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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16705 messages, Last post on Nov 25, 2009 at 6:56 PM
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Tonight the Senate did not see fit to take care of autoworkers. They’d rather union bust and hand out money to companies like AIG, so they can take spa retreats and give out golden parachutes. They’d rather watch Detroit fall further and further and watch Michigan’s unemployment rate go higher and higher. For Wall St. they asked few questions and wrote larger checks. For Main St. they demand concessions and czars and oversight. Pensions and health care and worker protection were demonized all in the name of business. The pension that keeps people like my grandfather able to pay for care in their golden years. The health care that most Americans would work their asses off for. The worker protection no one has anymore, but sure could use in this day and age. Tonight my government could have helped and impacted those who don’t wear suits and instead will leave them out in the cold. Tonight the missteps of an industry were held up as a symbol of the free market and it’s workers thrown to the wolves despite GOP Senators welcoming foreign counterparts with open arms in the South. Tonight we told American workers they mattered less than the 100% Japanese government funding of plants in our states. I’m not one for bailouts. I’m not one to always scream ‘BUY AMERICAN.’ But I am one who supports local jobs, local manufacturing, and local indstury. I also support the need for unions in a world of WalMarts. Tonight I stand shoulder to shoulder with American workers and hope we weather the storm to come. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367- x15487 |
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Is Free Trade a Good Thing for Haiti? Deforested lands, farmers forced out to make "Free Trade" zones, no self-sufficiency, no sustainable agriculture, dependence on imports and a population growth that is estimated at 110% higher than world average and 174% higher than the United States. Amid riots and death's, UN forces, led by Brazilian peacekeeping forces and humanitarian food aid, Haiti has overthrow it's leader, in a country where most of it's workers make less than $2 a day. It's a simple fact, with worldwide food inflation, the people in Haiti cannot afford to eat. When you wonder why we as labor should care, take note that many former US employers in the textile industry have opened up shop in this land, and many in Haiti itself, shut their doors when human rights organizations persisted in campaigns for these workers. These companies who contracted clothing for the likes of Nike and Disney, shut their Haitian factories and headed to countries with even lower regard for labor and human rights, such as China. http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/04/free-trades-working-victims-2-haitis.html- |
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Replying to: jimbres (Dec 30, 2008 7:05 am) There is ONE glaring problem with Detroit and the Big Three, however. The management stinks. They shoved Detroit (and YOU) down the Road of Greed starting in the 1990's by foisting off huge gas-sucking pigs on Americans when they knew it was shortsighted and stupid. So...management has to go. New blood is required. Don't feel sorry for them, they'll be fine and they will never have to file for unemployment. Barack Obama already showed us the way. As he has said all along, American car manufacturers have to go green and offer up affordable vehicles made for the new rules of the twenty-first century. No more heavy steel tanks, no more gas-guzzling pigs capable of pulling your house off its foundations. Obama has offered tax incentives, help with a medical plan, and other things to the automakers in exchange for MODERN thinking. This would be the sensible course. These automakers are in serious trouble, and they will need even MORE help. But anything beyond an emergency life ring should wait until our new President takes office. Barack Obama is undoubtably angry right now about a host of things, and the major one is the monumental mess left to him by the previous Administration. It's appalling. It is unprecedented, only comparable to Herbert Hoover and FDR, perhaps. Believe this: Obama is going to kick some butts and take names after January 20, as well he should. These automakers deserve our help if for nothing else but the common good. But like when the United States entered World War 2, these factories and the people who run them need to change. They must adapt to current conditions and not only catch up to the Japanese in alternative power, but surpass them. Our homeboys in Detroit should offer up smart autos that working Americans can afford, and in alternative-power versions everyday folks can use. Now do the math. Between the autoworkers, the dealerships, and the small-to-medium size businesses who rely on the Big Three, it adds up to more than three million jobs. Assuming only an average of $200 per week paid out on a typical unemployment claim for 26 weeks, this adds up to $15 billion dollars for three million people. This doesn't include any extensions, which under an Obama presidency would be likely. Wasn't that the minimum amount the automakers were asking for in loans just to stay afloat? Maybe we should let them go broke and pay out the money in unemployment claims. http://adventurebooks.newsvine.com/_news/2008/12/13/2209038-a-straight-talk-solu- tion-for-the-automobile-crisis
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Dec 30, 2008 8:16 am) And bankruptcy reorganization is the only way to get from here to there, as I know you'll agree. Without bankruptcy, there can be no rebirth. But when I tell you that, I know I'm preaching to the converted. Welcome!
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Dec 30, 2008 6:10 am)
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Replying to: dino001 (Dec 30, 2008 8:36 am) UAW brass is on the rank and file memberships payroll. D3 are on the shareholders payroll. I just don't understand. Why is the UAW responsible for the business of GM? What responsibility does either party have to the shareholders/rank and file? These are two different things. Mutually exclusive things which bear little if any co-relation. Any sane and rational person could see that this has become a political witch hunt. The facts are as such. AIG is treated like family, even as they embarrass the entire business community and all but party the bail out money away. GM is the one looking for the bail out and not the UAW. The UAW has gone above and beyond in prior years/contracts to restructure contracts in a manner as to aid the GM management. So why does GM have problems getting a fraction of the bail out money given to the sub prime folks? Lets just state the obvious. It stands to reason that the UAW didn't support these GOP folks in southern states. All of these great transplants were subsidized by these states and therefore are being supported by tax dollars. Implicitly or explicitly why should I and or anyone want to pay for some companies expenses? Corporate welfare steals from the consumer/taxpayer and has no place in the free market. If they seek to build stadiums/arenas/corporations, they should do so on their own and not seek taxpayers to share the risk. Last time I checked entrepreneur meant risk taker and is entitled to the spoils/profits. Or perhaps you would like to blame the whole sub prime mess on the tellers at the banks? Bombard me with some logic and or rational thought process. I can get the spin from the corporate owned mainstream media.
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Replying to: dino001 (Dec 29, 2008 2:10 pm) Really? All the hard work spent in research and development amount to nothing? Just because some bugger somewhere has the skills to do it for cheaper means we go ahead and give him all the technological secrets? I am not denying them developing on their own. But to share all technological secrets just so that we can get products cheaper is a very short sighted viewpoint. Ever heard of "Competitive edge"? In your scenario, what is the US's competitive edge once they know the technological fundamentals that catapulted the US to such heights? >It's like soda pop. You can cork it and shake it, but one day is has to get open. Sure. But does not mean we go ahead and start opening all the cans prematurely for them. If somebody is worth it, they will uncork it themselves.
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Replying to: jimbres (Dec 30, 2008 8:28 am) Thats Obama's call. He is the forward thinking brilliant Commander and Chief hired by the American people to fix it. So if your not going to get Bill Gates out of retirement, perhaps you ought to consider alterations to your ideology.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Dec 30, 2008 7:39 am) What works in Texas does not always work in Michigan. One big reason "Right to Work". The Union knows that they have to maintain a good balance between management and labor or the REAL workers will drop out of the Union. UAW control over the big 3 is totally lopsided in favor of labor. That is not healthy and the current condition of the D3 is evidence that what I am saying is right. During my 46 years in the Union and especially the last 37 years in the Teamsters. We were always cognizant of the financial health of the company. Our negotiations were based on that knowledge. We many times knew more about the company finances than the company negotiators. Our goal was to keep the golden goose fat and happy. UAW has failed in that respect. |
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"Maybe we should let them go broke and pay out the money in unemployment claims."...is that we are not talking Chapter 7 liquidation, we are talking about Chapter 11 reorganization, which includes dumping of debt and old contracts that are simply unable to be paid... SOME will go on unemployment, but eventually that unemployment will end and they will have to find jobs in something other than UAW work...the others will keep on working making cars, just not to the amount that they did before...a few million less, keeping in line with their market share... Over the last decade, for many UAW jobs lost, there were Japanese automaker jobs that employed someone else who did not work in the auto industry prior to the transplants...so, employment is not, per se, disappearing, just being "shifted" from union states to non-union states... The only reason we see all the screaming is that the UAW screams louder and has the ear of the media...how many auto jobs were created by Toy, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes and BMW moving into the South to make their vehicles???...what we are watching is an evolution, and the UAW does not believe in evolution, they believe in the Divine Right of Jobs to be theirs, reagrdless of their pay or the quality of the product they make...that era will end, and none too soon... Michigan may have been critical in the previous century, but Michigan will go the way of the dinosaur, and it is all their own fault...they saw this coming, and they shut their eyes, hoping that the "bad man in the dark closet" will go away...he is here to stay, and he is making a better product than they do...and all they want is to keep the Jobs Bank going so they can be paid to do nothing... Change is coming, all right, and it is about to wake up the union from its deep slumber of 50 years...and its about damn time...
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