As the clock ticks down to the September contract expirations for 170,000 US and Canadian autoworkers, plans for a jobs massacre of historic proportions are being concealed from the rank and file.

The transition to electric vehicles must not be carried out at workers’ expense!

Join the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network and the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter this Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Central time for an online meeting to discuss this urgent issue and the strategy for workers to unite internationally to fight the jobs massacre and reverse concessions. Register for the event here.

As the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) wrote in a major statement Wednesday:

What is being prepared is not a contract, it is a death warrant for hundreds of thousands of auto jobs in North America and millions around the world. To oppose this, workers must have all the facts so they can develop a strategy to defend jobs and living standards.

This once-in-a-century industry transition threatens to eliminate half or more than half of all auto jobs in the US in the next five to 10 years, according to industry reports and research by experts.

As the IWA-RFC explains, in the US, plans for a brutal restructuring of the auto industry are being worked out behind workers’ backs by the United Auto Workers union bureaucracy, which is conspiring with management and the Biden administration. The primary concern of the UAW apparatus is not a “just transition” to EVs—which is impossible under capitalism—but rather to maintain and expand its access to dues money from workers at the new EV battery plants.

US imperialism and its allies, meanwhile, see the transition to EVs as a vital necessity, as they seek to undermine their economic competitors—particularly China—and increase the massive profits pumped out of the working class.

The defense of workers’ jobs and the progressive resolution of any of the life-and-death problems confronting workers requires an international strategy, uniting autoworkers around the world, who confront the same enemies in the world’s transnational auto companies.

To stop the plans for a jobs massacre, the IWA-RFC and the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network are calling for workers to form rank-and-file factory committees and fight for the following demands:

• Immediate release of the list of planned plant closures!

• Not a single job loss or plant closure in the transition to EV!

• If EVs require less labor time to produce, then reduce hours and increase pay!

• Unite across borders to prevent a race to the bottom!

• Place the auto industry under social ownership subject to democratic worker control!

The Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network encourages the widest possible participation by autoworkers at Sunday’s meeting, whether you work at GM, Ford and Stellantis; at auto parts companies; and in the US, Canada and other countries. Join us for this urgent discussion—register today to attend and invite your coworkers.