Trade unions must step up the action to stop the auto industry giants making their workers pay for saving their profits, argues Cici Washburn

Stellantis’ announcement to close the Luton Vauxhall van plant with the loss of 1,100 jobs is part and parcel of the company’s vicious global restructuring plans to shore up its profits. The auto sector from Ford to Volkswagen to Elon Musk’s Tesla have all responded to ‘profit warnings’ with announced plant closures and massive job losses across the board.

And the crisis is deepening. An automotive analyst told the Financial Times: ‘There are fundamental headwinds in pretty much every geography for the industry as a whole. It will be premature to say that in the course of 2025 things will start to look better.’

While Labour’s Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds labelled the announcement as a ‘black day for Luton’, workers will have found little comfort in his remarks that the decision was ‘better than it could have been’. This followed Stellantis’ warning (read threat) that it could stop production in the UK entirely.

Stellantis blame EV rules and targets to phase out new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030 for the closure and transferring production to the company’s Ellesmere Port plant. Labour are listening to the bosses, as Reynolds made clear at an industry dinner reported by the FT: ‘The transport secretary and I have heard you loud and clear on the need for support to make this transition a success.’

Meanwhile, Unite the Union has said that the closure represents a ‘slap in the face for our Luton members’. That’s to put it mildly! But it cannot have come as a surprise to the union. Stellantis – the product of the mega-merger between Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A. (Groupe PSA) in 2021 – is the world’s fourth-biggest car manufacturer and has been warning of the plant closure for well over a month. What preparations have been made to resist the closure?

The auto sector has a fine tradition of militant and innovative struggles, strikes and occupations. Marches and e-petitions are all well and good – but only as a supplement not a substitute for a real fight.

At a time when our class is in dire need of workers’ interests being prioritised (what used to be called a ‘Just Transition’), we are confronted with a complete abdication by those that claim to be our political and industrial representatives.

Fifty years ago, the Govan shipyard workers’ work-in to save their jobs attracted immense popular support and won. Why wasn’t that tried at Port Talbot? Why is it not being suggested at Grangemouth or the Luton van plant?

Luton Vauxhall cannot be left isolated. The struggle must be co-ordinated with workers at Ellesmere. Moreover, as the US moves increasingly towards trade protectionism, it is only by linking our struggles in the auto sector across national boundaries that action can protect all workers’ jobs.

We should demand the government step in – if Stellantis and the bosses can’t afford to run their companies and meet climate targets, then bring them under public ownership: nationalise them! And without compensation and under workers control.

We know the money’s there. Billions are being spent to arm the genocide in Gaza. Just as they hold no value for life there, they don’t give a damn about our livelihoods here. 

It’s time for action. Organise! Occupy! Strike!

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet