International solidarity will help beat GM

By Jerry Goldberg

A recent bourgeois commentary on Market Watch, predicted that the UAW strike against General Motors could not win. Why? Because “Today GM carries large stockpiles of inventory, and its suppliers and assembly plants are located all over the world. Just 28% of its workforce is in the U.S.”

There is one element of truth to this self-serving corporate statement. GM is a multinational corporation, and the fight of the workers in the US is inextricably linked to their co-workers among the globe. One of the mistaken concepts that helped usher in the concessions of the past few decades, was when the union leadership pushed a chauvinist “Buy American” strategy, rather than recognizing that corporations like GM have no loyalty to any nation or country, but only to the almighty dollar. They failed to recognize that our future as workers depends on international solidarity in a common struggle against capitalism.

Workers around the world are appreciating this reality and have been expressing their solidarity with the UAW strike against General Motors. Here are a few examples, taken from the Autoworker Caravan facebook page.

Letter from Mexican GM Workers:

To the striking U.S. General Motors workers: 

On behalf of the General Motors workers at the Silao complex in Mexico, we express our solidarity in struggle. We are currently fighting for union democracy and for the reinstallation of several fired comrades. We want to express OUR SOLIDARITY with your struggle because it is also ours. We must fight against the abuses of the bosses and for our rights on both sides of the border.

We stand in solidarity with you because, like you, we believe that our conflicts with our bosses and our struggles are the same; they are international.

We hope that your efforts are successful and that we will soon follow your example.

Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico
September 2019
General Motors

Here is a statement by Brazilian workers in solidarity with strike:

We express our support and solidarity to all the GM workers in the US, who are on strike for fair wages, affordable health insurance, profit sharing, job security and other important claims.

The restructuring imposed by the company has caused huge losses in the working class. The Brazilian trade union centrals express their full support for this strike and the UAW (United Auto Workers) that are taking the lead of the pickets and the resistance struggle of workers’ rights. We will do everything possible in active solidarity with this movement to make it victorious.

Sao Paulo, September 16. 2019.

Signed by all the Brazilian National Trade Union Central
CGTB, CSB, CTB, CSP-Conlutas, Forca Syndical, Intersyndical, NCST-Nova Central, UGT.

And just as the UAW was preparing to strike General Motors, South Korean auto workers were preparing their own strike against GM’s plant closings there.

There are no Borders in the Workers’ Struggle