European-wide "General Motors Action Day"

Thousands of workers at General Motors plants around Europe demonstrated on Thursday against the planned closure of the car monopoly’s Vauxhall plant in Luton. More than 10,000 people had marched through Luton last Saturday in support of the struggle of the Vauxhall workers.

Klaus Franz, head of GM's European employee forum, said more than 40,000 workers across Europe had protested against the closure by temporarily stopping work. The European workers are acting in solidarity with the fight of the Vauxhall workers against the projected closure of the Luton plant in 2002. The closure, say GM, is aimed at cutting European output in a bid to stem losses. It would lead to around 2,000 workers losing their jobs from a total British workforce of 10,000.

In the Ruesselsheim plant of Germany's GM subsidiary Adam Opel, around 7,000 workers gathered on the streets to show solidarity with their colleagues in Britain, and staff joined a rally outside the firm’s headquarters in Frankfurt. "Any plant in Europe could itself be the next one affected," Guenter Lorenz, spokesman for the union IG Metall said.

In Belgium, three unions at the Antwerp Opel plant organised three 20-minute information sessions for unionised employees. A plant official said that led to 60-70 cars not being made. The plant normally makes 1,500 cars a day. Adam Opel’s chief executive, Robert Hendry, was forced last week to say he would offer his resignation in March if he failed to fulfil his promise to return the unit to profit in 2000. Opel had already planned to reduce its workforce by 1,700 this year.

Operations at Vauxhall's Luton plant were at a standstill yesterday as workers en masse took a day off sick. Official industrial action would be illegal before the ballot of the workers, which is set to take place next week.

General Motors Europe said in a statement issued from its Zurich headquarters on Thursday it stuck to its decision to close the Luton plant. "GM management agreed to another meeting with employee representatives to discuss broad issues associated with the situation, but the intent to end car production in Luton remains firm," it said. It claimed that production losses during the demonstrations were minimal.

The monopoly says that the plant closure is part of a global plan to cut its salaried workforce in North America and Europe by 10 percent. That means 5,000 job cuts in Europe over the next 18 months.

According to GM's plans the Luton plant is to be closed and 6,000 jobs throughout Europe are to be eliminated by 2002. GM's manner of proceeding confronts the company's employees with a new management attitude. Now, our English colleagues need the active solidarity of all company sites throughout Europe - just as we would demand and receive their solidarity. We have to prevent GM's plan for closing the Luton plant from being implemented, and strengthen our chances for the future through the European Works Councils.

Our joint European General Motors Action Day on January 25 will support the demands and aims of the European Works Council vis-à-vis GM Management. By this means, we will show General Motors Europe that we do not accept that management errors can be corrected at the expense of the workers.

General Motors' planned closing of the Luton plant with mass dismissals violates existing contracts. The colleagues in Luton need our active solidarity to prevent this shutdown. In the interest of all other European sites we must resist GM's plans in common, because any plant in Europe could be similarly targeted in the future.

We, the unions at GM's European sites call upon all colleagues to support the demands and aims of the European Works Council (no plant closings; job protection in Luton, Ellesmere Port and in the other European sites; immediate negotiations with GM Europe) and to protest against the planned mass dismissals and the closing of the plant through a joint day of action on January 25.

While General Motors announced yesterday, as workers throughout Europe took action, that it was sticking to its decision to close down the Luton Vauxhall plant, Nissan announced that it had decided to build the Micra at its Sunderland plant, about which there had been much speculation.

While it is to be welcomed that the Sunderland workers are not to be plunged into a battle to keep their jobs at a time when there is much uncertainty about the future in the car industry, can it be said that the Nissan management has the interests of its workforce at heart while the GM management does not? The fact is that the decisions these monopolies take and impose on the workers serve no one but themselves. The capitalists who own and run the multinationals consider neither the general interests of society nor the wellbeing of the workers and their communities.

Flexibility and increased productivity is to be the watchword at Sunderland, while cut-backs because of overcapacity is the guideline being followed by GM in Europe. The rationale of both is to compete to the maximum in the global marketplace. It cannot be accepted that it is in the interests of the workers to adopt this rationale, nor would the workers be assisting the national economy if they accepted that the success of "their" monopoly is what counts and leave it at that. The demonstration at Luton, as well as the demonstrations by GM workers throughout Europe, show that they are not prepared to adopt the same logic as their bosses.

As well as taking up the struggle for a guaranteed livelihood, the workers must also take the lead in working to bring about a new society where they, together with the people as a whole, are empowered to make the decisions on the direction of the economy.

A large rally at the House of Commons on Wednesday, January 24, launched the transformation of the Emergency Committee on Iraq into the Emergency Committee on Iraq and Palestine. The Committee is headed by the MP George Galloway.

The Palestinian activist Leila Khaled had been granted a seven-day visa in order to speak to the rally. Leila Khaled had been held at Ealing Police Station thirty years ago after the abortive hijacking of an Israeli aeroplane.

George Galloway told the meeting that there is "linkage", and always had been, between the Iraq and Palestinian issues and that the launch of the re-named campaign would mean a stepping up in both the quantity and quality of pro-Palestinian work in Britain. He emphasised: "This is our duty … to respond to the Intifadeh and to the almost certain victory of the war criminal Sharon."

Sir: I have been watching with much interest the debate surrounding depleted uranium shells and their use in Iraq and in Bosnia. Between 1989 and 1996 I served as a weapons engineering mechanic in the Royal Navy. I served on two "active ships" in the Gulf and in Bosnia, during which time I was involved in the loading teams of weapons systems which used DU ammunition. Correct loading procedure involved the wearing of protective clothing to ensure no part of the body was in contact with the ammunition at any time.

If these precautions were deemed necessary at the initial loading stages of the ammunition's use the concerns which have been voiced I believe hold some ground. My previous views on modern warfare were that war is a terrible thing yet occasionally necessary and therefore any reasonable actions to end it in the shortest time possible were favourable. However, with the similar fears over landmines and my increasing concerns over DU, I have come to the conclusion that if past governments have seen fit to exclude monstrous devices such as nerve gases then contemporary governments should take similar action over DU.

In light of the irresponsible attitude taken towards "Gulf war syndrome" our present Government should be glad of the opportunity to act now and save further harm to our troops, especially those who serve on the ground. I also hope that through proper research into these areas the Government will give themselves the opportunity to prove me utterly wrong.

(signed)

25-30 Jan SWITZERLAND: World Economic Forum, annual meeting of political and business leaders, in Davos.

26 Jan INDIA: Republic Day, anniversary of the constitution (1950).

29-13 Jan NORTH KOREA: Third round of North-South Red Cross at Mt Kumgang.

31 Jan FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder meet in Strasbourg to discuss Nice summit, future European developments and bilateral issues.

31 Jan KOREA: Fourth round of inter-Korean military talks in Panmunjom to discuss military assistance to construction works to re-establish inter-Korean railway and build adjoining motorway.

31 Jan – 9 Feb IRAN: "Ten Days of Dawn", marking anniversary of the start of the Iranian revolution following Ayatollah Komeyni’s return from exile in France in 1979.

1-10 Feb RUSSIA/USA: Russian-US command staff practise non-strategic missile defence techniques in Colorado Springs, USA.

3 Feb VIETNAM: Communist Party of Vietnam commemorates its founding anniversary (1930).