'We have to fight these job losses': Warren Truck auto workers speak out on eve of mass layoffs

Autoworkers: Join the fight against mass layoffs! Sign up to be contacted about becoming involved in the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network Fill out the form below.

Just days before the Oct. 8 deadline to lay off more than 2,400 workers at the Warren truck assembly plant, workers at the suburban Detroit plant are angry about the United Auto Workers bureaucracy's complicity with Stellantis management and insist that this should be fought to defend their jobs.

A worker who lost her job said autoworkers should stand up and fight before layoffs are implemented next Tuesday. “Everyone come see me outside the building on Monday morning,” she said.

Loading tweet…

Recent weeks have seen a revolt by ordinary workers, opening the possibility for a broad working class struggle against declining living standards and escalating attacks on jobs.

The union bureaucracies are desperately trying to control this rebellion. Over 30,000 Boeing machinists went on strike for three weeks after rejecting an IAM-backed sell-out deal by 95 percent. Meanwhile, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) bureaucracy announced on Thursday that it would end the powerful strike of 45,000 longshoremen after just three days, as fears grew among the ruling class that the strike would trigger a wave of workers' struggles , which would lead to the November elections.

Loading tweet…

“We have to do something to keep these jobs,” said a young Warren Truck worker who faced job loss after three years at Stellantis. “Starting over is a lot. I don't know what will happen to me. I'm at the bottom [seniority] Line. It’s like we’re in limbo and have to wait and see.”

The worker expressed disdain for the UAW's public relations campaign against Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares and was under no illusions that it would help stop job cuts next week. “They’re playing a good game,” she said of UAW officials like union President Shawn Fain. To Fain's claim that he won a “great contract” last year, she said: “Great for who?”

She agreed that power should be in the hands of ordinary workers and not the UAW apparatus. “We need some kind of power because at this point they're basically telling us come, go, sit, stand, and then they're going to throw you out of a job.”

In contrast to the UAW bureaucracy's promotion of American nationalism, the worker expressed support for the planned strike by Italian Stellantis workers against planned 12,000 job cuts. “We must come together to save our jobs,” she said.

One veteran worker nearing retirement said: “We are losing a lot of good people and it's very sad.” Their lives are simply being taken away from them. I pray they make room for the five-year-olds in other plants, the one-year-olds aren’t going anywhere.”

Loading tweet…