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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16701 messages, Last post on Nov 20, 2009 at 3:39 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 03, 2009 10:23 am) Who are those 9000 other guests that used the golf course? Probably guests of the UAW leadership if truth is known. Are you saying that does not contribute to the loss. I don't know of many golf courses that can be considered money makers. Does the UAW need a tax write-off? Less than 1% of the UAW members & retirees used the "training" facility last year. Not even 1/2 of one percent played golf on the course they support with their money. You have not made a good argument for owning the facility and especially the golf course. Gregg Shotwell, a UAW activist, is not troubled to learn that the education center is losing money. "When you are educating and training union members, that's the business of the union. That's never a loss," Shotwell said. But the golf course is a different story to Shotwell. "We should be running a union -- not a country club," he said. Both the resort and golf course are held by a UAW-controlled holding corporation called the Union Building Corp, which is a not-for-profit organization that holds real estate for the union, records show. The golf course is operated by a for-profit corporation called UBG Inc., which was set up for just that purpose, Labor Department records say. The education center, which reportedly has rooms to sleep 400 people, is operated by the for-profit UBE Inc. The union values the center at $27.3 million. UBE's management of the education center has generated revenue of about $30 million over the past five years -- and net losses of $20.5 million. The operations were hit hard last year by a $5.9-million payment to an employee pension fund. And from 2003 to 2007, revenue at the education center dropped by 18%. Looks to me like they borrowed from a pension fund to operate the resort.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 11:19 am)
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 03, 2009 3:56 pm) 
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 11:19 am) You can't be serious? Perhaps you might suggest that they paid for it from the petty cash payola? There nothing, whatsoever, wrong and or below the table. Your thought process, makes me wonder if you were in Alaska too too long. This not a bridge to no where and a worthwhile undertaking by the UAW. I fully support the leadership. You have never been there. I have been there and think its great and their program is not any kind of indoctrination. They give you facts and both as group/individually you draw your own conclusions. Audits of both UBE and UBG by Clarence Johnson, a certified public accountant from Royal Oak, said UBE had a negative retained earning of $20.6 million and UBG had a $4.2-million negative retained earning at the end of 2007. The two entities had loans payable to the UAW International worth a total of $24 million. Aside from the loans, UAW International's financial statements show expenses to the UBE for several conferences and other activities. In 2007 alone, the UAW International paid UBE $3.3 million for services. Also, the union's executive board is authorized to transfer money to UBE "to help supplement the cost of education activities at the Family Education Center," a past financial statement to members said. The losses at Black Lake are small compared with the UAW International's overall budget, said Sean McAlinden, an economist and labor expert from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "That's not going to bother them for a while, but I bet it's something that they're working at." http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.14194/browse_thread/thread/d07695- aaa9c498da |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 4:25 pm)
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 03, 2009 4:47 pm)
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I am retired from the UAW staff and live near the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center on Black Lake in Northeast Michigan. You can find out about the Center by checking it out on the web.Building started in 1967 and Walter Reuther and his wife May died in a plane crash on a visit to the center in 1970. The public golf course at the Center was opened in 2000. The UAW pays all expenses for a week long education program for rank and file UAW members and their entire families. it has rooms for about 300 guests. Rank and file members apply for a scholarship to Black Lake through their local unions. The current financing mechanism is provided by the interest on the UAW strike fund. I frankly do not understand why anyone questions spending membership funds for a member's family to spend a week of vacation/training at a nice place like Black Lake. What is wrong with that or would you rather have the money spent on strike benefits or UAW staff salaries and benefits? I think these criticisms are generated by antipathy to unions or the working class generally. why should ordinary workers get to stay at a nice place and get a discount to play golf at a first class course? Would anyone even question this if an employer did the same for its salaried employees--as many do? The current worldwide economic difficulties of every auto manufacturer affects their unions but the UAW is not asking for a loan from the federal government to maintain union operations. To those that suggest that the property should be sold, you may want to know that the Michigan real estate market, particularly resort properties is down somewhat. But in any event, that is up to the UAW leadership and membership. I assure you that the appropriations for the building of the Center and its annual costs have been approved by the UAW membership at every UAW convention. The suggestion that pension funds are somehow diverted to pay for any Center operations is not only untrue but laughable. Members of the public are encouraged to play golf as it helps pay the expenses. I find it strange that some quarrel with that. It is a great course and might fetch an even higher fee per round if it was located on the western side of northern michigan where many more expensive courses are located.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 4:57 pm) Sorry Gary, I'm rank and file, held two different offices years ago. Never ran again, too much work on my plate. I found that neither the company or the union are the evil envisioned and thereby disillusioned in my effort to do something noble. I do charity work to fill that void now. I'm trying to atone for all my past transgressions. There is no one as blind as he/she who does not open their eyes and or turn on the light.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 4:57 pm) kind of like the B3 ceo's and airplane travel.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 03, 2009 10:45 am) I think he got it right here. GM has both a fudiciary and ethical responsibility to both it's union and non union employees to meet its promises as best it can. It has done an excellent job at this and will continue to do so. AND AGAIN, GM HAS abandoned the defined benefit pensions and is only holding the monies to meet it's past promises which is exactly what I think you think is the right thing to do. For information on how this was done recently: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/business/25auto.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2 But it has cost GM big time to do this. Perhaps we would have a different world today if they would have abandoned the pension plan 10 years ago and put the billions into their vehicles. Hey, perhaps they could still do this with the hourly pensions THIS year? |
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