No layoffs! No concessions!
Autoworkers call for demonstration February 9 to fight GM plant closings
By
Jerry White
12 January 2019
Autoworkers and other sections of workers and young people will be marching in front of the General Motors headquarters in Detroit on February 9 to oppose the company’s plans to shut five factories in the US and Canada and eliminate nearly 15,000 hourly and salaried workers.
The demonstration will begin at 2:00 pm EST. GM headquarters is located at 300 Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, Michigan. (To sign up for updates, go to wsws.org/auto.)
The demonstration has been called by the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees, and it has been endorsed by the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter. The steering committee, which is made up of autoworkers from Michigan and Indiana, along with workers from Amazon and other companies, was established at the December 9 Emergency Meeting to Fight GM Closings, organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party (US).
In a statement circulated on social media, the steering committee called for support for the demonstration.
The statement says: “General Motors’ plan to close five plants in the US and Canada and wipe out 15,000 jobs is an attack on all workers that must be stopped.”
Calling the plant closings a “corporate crime,” it asserts: “The workers and young people of Detroit, Lordstown, Oshawa and others targeted by GM must declare with one voice that these plants will not close! Their closure will have devastating consequences for tens of thousands of autoworkers, their families, and the communities in which these plants are located.
“The actions by GM are part of a global restructuring of the auto industry and an attack on the…