Commentary

Motor Coach Layoffs Expose Illusion of Job Security

When Manitoba NDP Premier Gary Doer negotiated a bailout of Motor Coach Industries last year, he sold the deal to the MCI workers on the basis that the concessions they were being asked to accept, coupled with millions of dollars of government money, would keep their jobs in Winnipeg. The recent announcement by MCI that it would be laying off virtually its entire Winnipeg work force at the end of the year proves Premier Doer a fool at best and a liar at worst.

It is not yet known how long the layoffs will be in effect. The company has stated that it has no intention of permanently shutting the doors of the plant and that it still has some orders for buses for next year. MCI is the largest highway bus manufacturer in North America, with a 68 percent market share. However, the fallout from the terrorist attacks in 2001 and a slumping American economy has resulted in a drastic reduction in demand for new buses.

Despite the claims of the capitalists and their apologists like Doer the motive for production under capitalism is not the provision of jobs to workers, but the realization of maximum profits to the capitalists. Last year MCI achieved that goal by pitting one city and one set of workers against another in order to extort concessions out of its workers and handouts out of governments. Next year it will realize its goal by laying off the workers who were promised job security in exchange for those concessions and handouts. The MCI experience proves that there is no such thing as job security under capitalism and that government handouts to the rich are not the solution to the problems facing workers.