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TechnoratiAuto Bailout's Death Seen as a Republican Blow at Unions
For some Senate Republicans, a vote against the bailout was a vote against the United Auto Workers, and against organized labor in general.
Washington - The congressional push to help U.S. automakers was generally cast in terms of protecting the reeling national economy from another body blow -- the collapse of one or more of Detroit's Big Three.
![[United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger (L) addresses the media as UAW Vice President General Holiefield listens at the UAW Solidarity House in Detroit, Michigan December 12, 2008. (REUTERS/Rebecca Cook)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/uaw1213.jpg "uaw1213.jpg")
But in killing the stopgap rescue plan worked out by President Bush and congressional Democrats, conservative Republicans -- many from right-to-work states across the South -- struck at an old enemy: organized labor.
"If the [United Auto Workers], which is perceived as one of the strongest unions in the country, can be put under control, that may send a message across the whole country," said Michigan State University professor Richard Block, a labor relations expert.
Such antipathy to unions was an undercurrent through the weeks of negotiations leading up to Thursday's Senate vote rejecting the plan.
Handing a defeat to labor and its Democratic allies in Congress was also seen as a preemptive strike in what is expected to be a major battle for the new Congress in January: the unions' bid for a so-called card check law that would make it easier for them to organize workers, potentially reversing decades of declining power. The measure is strongly opposed by business groups.
"This is the Democrats' first opportunity to pay off organized labor after the election," read an e-mail circulated Wednesday among Senate Republicans. "This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."
One of the leading opponents of the auto bailout, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), said: "Year after year, union bosses have put their interests ahead of the workers they claim to represent. Congress never should have given these unions this much power, and now is the time to fix it."
Of course, for Democrats' part, they were fighting for one of their most loyal supporters in backing the $14-billion bailout.
The UAW, which represents about 150,000 employees of the Big Three, delivered campaign contributions and foot soldiers to help elect Barack Obama president, especially in crucial states such as Michigan and Ohio.
What lent a bipartisan gloss to Senate Democrats' effort was the fact that party leaders had negotiated for days with the White House and made a string of concessions that toughened the bill and won active support from the Bush White House.
Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), a strong auto industry supporter, acknowledged that some of his colleagues simply did not want to help the UAW.
"We have many senators from right-to-work states, and I quite frankly think they have no use for labor," he said. "Labor usually supports very heavily Democrats and I think that some of the lack of enthusiasm for this [bailout] was that some of them didn't want to do anything for the United Auto Workers."
One major car dealer said conservatives let political ideology get in the way of protecting the country's interests.
"Being a Republican myself, I feel very betrayed by the Republican Party right now," said Beau Boeckmann, vice president of Galpin Motors Inc. in North Hills. Galpin has the nation's largest Ford dealership as well as lots where it sells eight other foreign and domestic brands.
The anti-union sentiment rose to the surface in the final desperate hours of negotiations. Republicans insisted that the UAW agree to cut its wages to be competitive with foreign companies such as Honda, Toyota and BMW by a set date.
UAW officials and their Democratic allies balked, saying the autoworkers were being told to make sacrifices that had not been demanded of other industries receiving government bailouts.
"We could not accept the effort by the Senate GOP caucus to single out workers and retirees for different treatment and to make them shoulder the entire burden of any restructuring," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said, arguing the union had gone further than any other stakeholder in making concessions to help the companies avoid bankruptcy.
But DeMint argued that the unions had helped create Detroit's plight.
"It is no coincidence that the healthy automakers in the United States are located in 'right-to-work' states and are not unionized by the UAW," he said. "Right-to-work" states bar agreements between trade unions and employers making membership or payment of union dues or "fees" a condition of employment, either before or after hiring.
Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), a labor ally, said Friday that Republican senators who opposed the bailout might have "wanted to crush a longtime political rival, the United Auto Workers," without concern for the economic consequences.
Democrats lauded the UAW as a hero in the bailout process for agreeing to new concessions on top of major ones given in 2005 and 2007. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called the union "courageous" just before the House approved the bailout Wednesday.
But some Republicans framed the UAW as the villain, criticizing what they called lavish wages and benefits that they said had driven General Motors, Chrysler and, to a lesser extent, Ford to their knees.
"I'm sure that I'm going to be asked, 'Congressman, I work at Honda' or 'I work at Mercedes. I get $40 an hour. Why are you going to take my tax dollars and pay it to a company that's paying their employees $75 an hour?' " Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said last month.
That wage figure -- widely used by opponents of the auto industry bailout -- is not in fact the wage paid to current workers. It is an approximation of the costs of salaries and benefits for current and retired workers. After wage concessions in recent contracts, the UAW says its workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants range from $33 an hour for skilled trades to $14 an hour for new hires.
Precise wages and extrapolated benefits costs for U.S. workers at nonunionized foreign companies, such as Honda and Toyota, are difficult to ascertain, but Block estimated salaries for current workers are approximately the same.
The Big Three automakers have higher labor costs primarily because they have operated factories in the U.S. much longer than their foreign counterparts, so have many more retirees receiving pension and healthcare payments, Block said.
Even if UAW workers at GM took a 20% pay cut, it would only save the company about $1.1 billion annually because the company's unionized workforce in the United States has decreased dramatically in recent years, to 55,000, he said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) characterized the GOP opposition as "class-warfare assault by the Republicans."
"They never ask about banker salaries. . . . They never asked they give money back," he said.
When Congress convenes in January, the expanded Democratic majorities are expected to push for an Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the "card check," under which companies would recognize unions if a majority of workers signed cards saying they favored a union. That would replace the traditional method of a secret ballot among workers.
Block and other analysts believe the looming fight added to the political maneuvering over the bailout.
"The opposition might be as strong, but it might not be as urgent," Block said.
"If the public could be convinced the problem with the auto industry is the UAW . . . then it will be easier than otherwise to marshal public support against unions and their legislative agenda."
56 Comments so far
Show AllSorry about the multiple posts-computer malfunction.
No need to apologize.
Shucks, I've had multiple postings too for reasons I've yet to fathom, but in this case your multiple postings aren't a waste: constant repetition pointing out Faithful Catholic's right-wing idiocy is a natural reaction to such blarney and causes less harm to head and computer than beating one's head against one's keyboard.
As for me, I was so flabbergasted by Faithful Catholic's uneducated right-wing drivel I, a computer version of motor-mouth, was struck speechless.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Faithful Catholic: "Now it's the unions terrorizing the corporations." Don't you break out in hives when you type such absolute idiocy? At a miniscule 8 or 9% of the work force,unions are terrorizing poor old corporations? If you're not a right wing troll,you're one of the dumbest people on the planet.
As someone who has worked all his life in non-union jobs, I have a hard time feeling sorry for the unions. They have brought this down upon themselves by their incessant demands for more, more, more. Current payscale at the Big 3 is around $78.00/hour. I heard one of our vice-presidents describe a man who works at GM running a scrubber, which is an absolutely BRAINLESS job (I mean, you just sit on the thing and guide it) and the man makes over $100,000/year.
People, this is so out of touch with the ordinary folks who make up the vast majority of workers that it is not even funny. Down in our neck of the woods we had Caterpillar workers go on strike a few years ago for some niggling reason that made no sense at all. I was talking with one of the management, a man who had worked his way up through the system. He told me "They are going to lose everything they have -- where do you suppose they will go and find jobs that pay $26.00/hour? (this was back in the 1990's).
Sure enough, Caterpillar just closed the plant down and moved on. The workers, who just couldn't get enough of everything, lost their cushy jobs. Wonder how flippin' burgers did for some of these geniuses?
The same manager told me that when he was working on the floor, his fellow union members would come to him and complain to him about how hard he worked and that he was "wrecking the curve". He told me a number of stories of how the union workers with their guaranteed salaries and benefits were basically a bunch of screw offs and that it was a miracle that anything got built at that plant at all.
His response to them: "When I see you name on my paycheck, then I'll take orders from you."
There was a day when unions were needed because the corporate owners viewed human beings as so much chattel to use for the enhancement of their bloated and greedy lives. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and unionists view companies as nothing more than vending machines that are supposed to give them everything they want, regardless of how ridiculous the demand is.
Somewhere, somehow, people are either going to have to learn to live and work together for the common good, or all we will be is a memory.
You might wish to research your point of view, other wise you are simply echoing the conservative mind set that has kept the Organized Labor movement in such a terrible state. One excellent source for your research might be, History (not the revisionist point of view either, please). When Regan took the ATC Union and wrecked it, he did such a good job of it that the current financial problems were assured. When the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few as has been the case since the Regan years, the inevitable collapse as the one presently being experienced is the ultimate result.
In the months and years ahead, when things get really tough there "in your neck of the woods", you might just be very happy to have "collective bargaining power"; instead of hand outs by the wealthy who have kept the Unions out of those "woods".
But you speak like a true southerner; Georgia, South Carolina, where?
No word on auto bailout "for a while" - not until the last unionworker is starved to death anyway.
during and after WWII unionized workers gave up pay raises and bonuses in exchange for promised health benefits and pensions. For about the next 15-20 years it looked like a slick deal to the auto industry's management. Now the management wants to switch the rules of the game and essentially place the responsibili8ty for their selfish and poor management on the backs of organized labor.
Auto industrialists don't belong in the healthcare or pension fields anymore than for profit insurance companies or HMO's do. There is a way out of this--organized labor ought to agree to wage and benefit concessions PROVIDED Congress passes single-payer health care for everyone and reinstitutes corporate income tax equivalent to the rates paid by the salaried workers.
Organized labor and the rest of working folks ought to tell their elected federal representatives that this is a make or break vote. Either they vote for labor or "yes we can and will" unelect them.
Poet
Class warfare on behalf of the super rich is just what this is, and its time for those this class warfare is being waged against fight back!
AD
bob schieffer of cbs news had this brilliant insight the other night: "in the end, republicans voted against the bailout b/c that's what their constituents wanted." i almost fell out of the chair laughing. right bob. when 90% of the country was/is against this unending bailout of the finance industry, nobody batted an eyelash, including our plastic superhero, b.o. indeed bob, they are obeying their constituents. indeed.
on a related note, i owe citibank some big bucks (big for me, anyway) for student loans and some chump change (except to me, of course) to bank of america.
since my tax dollars for the rest of my life will be going to citibank, BoA, et al, can i stop paying this crap off every month?
who was it that said, let them protest, as long as they pay their taxes? kissinger? nixon?
nothing will change until we collectively figure out how to revolt financially. any advice or thoughts on this?
anybody out there stopped paying their taxes yet?
It would probably be more effective to attempt to organize to collectively to not repay student loans and mortgages instead. Close the branches of the financial giants with picket lines and protest to further starve them financially. Some divide and conquor thinking may be useful here.
The lackeys in government tend to look after the financers. When you revolt against the financers indirectly through not paying taxes, they can laugh and sit back and let their lackeys in the various governments arrange to deal with you. Cut off their payments and you cut their laughter as they would soon become insolvent without our payments and would need the support from their lackeys.
If this is properly organized each member of the "strike" is paying a sizable percentage of what the loan payment would normally be into a strike fund during the strike. Possibly even the whole payment. With this top lawyers can be obtained to delay and defend as needed. Some lackeys can be bought and influenced, and muscle can be rented. It is our ability to organize and manange the strike that is our archilles' heel in this type of action, not our ability to finance it.
The reason that the lackeys in D.C. look out for the financiers is because the financiers are the ones who quietly and secretly own this country and call the shots. It is the reason that President Elect Obama is packing his new cabinet with the same old same old. Don't you think for a second that he was not brought in to the White House by President Bush, introduced to the men who own the largest banks in the world, and told "Meet the men who own this country. If you know what is good for you, you will not screw around with them."
J.F.K. found out the hard way -- these guys don't mess around.
"The anti-union sentiment rose to the surface in the final desperate hours of negotiations. Republicans insisted that the UAW agree to cut its wages to be competitive with foreign companies such as Honda, Toyota and BMW by a set date."
The demand to cut wages is the opposite of what must be done in this economic down turn.
We are in a deflation. To get business moving more money must be made available to the mass of consumers. The best way to do this is higher wages to the workers in the auto industry as well as Wal Mart and all workers in between.
The Republicans really do hate America.
Make no mistake, class warfare continues and the other side is out for blood.
The brutes in Butte understood this. See below.
http://icarusfilms.com/new2003/inj.html
Very interesting. How many people know about this event? Certainly nothing I was ever told about in my capitalist controlled high school environment. Wouldn't want the little skulls full of mush to think that there might be bedbugs in the American Dream now, would we?
This sort of thing was RAMPANT in the last century. Now it is the unions who are terrorizing the corporations. The pendulum has swung the other way. Why is it so hard to find that common ground of decency and respect for each other that would make our country a better place than it is now?
Unions help a lucky few. While most eat hot dogs on minimum-wage. America does not need unions for a lucky 'few,' "yeah, my dad got me in," we need fair wages starting at the bottom-minimum wage, for everyone, that enable us poor folk to pay our rent, bills, AND buy food.
I'm so happy for UAW workers, but they never did give a damn as I've starved for decades on non livable minimum and low wages.
I looked to Nader for help, but he locked his own workers out when THEY tried to organize....
Obama.
The main problem is that not enough people belong to unions. The reasons are many. I believe the main one is the widespread idea that we have no class system in this country. Everything is based on merit, and if you work hard, you don't need a union. I believe those naive ideas have recently lost some credibility.
Another problem is the threat to move abroad if workers demand improvement, even if the plant is profitable.
But I think you are correct that one problem is exclusionary policies of unions. Some unions serve only their members, or even only their paid leaders. They fail to organize new enterprises; in contracts they often protect older members at the expense of younger workers; they keep union membership in the family, which sometimes means white only. They can be sluggish or sometimes even thuggish.
A new problem is unwillingness or inability to organize outside the US, for example unorganized Mexican auto workers whose numbers were growing as a result of NAFTA moving plants there. This is a complicated and expensive problem to solve.
Over time this failure to reach out and organize has led to ever diminishing strength in numbers and influence. It has left too many behind in the minimum wage backwaters. I hope this economic crisis will lead to the recognition that now is the time to step up organizing.
Joe
International Unions would be the final answer...Unions in other countries, as I am sure you are aware, represent their members more stridently. One reason is the Labor Party, which exists in most modern democratic countries.
But, Unions in the past, brought the US out of sweatshop conditions and child labor, etc. The US would not have a middle class without them.
azjoe wrote:
Unions help a lucky few. I've starved for decades on non livable minimum and low wages.
COMMENT:
The reason the lucky few get help is precisely because they joined a union. Those " non livable minimum and low wages" jobs were minimum and low because you didn't belong to strong unions.
Owners universally pay as little as they can get away with and still get the workers they need in order to exploit the workers' labor to get the wealth they want. They aren't going to give workers a damn thing out of the kindness of their hearts and a sense of fair-play.
Workers have had to struggle for every penny, every benefit, and often at great sacrifice. Some have fought for fair wages and benefits and gotten broken skulls for their trouble. Some have been killed. Its a war, a class war, and it has been going on for centuries, one could say since the beginning of "civilization."
The UAW workers didn't give a damn that you've starved for decades? Took a survey did you? Well, maybe some did, quite likely many or most didn't; so what? Most Americans quite obviously are all looking after their own interests. If this were not true then all workers would belong to unions and their unions would support any and every other union's struggles. A strike of one would be a strike for all. And the US would truly be a government by, for, and of the people.
"Unions help a lucky few" in the United States because only a few belong to unions. I believe the current union membership of workers in the US is about 8 percent. In Sweden 80 percent of the workers belong to unions and they have good livable wages plus benefits most Americans can only dream about.
So why aren't all workers in the US members of unions? I think it is obvious that it's because they have bought into the Republicans' claim that taxes are bad, big government is bad, the commons is bad, privatization is good, and unions and any sort of collectivism is an evil that must be destroyed.
US workers resent taxes, even though they could benefit like the Swedes and people in other advanced countries with a whole system of social safety nets such as affordable health care, guarantees against poverty in old age, and more.
Workers object to taxes that bring benefits and many workers object to union dues even if they benefit from higher wages and other benefits they get because they belong to a union.
Americans want stuff for themselves and they want it now. They just don't want to pay for.....well, pretty much anything that government could provide like safe roads, bridges that don't collapse, food inspectors that could protect them from poisons on their produce and disease from their hamburgers, science that could do what big pharma does at a tiny fraction of the cost, clean air so their kids don't get asthma, and so much more.
And they don't want to pay union dues and go to meetings. So, except for that 8 percent, they stay at their crappy insecure jobs and complain about the "lucky few" who made their "luck" by organizing.
Another huge failing of Americans is the faith in leadership. Some will say "a good dictator is better than a bad democracy." This belief that a father figure, a great leader, a great chief, a brave king, a beneficent emperor, a Bush, an Obama, a Paul, a Nader, or someone can protect them, feed them, make everything all better. Maybe even protect them from the bullies and kiss their boo-boos.
Ain't gonna happen, azjoe.
You want something better, then join up with others who want something better: organize. Don't hope someone will hand you something: take it. Join a union and if there isn't one, start one. Countless others did exactly that and kids stopped working in factories, people in mills stopped having to breathe toxic substances, people no longer had to work fourteen hour days six days a week just to stay alive.
We are many, they are few. But if the many don't organize against the few, the many are nothing. Worse than nothing if they complain about each other and undercut each other. Divide and conquer is the rule of the rulers. Until the many understand this, and organize with each other, the few will continue to rule and exploit, and oppress. To not organize is to choose to be a willing slave: a "wage slave."
Your choice.
Exactly!
"Another huge failing of Americans is the faith in leadership."
I don't think its their faith in leadership that's the problem. You elect good leaders and you can have faith in them even while you should questions their decisions. Americas problem is we choice people with charisma over ability to lead.
Rickster
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. My point was this. Unions were always an exclusive club I could NOT join because I did not 'know' somebody. We need a livable minimum wage. for people like me that are not on the 'inside,'because I tried. But I was shut out.
azjoe:
We need a livable minimum wage.
COMMENT:
Livable, yes, but even more: a decent wage, a fair wage, a fair share of the society's bounty, a fair share of the common wealth.
That some, even many, possibly most, will take any advantage to exploit others for their personal benefit doesn't surprise me. Books and seminars on methods to get rich by exploiting others has made some writers and lecturers very rich because so many of the masses snap up those get-rich-quick books and crowd those seminars.
I understand this human weakness - don't like it, but I do understand it.
What frustrates and enrages me is that the masses of people sit back and allow themselves to be exploited when they don't have to, when together they, the masses, could be their government and in common own and control the nations resources. This isn't going to happen until people stop thinking about achieving personal wealth and start thinking about the commonwealth.
The government and the nation's resources that should be the commonwealth are now largely in the hands of a comparative few. If the masses organize, the masses can be the government, the masses can share in the nation's resources.
Could, can, haven't, and from the looks of it won't. One of the commentators here has referred to the masses as "sheeple." Sadly, that is a pretty apt term for the citizens of the US.
It is quite true that getting into some unions in some places can be difficult; it is also true that knowing someone can help and can even be necessary.
But if in a union you want to get, don't stop trying. Try another town, maybe another and another. Hang out where the union guys hang out and with enough social skills you may hit pay dirt.
If all else fails try another occupation where you may be able to apprentice. Go to union halls and talk to some friendly-looking fellow, ask questions, say you are really interested, ask for tips on how to get in their union. Try the same in bars where the union guys stop after work.
Ask anyone anywhere for advice: people love to give advice - that's why I'm writing :-D.
And another thing: don't ever complain about a union, any union to a union member. Remember you LOVE unions and everything about them. Praise unions, praise the very idea of unions, the need for them. Know union history old and recent, and applaud the successes of the past.
Ask for help, but don't sound needy. One of nastiest failures of animals, including the human animal, is they tend to turn against the weak, but will eagerly help those who need help least.
So sound and be confident. A union member likes to hear someone praise unions, and is far more likely to help the kind of person he would like to work alongside. He/she also wouldn't want the embarrassment of recommending someone who "wouldn't work out." So no more complaining. Act confident always and you'll find yourself really being confident.
Lastly: good luck!
I totally agree (with posts below) that both the Democrats and the Republicans have been jerking around the majority of this country's citizenry for decades, and possibly the nasty Repubs even more than the Democrats.
However, has it not also been the case that many unions and union members have been voting primarily for the Repubs for years?
One wonders, when are the unions ever going to see past the rhetoric and demagogic nonsense issued by these politicos?
Generic GOP speech for the 2010 mid-term elections:
"The Democrats had two years, TWO WHOLE YEARS, to get this economy fixed and you're still in a hole! They promised you the moon and stars and yet you, the people, are still broke. Yes! They indeed promised you the moon and stars and gave you a black hole. Do you still trust them to be on your side? Wake up and get a good look! And the unions, the unions are supposed to be for the American worker but were they for the American worker when the big three collapsed? They were too greedy to make a sacrifice to save America's auto industry. They must have obscene wages and outrageous perks. Union workers make more in one month then many of you make in three. Their greed has held back innovation and raised the price of everything you buy. They want you to think they're on your side but in reality they're out to kill American industry!
Etc, etc, etc.
Get back with me during the run up to the mid-term elections and see if I'm close or not.
Help reduce the National Debt - TAX CHURCHES!
Right on, TAX CHURCHES!
Years ago in San Francisco I was forced to join the Teamsters when I got a job in a parking lot. My respect for unions did a backflip when I went to a few meetings. While I'm for the concept of unionizing, and fully aware of the sacrifice made by thousands of workers to form unions in this benighted Capatilist land, I think the demise of the union movement is in large part due to their own corruption and the greed for power of their leaders.
The only thing worse than a union like the Teamsters is the lack of one. I now live in Arizona, a 'right to work' state, and believe me, I know from experience.
Yes every should know what happens when the government spends a $1000.00
As that money moves from person to person or business to business it will be taxed .
You can then logically argue and calculate at what time and person the Government would have got it,s money back, and for how along with interest before some one kills it..
However if Some ARSE HOLE SQUERRILS IT AWAY IN FOREIGN BANKS OR INVESTS IT OFF SHORE THAT MONEY IS GONE and the Government has to find more money to put in the system. What happens if this is allowed to continue?
The flight of capital and hording, are economic diseases and extremely dangerous to every sovereign nation
Obama can spend all he wants on public works but the Ripoflicans will do their best to ship overseas all they can get their hands on
WHERE AND WHO DID THE BANK’S BILLIONS OF DOLLARS BAIL OUT MONEY GO TO!!!!!!!
It's not about forgiving, it's about remembering to vote against these corporate thugs
and NEVER to shop any store with the "US Chamber of Commerce" stigmata on it's door.
Well it is sadly Started!!!
vancouver BC Canada party shooting victim was company's CEO
Vancouver police have identified the victim of Friday night's shooting at a company Christmas party as Benjamin Banky, 40, the CEO of TallGrass Distributors Ltd.
If I had my way, there would be a few thousand CEOs up against the wall, starting with those of the Big Three Auto makers and not leaving out a few banks like the Bank of America.
While were at lets go after the people who deal in futures.
Rickster
Perhaps, but I doubt that the CEO's of the larger companies that brought about the situation will face armed former employees.
Besides breaking unions, another goal might be to have Obama fail. That would open up the next elections to Republicans.
Well, can the auto industry can hold out for 5 more weeks?
Will any of the banks loan some of their newly gotten hundreds of billions to employ real people doing real jobs?
Will the new Democratic majority in the Senate step up to save the jobs that would be lost? Or will they simply mug and dance around for the cameras.
Tune in - and if you are still employed, give something to your local food bank.
Joe
These humans in the Southern states of America are the real dregs of human society, they encouraged slavery and slave labor in every thing they do, They will always, find devious ways to legally enslave , abuse and exploit their fellow humans for profit.
They discourage their neighbors in Mexico from uplifting their peoples so that they can have a sustainable pool of cheap exploitable labor
Europeans in Europe found ways to compete without exploiting their citizens or their neighbors
China and the Eastern European block countries are working like beavers to uplift their masses, not devising devious ways to keep them poor and uneducated
The closest to these diminutive of moral peoples from the southern united states is the cast system of India
The citizens of this country have been railroaded by Republicans and Democrats alike.
The Democrats can get away with their role as accomplices to the Republicans only for so long. Obama's election, in certain ways, absolutely guarantees this. How far down the middle class has to be driven before they finally start to turn their backs once and for all on the Democrats is anyone's guess. There is a bottom, however, and it's in sight, closer to us than Russia is to Sarah Palin. If Obama sells out middle class and working people, everyone will know it. Unlike gullible middle class Republicans, for whom every Republican word is second only to the Bible as sacrosanct, non-ideological supporters of the Democrats will either begin in droves looking elsewhere, or put a gun to their heads and blow their brains out by electing another Republican president and congress. Obama is standing nose to nose with history; he can, if he possesses enough courage and humility, be a hero in the best sense of the word, or he can don George Wanker Bush's shoes and walk that same rutted road and be yet another moral and political dead ender. Like suckers, the world's full of them.
"For some Senate Republicans, a vote against the bailout was a vote against the United Auto Workers, and against organized labor in general."
Yes - especially for those Republicans in states where Toyota and Honda plants are operating without union workers. Granted, they are only making $3.00 less per hour than Union Workers, but if you multiply the number of working employees (not CEOs and upper management) times $3.00 per hour over a period of one year, that's a huge savings to distribute to greedy shareholders. And if there wasn't a United Auto Workers Union, do you think the people working at Toyota and Honda would only be making $3.00 less per hour?
The citizens of this country have been railroaded by Republicans and Democrats alike. Both parties have sold us out by using our tax dollars to encourage American Corporations to move their manufacturing plants to China and other nations where labor is cheap, corporations are not taxed, and environmental protections are non-existent. In short, that makes HUGE short-term profits for their company shareholders along with their political enablers who are looking for campaign handouts. This a racket that the "old" Mafia Bosses would be proud of!
The fact remains: Bill Clinton paved the way for George W. Bush to outsource more manufacturing plants and jobs while simultaneously importing illegal workers to replace American jobs; thereby destroying the middle class in this country.
It really doesn't take an MBA from Wharton or Sloan to figure out who is benefiting by all of this. The formula is simple: FOLLOW THE MONEY!
How can you blame Bill, he's guilty I know of a lot of things but moving manufacturing jobs over seas began in earnest under the Reagan years. It actually started before that but the flood gates opened under Reagan.
Rickster
I reckon we, the people, should get together and bring a class action against the petroleum-auto industries. Why?
They have not only been major contributors to global warming but their products have killed millions via accidents and carcinogens.
We should've gone electric decades ago but car companies bought up the patents so we'd keep polluting by driving high-powered gas-guzzlers. They also made sure that public transport was largely destroyed.
It's time they were made to pay for the damage they've caused not given taxpayers' dollars!
www.dangerouscreation.com
It is almost amusing to discover how many folks did not understand that "class warfare" was only dormant in our country. One of the crassest warlords was President Reagan.
I agree, except that it was never dormant.
Seems to me the best way to resolve the issue is to mandate foreign auto manufacturers to unionize so their wages are on par with the U.A.W.. It would serve the son's of slave owners right to stick a great big union boot square up their cracker asses.
Another way might be to mandate a national maximum wage instead of a national minimum wage. It seems fair enough that CEOs, or any other member of the necktie wearing parasitic class, be paid no more than ten times what the lowest paid worker is paid.
Our UAW-made cars are still running around our town; our family owns a 93 Plymouth Voyager, a 99 Chevy Cavalier, and a 2000 Chevy Metro.
In Cuba they're still driving 1950's American cars around Havana!
Now that's dependability we can believe in!
That's the thing about foreign made cars. There nice for about four to five years then they begin to break down and wear out. The cost of replacement parts is so high it's cheaper to buy a new one. Don't believe me just look around, you see very few foreign cars more than six years old on the road. Plus the low end American made automobiles have a far better ride than most of the foreign made tin cans.
Rickster
Spot on! Americans and the Unions have to take this country back; otherwise it will not be long before most Americans will be working for Chinese wages and that is just the way the greedy, corporatocracy and their political lackeys want it! These people would repeal the minimum wage in a heartbeat, if it became possible, but never will they talk about a maximum wage.
Bullseye!
The world of the Republicans is an enormous public toilet that hasn't been cleaned in the last 8 years. They don't live there but we do. The stalls, formerly the preferred spaces because they are private, are where the Reagan Democrats live. Now, after the era of George Wanker Bush, even they have been sickened by the stench. So - are they going to demand that the whole place be cleaned up; or are they going to come out of the stalls and try to take over the urinals?, which is where all the rest of live.
It would appear as if certain Southern Republicans are still fighting the Civil War to the extent that they are practicing a scorched earth policy that will ruin everyone. There is a an apt word for this: pique.
www.wunderman-comics.com
Better $1,000,000,000 dollars to one person; than $10,000 dollars to 100,000 people. That is the definition of republican.
I'm not pro union (they are also many times a self serving entity rather than serving community at large).
I also don't support the bailout because we knew back in 1979 (the first oil crisis) that we should be concerned about oil. Then is when I (and some of my friends) started buying smaller cars called Toyota and Nissan. They weren't just cheaper cars, they were more fuel efficient. The bailout didn't have any requirements for the automakes to produce more fuel efficient cars, it would just float the bloated companies a little longer.
And when it does pass (not for the workers sake but for the corporate elite's sake) it will be seen as an accomplishment for Obama, but it really is another failure in correcting what are major issues in our corporate/capitalist/over-consumption driven society.
Whether it is the union, environmentalists, pro peace activists, or social activists, anytime they start organizing they get investigated, intimidated, and taught lessons (no money for you).
No one in mainstream government is working on the solutions we need because the reality is that we need to consume less, and that is bad for the corporate elite, as well as the majority of people who won't complain as long as their TV works.
John Lennon said that the Vietnam War would end in a day if people cared about the war as much as they cared about their TV.
Those blue collar "Reagan" democrats who continue to support GOP candidates should have no doubt now about how the GOP feels about them. The hatred that the GOP has for labor has never been secret. Now it is more obvious than it has ever been.
It should also send the message to the entire country that republicans don't really care about America. Labor is what makes this country. Bankers don't make this country, stock dealers don't make this country, The rich doesn't make this country. This country is made by people who work their collective butts off.
Rickster
Somebody ought to investigate Sen. Jim DeMint and his beginnings in Texas, as well as his associations to financial institutions there. Could he be the same one that got his business start there, as did George W. Bush?
It is disgusting to hear the Republican Senators try to push around hard working Americans who live by the sweat of their brow, while at the same time supporting the Wall Street Gang.
If the Democrats wanted they could use this sort of thing against the Republicans, but because they also serve the rich, its hard to regard them as being on the side of people.