Stellantis announces 2,450 permanent layoffs at Warren Truck, deepening global jobs massacre
Do you work at Warren Truck? We want to hear from you: Fill out the form at the end to talk about joining an action committee and tell us how the cuts affect you.
Workers are reacting with shock and outrage to Stellantis’ brutal announcement on Friday that the company will cut 2,450 jobs at its Warren truck assembly plant in a Detroit suburb as early as October 8.
In addition to the full-time positions, 216 skilled workers and 114 temporary workers are also affected by the cuts, i.e. two thirds of the current 3,700 unionized workforce. The layoffs will reduce operations to one shift for an indefinite period, so the closure of the plant is only a matter of time.
The cuts are part of the Detroit automaker’s relentless job cuts following the supposedly “historic” collective bargaining agreement negotiated by United Auto Workers (UAW) union leader Shawn Fain and embraced by President Biden. Earlier this year, Stellantis laid off thousands of temporary workers, also known as adjuncts, who UAW leadership had falsely promised full-time work in order to get the 2023 contract ratified.
A Warren Truck worker told the WSWS: “We got a robocall today saying we’re being cut to one shift permanently. I don’t know where I stand on the seniority list. I’m not interested in severance pay. I don’t have enough years to make it worthwhile. I have to work. I’ve only been there a week for a month and a half.”
He added: “We have not heard anything from the UAW.”
A second worker at the Warren truck plant said: “We are told that there is no future for the model of truck we are building and that there are only 1,200 orders. That is so expensive that we are not surprised.”
The latest cuts are part of a global restructuring of the auto industry as companies seek to pass the costs of developing electric vehicles onto workers. They come against a backdrop of growing signs of recession and are just a taste of the jobs massacre to come.
The corporate attacks on jobs are spreading to ever broader parts of the economy. Since the beginning of the year, the agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere & Company has laid off around 2,000 workers at its plants in Illinois and Iowa, or 20 percent of the workforce represented by the UAW. Instead of opposing the cuts, the UAW is trying to stir up hostility against workers in Mexico.
The Warren Truck worker added: “This is happening everywhere. There is a big crisis in Europe because of the war. I guarantee that 99 percent of the workers are angry because Fain cheated us. He said: ‘I work for you. We protected your jobs.’ But secretly he signed a contract that will cost us our jobs.”
“We know the union has not told us the truth. They say they work for us, but they work for the company.”
As of this writing, UAW national headquarters has not said anything about the cuts. On Wednesday, Fain and hundreds of UAW officials held a rally in a hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Airport to support the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
On Thursday, Harris and Walz also met with UAW officials at the UAW Local 900 office in Wayne, Michigan. Ford’s Wayne Assembly was one of the plants that went on strike during the 2023 sham strike in which the UAW kept most of its members on the job.
In response to news of the layoffs, Jerry White, vice presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party, posted a video message on Twitter calling on rank-and-file workers at Stellantis to organize a fight against the layoffs.
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“Workers must act,” White said. “This is the direct result of the wage betrayal that Shawn Fain and the UAW bureaucracy signed last fall.”
He continued:
When Fain signed this contract, President Biden claimed it was a “historic” contract. They all knew, and Harris knew too, that massive layoffs were planned.
This underscores the need for a struggle like that of Will Lehman – who ran as a socialist candidate for UAW chairman – to transfer power from the UAW apparatus to the workers on the factory floor. Action committees must prepare strikes to defend the jobs and living standards of every worker.
If these corporations go through with their job cuts, tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs. Whole neighborhoods will be devastated. Drug abuse will increase. More families will break apart. More suicides will follow.
In conclusion, White called on workers to “build a powerful working-class movement that addresses the needs of workers around the world, rather than spending billions and trillions on war.”
“If brothers and sisters lose their jobs, we should strike”
The Warren Truck worker said, “In last year’s contract agreement, the UAW didn’t even want to tell us what they really agreed to. For them, it’s like a game.”
“I think we should strike to stop the layoffs. This company makes billions of dollars, but it’s the people who make the money. When brothers and sisters lose their jobs, we should strike.”
The worker continued: “You can see that Fain and Kamala Harris are on the same side. A lot of people, especially in Michigan, don’t want to vote for either party. They want to vote for a third party, like the Socialist Equality Party. They come to you because they know the union isn’t going to help them, they want to have a say.”
Referring to the attempt by both the Trump and Biden administrations and the UAW apparatus to blame immigrants for the attacks on jobs and living standards, the Warren Truck worker said, “I tell workers, immigrants are not the problem. It’s not the Mexicans coming into the country that are causing the job losses. Trump and the media are trying to brainwash you. They keep pushing this, and in the end, the workers pay the price.”
The Warren Truck layoffs followed years of threats by Stellantis management to jeopardize Warren Truck workers’ jobs and blame workers for absenteeism and quality problems.
It comes as a crisis in the UAW apparatus escalates. The court-appointed UAW supervisor speaks of a “culture of fear and retaliation” within the union’s leadership. In June, it was revealed that the supervisor had opened new investigations into corruption among top UAW officials, including competing allegations of misconduct by Fain and Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock.
In May, Fain ousted UAW Vice President Rich Boyer as head of the union’s Stellantis division and took over the job himself, claiming Boyer had not pushed back strongly enough against the earlier wave of layoffs. Boyer, in turn, claimed in a letter that Fain and his top advisers were closely involved in the collective bargaining process and were fully aware that Stellantis would not convert all of its temporary workers into full-time employees.
The entire UAW bureaucracy is deeply involved in the current attacks and will not lift a finger to defend jobs. The cuts can only be prevented if the workers themselves organize a collective response.
Rank-and-file committees must be formed, composed of the most trusted militant workers, to plan a campaign to defend jobs. These committees must fight to mobilize as many autoworkers as possible, including those in the supplier plants, and combine this with a demand for new UAW elections under rank-and-file control.
