Last Thursday, the works council and trade union IG Metall invited the 3,750 remaining workers at the soon-to-be-closed Ford Saarlouis factory to a factory meeting with only one item on the agenda: a vote on the union’s so-called “social contract”. bureaucracy had been discussed.
In addition to preventing the closure of the plant, the agreement has put restrictions on the closure of the plant, which has been an important source of employment in the southwestern region of Germany, near the border with France, for more than half a century. When Ford announced the closing of the plant, about two years ago, more than 6,000 workers worked at the Saarlouis plant and nearby supplier companies.
The agreement covers layoff packages, along with vague promises that some workers will remain employed in additional positions after the plant stops making cars.
Following last week’s vote, IG Metall officials celebrated, issuing a hypocritical statement, entitled “Saarlouis must live!—A whopping 93.28 percent approval.” Confederate officers, perhaps saying more than they intended, declared, “Our battles over the past months and years have paid off.”
There is little doubt that the suppression of any strike action to stop the plant closures has “paid” well for union and works council officials, such as Markus Thal. For the workers, their families and the entire region, however, it has been a disaster. Auto production will cease by the end of November 2025 and some 5,000 jobs will be lost. After December 2025, Ford “guarantees” only 1,000 jobs until 2032.
In other words, the result of the “fight” of the works council with IG Metall is that Ford Saarlouis is dead!
From the beginning, World Socialist Web Site and Ford’s Executive Committee, made up of rank and file workers, warned that this would be the result of a bidding war between IG Metall and the Confederation of General Workers (CGT) over where Ford would locate electric vehicle production. The union bureaucracy played the workers in Saarlouis and Almussafes, Spain, against each other and gave the management a huge wage deal, the details of which are kept secret to this day. The result is wage cuts, layoffs and plant closures.
The Ford Action Committee explained that jobs would not be protected by IG Metall and its works council but only through a rank-and-file revolt against the bureaucrats who stand on the side of the organization.
After Ford announced that Saarlouis would close, the works council and IG Metall systematically laid off workers to make the closure possible. They restrained the workers, sought to keep them down and occasionally ordered them to the gate in toothless demonstrations in small numbers to allow the workers to fire up the steam.
Then Thal, IG Metall and the executive of the state of Saarland squeezed the workers with the promises of an “investor” who supposedly wanted to take over the entire plant. Everyone involved kept quiet about the alleged investor. Now, announcer Radio Saarland has revealed that the Chinese state-owned company Chery Automobile is the main investor. Chery officials have not denied the report.
In October 2023, however, the company and the works council announced that the secret investor had pulled out, with Ford Germany boss Martin Sander saying talks had broken down after “an extensive feasibility study and detailed negotiations,” involving the state government. of Saarland.
In the run-up to the final closing announcement, the works council and IG Metall organized a short strike in mid-January, to improve the conditions of “social communication.” In fact, the cheating strike was the final nail in the coffin.
The closure of the historic factory is the result of a rigged game that the works council, IG Metall, the Social Democratic state government (SPD) and company officials have played against rank-and-file workers for more than two years.
To ensure the ratification of their “social contract,” these forces tried to deceive the workers by holding a “strike vote.” But the only alternatives were an indefinite strike, which the workers knew the works council and trade union would sabotage, or the acceptance of a contract whose details were hidden from the workers. To make matters worse, union officials announced that 75 percent of workers would have to vote against it for the proposal to fail.
The works council and IG Metall were reportedly unsure whether this shotgun vote would work. Then suddenly they announced that it had been approved by more than 93 percent of the workers. Many workers did not believe the official results, due to widespread opposition.
But IG Metall has made it impossible to check the validity of the vote. There was no list of authorized voters to compare with the actual votes cast. Anyone with a notice of authorization issued by IG Metall and sent by post was allowed to vote.
There was no checking of the rank and file to determine if the votes were valid or if someone voted multiple times. Ballot boxes were not previously publicly inspected, or guarded by labor committees. Only the works council officials knew what was inside them.
Workers have long accused IG Metall and workers’ council officials of voter fraud in local elections and contract votes. The overwhelming “yes” vote last Thursday is not particularly different from the results of previous works council elections, or indeed, votes in Stalinist East Germany, where the always hated ruling party won a majority.
Even if the majority of workers voted for the plan, it was not an endorsement of IG Metall and its evil plan. After two years of constant fear about their fate, it is possible that most of the workers reluctantly voted for the plan to “end the fear” rather than prolong it, especially since the officials of IG Metall and the works council indicated that they would do nothing to stop it. the plant. closed.
Workers reported that the mood of the factory meeting was like a funeral. They felt compelled—by the union and the works council—to stamp out their job losses.
And they did so without knowing what they were actually voting for. Employees will only get specific personal results for them later this month. They will receive a layoff offer or be told if they are being considered for one of the 1,000 remaining jobs after 2025.
Not many more of these jobs will be created in the long run, regardless of how the works council, the union and the SPD talk about “alternative jobs” and new investors. This became evident immediately after the results of the vote were announced.
The Minister of State for Economic Affairs Jürgen Barke immediately presented to the press the big plans for the Ford factory and the entire area of 120 hectares and its large halls and areas. But on closer inspection, it was clear these were just palaces in the sky, similar to the long-hyped capital investor.
After 2025, 10 hectares of “winter parking” at the plant station should be redeveloped. Until now, cars produced during the winter have been parked there before being delivered to dealers. From 2026 onwards—by which time the plant will have already closed—another 15 hectares will be redeveloped and built. The aim is to attract small companies with 100 to 300 employees each.
The demand for this was very high, says Barke. However, it remains to be seen how many companies will stay there. It is claimed that, letters of interest have been received from some companies. As usual, their names are not mentioned nor their information about the wages and conditions that the workers will face.
But one thing is clear: in 2026—apart from the site where Ford is funding 1,000 jobs—tens of hectares of the 120-hectare site will be empty. Only one fifth—25 hectares in total—will be “redeveloped.” The supposed replacement jobs will be a long time coming—if they come at all.
However, SPD Minister Barke was as happy as IG Metall and the chairman of the works council Thal. For more plans on the Ford site, the social contract was a “blow of redemption,” Barke claimed.
Basic lessons must be learned from the experience of the past two years, both at Ford and in the automotive industry. Before the vote, the WSWS made it clear: “There is no individual way out of the crisis. The common struggle in defense of all jobs is necessary and cannot be postponed any longer. That is why the establishment of an independent executive committee is so important.”
The layoffs and planned plant closures at Ford are just the beginning, the article noted. “Job killings are occurring in the auto industry the likes of which the industry has not seen since World War II.” A major class struggle was inevitable, “which will go far beyond the current warning strikes and break the control of the trade union organ.”
Workers at Bosch, Continental, ZF, BASF and many other companies are facing a growing wave of layoffs, along with workers around the world, and a united struggle is essential. But this struggle must be organized independently and against the representatives of the works council and trade union bureaucrats, and coordinated across borders through the expansion of the International Workers Union of Rank and File Committees (IWA-RFC).
Workers at Ford, the auto industry and elsewhere should take concrete steps to form rank-and-file action committees. To contact the Ford Work Committee, send a WhatsApp message to the following number: +491633378340 or fill out the following form!