Current and former automotive component parts workers spoke with World Socialist Web Site reporters about the threatened shutdown of Australiaâs car industry. General Motors Holden last December announced it was closing its two plants in Elizabeth, South Australia, and Port Melbourne, Victoria, by the end of 2017. Earlier, Ford said it would cease operations by 2016. Toyota, the remaining car producer in Australia, is threatening to also shut down operations.
At least 45,000 automotive-related jobs are threatened with destruction. Of these, nearly two-thirds, or 28,000 workers, are employed by car components suppliers that depend on the auto manufacturers to survive. Approximately half these jobs are located in the state of Victoria.
Workers in the sector have been under relentless assault, especially since the 2008 financial crash and subsequent restructuring of the international auto industry. In the past three years, dozens of component suppliers have closedâincluding Autodom (2012 â 400 jobs), APV (2012 â 126 jobs), Dair (2013 â 120 jobs) and CMI Industrial (2012 â 119 jobs). Many others have imposed layoffs, or sweeping cuts to wages and conditions. The General Motors and Ford announcements have already triggered more shutdowns, with Hirotec and Chassis Brakes International in South Australia signalling they will cease production at the same time as Holden.
The automakers, as part of a continual push to maximise profits, have long demanded low-cost parts. This has created ongoing pressures for productivity speedups, wage cuts and layoffs, while significant production has shifted offshore. From 2004 to 2012, the value of components sourced from Australian suppliers fell by half, from $4.94 billion to $2.34 billion, as the auto companies looked to cheap labour platforms in Asia for supplies.
Workers who spoke to the WSWS described the intimate role of the trade unions in the assault on manufacturing jobs and conditions, and dismissed with contempt the claims of both Liberal and Labor governments that workers who lose their jobs could âtransitionâ to alternative work.
Carmelo, a former employee at the parts manufacturer APV, was one of 125 workers who lost their jobs after the factory shut in 2012. He has been forced to work as a casual for a labour-hire agency, Austaff, in the food industry. âItâs not possible to get a job as a toolmaker,â he said. âI hate having to work for an agency. There are no holidays; those entitlements are gone.â
The former APV worker dismissed the union- and government-promoted âassistanceâ and âretrainingâ schemes. âThe government says, âweâll give all the workers a hand after the closure.â It is a lot of baloney. They donât help you at all. It is only PR. It doesnât happen. The union is the same. They are only interested in your fees.
âThe union [Australian Manufacturing Workers Union] had known for quite a while about what was happening at APV. They are supposed to be on your side, but once the buck stops and the place closes, they wipe their hands of you. You donât hear from them. Youâre on your own.â
Carmelo added: âThe people at the top, the rich, are making so much money, more than they need. The Commonwealth Bank made a $7.8 billion profit last year. There is no distribution of wealth throughout the system. There is no middle class any more, only the poor and the rich.â
Kannan also lost his job at APV in 2012, after working there for 10 years and previously for Ford for 10 years. âPlenty of people from APV are still looking for a job,â he explained. âIâm still looking for something, but thereâs nothing.â
Centrelink, the government welfare agency, refused to pay him benefits. Kannan explained: âIâve tried to get support from Centrelink, but they donât want to pay me for my disability. They didnât pay me anything for a year because of the package we got after the shutdown, but since last September, theyâre now paying me, just $71 a fortnight. I canât live on that.
âI showed them my bills, I showed them my debts, but they wonât give me anything. Itâs because my wife worksâbut she doesnât earn much. Our mortgage is about $500 a week and my wife earns about $600 a week. If we didnât have my daughter working, we couldnât manage.â
Kannan commented: âYou canât believe the union. They play double games. Really theyâre supporting the employers. We had a lot of meetings with the union before APV shut. They came in with a lot of concessions that they wanted us to acceptâto take off RDOs [rostered days off], cut sick leave and many other things. The union said that if we didnât accept these, the place would close. I think the union planned it with the company.â
Ahmad, now employed at a plastics manufacturer, worked for Hella, a components supplier, for a year in 2011-2012. âThey laid off 126 people out of a workforce of 400, after Ford shut down all their production temporarily for a month [in July 2012],â he explained. âManagement said it was because of the lack of work in the car component sector. They also wanted us to accept wage cuts. I donât know whether that happened after I was sacked.â
Ahmad described the endless pressure on workers for speedup and greater productivity. âIt was always all casual staff. You had to meet your target. They wanted 480 parts per shift, and if you didnât meet that, theyâd call you in and find out what was going on. Youâd be in real trouble.â
Asked about the implications of Holdenâs and Fordâs announcements, Ahmad replied: âI have friends at Hella still, and now theyâre starting to worry about work. Holden announced theyâre going to be closing, Ford has announced the same, and Toyota in March or May will probably announce that theyâre closing. Already, itâs very hard to find work. When you first go for a job in manufacturing, youâre a casual for a year, or a year and a half. A lot of the young guys at Hella now have a mortgage. How are they going to pay for that?â
Asked his impression of the trade unions, he exclaimed: âThe trade unions are useless! Theyâre only there to fill their own pockets. They donât look after the people. They donât help. At the end of the day, the union dues just keep going up, so they donât have to worry about your wages.â
Ahmad explained: âI was retrenched in 2006 when I was at Southcorp, a packaging company. We worked on the Sunday, and Monday we were gone. The union did nothing; they just left us stranded. They say theyâre helping, but most of the time theyâre on managementâs side. Whenever thereâs a dispute, they come up with stories just to make sure there is a quick transition. Theyâll come one day to hold a mass meeting, and tell us, âweâll have a meeting with management tomorrow.â They come back the next day tell us, âwell, you should understand managementâs point of view.â The union is supposed to be there to represent you, but instead of talking on behalf of you, they just talk against you.â
After it was pointed out that the unions are actively involved in ensuring the âorderly closureâ of plants at Ford and Holden, Ahmad responded: âYou know what an âorderly closureâ is? They hold your hand and walk you out of the plant like a criminal.â
A worker from PPG Industries, a paint supplier for the auto companies, explained: âPPG took advantage of the global financial crisis. Their profits have gone up and the workersâ wages have gone down. The PPG share price has gone from $30 five or six years ago to, last time I looked, $185âsix times what it wasâand they claim they canât afford to pay our wages.â
In 2011, the United Voice union isolated and then betrayed a nine week-long strike by PPG workers, delivering all the company demands, including a 43 percent wage cut for new hires. âMy pay has dropped by $200 per week since Christmas,â the worker said. âWe previously had an overtime component built into our salaries, but if we reached our quotas then we wouldnât have to do the overtime. Part of our 2011 agreement was that that would finish. And last Christmas they said all they could afford was 3, 2.4 and 2.4 percent pay rises for the next three years, which is actually a pay cut.â
The worker commented: âWe donât have a Labor party anymore; Labor is as bad as the rest of them. The union is as bad as the rest of them. How much money do you think the unions would be making from the superannuation funds alone? Theyâre not bothered about the workersâtheyâre just filling their own pockets. Going through the union ranks is a path to government today. Itâs what youâd call a conflict of interest. You canât fight for workersâ rights and look after big business at the same time.â
The PPG worker added: âItâs like in America; the middle class is disappearing. The more âproductiveâ we become, the more weâre going to suffer. I think everything is going belly up and I donât know what to do about it. I donât think the capitalist system is right.â