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from the continuing-downward-spiral-for-workers dept.
The World Socialist Web Site reports:
In spite of a continuous chorus in the media of a booming economy creating robust job numbers, General Motors is unleashing a new round of attacks on autoworkers in North America as part of a global cost-cutting offensive against the working class.
The corporation announced on [April 13] it will cut one of two operating shifts at its massive Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs effective June 15. As recently as 2016, the plant was operating three shifts around the clock with nearly 4,000 workers. By the end of June only 1,500 will remain.
As sales for the compact Chevy Cruze, the only vehicle produced at the facility, began to slip, GM shuttered the third shift in January 2017, axing 800 jobs. Over the course of 2017, the plant was idled for weeks at a time and rumors began to circulate about the impending layoffs.
As an indication of the severity of the cuts, this is the first time since the recession of the 1980s that the plant will operate with only one shift.
[...] The company sold 450,000 fewer vehicles to dealers last year than they did in 2016, but because of aggressive cost-cutting attacks on the workers, imposed by the union, which include everything from an expansion of Temporary Part Time employees at less than half pay, widespread layoffs and shutdowns[,] GM pretax profits for 2017 topped $12.8 billion.
US passenger car sales are on track to decline for the fifth straight year while sales of light trucks are setting records. US sales of compact cars dropped 10 percent in the first quarter and 5.8 percent through 2017.
Lordstown is not the only plant affected by this shift. GM's Detroit-Hamtramck factory, for example, relies heavily on production of small and midsize sedans, including the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Chevrolet Impala, and the Chevrolet Volt. In October, the automaker announced plans to cut about 200 jobs there and halt production beginning November 20 through the Christmas break, affecting 1,500 jobs over the holidays. The second shift was eliminated in March 2017, eliminating 1,300 jobs.
[...] The same conditions are developing in [GM] factories everywhere as GM pursues its cost-cutting strategy with a vengeance.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:06AM (1 child)
Bernie is a Capitalist.
He's a timid FDR-wannabe.
Bernie has proposed a baby step in the right direction, but the problem is Capitalism.
Until we get rid of that, things aren't going to change for the better.
Every time The Working Class makes a gain, the Capitalist Oligarchs claw it back (via the legislators they buy--and Citizens United et al. have only made it worse).
Publicly-funded election campaigns are a necessary first step in the process.
Without that, nothing will change.
After that, we need something like Italy's Marcora law. [google.com]
That has given Italy thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of worker-owned co-ops.
N.B. Anyone who hasn't heard about those has lousy sources of information (Lamestream Media, I'm betting).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:34AM
So why should I think that "change for the better" is better than the status quo? Not feeling it.
While it's an interesting idea, why not allow any sort of business model, including corporations and proprietorships? Those work too.
The Marcora Law also has only given 257 [yesmagazine.org] new worker-owned businesses in the past 30 years.
and this worker's paradise has a few problems:
Remember, can't spell "PIGS" without "I"taly.