Founding Resolution of the International Automotive Workers' Coordination 2015
Driven by the international competition for world market leadership the multinational automotive
corporations strive for maximum profits at the expense of the working people and nature. They
blackmail and threaten the workers, women and men, destroy jobs, close plants, cut wages and
salaries and increase pressure at the work place. They use times of crisis to intensify exploitation,
reduce or eliminate trade unionist rights and shift the burdens of the crises onto the employees. In
various countries we have conducted many struggles and strikes in order to counter this situation,
to defend the rights of the workers to organize and defend jobs, wages and salaries. We want to
exchange our experiences and knowledge, strengthen our grade of organization and promote and
coordinate the struggles internationally. We give mutual support through solidarity and protest actions,
promote solidarity strikes and the rejection of strikebreaker work, develop solidarity campaigns
and internationally coordinated days of solidarity action. For this purpose we build up national,
regional and continental structures of coordination. However, these are in no way in competition
with or even substitutes for trade unions or working class parties, but promote and compliment
them.
Since 1998 the strong ties of international solidarity experienced by the automobile workers of different
plants, corporations and countries in altogether seven international automotive worker's
counsels have been strengthened. They became highlights of mutual trust, of friendship and of
the confidence that together we can change things. Together with mutual information and announcements,
solidarity activities, delegations and joint days of action, this has contributed to the
struggles of the automotive workers' movement of the world:
• In the struggles against the plant closures like at Opel Bochum/Germany, GM Sao José
dos Campos/Brazil, Ford Genk/Belgium, Peugeot Aulnay/France.
• In the protest and solidarity campaigns which lasted for many years against dismissals
and criminalization of strike leaders at Toyota in the Philippines, the struggle of contract
workers at Suzuki-Maruti in India, fired, injured GM workers in Colombia or Ssangyong in
Korea.
• In the common struggles of the workforces of different corporations like in South Africa in
2014, in Brazil in January 2015 or in Bursa/Turkey in May 2015.
All these struggles were preceded by decisions not to allow workers being blackmailed, not to accept
that there is allegedly “no alternative” and to go into the offensive. Even more important than
the immediate success in the struggles has the growing internationalist class consciousness become
and the perspective of the organization of the workforces as well as the entire working-class
movement. We are proud that our movement is increasingly taking shape and gaining in social
importance.
At the same time there are still difficulties today and it is something new that we automotive workers
are uniting worldwide. We are exposed to a barrage of the manipulation of public opinion. Corporations
and governments are spreading lies about socially compatible job cuts, dampen the
contradictions with short-time work allowances and special bonuses. They are pitting our concern
about the environment and its defense against jobs. They are blackmailing us in all countries with
the competition with other locations or are trying to “buy” our jobs without a fight by means of severance
pay. They are often supported in this by trade union leaders who submit to the competition
of the corporations and the logic of profit. Various governments make every kind of concession to
the international automotive monopolies, grant them tax exemptions and dismantle laws protecting
workers and the environment, to favor the enterprises and worsen working conditions.
If we workers rebel against this, then we will be finished with “cooperation”. Wage demands are
being described as excessive. We are faced with anti-labor attacks or mass workplace bullying,
especially those forces which do not bow down to the rule of capital. Corporations and their governments
are persecuting those workers' representatives who dare to demand their workers'
rights and fight for the organization of the working class, up to the open repression of trade-union
organization or even the assassination of trade unionists like in Colombia. We are told that we are
isolated and alone as a single workforce against an all-powerful opponent. It is a fact: We automotive
workers are in opposition to a powerful opponent. However we are not powerless! Our force is
developing with clarity and organization across national borders.
The big radical changes of industrial production have not solved the problems of humankind. On
the contrary: the crises are intensifying! We workers in the automotive and supply industry are
working hand in hand internationally in more and more countries – and nevertheless we are
driven into even more competition. We workers produce valuable products – however, the majority
of us cannot afford them. Many families are living in poverty or near the subsistence level, also
because the youth is being pushed into unemployment and contract work. We are skilled workers
of a highly developed mode of production, but we experience how it is rebounding on us under the
fetters of capitalist conditions and increasingly destroying the unity of humankind and nature. The
goal of the automotive corporations to increase the annual vehicle production to 100 million, further
relying on fossil fuels and transporting more and more goods on the roads, is driving the
world knowingly toward the collapse of the world climate. These are the same corporations that
cut jobs and willfully risk the destruction of the foundations of life of humankind and a global environmental
catastrophe.
Fewer and fewer people want to put up with the fact that they, and especially the youth, are deprived
of the future. While the corporations and the capital do business in all corners of the world,
the workers and the people are denied the right to migrate, which has led to tragedies, in particular
in the poor countries. In the whole world, the workers are fighting against capitalist exploitation,
against the exploitation of children, against the special oppression of women, discrimination and
sexism, the popular masses against the shifting of the burdens of the crisis onto their backs,
against the destruction of the environment and reactionary wars, against discrimination because
of race, origin or sexual identity. We automotive workers are a large part of the hundreds of millions
of industrial workers. We are doing everything we can so that together we become a superior
force against the international finance capital which today dominates the world economy and
world politics and the repressive state apparatus.
We call on all automotive workers, women and men, and those associated with the struggle of the
automotive workers, to become members of the International Coordination with the signing of the
founding resolution. We intend to:
1. Demonstrate solidarity with the workers' struggles in the automotive industry. We present
solidarity declarations in the meetings of workers and organize solidarity actions with all
those who fight against the exploitation of the automotive corporations.
2. Organize campaigns against the oppression of workers who are affected by dismissals,
persecution, arrests and other measures that try to silence workers. Courageous workers
have to know that they can rely on international support and that the attacks of the corporations
will be denounced internationally! We defend the right of free self-organization of
the workers.
3. For the time between the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on 28 April and the international
day of struggle of the working class on May Day we concentrate on carrying
out internationally coordinated actions and days of struggle, in order to give our international
unity strength and expression.
4. The corporations are elaborating plans and goals for plant closures, relocation of production
to countries with low production costs and intensification of exploitation in the centers
of the corporate groups. At the same they are pitting the workers within the corporate
groups against each other as individual workforces. For this reason the coordination within
the respective multinational corporate group is of decisive significance.
5. We organize activities for the reduction of working hours and to abolish contracted and
temporary labor as important contributions to the struggle against exploitation and unemployment.
We seek the cooperation with other militant workers, organizations and movements.
6. We promote the organization of workers with a strong basis in the factories, so that the
workers take their future into their own hands. In doing so, we are aware that the conditions
in every country and every plant are different. We stand up for the strengthening of
the trade unions as organizations of struggle for improving the living and working conditions
of the workers and promote trade-union unity on a militant basis. We do not restrict
ourselves to the struggle for better wage and working conditions. We want a fulfilled, dignified
and healthy life for all people in harmony with nature – a society without exploitation
and oppression, because another world is possible. That is our vision, for which we are
fighting across borders, and we will overcome all obstacles with perseverance and resoluteness.
7. The International Automotive Workers Coordination resolutely opposes the TPP, the TTIP,
the TISA and others as a global threat to automotive workers and the working-class everywhere
and will globally oppose the so-called “free-trade agreements” in all countries.
8. We, the participating workers, women and men, declare our solidarity with the oppressed
and exploited peoples.
Until the 2nd International Automotive Workers' Conference in 2019 we will conduct a phase of
broad publication and the building of coordination structures, and we will win many new members
in the various continents.
Our principles in the cooperation are:
• All forces strengthen this movement according to their possibilities. They decide freely
about assuming tasks and carry them out reliably.
• We work on the basis of a non-party-affiliated status, ideological openness and participation
on equal footing.
• Financial independence and a contribution of all participants to financing are the basis of
our independence.
• A democratic culture of debate on equal footing, mutual respect and refraining from attacks
on other members strengthen our unity.
• Fascist, racist, sexist, fanatic-religious and homophobic directions are excluded.
• We elect an International Coordinating Group for the implementation of the adopted tasks.
It renders account to the delegates' assembly at the 2nd International Automotive Workers'
Conference.
Workers of all countries, unite!
Automotive workers of the world, let us take the future into our own hands!
Sindelfingen, Germany, October 17th 2015
Published by International Coordinating Group
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