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Corporate Class War: Pit Worker Against Worker |
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Q. Why is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds OK if the recipients are Wall Street corporations but not OK if they are Midwest automakers?
A. Automakers are unionized.
As discussion about the Detroit auto industry’s requests for a bridge loan roils throughout the media, a strikingly class-based argument has emerged by Republican ideologists, Big Business apologists and others who oppose saving America’s automakers.
Here’s The Jed Report’s take on one such example, that of Republican Rep. Zack Wamp, who seems to have forgotten that his own health care, retirement benefits and other “legacy” perks are paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
GOP Congressman Zach Wamp (a likely candidate for governor in Tennessee) explains the Republican economic philosophy to Chris Matthews:
1. Low wages are a good thing.
2. The less health care the better.
3. It’s time to let people learn their lessons the hard way.
Wamp didn’t mention one thing: Even though he opposes bridge loans to the blue-collar auto industry, he supported the $700 billion bailout for the white-collar financial industry.
Wamp told Matthews:
Volkswagen just invested in Tennessee, in a right-to-work state, at a low-cost, with less health care. Why should we prop others up, when other companies can compete in this marketplace?…It’s time to let these people learn the lesson the hard way.
“These people,” whom the bridge loan would enable to continue at their jobs, are hard workers who have helped make the United States strong, whose wages and benefits helped form the core of the nation’s vital middle class.
Some pundits are pitting the North against the South in an attempt to stir up animosity between those in right-to-work-for-less states whose auto jobs do not offer health coverage or retirement security and the UAW members whose hard-fought contracts helped create the middle class.
And then there’s Brian Williams over at “NBC Nightly News,” who yesterday waxed eloquent about the efficiency of foreign automakers in the South who “don’t have to pay” health care or retirement for their workers, and therefore are much more competitive than the Big Three.
It’s in the interest of corporate giants like GE-owned NBC to support 21st century peonage by hailing conglomerations that provide bare-bones wages with no health care, retirement or other basics. It’s also in their interest to pit worker against worker, region against region, in their quest for ever-more compliant and low-paid employees.
It’s in the corporate interest to wage class war by setting members of the working and middle class against each other.
We must not let them get away with it.
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Knowledge and skills have been in non union staes or otherwise called right to work ;yes right to work fr no benefits or health care and low wages at poverty level would all the rich republican s like that rich get richer with all classes of people be used for slave labor what i call it. Been union member all my life and past 4 generations. WAKE up America union people gave and fought for every right work week,holidays.health care,at least a living wage by each state standard. no union places get same bids; pay less and keep more. GET EDUCATED THRU UNIONS TRAINING FOR QUALITY WORK DONE AT REASONABLE SAFE JOB HAVE SEEN AND FIXED COMPLETE MESS NON UNIONS HAVE PRODUCEED IN MY 31 YEARS.
The working class, Union and none-Union are waking up as we continue losing our jobs, homes, and wealth as a nation. The BAILOUT of wall street shout right through with few or no guide lines. What a joke! The banks are doing right out of the goodness of their heart. Come on give us a break! Yes I think we must help our big three auto companies. Yes I believe congress will but when is mainstreets bailout coming. Not so “Free Trade” is at the root of this problem and Cororaptions and Washington knows it. Americans must help Americans or we will all be Foreign owned.
I am NORMALLY against bailouts of all sorts because I believe when you reward failure, you receive more failure.
The problem this time around though is that the tough times the auto manufacturers are going through is not entirely their fault which makes me think that we have to make an exception.
My problem though is that if we bailout the auto manufacturers and others and don’t fix the problem, all of you will still be in the same exact boat.
The actual problem is that we have put 20 to 40 MILLION people out of work in America or reduced their wages so that they have no excess to spend.
I write about these items at http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com frequently and I would like to invite you to read the articles “Your wages do matter” and “A global Economy”
I could use your help in promoting this site because if we do not put an end to the offshoring of our labor, their will be no more america left in my opinion.
Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com
The politicians from these southern states have given millions in tax breaks to these foreign transplants in the south , but oppose giving aid to the domestics- a bit hypocritical? I guess it’s legitimate in their eyes to give government aid to Toyota and Honda but not the big 3? If they are going to be ideologues, they should try to be consistent. Either give government aid to all auto makers or don’t give it to any and recend the tax breaks to the foreign transplants. They also call healthcare for workers “socialistic” but receive gilded pay and benefits from the government paid for by us. I think they need to become “competetive” and give up their healthcare and cut their salary in half.
Are auto workers being screwed again? For a socialist perspective from WSWS :
US auto union offering major contract concessions
By Barry Grey
22 November 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/uawl-n22.shtml
“The Detroit Free Press reported Friday that the United Auto Workers union (UAW) is secretly negotiating with the Big Three US automakers to revise current contracts in accordance with demands from both Democratic and Republican leaders that major concessions be imposed on auto workers in return for any government loan to avert bankruptcy by one or more of the companies.
The Free Press said that the UAW was offering to end the jobs bank program that allows laid-off union workers to receive 95 percent of their wages and benefits, and is considering other concessions.”
Bravo ! It’s OK, now, to admit there’s a class war going on. What strides those in the House of Labor are taking ! Next thing you know, we’ll be repudiating those labor-management cooperation agreements and their derivative concession and take-back schemes, followed by shutdown-and-move-overseas free trade agreements. This class war is global, but labor is stationery, while capital is mobile - and corrupt beyond mere criminality.
Why bail out a global corporation? It’s not as though GM were an American company. The last time the UAW cut their benefits and wages to help out the big three they were rewarded by plant closings
and massive layoffs. The profits were used to build plants in other countries to take advantage of cheap labor and no enviro problems.
The big 3 became “global” with no regard to American workers or their families so why come to us with tin cup in hand?
You are the first person I have seen with that argument against the bailout and that argument is the first I would seriously consider. Can you give me some sources to check what you said, I am genuinely interested.
GM is not in trouble because of union contracts but because domestic Honda and BMW factories DO NOT work under collectively bargained contracts. GM would be perfectly viable and perfectly able to repay any loan in full (which CITI bank may not) — if the foreign brands manufacturing on American soil pay their American workers the same pay and benefits that GM pays — if American adopts the kind of anti-race to the bottom labor legislation that is in place in almost all first world labor markets and is spreading to second (e.g., Argentina) and third world (e.g., Indonesia) labor markets: SECTOR-WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS.
It’s all about a cure for race to the bottom — a condition that is an epidemic in the American economy and not allowed almost anywhere else in the first world. Think sector-wide labor agreements. American labor has to wake up and realize that the race to the bottom in any labor market — competing by how little you pay your workers — is exactly the same kind of power squeeze as monopoly power. By law in most of modern Europe and many nations around the world firms can no longer compete that way.
These laws mandate sector-wide labor agreements — wherein everyone doing the same kind of work in the same locale (can be a whole country for some industries) works under a single collectively bargained contracts (I presume this ends the use of scabs who have no contract). That is the most comprehensive German version, anyway.
The French and French-Canadian “lite” version would be easy for the USA to adopt. Under it non-union firms simply work under conditions worked out with union firms. We could break it in with just certain industries (supermarket and airline workers would kill for sector wide — if anyone would ever inform them of the possibility).
A coiffed and manicured Senator from the south bemoaned the fact that the Big Three have to provide severance packages to workers who are laid off. He went on to say that Toyota and Honda plants located in the south have no such obligation and can just get rid of workers without paying them anything.
What the bourbon-and-branch drinker forgot to say is that when Toyota and Honda scuttle workers, those people are forced into relying on public assistance in order to get by. The dollars for public assistance are tax dollars! While there is certainly nothing wrong with helping people in need, it is absolutely ridiculous that taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab when Toyota and Honda treat workers so shabbily. [Southern] politicians and some GOP loonies to the north have let Toyota and Honda off the hook! Out of one side of their faces they cry about using tax dollars for the Big Three bailout, but out of the other side of their faces they cut deals that relieved Toyota and Honda of their responsibility. The deals they cut obligate taxpayers and excuse Toyota and Honda.
As the old saying goes:
“How can you tell if a politician is lying?”
“If their lips are moving”.
There is another way out for the “Big 3″ - nationalize them, at least partially. We have to face the economic fact that there are simply too many cars being made for global demand, especially american demand. The recent ecomomic collapse has made this worse and, of course, management in Detroit steered their companies into this corner by all but abandoning the compact and sub-compact markets. So, what other options are there besides a bailout or a bankruptcy? neither one is good for anybody in the long run. A bailout perpetuates and rewards management’s lack of smart management, and a bankruptcy will destroy the unions and the employees themselves.
However, we do need the industrial capacity and workforce of Detroit to make things we really need, like transit trains, buses, wind turbines, and solar panels. Either take unprofitable plants off the hands of the automakers directly, or take partial ownership of the companies and direct production at those plants. It worked in WWII and could work now, but not so long as the UAW continues to bargain away its existence and nobody challenges the basic assumptions of the free market.
I did not hear any Senator question any Banker, Broker Ceo or Ceo of AIG how they got to Washington D.C. I’m betting on Corporate Jets, to get their bailout money and they did not have to beg for their blank checks to spend as they wish.
Blank check bailouts to AIG Party boys And Gambling Bankers and Brokerages that are suddenly banks.
But hell no for hard asset manufactures that support millions of middle class blue collar working families.
Charles N. Blume
1140 N. Mitthoeffer Rd.
Indianapolis In 46229
I’ve been a union pipefitter since 1967. I wouldn’t give the auto companies a dime. Who do they think they are just showing up and wanting taxpayer money. When they come back with a plan as to how they are going to use the money to build cars that people can get excited about they will get a bail out. The CEO’s and the board of directors should be replaced for all three companies. The companies have been miss-managed for the last 60 years. Obama isn’t going to let the UAW down but free handouts for management isn’t going to happen. Trick or treat was last month.
It’s easy for the elite business class and those who think they are to blame unions for just about everything. Perhaps the time is right for
unions and their members to buy into the auto business and others; to become significant investors in the Big 3 auto companies as part owners.
Ya know, I been rememberin… we bailed out Chrysler during Iacoka, they did ok, prices? hmm as i search online for cars, I see no significant price difference between a non-union VW, Saturn, or BMW and a Monte Carlo, or an Explorer or Dodge Ram of similar class.
I remember living in AZ, I went to apply for a job at a non-union company, during the interview, I asked the general manager what benefits they offer, he retorted, “We offer a paycheck every 2 weeks, and workers compensation.” hmmm the minimum requirements by law!