SACP Supports Workers at General Motors SA and Its Supply Chain, Denounces the Disinvesting Company for Unilateral and Bad Faith Conduct Towards the Labor Movement in SA
24 May 2017
The SACP expresses its message of solidarity with the workers employed at General Motors South Africa (GMSA) and its supply chain who are facing an uncertain future as a result of the GM's global headquarters decision to close production operations in South Africa. The SACP denounces with contempt GM's unilateral and bad faith conduct towards workers and the labour movement in South Africa. More than ever, unions at GMSA and its supply chain need to set all their differences aside and unite for the greater good of the workers. Maximum unity in the ranks of organised labour and organising the unorganised will be essential in the imminent battle against retrenchments and adverse restructuring.
This struggle must, in the first instance, be waged at the premises of GMSA and its supply chain. Wider community and national support is also critical. The SACP pledges its unqualified support to all the workers potentially affected, regardless of which union they belong to. The SACP will support progressive interventions by the unions involved, as well as by their respective federations. This is a moment to come together, combine strengths and focus on advancing the common interests of the workers.
In order to safeguard workers jobs and prioritise employment growth, it is also important for organised labour to prepare thoroughly for engagements with Isuzu Motors. The company is set to acquire GMSA's production facility in South Africa. Furthermore intervention by the government is going to be of crucial importance.
The decision by GM has everything to do with profit maximisation and the aftermath of the international capitalist crisis that first erupted in 2007/8 in the United States, rather than the so-called loss of confidence in South Africa's investment environment. Due to a combination of factors including plummeting sales as a result of the crisis, GM has faced impending bankruptcy. Among others the United States government has pumped $50 billion in a bailout intervention to GM, on the condition of an intensified, aggressive restructuring on a global scale.
Clearly GM's restructuring agenda has not ended. As the Department of Trade and Industry indicated on 18 May, GM exited Australia in 2013 where it had a joint venture with Holden and closed its plant in Indonesia in 2015. In 2017 GM was, at the outset, engaged in pulling out of Europe with the Opel/Vauxhall brand sold to Peugeot and closing its plant in Halol, India.
In February, Isuzu Motors announced that it will acquire GM East Africa stocks effectively making it a subsidiary. In South Africa, GM has been repositioning itself more as a warehousing operation rather than a manufacturing operation.
As Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies noted in his budget speech yesterday, notwithstanding the impending GM manufacturing pull-out from South Africa, our active, state-led industrial policy programme has seen increasing investment in the automotive industry, including in public transport vehicles over the last several years. In response to the profit-maximising fluctuations of private monopoly capital two lessons stand out - the imperative of working class unity in action, and an effective, public sector-led, industrial policy programme that focuses on localisation, job preservation and creation, and sustained investment.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY: THE SACP
FOR GENERAL ENQUIRIES ON SACP STATEMENTS
CONTACT:
ALEX MOHUBETSWANE MASHILO: NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS
SKYPE: MASHILOAM
MOBILE: +27 76 316 9816
OFFICE: +2711 339 3621/2
TWITTER: SACP1921
FACEBOOK PAGE: SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
SACP USTREAM TV CHANNEL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sacp-tv
The SACP expresses its message of solidarity with the workers employed at General Motors South Africa (GMSA) and its supply chain who are facing an uncertain future as a result of the GM's global headquarters decision to close production operations in South Africa. The SACP denounces with contempt GM's unilateral and bad faith conduct towards workers and the labour movement in South Africa. More than ever, unions at GMSA and its supply chain need to set all their differences aside and unite for the greater good of the workers. Maximum unity in the ranks of organised labour and organising the unorganised will be essential in the imminent battle against retrenchments and adverse restructuring.
This struggle must, in the first instance, be waged at the premises of GMSA and its supply chain. Wider community and national support is also critical. The SACP pledges its unqualified support to all the workers potentially affected, regardless of which union they belong to. The SACP will support progressive interventions by the unions involved, as well as by their respective federations. This is a moment to come together, combine strengths and focus on advancing the common interests of the workers.
In order to safeguard workers jobs and prioritise employment growth, it is also important for organised labour to prepare thoroughly for engagements with Isuzu Motors. The company is set to acquire GMSA's production facility in South Africa. Furthermore intervention by the government is going to be of crucial importance.
The decision by GM has everything to do with profit maximisation and the aftermath of the international capitalist crisis that first erupted in 2007/8 in the United States, rather than the so-called loss of confidence in South Africa's investment environment. Due to a combination of factors including plummeting sales as a result of the crisis, GM has faced impending bankruptcy. Among others the United States government has pumped $50 billion in a bailout intervention to GM, on the condition of an intensified, aggressive restructuring on a global scale.
Clearly GM's restructuring agenda has not ended. As the Department of Trade and Industry indicated on 18 May, GM exited Australia in 2013 where it had a joint venture with Holden and closed its plant in Indonesia in 2015. In 2017 GM was, at the outset, engaged in pulling out of Europe with the Opel/Vauxhall brand sold to Peugeot and closing its plant in Halol, India.
In February, Isuzu Motors announced that it will acquire GM East Africa stocks effectively making it a subsidiary. In South Africa, GM has been repositioning itself more as a warehousing operation rather than a manufacturing operation.
As Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies noted in his budget speech yesterday, notwithstanding the impending GM manufacturing pull-out from South Africa, our active, state-led industrial policy programme has seen increasing investment in the automotive industry, including in public transport vehicles over the last several years. In response to the profit-maximising fluctuations of private monopoly capital two lessons stand out - the imperative of working class unity in action, and an effective, public sector-led, industrial policy programme that focuses on localisation, job preservation and creation, and sustained investment.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY: THE SACP
FOR GENERAL ENQUIRIES ON SACP STATEMENTS
CONTACT:
ALEX MOHUBETSWANE MASHILO: NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS
SKYPE: MASHILOAM
MOBILE: +27 76 316 9816
OFFICE: +2711 339 3621/2
TWITTER: SACP1921
FACEBOOK PAGE: SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
SACP USTREAM TV CHANNEL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sacp-tv
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