Why Republicans demand worker concessions (it's not about the money)

[HiPointDem]

30-year UAW writing about concessions extracted from autoworkers by the Big Three:


Republicans, who paraded “Joe the Plumber” on the campaign trail, demonstrated that they despise labor in general and organized labor in particular. They accused UAW members of making too much money and bargaining successfully for health care and pensions. They referred to retiree benefits as “entitlements.” As if we didn’t earn those benefits. As if the nature of our work—production, as opposed to paper shuffling—rendered us ineligible for deferred compensation. As if people who actually produce a good or service don’t deserve such basic amenities as health care. As if dignity in retirement was reserved for those who never got grease under their fingernails. As if a wage that allowed you to pay the bills on time and send your children to college offended the capitalist creed. As if legally binding contracts with workers were toilet paper. As if the right to bargain collectively was illegal...

The accusations of undeserved legacy costs ignore the other side of the ledger: legacy profits. Profits that were pocketed by executives, doled out to shareholders, and invested overseas at the expense of American workers and the deferred compensation they earned. Legacy profits far outweigh legacy costs. From 1994 to 2003, GM made $104 billion in profit, not including investments in new plants overseas and acquisitions of foreign companies like Fiat. How much was set aside for retiree health care?

A portion of legacy profits should have been invested in a trust to ensure that the burden of retirement benefits wouldn’t be shouldered by the next generation. But according to the capitalist custom of class privilege, sharing profits with workers is derided as uncompetitive, while sharing profits with management and investors is lauded as just rewards. For the rich, money is an incentive; for the poor, it’s a moral hazard. The diversion of profits to nonworking people is the fundamental fraud of the free-market system.

The Republicans’ unbridled contempt for workers revealed an underlying agenda: the humiliation and degradation of labor. We weren’t criticized for incompetence. We were maligned for earning a good living. We were vilified for violating their fundamental belief that we aren’t equal as a class.

When it comes to wages, there is no bottom to the bottom line. They won’t be satisfied until we are all on our knees and begging to work for food. In their eyes, unequal status under the law doesn’t stop with immigrants. All workers should be at the whim and mercy of their employers. All workers should be an underclass.

Their underlying agenda is to manipulate “Joe the Plumber” for political democracy while they deprive the working class of economic democracy. What good is the right of citizenship if those rights are revoked as soon as you punch the time clock? What is the value of the right to vote for rich people to represent you if you can’t support your family?

Their real agenda is to bust unions, like Reagan did to PATCO,* and turn collective bargaining into collective concession-making. Their real agenda is to strip the working class of health care, steal their pensions, and whipsaw them with the threat of termination.

http://www.alternet.org/autoworkers-under-gun-why-republicans-demand-worker-concessions-its-not-about-money?page=0%2C2

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. K&R. More for them, nothing for you or me.

[socialist_n_TN]

2. AMEN and preach it brother!...........

Nm