Posted on 05/06/2009 3:38:05 PM PDT by Leisler
I grew up in New York City in the 1960's and 70's. In the 60's it was totally safe for me as a kid to ride my bicycle all through Brooklyn, and my neighborhood was a safe working-to-middle class neighborhood. My mom had no problems with sending me as an 11 year old to ride the subway by myself to get to my aunt's house.
I passed through my old neighborhood 20 years later and remarked that I wouldn't want to be on foot and unarmed there. It had completely changed.
Ditto for my old neighborhood in Dallas. We kids used to walk all over the place. Now, though, the neighborhood is a war zone. I’ll let you guess what the primary difference is between Then and Now.
As the UAW moved to a monolithic position in regard to ALL of the auto companies, this hurt the smaller companies in favor of the larger ones with deeper pockets. Basically what happened was that the UAW used Studebaker as a club to beat the other auto companies until it was Studebaker that was lagging and unable to match the others in wages and benefits.
A sad,sad story of what appears to be good guys getting shafted by a union with purview over an entire industry and uninterested in 'family relation' type agreements.
Unions have a tebdency to strke places shut, and that includes cities like Detroit.
At leas the glory of America and what she once was.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Good article thanks for posting. Thanks for the ping, grellis. Convince 1/2 million FReepers and like-minded citizens from around the world to move to Detroit and you could create one of the premier cities on the planet in a relatively short amount of time.
I was born in Detroit in ‘65, since we had a family business tied in to the auto industry I grew up listening to the family talk about this very topic my whole life.
We left the city and moved to the “suburbs” (Brighton) when it became unsafe to walk to the corner store any more. Our business located down on Davison Ave. turned into Fort Apache with Constantino wire and barred windows, my father, uncle and grandfather all drove with a shotgun in the car even though it was a sure jail sentence or at least a hefty fine if they were ever pulled over.
Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen to that city now is a wind storm during a drought in August with 0% humidity and a dropped match, just let it go and start over from scratch.
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Nawlins too ???
It’s important for you younger folks to know that the Reuther brothers of UAW fame actually went to Russia in the 1930s and worked in auto factories there to study the communist system.
a quote:
At the end of the trip he wrote, “the atmosphere of freedom and security, shop meetings with their proletarian industrial democracy; all these things make an inspiring contrast to what we know as Ford wage slaves in Detroit. What we have experienced here has reeducated us along new and more practical lines.”
There are a few cities that would be a net plus if we did that to, NOL is a good example also.
It wasn't until the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1946, that businesses got some relief from FDR's henchmen.
I have seen the union scourge and listened to their justifications my whole life, and I don’t buy any of it.
I always enjoyed watching the union workers wearing their jackets around town, the coats had the huge logos on both front and back, but no where on that coat was the name of the company that signed their paychecks and put food in their families bellies.
Once someone puts the union above the employer in the food chain of importance then you might as well write him off for the rest of his employment, he is a worthless leach then.
Having worked in UAW shops for 40+ years as a salary employee, I can guarantee that most of the workers truly felt that they worked for the union, not for the company.
The union was very effective at propagandizing the workplace with a “them vs us” mentality.
If you study the history of the Reuther brothers, it’s all in the playbook.
Now the Baraqqis are going to use taxpayer money to subsidize their $3200/month retirement payments and platinum benefits.
That 'update' is 100% certified, pure-grade, tongue-in-cheek.
'Tolerant Liberal' is the Mother of all Oxymorons.
;)
bump
George and Wheezie are in the White House!
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