In this f*cked up capitalist world, where CEO's massacre many thousands of families to increase their bonusses and stock options and to improve profits for the shareholders, we can only answer through solidarity.
A company like GM has lots of capital invested in Europe. Therefor I'm convinced that if all European GM workers would join a Eurowide strike, we could bring this sucker down to its knees. It takes sacrifices, but if we can't act as one, we'll lose.

Solidarity for ALL !

Sticking with the European Framework Agreement has helped to avoid a plant closure in Europe. The current proposal includes the stipulation that Antwerp be single shifted and that there is some suggestion of a GM Management guarantee that the facility might have a product assigned beyond 2010.

However, the number one protection that workers have to safeguard their jobs are the enrichment and strict enforcement of their employee separation contract provisions. The erosion of these provisions and their lax administration are very significant features of what is really happening all over the world in the automotive industry.

The auto sector is moving away from their previous guarantee to maintain plant populations by attacking employee separation contract provisions.

For decades, employment contracts and government legislation worked together in:

1. keeping those employee separation plan costs for the employer exceedingly high,

2. keeping those employee separation plan procedures very arduous for the employer to implement,

3. keeping those employee separation plan recall commitments to the employee extend very long into the future,

4. keeping those employee separation plan reversal programs easy and simple to activate.

These conditions are like an indestructible noose that fits tightly around the neck of the company.

Of course, in their pursuit of profits, all the multinational auto companies are trying to move their operations to the low wage regions around the globe. This tendency is to be expected and deterred. No company can break free of their legal obligations to fulfil their contract provisions. No company can shed their legal obligations to fulfil their contract provisions. Acting alone, there is no way for the employer to get out of what they have contracted to do.

The total costs of the employee separation provisions must be carried by the employer. They are necessary and costly. They have been negotiated and ratified. They are solely the responsibility of the employer. They are not transferrable. They cannot be extinguished. They are real. They are immutable.

Story telling, fabrications, lies, threats, deceit, distortions, and propaganda are a few of the manipulations that are always being used by heartless big business to get what they want. They now rush to the media and have their sorry story spread far and wide by some of the politicians and other frightened weakling who won't have to bear the burden. The celebrity CEO's present their sad, pitiable faces pleading for mercy, all the while collecting tens of millions of dollars in performance fees.

The auto companies have implemented this strategy that involves preying upon the sympathies, goodness and soft-heartedness of the workers. Each company is trying to ease their burden by passing the noose from their corporate neck onto the individual necks of the workers.

There are no good reasons to let the companies neck out of the noose. Not Now and Not Ever. They are seeking the consent of the workers to let them free of their duty, obligation and commitment. They can only be free if the workers concede. They can try every technique, some shaded in kindness, others shaded in cruelty, to influence the workers, but in reality they are completely tied to these conditions by rule of law. If anything, the noose must be tightened, not loosened.

The auto industry has brought a proven technology to Europe. That special pleading mechanism was created in America. The globalization of exploitation has washed back onto the shores of Europe. Decades ago, the big-hearted but naive American autoworker unions partnered with the American auto industry to help save their industry from the Japanese product invasion. Look what that partnering deal has dealt them today. They are in total collapse. They are being asked to give up their pensions, their benefits, their employment contract, and half their wages, with no guanentee of a future. You can see now in Europe what this American invention his doing and what has happened to the jobs at VW earlier this year. This is the global architecture of the auto industry.

A elaboration of solidarity strategy for Antwerp needs to be presented on GM Workers Blog now without delay!

Solidarity for Antwerp!