In recent months, the three major tire companies have intensified their attacks against workers. Using the argument of recession and lower sales, they launched a campaign of lies about their financial situation, with layoffs and the presentation of Preventive Crisis Procedures (PPC). This is a measure that Cavallo imposed with Menem in the 90s so that if a company had a crisis, it could fire for half the compensation, suspend en masse and even change parts of the collective agreement of the branch. A measure so that if there is a crisis, the workers pay for it. But in Fate and Bridgestone there is no crisis, that is why the PPC that Milei validated for them is fake. The numbers that FATE presented show that in the last 3 years they earned about 200 million dollars, which means that for each worker they earned about 40 million pesos per year!
They have also taken advantage of the opening of tyre imports to negotiate new benefits with the State and say that they have to lower “labour costs” when they already have an absolutely neoliberal work system and the “salary cost” only reaches 4% of the price of a tyre. But they want more, they plan to lay off more than 700 workers from Bridgestone (which is the largest tyre company in the world) and Fate.
But we workers are not just another piece of machinery, we are not disposable like an old tire. We are not just another “input” or “commodity” as the employers treat us, to be “used and discarded.” We are the ones who produce 6 million tires per year that feed other industries (automotive, transportation, agriculture), the ones who with that work generate all that wealth that is appropriated by a handful of millionaires, who take fortunes to their headquarters or to their mansions in the country.
Madanes’ wallet is not in crisis
Thanks to the exploitation of thousands of workers in his tire factories (FATE), metalworks (ALUAR) and other businesses, Javier Madanes Quintanilla has amassed an impressive fortune.
Today he is one of the 20 richest Argentines, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of at least 590 million dollars. Madanes’ other company, Aluar, has been one of the big winners of Milei’s first quarter. Its profitability rose from 5% to 52.1%. It had never had such profit margins; only in 2002 had it reached 30%. These extraordinary profit margins have to do, according to a study by the CIFRA Institute, with the devaluation that allowed him to improve his business while workers have their salaries almost frozen and millions pay astronomical prices for his products.
Madanes did not make his fortune with effort and ideas. He inherited it from his family and was also favored by all governments, including the military. In 1971, the dictator Alejandro Lanusse awarded him the aluminum monopoly through Aluar. Another dictatorship would do him a favor as great or greater than that: in 1982, Domingo Cavallo would nationalize the private debt of Fate and other large companies. 223 million dollars that we all continue to pay.
Today, once again, he is making fortunes, lying about his economic situation and seeking the favor of the libertarian government to unload the crisis on the workers, firing hundreds of workers through direct layoffs or “voluntary arrangements.”
Those who make the industry work and always fought
Today the auto industry is cutting production due to the recession, but it still relies on the complex that includes the Fate, Pirelli and Bridgestone plants.
Let us remember that the tire workers have a history and tradition of struggle. From the strikes of the 90s to the rebellion of 2007 and 2008 that allowed the recovery of the FATE delegate body and then the sectional, to recover the national union that today is a reference of combative unionism. With its different lists, from the Black one that leads the union to others that have an important tradition of struggle, among them our colleagues from the Granate. In 2022 they were protagonists of one of the toughest strikes in recent years, which allowed them to win a significant increase although the demand for weekend hours was still pending.
Fate and the tire are a witness conflict. They show the decision of the big businessmen who amassed fortunes by discarding thousands of workers. But also that if the only producing class, the one that makes those tires that feed important sectors of capitalism, such as the automobile industry and transportation, organizes itself, coordinates with other sectors and fights hard, it can break this policy of the businessmen and the right, as well as show a different path to the surrender of the CGT.
Let us support SUTNA’s struggle with all our might. We must reject the layoffs and call for greater flexibility. Companies must show their financial statements with everything they have earned over the years. Against layoffs and unemployment in the industry in recession: reduce the working day to 6 hours and distribute the hours among all available hands without salary reduction.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
