December 12, 2008
When Senator Bob Corker can say that it's the rank and file who are the stumbling block to a federal bailout of the Big Three and journalists are parroting this line and people are beginning to think that the UAW is the problem, it makes me wonder where the labor movement is in America?
Nevermind that Corker is playing with 110,000 jobs in his own state, or that executive salaries at the Big 3 are wildly disproportionate to the guy punching a clock on the factory floor (is the CFO of Chrysler also going to get paid $1 if the company gets federal money?), or the fact that the UAW has assumed the responsibilty for retiree health care. The latter isn't getting much mention--it was a HUGE historic concession on the union's part before the current crisis--but yet is being misleadingly not mentioned in the press, leaving TV audiences & readers to assume these costs are a part of the so-called "legacy costs."
Does anyone remember how before the Wall Street meltdown that GM had turned a corner and the press was touting its virility?
It really is the economy, stupid.
Where are the other unions? Where is the true left?
posted by Mr. Horton at 3:32 PM
1 Comments:
We (Monsieur and I)think this is a final blow to unions. It seems some don't mind compensation in the millions for people who can't balance a check book, but to give a worker who actually makes a tangible object a middle class living so his kids can have braces and go to community college seems out of line in the free market. Oh, there's a place for we fat, pasty midwesterners. Either we migrate in our Focus wagons to California's Golden border a la Grapes of Wrath or we become enslaved to the emerging markets of India, China et al. The baby is practicing his call center Hindi accent. Hold your breath for us as we watch the next 10% reduction. Decimation anyone?
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