Jobs bloodbath at Ford and GM
Ford announces 1,000 job cuts as GM begins mass layoffs
By
our reporters
5 February 2019
US automakers began their jobs bloodbath on Monday as General Motors started dismissing 4,250 engineers, technicians, managers and other white-collar workers and the news emerged that Ford will eliminate the second shift at its Flat Rock, Michigan assembly plant by April 1, wiping out more than 1,000 hourly jobs.
GM plans to close five factories in the US and Canada, including major assembly plants in Detroit, Lordstown, Ohio and Oshawa, Ontario, and destroy more than 14,000 production and salaried workers’ jobs.
In response, autoworkers and their supporters are preparing a demonstration this Saturday in front of the GM headquarters in downtown Detroit. “We are determined that workers are not going to be the forgotten men and women,” said Jerry White, the editor of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, in response to the layoff announcement.
“No matter whether white collar or blue collar, all workers are part of the 90 percent of society that are the victims of corporate capitalism gone rampant,” he added.
“The latest round of mass layoffs is another testament to the betrayal at the hands of the corporate stooges who run the United Auto Workers.” White said. “The 40 years since the first concessions contract at Chrysler have made clear that their actions are not an accumulation of mistakes, but a deliberate policy of imposing the dictates of management on the workers.
“We are calling this demonstration as the first step in the mobilization…