Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republicans, plus a couple of Democrats, after handing over, without question $700 billion to Wall Street, now threaten to block a minimal $15 billion bridge to the Big 3 automakers. Wall Street makes nothing. It is a massive factory of illusion in which shell games are run to create a myth of money making money making money. However, by threat of destroying the economy, they get carte blanche with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars as fast as a bootlicking Congress can effect it. Detroit, on the other hand, with union labor, makes actual stuff. And the powers that run this country HATE workers who organize, because they might actually manage to get a fair share of the wealth they create.
The propaganda machines of the right wing and the moneyed classes have been running day and night to paint auto workers as the cause of Detroit's problems. Don't buy it, unless you actually believe that sitting in a cubicle selling financial "products" to foolish investors is actually the equivalent of working on a factory assembly line.
I would rather see a million bankers and stockbrokers homeless and begging than to see one assembly line worker lose even more benefits because his or her management is totally incapable of predicting the obvious about the future of the automobile industry. Remember, workers do not plan, market, or design the automobiles, yet they are the first to suffer when such planning and marketing and design prove to be faulty.
The downstream effects of bankruptcy of the auto companies are incalculable, but even worse is what will happen to what remains of the American labor movement. If you are a wage earner, know your enemies in the Senate and House of Representatives. Let them know you know what they are doing. Call your own senator's and representative's offices and tell them that you will not tolerate any more attacks on American workers.
One great heartening development, however, is the workers' occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago after the Bank of America tried to shut them down. I hope this is an inspiration to all threatened workers. Do not go politely, do not go gently. Those who actually create the wealth deserve their fair share.
4 comments:
Oh Olaf, you’re so cute when you get all commie on us. Let’s review some quick facts here: average salary of a UAW employee: $39.68 per hour, average salary of a Toyota worker here in the states is about $20 per hour. Factor in the ridiculous pensions and benefits and the big 3 pay an additional $33.58 per hour per employee. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why a new vehicle is so expensive and why the big 3 can’t make any money. Make no mistake; management for sure has a hand in this. They are just as corrupt as the Wall Street CEO’s, but in this day and age, unions are a fucking corrupt joke as well. If you think for one second that union big wigs give a flying fuck about the workers, you’re clinically insane. I have been a member of the United Steel Workers Union. Several union leaders were brought up on charges. My wife has several family members that work for Chrysler in St. Louis. Did you know that when they have a product line change (which can sometimes be in excess of 6 months) they still get paid 95% of their wage….to sit on their ass at home? Good business plan guys!! Gee, wouldn’t know why they aren’t profitable.
I don’t think ANY company should have gotten a federal bailout. I learned the hard way that if you spend more than you bring in, you will not be successful. Pretty simple concept. All CEO’s that had the audacity to take bonuses should be tried and jailed for fraud in my opinion.
Oh and I loved your rant about the blatant corruption going on in Illinois….oh wait, that guy has a (D) after his name and is close to the “CHOSEN ONE”…..never mind.
C.
First of all, corruption is corruption, and anyone who violates a public trust is a fucking criminal and deserves the worst the law allows, which in some cases should be a bullet in the back of the skull. Hey, some of the worst crooks in US history have been Democrats, so no arguments there.
I'll give Blagojevich this--he didn't make any bones about selling his influence. Those transcripts are a scream. I hope he gets sent to Joliet, or Leavenworth, or wherever for a very, very long time. But he's colorful! The inmates will love him.
I don't agree that workers should be blamed because they managed to squeeze out a decent wage through organization. It's no surprise that Toyota, BMW, Honda, et. al, build plants in right-to-work states where they can count on public ignorance and, if necessary, violent police action, to prevent attempts to organize. As for corrupt union officials--bullet in the head.
While it may sound "all commie" to view the struggle here as workers versus capital owners, that's the way it breaks down. Pretending to turn workers into capital holders themselves through 401Ks or 403Bs is a hoodwink of the first order--very, very few workers will ever have the means to live off their savings, yet they will believe somehow that though they earn wages they are no longer workers. That's why white collar workers suddenly find themselves so shocked at their penury when they lose their jobs and their portfolios shrink to nothing and their stock options become worthless all at once. Having been too good to organize (Well, I'm a professional, they say) when times were good, they have no support and defense structure when the shit comes down. I know this from my own bitter experience trying to get engineers to take advantage in the boom years. But it was hopeless. They identified themselves as owners, not workers, despite the dependence on a paycheck. Now they're really fucked.
Meanwhile, up at the executives' club, no one seems to really suffer. Golden parachutes, several boards to sit on, cronies all over, in government and in business, even the worst fuckup never suffers more than the indignity of having to move to an office with fewer Greek columns framing the door, and perhaps endures a switch to Evian from Pelligrino.
If a worker defaults on a mortgage, or has a car repossessed, his credit is screwed for seven years. Proportional to that, when executives squander BILLIONS of dollars in Ponzi debt swap schemes, pull down the economy, and destroy equity for millions of workers, what would be fair? Exile to a trailer park in Bullhead City Arizona? Permanent employment as a scullery boy in a charity kitchen? Bullet in the head?
If a proportionate number of executives were thrown into the street for every worker layoff, I think I might feel there was some fairness. It would be nice to see a guy panhandling in a Hugo Boss suit or trying to hock his Bruno Magli shoes for a hamburger.
C., Olaf IS really cute when he gets all Commie. You should see him in his beret and dungarees and M16. It still makes me a little gooey inside just to think of it.
But I digress...
The fact is that labor costs only amount to about 10% of making a car. Even IF the automakers lived in capitalist paradise where they didn't have to compensate their workers and paid the same $45 dollars they pay in Kentucky or whatever, they would only save about roughly 800 bucks per vehicle. Sure, it might make a little difference, but not much.
The reality is that GM, Ford, and Chrysler made too many shitty cars for way too long. Going after labor is wrong, wrong, WRONG!!! I'm in a union and I'm a member of our bargaining committee. Mangagement tries to treat us as if we are not stakeholders in these financial discussions, and we have to remind them repeatedly that we are not pawns for them to hire and fire at whim. We fight for everything we have, and we know that the Management would give anything to take it all away in a second.
Look, the UAW knows that if they want to keep their jobs, they need to make some concessions and at our bargaining sessions, we do it all the time. They want to protect their workers, of course, but they need to have a stake in these discussions. I feel that the Union reps should be up there WITH the CEO's, not standing on the sidelines.
cb
And CB is absolutely right: I am cute in a beret.
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