be severed on the basis of political will or political fiat . . . or correct programs . . . or Red Trade Unions . . . or a non collaborationists policy. Trade Unions cannot abolish the employers as a class. It is simply not possible.

This is a difficult question pondered by every generation of communist and Marxists and quick and quaint formula will not unravel the issue. We have to look at the issue backwards . . . from the experience of the Soviets . . . and our individual and collectively imagined communist society. Trade Unionism has no place or existence under socialism and most certainly under communism.

Lenin called the trade unions "schools of communism." This implies "totalitarianism when the company, the newspapers, the union and presumably the gov'ment are all trying to make the workers do something." Under capitalism trade unions by definition stand in opposition to non-members as economic organizations founded to protect the wages and conditions of labor of their members. To "protect the wages and conditions of labor of their members" is the meaning of the words trade unionism.

Under capitalism the industrial form of unionism in America adopts "the closed shop" as the basic guarantee that no one can work in their facilities that is not a union member. This prevents an influx of nonunion workers that can compete with established rates and lower the wages of its members.

Under socialism . . . believe it or not . . . unions are and must be voluntary organizations charged with organizing production . . . internal to a sphere of production . . . in all spheres. In is not like trade unions can organize the totality of production on the basis of unions.

Under communism . . . as an individual and collective imagined society of associated producers . . . trade unions evolve from voluntary organizations to dissolution.

Tough question. I do not believe the trade union question can really be understood on the basis of simply "the bribery of the workers in the imperial centers" . . . and most certainly not on the basis of the rather narrow concept of the "union bureaucracy."

The Union does not make the workers come to work. Wal Mart is without unions and basically everyone else and people report to work every day. I think the issue of much deeper than "company unions" and "totalitarianism."

If memory serves me correct I lost one guy . . . permanently discharged . . . due to the absentee program and he had less than 90 days. Technically I could not even represent him because the company can technically discharge you . . . at the drop of the hat . . . until you get 90 days seniority. He was late 6 or 7 times and I raised his discharge on the basis of him paying initiation dues to the union. The Labor Relations guy listened patiently . . . rolled his eyes after I was finished talking . . . and asked me to close the door on the way out. (Even still . . . if the floor supervisor wanted the guy . . . he could have been brought back through the "side door" under the screen.)

Melvin P.