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Yesterday was the third day of a strike by more than 520 Clarios workers at the Holland, Ohio battery manufacturing plant near Toledo. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union was forced to call a strike after workers almost unanimously rejected a government-backed sales contract a week and a half ago.’UAW. They wanted union officials to stop extending the contract, which expired on April 19.
Clarios is the world’s largest manufacturer of lead acid batteries and a major supplier to GM, Ford, Stellantis (Chrysler) and other manufacturers. The company, which bought Johnson Controls’ battery division in 2019, had a profit of $1.6 billion last year. Last week, its executives told investors they plan to boost profits to more than $2 billion through cost-cutting and expansion in the lucrative market for electric vehicle batteries.
The results of this strike will have serious consequences for the 170,000 auto workers in the United States and Canada whose contracts expire this summer. The automakers are counting on the collusion of the UAW bureaucracy and its new president Shawn Fain. They are planning massive labor strikes for the electrification transition, and the expansion of EV battery partnerships, while unlicensed UAW members are slated to receive substandard wages and benefits.
But rank-and-file workers at GM, Ford and Stellantis, like their counterparts at Clarios, are determined to get inflation-neutral raises, end harsh and brutal working conditions, and undo years of concessions for UAW-managed builders. . In anticipation of this year’s contract battle, workers are forming and expanding a network of rank-and-file committees fighting to transfer decisions and authority from pro-UAW management to shop floor workers.
A Clarios worker who has worked at the plant for seven years compared the struggle to a workers’ revolt in France against the Macron government’s increase in the retirement age. “In the past, we were afraid to fight against great power. But look at what is happening in France, we are starting to do the same thing, fight against faith and thugs. UAW officials, he adds, say they work for us, but they work for the company.
Another four-year striking worker told the WSWS: “The union asked us to raise wages by 3 percent when we had already lost $10 an hour in the last two wage cuts. . . It’s out of the question that we accept this when food prices and costs “The cost of living continues to rise. Moreover, we do not get any compensation for working in unhealthy conditions that cause retirees to develop cancer and die a few years after leaving this place.”
“This investment company, Brookfield Partners, has taken over and all it cares about is money, not if we die or live tomorrow.”
“This is one of the largest battery factories in the world. We have ten different lines and the machines in each can produce 800 to 1,000 batteries per day. The new chain can produce 1,500 to 2,000 batteries per day”.
Base pay starts at $12 an hour and goes up to $20 or more, depending on the employee’s rank. Explaining the factory’s unit price system, he says: “We would receive 200 percent of our salary if we produced 800 batteries per day. They went to 900, and now to 1,000. They tell the new employees that they can make $100,000 a year if they work hard, but most of them make $13 an hour.”
“We make Stellantis, Ford, GM and aftermarket batteries. We put different stickers on them [DieHard, Interstate, Duralast, AC Delco, Costco’s Kirkland et plus de 20 autres marques] before leaving the factory. They sell for $300 in the store, and they pay us a lot. The company is very greedy and we are lucky if we receive $1,000 in dividends a year”.
Describing the unbearable working conditions, he said: ‘When it’s 80ο [26ο C] outside is 120ο [49ο C]here, because we are dealing with hot bullets. We should shower twice a day. We use a special lead soap because it sticks to the hair. That’s why we can’t have facial hair. We have monthly blood tests to check our lead levels, but there is no safe blood lead level. There should be a better air circulation system in the factory, but they don’t want to invest in it. Instead they prefer to pay for more machines to produce more batteries.”
He also said that the workers are against the proposed implementation of the “3-2-3″ schedule. “We would work three days in a row, a 12-hour shift, without overtime pay, before having two days off and then work three days in a row again. People are really upset about that.”
He added: “We are tired of the way we are treated. If we don’t stand up and speak out loud and clear, and by that I mean all the auto workers, we will always be left behind, those who get their money and are always cheated . The UAW always tells us, this is the best contract you can have and if we reject it, they will move the factory to Mexico. But if we accept another bad contract, they will always take more things from us”.
“We united in our factory. We rejected it and were ready to go on strike, not to continue making batteries for the company to save for the strike. But the UAW officials wanted to prolong the situation and continue to extend the contract, so that the company could have us make batteries for several months. If we let them, we would continue to make batteries. But we didn’t. It is the workers who caused this strike”.
“We don’t care what Bruce Baumhower wants [président de la Section locale 12] or UAW International, we pay them. We will decide, and we will not accept a contract that does not suit us”.
He ended by calling on the “Big Three” carmakers (Ford, General Motors and Stellantis). “We make 1,500 batteries a day just for Ram 1500s at the Warren Truck plant. I would tell these workers to stop putting batteries in trucks. We all need to stick together. We all need to strike at the same time.”
Fearing that the strike will spread to the Big Three, the UAW bureaucracy is doing everything to isolate this struggle and has not even bothered to report it on its website. In addition to organizing a joint action to defend Clarios workers, UAW officials marched a Democratic Party politician to the polls Tuesday morning.
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur came for a photo with local and regional UAW officials. He urged workers to look to President Biden for support in their struggle. What union officials did not tell the workers. is that Marcy Kuptar was one of the 211 Democrats who voted in Congress last November to prevent a strike by 120,000 railroad workers and give employers a better contract, which they had already rejected. Then Biden signed legislation that broke the strike.
Even as Kuptar spoke, fellow Lucas County Democrats — including Peter Gerken, a longtime National Section 12 and UAW leader and current county commissioner — were sending sheriff’s deputies to escort trucks involved in crashes. can provide to the automotive industry.
The Democrats are no more “friends of the working people” than Trump and the Republicans. The two corporate-controlled parties want to suppress opposition to their plans to make workers pay for inflation, endless bank bailouts and an irresponsible military confrontation with Russia and China that could lead to World War III.
But Clarios will get strong support from the rank and file personnel for the common fight. On Tuesday, members of the Dana rank and file labor committee were on the ballot line to discuss joint action between Clarios strikers and workers fighting against unfair dismissals and management violations at a nearby factory. of Dana Driveline.
After being informed of their strike by the WSWS, a Stellantis employee and member of the Warren Truck Foundation Committee said, “I checked, and we are getting batteries from Clarios. We must do everything we can to support their strike and stop working with these shells .”
“These workers are living in modern slavery. They work 19 days in a row, 12 hours a day, with only two days off. They are made to literally work themselves to premature death. In addition, they are threatened with arrest if they strike”.
“We all need to stick together, because the UAW doesn’t work for us, it does business. We must stand up for what is right for us, everywhere in the world. We are all tired of being bullied by companies that could do nothing without our work. We can no longer stand idly by. and watch them take everything away from us. They take our money, our medical care and make us work like dogs. Now is the time to speak up and fight for the needs of working people. By joining and forming rank and file committees, workers can talk together and organize. We can to learn what we are really struggling with”.
“The UAW bureaucracy is fighting against us every day and we have to fight fire with fire. They’ve been getting away with it for years. But this is the year it’s going to stop. Instead of letting them bring us down, we need to put all our energy into doing something better for all of us.”
(Article first published in English on May 10, 2023)
