> The UAW can agree any time they want.
The impression that I get from New Zealand is that most of your large unions in the US run very close to the wind, just a razor-thin distance away from being racketeering influenced criminal enterprises. I do not know if this is a fair assessment, but it is the impression that they give.
The other impression I get is that the union bosses probably have never actually worked on the assembly lines themselves, or done an honest day’s work in their lives. They are sorta like the pigs in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. The days of the courageous union-organizing shop floor steward who shuts down his drill press and goes on strike for fair wages are long, long gone. Again, I don’t know if that is a fair assessment either.
The distinct impression I get is that the UAW would be quite OK with running the Big 3 into the ground: they’d just go infect another business. Sorta like varroa mites on busy honeybee hives.
How close to accurate are these observations from halfway ‘round the world?
Sadly, a lot of the unions seem to be corrupt in that sense. They're politically connected and protected.
Union membership is way down in the private sector, with the exception of a union named SEIU. SEIU was the cornerstone of an estimated $400 million dollar union ad campaign against Repubs in the recent election. It's fair to say that if lefty politicians and union leaders are dance partners, it's the unions who are leading.
The UAW has gotten its way for the last 60 years, I think, because of their political connections...protection, if you will.
During the 1930s the US experimented with alcohol prohibition. Organized crime stepped in and prospered, made possible by paying off corrupt politicians. There's a remake of a TV series made into a movie called The Untouchables, about the government agents who fought these criminals.
There's a scene where they're raiding a liquor distribution center in, of all places, the backroom of a US Post Office...presumably, government owned and operated. A guy rushed forward and says, "You guys made a big mistake...we're PROTECTED!"
When I see Ron Gettelfinger speak, that's what I think of...that scene. He wonders why the rest of us don't get it.
The other impression I get is that the union bosses probably have never actually worked on the assembly lines themselves, or done an honest day’s work in their lives. They are sorta like the pigs in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. The days of the courageous union-organizing shop floor steward who shuts down his drill press and goes on strike for fair wages are long, long gone. Again, I don’t know if that is a fair assessment either...
Ron Gettelfinger has. There seems to be a trend, however, toward so-called "professional" union leaders, those whose background and training is much different from those they represent. One of the leaders of the union that represents Boeing engineers, SPEEA, has a background not in engineering, but community organizing...where have we heard that before?
The distinct impression I get is that the UAW would be quite OK with running the Big 3 into the ground: they’d just go infect another business. Sorta like varroa mites on busy honeybee hives...
They have done so in the past. I don't know if it was a deliberate strategy, or whether their sense of denial and entitlement led them off the cliff.
Union leaders are consumate politicians and negotiators. Gettelfinger accurately predicted that he could get a short term cash infusion by the Bush administration until a more friendly administration and Congress take power. They, unlike Corker, will know that issuing ultimatums to labor is not how "things are done."
It's working.