Direct action gets the goods in Brazil
Submitted by working class s... on Aug 13 2012 18:38
Faced with with over 1,000 redundancies, Brazilian GM workers walk off the job, and occupy the busiest highway route in the country. The bosses cave in, suspend their redundancy plans, and give the workers paid leave for their wildcat action.
Last week, 2,000 GM workers from the Brazilian Metalworkers Union, occupied, and took control of an important highway, and demanded a stop to 1,840 redundancies.
Former GM workers sew their mouths shut and start hunger strike
Submitted by working class s... on Aug 11 2012 17:02
Seven members of the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors Colmotores (ASOTRECOL) have sewn their mouths shut and started an indefinite hunger strike until General Motors meet their demands.
Between 2008 and 2011, General Motors in Columbia fired many workers who sustained injuries during the course of their work.
Work related injuries were widespread throughout the factory. Workers developed repetitive strain injuries, affecting hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders – as well as spinal injuries due to heavy lifting, and hands being ripped off in machinery.
Competition, bankruptcy, and the decline of the United Auto Workers
Submitted by John E Jacobsen on Sep 23 2011 23:44
September 21st, 2011: The United Auto Workers and General Motors are wrapping up contract negotiations following their previous contract’s expiration on September 14th.
The UAW has released only an outline of the new contract’s features, lauding the contracts “improvements in health care benefits,” pensions, and “improved profit-sharing” between owners and employees.
Temp work at General Motors Opel Bochum, 2007
Prol-Position on casualisation and agency working at General Motors in Germany in 2007.
The Company
Car industry disputes, 2005
Submitted by Steven. on Jan 8 2010 16:44
Short roundups of various workers' struggles in the global automobile industry by Prol-Position in 2005.
Update on Car Industry: More strikes
Wildcat! The wartime strike wave in the auto industry - Ed Jennings
Submitted by Steven. on Dec 22 2009 18:21
Ed Jennings' account of the widespread movement of wildcat strikes in the United States auto industry during the period of the union-agreed no strike pledge.
From Radical America, Volume 9, # 4-5. July-August, 1975.
In the heart of the heart of the country: The strike at Lordstown
Submitted by Steven. on Dec 18 2009 15:57
A detailed historical account and analysis of the dispute at the General Motors Lordstown plant in the early 1970s, examining the largely self-organised workers' sabotage and the union-controlled strike.
By Peter Herman
Introduction
The end of the automobile
An analysis focusing on Germany of developments in the global car industry between its inception and the financial crisis of 2008-9.
The 'service society' and the end of industrial work has been propagated for decades now. Today the press is stuffed with reports on the importance of the automobile industry for the national economy and with pictures of industrial workers. The articles and pictures scream out: 'This is supposed to be the end?! – Unbelievable!!'.
Flint 1936-7: Diary of a sitdowner
Submitted by Steven. on Aug 14 2009 11:24
The diary of one of the striking General Motors workers who occupied their factories between December 1936 and February 1937.
General Motors' sit-in strikers' thoughts inside Fisher Body #2 – Flint, Michigan
Written by Francis O'Rourke
December 30, 1936 – 6:45 a.m.
1970-1972: The Lordstown struggle and the real crisis in production - Ken Weller
Submitted by libcom on Feb 17 2009 18:17
Fascinating pamphlet by Solidarity on the informal workers struggle against the frenetic pace of work at a General Motors plant, and the later co-optation of the struggle by the auto workers union.
This pamphlet is an attempt to document some important tendencies developing in the motor car industry but which are relevant to modern production as a whole. We feel these trends have important political consequences for revolutionary socialists.
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