Right wingers completely dominate the media. Their angle now is to call the bridge loan to the auto companies "a UAW bailout."
NPR always includes a hack from AEI or one of the other right wing think tanks, gives them an enormous amount of air time, and let's them speak unchallenged. On the auto industry issue, a guy from one of those think tanks had hos way for 2 hours.
"Why should tax payers bailout the UAW workers, who are making more than most of the taxpayers themselves are?"
"Why should UAW workers make more than the prevailing wages?"
Doing a Google search, the results are all dominated by this crap:
"No UAW Bailout"
"Michelle Malkin » House passes UAW bailout"
"No UAW Bailout. By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY"
"ABC News: Is Bailout Possible Without UAW Concessions?"
"Amazon.com: Its really a UAW bailout, not a Detroit 3 bailout"
"BostonHerald.com - No UAW Bailout."
"Bailout Watch 155: $25b for UAW | The Truth About Cars"
"Michelle Malkin » No TARP money for UAW bailout: It’s illegal"
"Democrats Want UAW Bailout"
"Carmakers need Delta Model, Not UAW Bailout"
Necessity is the Mother of Revolution
Since Bush took the driver’s seat every component in the engine of commerce has broken down. Mounting budget deficits, escalating trade deficits, and now as the crash approaches his sidekick filibusters in the rumble seat have developed an attention deficit.
Four million manufacturing jobs were wiped out in the last eight years. Inflation is up, foreclosures are up, unemployment is up, consumer debt is up, and the limbaughs want to hold up a loan to the domestic auto industry on the hopes they can bust the union. Somebody throw a drink in their bloated faces.
The legacy burden of Republican administration has brought the elephant to its knees. A mercy killing is in order.
Republicans want UAW retirees to take a haircut on health care. We already have a Mohawk. The VEBA is only worth about 60% of the liability.
On top of that, active workers gave up a dollar an hour in 2005 to pay for the VEBA. Add in the Cost of Living Adjustments diverted to health care and the average worker is sacrificing about $5 grand a year for retiree health care.
The big sticking point for retirees is that we already paid for our health care. Why should we have to pay again? Perhaps if we compare deferred compensation to property our Republican friends will respect our rights.
A thirty year mortgage paid off, or a retirement plan built on thirty years of labor. What’s the difference?
I paid off a thirty year mortgage. I persevered through tough times and made extra payments in good times.
I worked thirty years in exchange for a pension and health care in retirement. I paid my time and one’s time is the most valuable thing on earth.
I have a contract. I have a mortgage. I lived up to my end of the agreement. By what perverse twist of logic do Republicans think I should now pay more, or give up what I earned entirely?
I am burned up. I hope the Republicans do kill the auto loan. It will be a hell of a peg to hang their party hat on and a Christmas that small businesses and retailers will never forget. The name Corker will become a curse word, a proverbial spittoon.
What I look forward to most is the backlash. With millions of workers unemployed, the Republicans may very well hand us the revolution we’ve been waiting for. Men without work take to the streets. We’ll soon find out if the NRA took its stand in defense of the nation or the arms merchants. Either way, necessity is the mother of revolution. I can easily envision hundreds of thousands of UAW retirees marching on Washington and demanding national health care.
Hell yeah. I look forward to it.
Letter: Investing class vs. the workers
by The Saginaw News
Tuesday December 16, 2008, 10:37 AM
Editor, The News:
Did we actually expect the capitalists to bone up for their own gambling losses?
Investment banks, mortgage companies and insurers are not required to show a business plan to prove themselves worthy of government loans. No one ever examined the pay and benefits of the pencil pushers before approving the government purchase of "toxic assets." This is a culture war. The investing class vs. the working class. It's done by outsourcing jobs.
GM already has more plants overseas than in the U.S. GM wants the government to help them take advantage of the current disaster by accelerating plant closures in the U.S.
At one time, the amount of dealerships selling cars was a sign of economic strength and market saturation. Now GM wants to eliminate dealers and their hundreds of thousands of employees. GM and Ford are prepared to import small fuel efficient vehicles in 2010. They want to use the bailout to close factories, shrink unions and lean on dealers.
The main target in this shakedown is legacy cost -- the deferred compensation owed to retirees in pension and health insurance. Some of our capitalist friends don't believe in honoring contracts. Trust is a nonrenewable resource. Rather than preserve it, conservative Republicans are determined to poison the well, once and for all.
At this stage there is very little that workers and retirees can control. Our only consolation is that we are all in the same leaky boat. Instead of mounting a campaign to defend all workers, UAW leaders hold tight to corporate apron strings and wave white hankies. We must fend for ourselves as best we can. We can point out where the real fat is: UAW appointees. We can't afford the luxury of paying UAW appointees to twiddle thumbs while workers are forced to double up.
Politically, we can easily turn the argument around. The government is too deep in debt. We can demand that pensions and health care for retired members of Congress and the Senate be revoked. If Congress isn't willing to support the deferred compensation earned by retirees, taxpayers shouldn't support the retirement of senators and members of Congress.
Disgruntled Autoworker # 49
Walking Bull's-eyes
The latest round of attrition packages, or early retirement and buy-out packages, are on the table throughout the corporation. GM has upped the ante from $35,000 to $45,000 for those eligible to retire now, special provisions for those eligible within the next four years, with benefits and pensions, $70,000 for those with less than ten years of service who agree to cut all ties, and $140,000 for those with ten to twenty five years seniority if they agree to cut all ties except vested pensions. According to a recent Detroit Free Press article, GM would like those interested in a package to be gone by July 1st.
This is the fourth early retirement and buy-out offer since my former employer, GM Baltimore, announced it will permanently close its door on May 13, 2005. I could have taken any of the previous early retirement offers, or the current one, but my reasons for not doing so are personal; however, I will offer these few insights. I've had to transfer four times to acquire 31.5 years of seniority; and not once did I get the big money to transfer. GM's relocation allowance wasn't available in the early eighties when I moved from the shuttered bearing plant in Bristol, CT to the assembly plant in Framingham, MA. And all I got when that plant closed in the late eighties was enough to pay the first and last month's rent with enough left over to rent a u-haul when I relocated to the Baltimore, MD assembly plant. Then a hundred and fifty of my coworkers and I got screwed out of relocation allowances when we were forced to the Wilmington, DE assembly plant in August of 06. I'm only 55; so I would have to get a part time job to make ends meet since my income will be instantly reduced by almost two thirds. The way I see it is, if I have to work for anything less than $15.00 an hour to supplement my retirement, I'd be better off staying right where I am making $28.00 an hour, duh. So no, I am not taking a retirement package. "I'm going down with the ship," as they say.
This is just my story; there are literally hundreds of similar, or more dramatic or horrific stories in the Wilmington plant, and thousands of others throughout the corporation that autoworkers are faced with when considering their options to walk away with cash in hand. Another Free Press article touted the successes of a few autoworkers' who took previous early retirement or buy-out packages. I say good for them, but like Todd Jordan of www.futureoftheunion.com website recently said, "For every positive story the press writes about, there are ten negative ones."
The most perplexing is the feeling of remorse we've been hearing so much about lately from those who took the early retirement packages. Some didn't anticipate the escalating out of pocket expenses of their health care benefits, or that their pension checks wouldn't be as adequate as they had hoped, or a part time job fell through, or they were hit with an expensive home or car repair, or they find themselves taking on the added expense of raising grandchildren, or a son or daughter unexpectedly returns home, or they hadn't anticipated the effects the sub prime mortgage crises would have on the economy, or how rising fuel prices would effect the cost of everything under the sun. These are just some of the very real and scary stories that have us contemplating our options. We don't want to end up regretting we retired to soon too, and then end up beating on GM's door a couple months later demanding our jobs back.
Over the last few years, and with the UAW's International Executive Board's (IEB) approval, GM eliminated a majority of the good jobs senior members looked forward to in their waning years. Now they're forced to work the assembly line their entire careers. Also with the IEB's approval, the majority of the line jobs are so overworked everyone, even lower seniority workers, go home feeling beat up at the end of the shift. With this latest attrition round it becomes obvious that GM and the IEB's intent is to work us to death in an effort to force all of us into accepting one of the attrition packages.
Pressure on all employees, especially on seniors to retire or take an early retirement package is a bit more intense during this round than it was in the previous rounds. In the Wilmington plant for instance, third shift is expected to be eliminated at the end of March due to lack luster sales, which means between 400 and 600 employees will be laid off. Rumors immediately began to circulate that if enough senior employees took the early retirements, no one would be laid off, thus Union Officials and their Mgt counterparts, who I believe are behind the rumors, perpetuate an atmosphere of disdain and loathing between employees, a tool they've successfully used to manipulate and control the workforce for over twenty years.
Every union member throughout the corporation is now a walking target, especially those eligible to retire, or accept early retirement packages. Some low seniority workers and some in Mgt are making off the cuff remarks about senior members in front of others in an effort to embarrass or humiliate them into accepting a package. This reminds me of a line I recently heard during the presidential campaigns, I don't know who said it but it goes, "You will not embarrass or humiliate me without my permission." In other words, I will retire when I'm damn good and ready, and not because of something someone says or does. What low seniority workers and those in Mgt need to remember is that the target will shift to them eventually. Once GM's done attacking all union workers wages and benefits, they'll set their sights on their own, but stop short of those who should be targeted, the ones responsible for mismanaging GM.
So now the question is, should we stay and tough it out or leave with cash in hand while the getting is good? Rumors abound that this buy out offer is the last one, but that's what was said about previous offers, and if it is the last one, oh well. My guess is if GM doesn't get the numbers it wants during this round, which is at least half of its workforce, another offer will come along. I believe GM will take a chapter out of Steve "The Hatchet" Miller's phony bankruptcy playbook and continue to offer retirement and buy-out packages until new hire second tier workers out number first tier senior workers. Then like the mass rape The Hatchet orchestrated at Delphi, GM will pit new hires against those who are left in the 2011 round of contract negotiations, if not sooner, which will ultimately reduce all workers wages and benefits to second tier status.
UAW President Gettelfinger and his IEB henchmen sanctioned the rape at Delphi, and now this attempted wholesale rape of its entire membership by their Joint Corporate Partners throughout the auto industry. Gettelfinger and his Partners claim members are willing participants and therefore not raped because they ratified this agreement, but truth be told, the membership isn't allow to monitor ratification vote results like local elections, which casts a cloud of suspicion on all agreements entered into by the IEB and the Corporations since the early eighties when Joint Partnerships were formed.
The recent strike at American Axel Manufacturing is another example of a profitable corporation with its hand out demanding the IEB give them the same deal they gave GM, Ford and Chrysler. The IEB opened this can of worms and now everybody wants a piece. It won't end until all autoworkers are Delphied and can't afford the products we make. It would be in all of our own best interest to tell GM to take this offer and shove it. If the corporations are serious about buying us out then they had better up the ante a whole lot more than what is on the table now. They can afford it. All they'd have to do is stop investing the billions we've earned them overseas and cut exuberant executive salaries here at home.
Gettelfinger and the IEB should be charged with treason for partnering with the corporations and sanctioning the rape of its own membership, but the likelihood of that happening shrinks with each round of buy-outs that eliminate more and more first tier workers. The membership needs to take a stand and stop targeting each other and instead set their sights on the traitors in Solidarity House who are selling us out. If we do nothing, we could end up like Bethlehem Steel workers who've lost everything and now find themselves working for Wal-Mart wages for the rest of their lives.
In Solidarity, Doug Hanscom
We’ve Earned Respect and a Decent Contract!
American autoworkers are getting bludgeoned with threats and blackmail. When one contract grants concessions, it puts pressure on the next to continue the downward trend. Do we have to accept the spiral to third world labor standards? No!
While over the last thirty years productivity has shot up 85%, wages (taking inflation into account) have declined eight percent. Someone else is reaping the fruits of our labor. AAM is very profitable. Upper management has received outrageous bonuses.
The American auto industry isn’t moving out of the country. It's moving from union to non-union. American Axle bought an empty plant in Oxford, MI. near MSP, one of its $14 an hour plants, moved machinery from Detroit Forge and Tonawanda and started hiring at $10. They threatened to move machinery in Three Rivers to a nearby empty plant. They want to make us feel that it's hopeless to fight back, that there is nothing we can do. But that's not true.
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