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UAW: Union Willing to Go Extra Mile to Save Auto Industry |
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A small minority of Republican senators put the entire American economy in danger in an attempt to bust a union contract and drive down workers’ wages.
Last night, the Senate failed to cut off debate and vote on the House-passed $14 billion emergency bridge loan to the nation’s automakers. After the vote, the UAW made it clear it is still willing to go the extra mile to rescue the nations’ auto industry.
Republicans were demanding that workers take big cuts in pay. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a press conference this morning the Republican Senate caucus demands that workers slash wages meant
restructuring had to be done on the backs of workers and retirees. From the beginning, the UAW made it clear that all stakeholders had to be willing to make sacrifices.
He called on the White House, which supported the failed bridge loan, to use funds from the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry to provide the loan. This morning, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it is poised and ready to use part of the money to prevent the auto industry from collapsing, a move Gettelfinger endorsed.
The Associated Press reports that White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters on Air Force One:
The current weakened state of the economy is such that it could not withstand a body blow like a disorderly bankruptcy in the auto industry.
Experts predict that if even one of the Big Three automakers goes under, some 3.3 million jobs will be lost and the entire supply chain for all carmakers, including foreign-owned plants in the United States, will be seriously disrupted.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the Repuiblicans’ refusal to approve the deal is “outrageous.”
If autoworkers who are members of the UAW worked for nothing, they could not save auto companies that face a devastating cash crisis in our deep national recession. Yet a handful of Republican senators were so determined to cut workers’ living standards and scapegoat the autoworkers union that they were willing to block the bipartisan proposal for a bridge loan to the American auto industry and play Russian roulette with our economy. That is outrageous. This group of minority senators failed to act as stewards of the American public.
Gettelfinger says the union had reached an agreement with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker to make some more concessions that would allow the bill to pass, but opponents in the Republican caucus defeated the deal because a small group is trying to deny workers a voice in the workplace.
The union is the only way workers have a strong voice. The right wing has tried to paint union as a dirty word. There’s no question who the minority in the Senate was representing. They figured they could use this to strike a blow to the heart of the unions.
Writing on the AFL-CIO website, Leo Casey, a member of AFT, lays it on the line:
There is going to be an attempt to use the economic crisis to create a race to the bottom for working people that only worsens the great inequalities that have become the mainstay of the American economy over the last 25 years.
Gettelfinger adds:
When you look at the facts, it’s clear the men and women of the UAW care about their country and their industry.
24 Comments
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I think it’s ironic that W may now ride to the rescue of autoworkers.
What a mess! But I am not as quick as some to pin the blame the “handful of Republican senators” for blocking passage of the bridge loan. Bear in mind that I am a Democrat and have no great love for the Republican Party these days. But had all Democrats voted in favor of the bill, instead of either voting “nay” or not voting at all, it would have passed. We have to stop treating this as a partisan issue. It is a human issue. It is an American issue. And it must be resolved.
Hi, Joe S.
I understand your frustration, and a few Dems didn’t stand with the autoworkers. But more is involved than the final vote tally. The UAW tried to negotiate with one of the Southern Republican Senators (Corker), but the Senate Republicans opposed to the loan refused to go along with the agreement worked out because, in short, it didn’t reduce the wages of autoworkers to sufficient serfdom.
Thanks President Gettlefinger so much for standing up on the workers behalf!! I’m prouder than ever to be a UAW member!! Unions are the only hope for economic justice for workers. It’s clear the right wing hate that fact and would love to destroy us and subjugate workers to the status of disposable commodities. No rights, no safety, no decent wages, no fairness, no humanity or decency alloted to workers. These are the goals of the radical right and it’s up to the workers and people of conscience everywhere to fight and defeat them and their amoral ideology.
This is just more of Bush at work trying to destroy the unions. These REpublican senators should be voted out of office.This is all part of the plot to destroy the working class and control the people through fear. It sounds paranoid, I know, but it’s the truth. And the terrible thing is that it’s working. Bush is still in office and is making decisions that will have long range effects on us.
Tell your representatives to stop these acts and tell them in strong terms that they will be tossed out on their asses.
These southern Republican senators are a disgrace, they want to bring down workers who have for generations strived to better their ability to provide a decent quality of life for their families through collective bargaining and long strikes to the level of scab workers for foreign industries who found comfortable homes in anti worker southern states.
They lie about actual wages of these union workers and try to make the workers out as the cause of the current economic crisis, when the actual cause has been greed on the part of the banking and real estate industries and the poor business decision of the corporate owners of our remaining heavy industry.
As a former steelworker from the rust belt, I have seen first hand what the collapse of a major industrial base does to real people who once held good paying jobs and did a honest day’s work to earn those wages.
The town I grew up in was devastated by the collapse of the steel industry in America, let’s not see Detroit and Michigan have the same fate.
Save the auto industry, America needs heavy industry to provide good jobs to provide a stable quality of life to our working families.
Why did these Republican Senators not call for drastic pay cuts from the corporate robber barons in the banking industry who they gave 700 billion dollars too? Too many campaign contributions?
American union workers can compete with anybody on a level playing field. It’s clear that the difference between union American companies and non-union transplants is retiree pensions and health care, we have hundreds of thousands and they have zero. It’s outragious for Corker, McConnell and Shelby to insist we throw our retirees overboard for a loan.
Union busting has always been the goal of the anti people, conservative Republicans! They’ve been all about the rich and the rich, only. UAW members should remember this every time they go to the polls; you vote for one of them, you’re voting against yourselves.
Whoa! I’m as ready to engage in a little GOP bashing as anyone else–when it’s warranted. But given that 10 Republicans joined 42 Democrats in supporting the bridge loan, it seems to me that a small minority of Democratic senators is as responsible as a “small minority of Republican senators” for putting the economy at risk. If the Democrats could ever develop the same kind of party discipline that the Republicans wielded so successfully–and with such dire effect–the past eight years, those 10 Republicans who crossed the aisle would have made this a done deal.
In addition to already being wealthy, these senators make plenty of money. I suggest they STOP telling folks what to do and lead by example - before they require the working class to take pay cuts, let them take the same percentage pay cut they would like the UAW workers to take! Otherwise, they need to shut-up and stop the hypocrisy! Lewis Brown-Coon, Post Falls, ID
I sent the following message to my congress person:
Congressman Young:
I am at the same time deeply disappointed, and not a bit surprised that you failed to support loans to American auto manufacturing. Your party leaders spread the slander that the hourly cost of auto workers is $71.00 an hour (specifically, Mitch McConnell, who being married to the Labor Secretary, knows this to be a lie). UAW members hourly wage is already on parity with non-union workers in foreign-owned auto makers located in Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi. Any differential in total labor costs are attributable to two factors: Health Care costs and Pensions. The union has already given back on pensions, which will come in line once the retired workers drop dead (that being your party’s message to retired workers). Health care cost containment is a subject that your party has no interest in, espousing as they do, the magic of the market, which notion our current depression has disproven.
The blatant attempt by your party to bust the union will not be forgotten, nor will your party’s willingness to bail out financiers without conditions, while refusing help for 3 million American workers.
great letter
Of course, what else could we expect from our beloved Republican money hungry, self-serving, greedy,out-of-touch with reality, elected officials. The same old crap that has gotten us into this mess in the first place. Using the perils of the working class to fill their pockets again. Anybody with a pea for a brains can figure out that if the auto industry shuts down, that when they re-open( which they will), the union jobs will be gone. DUH!!!!
I was born and raised in Danville, Va., Home of Dan River Cotton Mills. Of course , thanks to these same people, no longer exists. My grandfather worked there for 43 years. He died 2 years later from brown lung, at the age of 66. Of course , this condition was never allowed to be a work place disease( due to these same people) so my grandmother got no compensation whatsoever. Southside Va., is almost nothing more than a dust bowl now because of these same people outsoursing our textile ,furniture,and tobacco jobs.
Now, they are doing the next best thing they can to just eliminating the auto industry. Union Busting. I wonder why the CEO’s have to make 22 million dollars a year? How much do these Gods need? They should be the one’s being asked to give a little back, not the middle class workers. But , of course, who are the ones who are offering to give back, Yep! The union workers!!! That is still not good enough for these jerks. All they want is to be rid of the Union.Then they could make another million or two. To hell with the children of the workers, just give me more. Well, they don’t do anything to get what they do get except make stupid decisions that steal money from the industry and put it in the hole. But who gives a damn about that or the rest of the country, just give them more, more !!!!
I hate to have give money to any big company but to save millions of American jobs it is needed. I truly think that the upper officials of these companies and the politicians who support their greedy failures should be made to step down and give back the money they have stolen from the taxpayers. thanks to them , there arn’t many tax payers left. How can you pay taxes without any jobs, and you can bet these greedy jerks won’t pay their share of taxes because the Republicans in D.C. make sure of that.
The only hope the “we the people “have is that President Obama will stick to his guns and do the right things for OUR country and the American working class.
These upper class creeps have forgotten one little thing!!! Us lower class trash are not as stupid as they think we are!!We will not fall for their reverse phycology that they are so concerned about giving tax payer money to bail out the auto industry!! All they want is to make the taxpayers have less to pay taxes on, then raise taxes on the lower figure…
I was disappointed in the Senate leadership yesterday - I think that on this issue, Reid should have kept the Senate in session and made the Republicans actually conduct a filibuster.
Once again, the consequences of philosophy of the labor union leadership that the unions are “business partners” to capitalism is exposed as unending capitulation and impotence. Capitalism is the historic enemy of working people. It always demands ia maximization of profit out of working people. Capitalist globalization has meant the continuous destruction of living standards of working people.
Some lessons to be learned. What must be done now?
1. Capitalism will not change and is getting worse for U.S. workers. Capitalism must be ended if auto workers, all working people and humanity are to survive this unending “genocide of the unprofitable”. A transition to a socialist economy that is organized to fill the economic needs of all the people is now essential..
2. If item 1 above is fully understood, a new socialist political party representing all working people must be created. The corporate and capitalist controlled Democratic Party must be abandoned and defeated. The labor movement is powerless when it cannot seriously reform or even affect the Democratic Party.
3. New tv, radio and print media must be established to reach out and educate working people about these “facts of life” under capitalism. In the the corporate controlled newspapers, tv, etc. THERE IS NOT A SINGLE NATIONAL TV PROGRAM, NEWSPAPER COLUMN, RADIO PROGRAM THAT GIVES THE POINT OF VIEW OF WORKING PEOPLE. THIS HAS BEEN THE CASE FOR DECADES. NO WONDER THERE IS A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, INTEREST IN UNIONS, OR ANY UNDERSTANDING AS TO WHY WE ARE BEING DESTROYED ECONOMICALLY, WHY THERE ARE UNENDING WARS, WHY NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, ETC.
4. The new working people’s party should conduct meetings to discuss and organize action on the many crises in various areas (economics, education, environment) and seek out candidates for office who can represent their needs. .
The major crises we face cannot be addressed without understanding that global capitalism is the primary cause of these problems. Capitalist businesses that are profitable but cause vast pollution must be put out of business. War is waged for profit for the military-industrial complex, for resources, etc. The 700 foreign bases must be shutdown. Remove all troops in foreign countries. The military must be used only for defense and not for imperialist wars that kills millions of people so that Exxon can make historic profits.
5. The drastic cut in the military budget is absolutely essential to restore funding to education, health care, public transportation etc. that working people need to survive. Working people, given capitalism’s drive to maximize profits,
cann NEVER afford to “pay” for all the public systems being destroyed and privatized.
6. The narrowly defined fundtion of trade unions, of trying to get the ‘living wage” income and benefits out of employers, SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK TODAY..
A final comment from a socialist perspective.
Bush, Democratic auto bailout fails in Senate, talks continue
By Jerry White
12 December 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/auto-d12.shtml
JerryWells,
You are right on point with item number 3!! Where is the voice of the Union Story? Where is the Fair and Balanced argument which stands up for the Working Family? The SILENCE of our story is all part of some plan,, a plan that is going down all around us. There has never been a time in this 21st Century when the working class has been faced with a Bigger Fight pushed right in their Face! And yet the response is SILENCE… WAIT, and WATCH IT HAPPEN? Why, because we have failed to EDUCATE OUR MEMBERS!!
TOO BUSY TO PAY ATTENTION?? It will be too late to WAKE UP when YOUR JOB IS GONE!! It’s time to STEP UP and be a part of this CHANGE or YOU will be waking up in a different world! YOU don’t have much time to learn about the History of the Labor Movement here in the 21st Century, but if you don’t get on board real quick, the next lesson won’t be any surprise. We will simply be repeating history just like they said we would. Get with it LABOR!! Step Up and TAKE CONTROL NOW, or you will be CONTROLED from here on out!! WAKE UP!! Become a part of your LABOR MOVEMENT or WATCH IT DIE, NOW IT’s YOUR CHOICE!
The final punishment by the current administration and its followers to Michigan and Ohio for voting BLUE. To think that some of our members voted for this administration not once but twice!
I want to see a list posted of all the senators that killed this bill! I get tired of hearing republicans killed this labor bill and that one! it is time to mention who is killing what BY NAME and by there STATE!
I hate to be repetititive but I saw that Harry Reid, leader of the beloved Democrats, voted AGAINST the bill. How could he “lead” negotiations for a piece of legislation that he didn’t support? They he runs the blame-game to avoid any accountability. Time for a Labor Party!
Why don’t all AFL-CIO affiliates take some sort of collective action in support of the UAW? A national sick-out or wildcat strike maybe. Its gut-check time!
FYI: An alternative to impoverishment and defeat of auto workers and all working people.
A socialist policy for auto workers
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party
15 December 2008
“Against the backdrop of threatened bankruptcy of the US auto companies and a deepening recession, Congress and the White House are preparing an historic attack on the working class. The American ruling elite sees the economic crisis as an opportunity to carry out a fundamental restructuring of class relations in America, destroying whatever remains of the gains made in struggle by previous generations of workers.
Whatever the differences between the various factions in Washington, all insist that workers’ living standards must be slashed if the auto industry is to remain “viable.” What they really mean is that work force exploitation must be intensified. Workers must be forced to accept their own impoverishment to make a downsized auto industry a profitable source of investment for the financial elite.
…”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/auto-d15.shtml
Is it not time with the struggles of this country of being OUT of control for the Uion member to come up with a sulution themselves on what they are willing to compermise on. How about cuts all the way around on what is needed to keep everyones jobs, with steps on coming back to rate as the ecomony comes back. Lay-off with a skelaton crew to remachine on the needs of the ecomomy to vechles needed or wanted to the market that will sell. This is a time to show the power of a Uion that can work together as Patriotic America’s Uionised.
TO THE CENSORS: Apparently, this is not a free speech forum. Criticism of union officials who are selling out workers is not welcome? IMO, until we get the skunks out, we have no union movement.
SHE HULK
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