Solidarity to autoworkers strike !

CNM- CUT Internacional Extra
Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos da CUT (Brasil)  
19.08.01

Mexican Volkswagen Workers Strike

MEXICO CITY (AP) - More than 12,000 workers at the Volkswagen plant that produces the Beetle went on strike to demand salary increases, but union leaders said they still hoped for a resolution this weekend.
Saturday`s walkout represented some 80 percent of the work force at the Volkswagen of Mexico plant, which builds the New Beetle model for export around the world. It is also the only plant still producing the old Beetles, which are sold only in Mexico.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Salazar, secretary-general of the Independent Union of Volkswagen Workers, said both sides planned to meet Sunday morning in Mexico City at the Labor Department to try to restart talks.
The union has asked for a 21 percent salary increase for workers, who earn an average of $30 a day. Salazar said that figure was negotiable.
"Tomorrow we could see some important advances," Salazar told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the plant in central Puebla state. "We didn`t want a strike. We want a solution as soon as possible."
Talks between Volkswagen and the union broke down Thursday, and on Friday the union voted to reject a 5.5 percent salary increase suggested by the Labor Department.
The union says the company has not offered any wage increase. Volkswagen has refused to provide details of the company`s offer to workers. The company announced a news conference for later Saturday.
In a news release issued late Friday night, Volkswagen said attempts to restart negotiations failed "because the union already had decided to go on strike."
The union says the company has not offered any wage increase. Volkswagen has refused to provide details of the company`s offer to workers.
But at a news conference later Saturday, the vice president of the company`s administrative board, Franciso Bada Sanz, said management would ask a Labor Department arbitration board to declare the strike void.
"We are negotiating the salaries, but 21 percent is impossible," he said.
The strike is the second in two years at the factory, which employs 16,000 people.
After a five-day strike at the site last year, workers were ordered back to work by the labor secretary. They were later granted a 13 percent direct wage increase, a 5 percent rise in productivity incentives, 2 percent in loans, and 1 percent in aid for school supplies for workers` children.
The new Beetles are exported to the United States, Europe and Asia. The plant makes 1,540 cars a day, including Jettas, Golf convertibles and old-style Beetles.(The Associated Press. August 19, 2001)

Car-Strike Continues As Employers Remain Stubborn

Congress of South African Trade Unions (Johannesburg),press release, August 16, 2001
The two days wage negotiations between NUMSA and the Automobile Employers Organisation (AMEO) under the auspices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) failed dismally to yield results. NUMSA reduced its wage demand from 12 to 10 percent across the board but the employer body failed to table a revised offer.
They insisted on their miserable 7,5 percent. There was no resolution because employers continued with their intransigent stance. The union went into the talks open- minded and determined to find a solution to the current strike action. The union approached the meeting in a bid to find a common platform. It is unfortunate in the current situation that the union has no other alternative but to continue with the strike action. Despite the union reduction of its demand AMEO showed no interest in making an improved offer.
From the first day of the talks employers were not prepared to move further-up. They were not prepared to change at all from their initial position. They failed to use the opportunity provided to make a breakthrough despite the union making compromises. Employers did not act with the interest of the economy in mind. They did not promote the common good. Clearly employers are not considering workers as people with needs, but as 'labour'to be exploited in the worship of profit and greed. There is no sense of social responsibility. Workers are considered a burden. Employers have lost a sense of care by becoming arrogant and insensitive.
Car employers have failed to act responsibly in this situation. Vehicle employers have a bad history of being unprepared to negotiate in good faith to treat workers as equals. We are witnessing a situation where employers do not respect workers. Making a breakthrough in the current strike requires a change of attitude on the part of employers. Car-employers are not constructive partners in the new labour regime. Employers have excused themselves from taking responsibility in the talks. Employers are self-centred and selfish are failing to play a positive role.
Despite the union reducing its demand to 10 percent, it is highly regrettable that the employers are still archaic and do not want to accept that workers deserve better wages. We have no doubt that this situation takes us to a protracted strike action which will be the repeat of the 1995 strike action. The more the industrial action becomes protracted the more the damage to relationships, productivity levels and competitive levels. Employers are perpetuating more conflict. The ball is in the employer's court to reciprocate positively to union demands.
The union will as from today intensify the strike by mobilising the 220 000 members of the union for national pickets and demonstrations in the offices of the employer organisation starting from next week. The union has called for international support through the International Metalworkers Union (IMF).
The current 7,5 percent offer is not commensurate with the conditions currently prevailing in the industry. Worker's real wages have remained the same over the past three years. The lowest paid worker earns R16 an hour for a 40 hour week. It means an ordinary worker earning R16 an hour will not even purchase the very same car he is making.
If we compare their wages to international standards, it is not acceptable. According to research done by the International Metalworkers Federation, the average hourly wage for a South African blue collar car worker in 1998 was $3.43. This was just more than 20% of a Canadian car worker's average wage of $16.18, one third of a German car worker's wage of $10.42 and 18% of a Japanese car worker's wage at $19.34. It was even below Eastern European countries like Slovenia whose 102 000 blue collar car workers earned $4.98 per hour .
No one knows what South African auto assembly directors earning. We can only use conjecture from figures given by Business Report writer, Terry Bell, estimates that Daimler- Chrysler chief executive, Christof Kopke, is paid at least R10 million a year. "Assuming that Kopke works a 60-hour week, his hourly rate is R3205", 200 times that earned by the lowest paid worker.
This begs the question - if South African directors' pay is holding its own at international level, then who is paying for them to reach these exorbitant packages? The South African workers whose productivity has increased by 14.3%? and labour creates the profits.
The conduct of the employer organisation has not been impressive. Currently the parties stand far apart. Despite the strike having a deep effect on the car manufacturing companies they have shown no desire to move closer to the union new demand. The strike will continue until AMEO understand that workers have a right to better wages.
N.B NUMSA President Mr Mthuthuzeli Tom will lead a march of Daimler Chrysler's 4 000 striking workers tomorrow 17/08/2001. The march will start at East London Daimler Chrysler plant and move to the offices of the border Kia Chamber of Commerce, Oxford Street. The march will start at 11H00 sharp.

Striking S.A. autoworkers get international support

German DaimlerChrysler workers and their General Works Council will refuse a transfer of production from South Africa to Germany.
Following newspaper and radio interviews in which Christopher Kopke, chief executive officer of DaimlerChrysler South Africa, threatened a transfer of production of C-class cars to the company's Sindelfingen and Bremen plants in Germany, the chairman of DaimlerChrysler's General Works Council, Erich Klemm, declared that DaimlerChrysler workers in Germany and their Works Council representatives will not be willing to accept transfer of production from any plant on a legal strike.
The auto strike, organised by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and involving DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, Delta/General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen, began on August 6 and is now well into its second week. The auto companies are still sticking to their offer of a 7.5 per cent wage hike, against the union's proposal of 12 per cent.
In a letter to Numsa's general secretary, Silumko Nondwangu, the chairman of the DaimlerChrysler General Works Council states categorically his condemnation of "the attempt of DaimlerChrysler South Africa to threaten a production transfer in order to influence legal collective bargaining conflicts." In addition to refusing a production transfer, Klemm declared that they would not accept overtime either, to compensate production losses due to such a strike. "We demand," said Klemm, "that the representatives of DaimlerChrysler South Africa use their influence to bring the employers' delegation back to the bargaining table to reach an acceptable compromise to solve the conflict."
The IMF has urged all its affiliated organisations, representing 23 million metalworkers worldwide, to show solidarity with the striking South African autoworkers.  (Fitim)

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