(The following article is from the August 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Sam Hammond

In the month of June, the hemorrhage of  Canadian manufacturing jobs hit an unprecedented flow rate. Most of the losses, 45,500 family tragedies, were in Ontario, and many were directly or indirectly related to the auto assembly and supply sector. Prior to June, the decline in Ontario auto-manufacturing and auto-parts jobs since 2002 had been 36,000. The full impact is yet to come because the "broken promise" GM corporate double-cross and loss of 3200 jobs in Oshawa is a future event until early 2009.

     There are a myriad of reasons for these disasters, but all can be summed up under that dear old catch-all, capitalism. The victimization of Canadian workers and their families is not only a past or present event, but is certain to escalate. This is the only corporate promise that is guaranteed to be kept.

     The big three, GM, Chrysler and Ford, are working overtime slashing wages and benefits. In the United States, GM is reaping the benefit of the largest concessions ever made by labour, while preparing for threatened bankruptcy protection if even more are not forthcoming. In Canada, the CAW has declared victory while also giving major concessions and being double-crossed into the bargain.

     Over the past few years, GM has received $256 million from the state of Michigan, and GM Hummer $62.5 million from the state of Indiana.

     As the people are fed the myth of unfair off-shore competition and imports, U.S. states merrily continue to finance foreign-owned domestic assembly plants. In the past five years, Honda has received $158 million from Alabama, Nissan $363 million from Mississippi, and Toyota $133 million from Texas.

     This year Volkswagen announced a heavily subsidized plant to be built in Tennessee that will inject 800,000 VWs and 200,000 Audis into the U.S. market by 2011. All these are competing with Chrysler, Ford and GM on their own turf. This orgy of corporate cannibalism and competition drives working conditions and wages in a race to the bottom, and creates millions of human tragedies and a gluttony of hidden profit, deceit and export of capital. Canada and the U.S. are just squares on this global automotive chessboard, and our workers are expendable pawns.

     Both GM and Ford are investing heavily in South America, which is the world's fastest growing vehicle market and critical to the future of both companies, according to their analysts. Ford has built perhaps the world's most advanced plant in rural Camacari, Brazil, an investment of $1 billion. GM has invested over $500 million in Argentina in a smaller version.

     GM and Ford operations are scattered throughout the Mercosul Region (the common market of the south created by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and servicing markets throughout the ALADI (Latin American Association for Trade and Integration) region.

     The Ford plant in Camacari can run up to ten different chassis on one line without any delays, and runs parallel production lines that merge with the main assembly line. All suppliers are under one roof. About 6,000 of the 8,000 employees work for Ford, the rest for plant parts companies. There is no inventory in this industrial ballet - computerized planning supplies the parts for every type of vehicle on demand. The main assembly workers are all unionized (a deal struck with the auto union on wages, conditions and benefits before the plant was built), but not all the parts supply workers. All assembly workers are trained in multi-tasking skills.

     The GM operation in Argentina is a smaller version of Camacari. Both corporations received generous subsidies and incentives from both governments for these plants. The Brazilian government even built Ford its own port so it can ship anywhere, including North America. Smaller assembly operations throughout South America allow production to be stopped, slowed or speeded up, while any area can also be easily supplied from outside. Any workforce can be manipulated without market shortages. To quote Ford of South America head honcho Dom DiMarco, "We're not adding shifts. We're adding people and upping the line speed."

     We can use our automotive Knight to hop over a few Rooks and Pawns to Russia, where GM has just signed a $1 billion joint venture with GAZ, Russia's largest carmaker. They will initially produce 300,000 vehicles per year to compete with Fiat and Peugeot in the Russian market.

     GM is also in negotiations with Zhongxing and FAW Corporation, two of China's biggest car manufacturers. GM's Daewoo Corporation in South Korea is churning out Aveo Compacts and Epica Sedans that are sold in North America as Chevrolets. Ford is operating parallel all over Europe, with who knows what capital mergers and investments (they have just sold their Jaguar British operation to Tata of India) and all over Asia under their Mazda label. The Europeans are no slouches either, and the Chinese and Indians are just beginning to flex their muscle.

     So please, shed no tears for Ford and GM as they bewail their North American conditions and cry poverty over falling market shares. The truth is that all the global corporations, no matter where their national bases are, are part of inter-imperialist rivalry, using relative over-production, massive government subsidies, and the smashing of wages and working conditions to enter each others' traditional market zones, capture the third world and dominate economically.

     The neo-liberal genuflection to pure market competition is for the uninitiated and childishly innocent. The $462 million pledged by former Ontario premier Ernie Eves for industrial research and development, and the $369 million re-pledged exclusively to the auto industry on June 25 by current Premier Dalton McGuinty, are part of this global feast on the public purse.

     The amount that GM received from provincial and federal funds almost equal its investment in Argentina. The $29 million pledged by the Ontario government to university research into auto technology can be put on computer discs and transported anywhere hi-tech plants are being built. We pay and pay and pay, but we never own.

     Not one wall or stairwell in any Canadian auto plant is publicly owned, but we sure have paid for a lot of them. We are losing our industry, our assembly pants and the spin-off jobs at ten to one ratio. We have no farm implement industry, the St. Thomas truck plant is closing (another 792 jobs), we don't build our own ships and ferries, there are a glut of wood industry losses, the steel and nickel industries are foreign owned, and there is no Canadian appliance industry.

     We are being transformed into a resource supplier and a purchaser of manufactured goods. Our governments have been the willing architects of this treasonous sellout. Isn't it about time to start talking seriously about extra-parliamentary political campaigning? How long can we sit and occupy ourselves with negotiating close-out agreements and buy-outs? What is the future for our children?