Posted on 12/13/2008 3:46:32 AM PST by reaganaut1
DETROIT — For more than 70 years, the United Automobile Workers union has known who its adversaries were: company executives, foreign automakers and right-to-work advocates who fought its organizing drives.
Now it has another: Senator Robert Phillips Corker Jr.
On Thursday night, Senator Corker, a freshman Republican from Tennessee, pushed the U.A.W.’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, to agree in principle to tough contract concessions before the Senate Republicans would agree to provide a lifeline to General Motors and Chrysler.
But Mr. Gettelfinger, after giving ground in recent years on health care, job security and pay issues, would not agree to let the concessions take effect next year. The impasse effectively killed the chances for a $14 billion bailout package from Congress.
While the deal was lost, both Mr. Gettelfinger and Senator Corker can claim a victory of sorts, perhaps setting the stage for future showdowns.
Mr. Gettelfinger’s tough stand risked pushing the companies into bankruptcy, which would abrogate the union contracts he was trying to protect.
But on Friday, President Bush and the Treasury said they would consider using money from the $700 billion financial bailout to help automakers.
Mr. Gettelfinger needed to show he was defending his union’s members. Since he took office in 2002, the U.A.W. has given up health benefits and agreed to sweeping wage cuts, and for the bailout, it was prepared to abandon pay guarantees for workers who had lost their jobs.
Mr. Gettelfinger also appeared during Congressional hearings as more of an ally — rather than usual sparring partner — of the chief executives of Detroit’s auto companies, sitting next to them while the group endured hours of grilling.
Although his actions threatened any bailout, U.A.W. members applauded his refusal to budge further, even if it put the American auto industry at risk.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can Bush and Paulson read the damn newspaper and THINK about the policy implications of what they are doing? They are encouraging politically powerful unions to make unreasonable demands, since the taxpayer will make good on them.
Yes, they can. They seem to have chosen not to.
Preconditions to the bailout should include:
Firing of and/or cuts in union execs pay
Cessation of union spending on political issues
Agreement that Card Check will not be passed
Judge Napilitano (sp?)claimed on Fox the other day that these bailouts are unconstitutional since Congress can only spend money for “the general interest”.
If he is right, why is this not being attacked in the courts? The Libs do this all the time. And don’t tell me it’s because they have the ACLU. There have some Conservative lawyers that would do this pro bono - or at severe discounts that could be paid for with fundraisers.
Whether they are unconstitutional would depend on the judges involved. The unions and automakers would argue that preserving a very large number of jobs is in “the general interest”.
All LIES!
The UAW members gave up nothing, zilch.
The members voted to have NEW members( those hired in the future, and unable to vote on the contract) to be paid less and with fewer benefits. Those that signed the contract gave up not one dime!
The UAW said they “might” agree to “suspend” the jobs bank, but they refused to set a date for that, and refused to do away with it entirely.
Side note: With the UAW refusing to give up anything, even to save their own jobs, does anyone think the stupid card-check bill will ever pass?
I have supported GWB for all of his term, even through his many mistakes. This is the last straw. I will have lost every once of respect for this man if he bails out the loathsome Auto workers Union. The union thugs are scum and they will never give up a thing if they get the deal. Amen.
uam=Un American Workers
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The “m” should be a “w”... it WAS when I posted it!
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The no-border enforcement and Campean and Ramos did it for me!
Like you I supported GWB with votes and money for his two campaigns, but only because of the alternative.
Now Americans have elected a mystery man who will finish off what's left.
BALONEY! If they gave up anything, I want to know the details. I bet it was some insignificant concession that really doesn't cost the individual worker/retiree a penny. The way this is written, you would think they now get no health care provisions at all. Journalists need to get some guts, go a little farther and tell me the details of the union workers' and retirees' health care plan. I would be willing to bet any of us would give our eye teeth for the same coverage. I have read that it covers health and prescriptions, dental, vision and hearing FOR LIFE. I want to see an expose about the 50-something UAW retiree living in a condo on the beach in Florida, who has all his health care bills paid for life. He can have his pension. But when I start paying the bill for HIS health care plan, it is time to make them give up the Rolls Royce plan.
Like many Democrats, Gettelfinger does not understand free enterprise. To survive economically a company has to produce a competitive product in quality and price. The American taxpayer does not want to continue to pay for poor management, poor quality and workmanship, and excessive benefits, expecially if they can purchase a better product for less.
If our country keeps free enterprise and free trade, the customers would rather buy the same vehicle for thousands less elsewhere. For over 30 years the automakers have failed to compete with foreign made automobiles. Now we are being asked to pay the difference to keep them in business.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy will protect the automakers from their creditors while they restructure their industry to produce a competitive product in quality and price. That is how free enterprise works. There are plenty of people willing to buy a vehicle that is US made if it is at least on its way to being competitive, IMO.
“Gettelfinger acts as if the UAW has a contract both with the automakers and with the U.S. taxpayer, and if the automakers can’t pay for the wages and benefits, the taxpayer should make up the difference.”
At this point I think the UAW simply doesn’t care if the car makers survive. They view them simply as a convenient conduit thru which taxpayer dollars can be made to flow to union pockets. And then, of course, on to Democrat coffers.
They are nothing but mouth. Let's see what they can DO, not what they can SAY!
Bring it on!
Now this is anecdotal but I’ll pass it along for what it’s worth.
I had a neighbor where I last lived 92007) and he is a retired GM employee. He told me that as of January 1st they will no longer be covered by health insurance by GM. he is eligible and will take on medicare but the GM benefits included everything including eye care and dental.
I assume this is happening to all the retired GM workers.
I remember many years ago there was a school bus factory in Richmond, IN. You see the parking lot of spankin’ brand new buses as you drive by on I-70 many years ago. They are out of business today, why ? The union that supposedly represented the workers there ran the company into the ground. How many good paying jobs disappeared - quite a few.
I remember in Flint Michigan in the 80’s the union made demands that GM could not fill. The union would not budge and GM closed the plant.
In this grim game of chicken, the corporate entities of the Beg Three look like the losers, but as a spectacular example of union-busting, this has to rank right up there. Without a steady drain on the Treasury being established as life support, one or more of the Beg Three will surely collapse. Ford needs merely to move offshore altogether, basing out of Indonesia or Brazil, and allow the North American operations to dissolve in lawsuits that stop at the waters’ edge. GM could do very nearly the same thing, but unless Chrysler finds an offshore suitor, they are pretty much doomed.
This is part of the reason Daimler-Benz broke off their corporate relationship with Chrysler, the cost of building cars in the Chrysler plants was becoming prohibitive. Every automobile that rolls out of the doors of the plants operating with the UAW is COSTING the manufacturers several thousand dollars EACH, particularly on the smaller and supposedly more economical models. The only models that make money are the large, heavy-duty luxury vehicles, an economic fact of life that seems to escape the regulators and the UAW hierarchy altogether. The major domestic manufacturers of motor vehicles have their hands tied on this one. Small economical vehicles, which have a much lower cost of per-unit production, may be sold at a reasonable profit by the foreign manufacturers that have established a base to assemble cars in this country. The Beg Three have no such luxury available to them.
Lee Iococca (www.leeiacocca.net) has already addressed this vexing problem. He was there in the glory days at Ford Motor Company, when Henry Ford II was at the helm, and in the darkest days of Chrysler, when he almost single-handedly brought the corporation back from the brink. And that was only because of a huge give-back by UAW at that time.
>>I remember in Flint Michigan in the 80’s the union made demands that GM could not fill. The union would not budge and GM closed the plant.
Then they caved and gave the UAW more than they had asked for, in the form of 90% salaries when plants are shut down.
It’s a classic case study in MBA programs.
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