Automatic translation:                  
28/04/2007

Solidarity and a Brief from Australia

A message from union delegates, General Motors (Holden), Elizabeth, South Australia

The Delegates at GM in Australia (Elizabeth Plant) from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, strongly support and express our solidarity to the brothers and sisters who work at the GM Antwerp and other European plants for their fight to save their jobs and the jobs for the children .

UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE BEG.

Here at the Elizabeth plant we are in a tough situation. Recently we were forced to accept the loss of 650 jobs. That took the total lost over 2 years to more than 2000 jobs. Our problems start from GM's fixing of its Australian operation for a 6 cylinder car that is now less popular relative to smaller cars in the Australian market and, also, the extreme right wing Howard government that refuses to develop an industry policy that stabilises and renews our industry. Instead the government chooses bilateral free trade agreements (USA, Thailand, and China forthcoming) that are very scary for our future.

We watch closely and support your efforts to forge a new way of bargaining for job security with our employer.

Thanks for the solidarity and support. Let us join our forces to fight for a decent future. What we need is a joint policy of all GM unions for a "balancing" of production which means a fair capacity utilization and decent work practices globally. It cannot be that GM is going on with this kind of relocation of jobs to so-called low cost countries like China. And everybody knows there is everytime somebody who is cheaper than yourself. In solidarity.

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