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Gettelfinger: Urgent Need for Federal Aid to Save Auto Industry |
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UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is calling for quick government action to help the auto industry, its workers and retirees.
Gettelfinger and the CEOs of the nation’s major auto companies met yesterday on Capitol Hill with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to discuss ways to revive the auto industry, which lost 39,000 jobs in August.
Says Gettelfinger:
There is an urgent need for federal assistance—not just for our members, but for millions of workers and retirees and for thousands of companies who depend on the auto industry for jobs, retirement benefits and revenue.
It is essential that the federal government act to prevent further damage to a critical industry ,which supports billions of dollars worth of economic activity in cities and towns all across the country.
He called for the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve to take steps to provide liquidity to auto manufacturers so they can get through the difficulties caused by an across-the-board decline in auto sales.
The sales drop, Gettelfinger says, is driven by consumer reaction to tough economic times and a lack of affordable credit for big purchases. As if to underscore Gettelfinger’s analysis, Ford announced today that it lost $129 million last quarter and will cut about 2,260 more nonunion white-collar employees in North America.
Congress also should act immediately, said Gettelfinger, to provide an additional $25 billion in loans so that auto companies can meet their health care obligations to more than 780,000 retirees and dependents.
Strategic assistance to a critical manufacturing industry makes sense for U.S. taxpayers. The alternative is lost jobs, business failures and a shortfall in pension and health care obligations—all of which will cost far more in the future than the assistance we are requesting now.
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We have a 850 billion dollar bailout going on right now that is suppose to help the credit problems,I don’t see it working and I doubt very much bailing out the auto industry will stop the problems thay are having. Maybe if the US Auto industry had not outsourced jobs to Mexico and other countries and not laid off thousands of American Employees,people that live in this country might be able to afford their products.As non-union as Henry Ford was he knew enough to pay his employee’s an amount large enough they could afford to own what they built.Bring the jobs back to the US and pay the employee’s a living wage and the Auto Industry will revive.
I think you guys should save your own. The peoples directly concerned with the health of the industry can use their own money to insure future of these firms. The number of affected people has been listed in the millions (3 - 10) choosing a middle of the road number, 6.5 million and assuming an average investment of $10,000 each = 65,000,000,000 (65 billion dollars) This money with wage and benefit cuts should allow the industry to survive and become much stronger for the experience.
Globalization has destroyed FOREVER good-paying living wage jobs. Under capitalism, when a profit-making business goes broke, they should fold and not be re-financed to continue to suppoy the owners with profits! If it is lousy greedy and corrupt management, the companies perhaps should be socialised (nationalized) and worker management to be installed. Perhaps the plant could be retooled for producing public transportation vehicles, sustainable green energy poducts, etc. The inenvitable maximizationof profit forever demands that less profitable but needed produts never get made. U.S. and European car companies cannot compete with China and India and still provide “living wage” jobs. China and India maintain impoverished slave wage conditions to their workers.
We, working people of U.S. and world, must demand the end of gangster capitalism. We all need an economy focused on filling the needs of all the people for affordable products, paying working people living wage jobs.
The entire society (not the job) should supply everyone with a single-payer health insurance, free public education through college, affordable housing for all, etc.
To do this we must end wars for profit, for oil. that has destroying the public funding of the schol system, public health, etc.
Next socialize the entire energy sector. Nationalize the oil, coal, nuclear, gas and electricity industries. As it is the oil comanies, for example, have made historic profits by jacking up gasoline prices. With all their profits, nothing is done still on the pollution that continues.
Obama’s “transition” team is made up of the very capitalist gangsters who have brought this country and it’s people to their knees. Obama and the Democratic Party will be a continuation of the golden rule: GOLD RULES.
To find out what is really happening, shut off the brain washing machine called television , and read daily stories such as this on WSWS.:
Obama reassures big business on economic policy
By Patrick Martin
8 November 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/obam-n08.shtml
“In his first public appearance as president-elect, Barack Obama held a press conference in Chicago Friday afternoon after meeting for several hours with a selected group of economic advisers, comprised entirely of bankers, corporate executives and current and former government officials.
Members of Obama’s Transitional Economic Advisory Board and other economic advisers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Clinton-era treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive Robert Rubin, were lined up behind Obama as he answered questions from reporters.”
…
“As during the campaign, Obama avoids any exposure, let alone condemnation, of the social interests which are responsible for the economic crisis and which underlie the policies of the Bush administration.”
If the USA bailes the Auto big two or three out this time there should be strings keeping production in the USA.
Thank you JerryWells for the comment and the World Socialist article. It is more than disheartening to hear union leaders beg for a bailout from big business and government. Shouldn’t they be demanding more? And haven’t we learned yet that capitalism is not good for the working class? A good starting point for any support for the auto industry would be for the UAW to demand an ownership interest or outright ownership; for the workers to control the means of production. Protecting pensions through the PBGC isn’t enough. There is no guarantee the feds won’t default. The auto industry unions failed to demand change when consumers started buying more fuel efficient vehicles; now the dinosaur US auto industry faces extinction. Is it too late to adapt and change and is the UAW in any position to make the necessary changes?
Obama owes labor big time for his victory; hwas elected largely because of the union vote and labor’ GOTV work. He owes us more than just token reforms or EFCA. While he may not be a socialist, or even a ‘progressive’ that doesn’t mean we have to sit back and stop making demands for social progress. Capitalism is a decrepit wreck; the time for labor partnering with a sinking ship is over. The futiure demands a socialist alternative.
I don’t want my tax dollars going to bail out manufacturers of SUVs, gas guzzling cadilacs, the coal industry or the nuclear industry. Taxpayers are already on the hook for the decommissioning costs of nuclear plants, so let’s shut them all down now.
This would not be a bailout like with the banks. These would be “loans”. The stipulation will be to use any money for development. Japan has been subsidizing their auto industry all along. Yet if American auto companies need help, everyone is ready to kick them in the face and watch their Union brothers & sisters, who put 30 plus years of their lives into this, lose their pensions & health care. This is Solidarity? How can you people call yourselves Union People when you are ready to stomp on your Union brothers the first and only time these companies have asked for help? Chrysler got loans in the 80’s and they were paid back with interest. Now, when GM & Ford need help, you are all ready to say “die!!!” while the banks rape the country.
So many comments! Alas, there are also too many I, me, and mine remarks. Some of the remarks are highly hypocritical. Let’s not try to kid anyone: If it was your job that was on the line, if it was the well-being of your family that was at stake, if unemployment meant losing your home, and health insurance for you and your family, you’d be in favor of a government bailout. Big time!
“Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
All you “Reagan Democrats” helped usher in deregulation, and unrestrained, greedy, “free market” trade policies. People who say that “globalism” is the culprit have bought into the neoconservative con game. Hey! The world has had foreign trade for thousands of years. China sent silk to India, and India sent spices back to China.
Tour the waterfronts of the U.S. They have been there for a couple of hundred years or more. Although now highly automated, they nonetheless function as originally intended; to move import and export cargo.
In other words, “globalism” has been around for a long, long time. Here’s the problem: The working class allowed corporate America to re-define the word “globalism”. We did it when we voted for anti-working class politicians.
By succeeding in getting working class people to vote against our own best interests, neoconservatives were on their way! Remember, it was the Reagan “legacy” that ushered in the “me” generation. Working class people forgot their roots and instead bought into the Lone Ranger clap-trap. “Look out for number one and you’ll be okay”, they promised. At the time they told us that lie, 22% of America’s workforce was organized. Today, we’re down to 12%, and they are threatening to move more jobs offshore.
The recent elections provide some evidence that U.S. workers are finally waking up to the fact that we’ve been conned.
Unfortunately, a few states such as South Carolina still vote against their own best interests. The state has a high rate of illiteracy, a lousy health care system, and higher than average unemployment. Yet and still, it continues to vote for disciples of Reagan. What are they getting for their “loyalty” to the tight-wing? Wake up South Carolina. Wake up Alabama. Wake up Mississippi. Wake up Utah. Wake up people and start voting in your own best interests. Here’s a little hint for you: The GOP does not represent your best interests. It represents corporate America. The evidence is all around you. Open your eyes and take a look!
Back to the bailout: As distasteful as it might be, we can not sit by and watch our fellow workers lose their jobs. An injury to one is an injury to all.
That is only a stop-gap measure. Things will only get worse if we fail to become involved in seeking solutions. One thing we must do is tell Congress that people are more important than dividends to wealthy stockholders. In addition, phony trade agreements must be amended or scrapped. As currently written, they allow our jobs to move offshore. That must end!
America needs quality, affordable health care for everyone. We must demand single-payer, privately delivered, publicly financed health care! Government funds must be spent to re-build our decaying infrastructure. By doing that, millions of union jobs paying family-sustaining wages will be created.
A recovery will not be possible, however, unless we stop blowing billions of dollars every month on the illegal war on Iraq. We must bring our troops safely home. And we must demand that the shadow “army” employed by private contractors leave Iraq immediately.
We have the power.
Corporate America and their minions in Congress try to divide us and weaken us.
They have been winning.
Now it’s our turn.
All we’re demanding is fairness.
We can’t do it unless we are united.
Hold your nose. Accept the bailout. Help workers save their jobs.
After Obama is inaugurated we must then become active in helping him achieve pro-people objectives. And that includes the people in South Carolina!
I couldn’t agree with you more. Well put.
I know first hand how hard the auto workers put everything they had into their jobs, along with pride and commitment. The steel and mining industry workers did the same, loyal to the bitter end. The original bailout of Wall street was pushed through so no one could see the fine print. Now CEOs are up to their old tricks again. You just can’t trust them. But it is easy to see how deregulation enabled them to do whatever they wanted, and get away with the greediest of schemes. A bailout for the auto industry is necessary, but the guidelines have to be very clear. Obama is aware that he cannot force this issue upon Congress before he is inaugurated, but at least he’s putting it out there. I will do whatever I can to support him, and support American workers. We have all been down much too long!
Yes! Yes! Yes! So eloquently put my patriot. I have almost given up hope that Americans will see through the GOP claptrap and recognize what their policies really mean to Americans…a lower standard of living for Americans in order to raise the standard of living for the developing world. It is all about money…the more consumers the masters of the universe can create, the greater the corporate profit. There is absolutely no concern for the American citizen, the ONLY goal is a rise in corporate profits. Globalization is the same thing as imperialism, the same thing as mercantilism…it is just touting a new label for a new era. There is nothing wrong with global trade AS LONG AS TRADE POLICIES ARE FAIR and provides mutual benefits. Unfortunately our leaders have not sought to ensure fair trade for decades in this country because PAC groups, lobbyists and Wallstreet have influenced every policy and their ONLY goal is profit, not fairness to the people. When our companies fail to outperform their competitors, because the rules of the game are fixed in favor of their competitiors, they are punished mercilessly, labeled as losers, poor managers, and purposely driven out of business. Americans have never been afraid to compete but we must DEMAND fairness in the rules of competition, something our leaders have failed to do, and it can only be done if American’s organize! The management of GM and Ford sought a balance between profit and employee benefits/pay because the UAW demanded it, thus Wallstreet must punish them because they refused to play by their rules…create profit at the sacrifice of employees. Why is Wallstreet screaming for the big three to file bankruptcy? The answer is simple, the losers will be the employees as pensions and healthcare contracts are wiped out. The union will be further weakened and companies will diligently try to avoid unionization. Why does Wallstreet scream about the Americans Free Choice Act…they say it is because the employee deserves a “secret ballot”, the truth is it will weaken the employers ability to intimidate and discourage employees who seek to unionize. Support your fellow worker, your neighbor, your friends….American workers need to join together to demand their rights and interest are protected.
All of you make a lot of sense and no the UAW did not cause this,but just as a reminder and I am not a Republican, your so called friends in the Democratic Party are just as guilty as the Republicans.So long as all of you are unwilling to help get a thrid party going that actually works for the benefit of the people nothing will change.I hope all of you are as proud of President-Elect Obama two years from now as you are today,but I would bet you will be no better off.You have been promised a whole lot of things he can not and will not deliver on.