30/01/2008
On the issue of Ford "buy-outs," I read in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Ford Motor Company is offering another round of "buy-outs." This time they are offering workers more than the last time.
What this means is those workers who took the buy-out packages before lost in two ways.
First they lost out on a better "buy-out" package being presented now.
Second, they could have been making a lot more money because the Plant never closed as Ford had threatened.
Now employment at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is back up to almost one-thousand workers--- the majority getting "temporary worker pay, " which is half the pay of what the workers who were tricked into taking buy-outs were getting in wages!
Talk about your brazen exploitation and theft all perpetrated on the premise of corporate lies... notice a similarity to anything?
Kind of like the lies Bush used to get the United States into an imperialist war of occupation in Iraq.
This provides an interesting dilemma for those who tout the United States as the world's greatest bastion of democracy: How can democratic decision making take place when top corporate and government officials are lying about everything from the war in Iraq right down to the level of a job?
Then again, corporations never have intended for workers to participate in the decision making process at work any more than they have intended for working people to participate in the affairs of government.
What I find really strange is Sam Webb has produced a new You Tube video about how the 2008 elections are all about "democracy" when he fails to address the very specific issues surrounding plant closings and massive lay-offs and job terminations taking place now... is he muzzled by some kind of right-wing Gestapo force?
Never before have I ever heard of a Communist Party leader joining together with the auto industry CEO's and class collaborationist labor leaders claiming things are all a "done deal" as plants close and workers lose their jobs... even Earl Browder never engaged in such working class betrayal.
In Minnesota the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant is expanding and growing as more people from diverse walks of life are being drawn in more and more as participants in the struggle to save this plant through public ownership, and Sam Webb has dictated that the South/Central Minnesota District of the Communist Party USA must remain out of this struggle lest members face expulsion.
On the other hand, Webb in his new You Tube video claims he is supporting the Democrats because defeating the rabid right-wing Republicans will offer more opportunity for working people to participate in the democratic process. How much more of a democratic process does Webb require to join with labor and community organizations and progressive elected officials who right now are challenging the "right" of the Ford Motor Company to be the sole decision maker?
Why would anyone expect that Webb would participate in saving a plant and two-thousand jobs any more after a Democratic President takes office when he refuses to participate in this democratic struggle right now.
Legislators have created an important piece of legislation aimed at depriving the Ford Motor Company of dictating what it will do with this modern plant it wants to first close then turn into a pile of rubble so it can become a joint partner with a bunch of real-estate speculators and contractors who want to build a little up-scale, yuppie, "green community" in its place.
Webb should have to explain why he is sitting out this struggle to save two-thousand jobs; any thinking person would assume that the leader of the Communist Party USA would be first in line defending the democratic rights of working people and the community to participate in the democratic process.
Webb sitting on his hands sowing division among the progressive community in Minnesota on this issue is classic revisionism which always leads to the betrayal of working people just as has happened in this instance. Then Webb has the nerve to say there can be no democratic advances unless Democrats are elected.
One can only conclude Webb does not respect democratic decision making inside the Communist Party any more than he dares to challenge the corporate dictate of what plants will be closed as thousands of workers lose their jobs.
I have never seen, nor heard, of such vile revisionism based on such a perversion of Marxism. Ok, maybe Gorbachov was worse.
This perplexing question has to be asked: Why is Sam Webb refusing to support Minnesota Senate File 607 as advocated by United Auto Workers Local 879 representing workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant?
Perhaps Webb should consult with Frank Lumpkin on this issue.
It is interesting that Dean Gunderson is catching hell for spilling the beans in telling everyone he and the St. Paul Club of the CPUSA must refrain from participating in this struggle as they have been ordered by Webb.
Webb complains working people have had no victories in the last thirty years even though 12 of those years have been presided over by Democrat. How is a Democrat in the oval office with a majority Senate and House going to change the outcome of the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Plant when a Democratic controlled State Senate Committee couldn’t even pass a bill aimed at saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant? Perhaps if Webb would spend a few dollars organizing here in Minnesota the Ford Plant could be saved.
Last night a major labor leader in the Twin Cities announce a coalition of labor and community activists was forming to take on the Ford Motor Company… this doesn’t sound like a “done deal to me… apparently the spokesman for the Ford Motor Company doesn’t think so either judging by the way he clutched his head in his arms in desperation listening to this latest news.
