Bloom to Head Auto Task Force
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The Obama administration’s efforts to revive the auto industry will now have a union member at its helm. Ron Bloom, a senior adviser in the U.S. Treasury Department for auto industry restructuring, has been named to head the administration’s auto task force.
Bloom succeeds Steven Rattner, a former investment banker, who resigned after less than six months on the job.
Before moving to Treasury, Bloom served as an assistant to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard. As USW’s director of corporate research, he helped revive and restructure 50 companies in bankruptcy.
Bloom began his career negotiating union contracts for low-wage workers under AFL-CIO President John Sweeney when he was president of SEIU.
With an MBA from Harvard and experience as a vice president at the investment banking firm of Lazard Freres & Co., and his own firm Keilin and Bloom, he has extensive experience in corporate finance. While at the USW, Bloom’s restructuring plans were recognized for preserving thousands of manufacturing jobs and health care benefits for workers and retirees alike.
USW’s Bloom Takes Senior Auto Rescue Post
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During his time as the United Steelworkers’ (USW’s) director of corporate research, Ron Bloom helped revive and restructure 50 companies in bankruptcy. Now as special assistant to USW President Leo Gerard, Bloom is taking on a new assignment as senior adviser in the Treasury Department for U.S. auto industry restructuring.
Bloom began his career negotiating union contracts for low-wage workers under AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, when he was president of SEIU. Before he joined the USW, he specialized in dealing with corporations facing financial difficulties or undertaking corporate transactions. With an MBA from Harvard and experience as a vice president at the investment banking firm of Lazard Freres & Co., and his own firm, Keilin and Bloom, he has experience in corporate finance. While at the USW, his restructuring plans were recognized for preserving thousands of manufacturing jobs and health care benefits for workers and retirees alike.
Gerard says President Obama selected the “perfect negotiator, expert and innovative thinker when he chose Ron Bloom.”
Ron is very passionate in his belief that manufacturing is essential to a healthy economy. The auto industry relationship to manufacturing is as important as Goldman Sachs or Citibank is to the financial community. Ron knows this.
UAW Members Don’t ♥ Sen. Corker
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, members of the UAW have sent a “love-note” to Sen. Bob Corker, a highly conservative Republican from Tennessee.
Corker, as you recall, introduced a pay-cut amendment to the auto rescue package last December that would have required the UAW to accept deep concessions. Far be it from Corker to try to save the jobs of thousands of autoworkers at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is worsening at an alarming rate.
Members signed a giant-sized card letting Corker know what they thought of his union-busting tactics and then delivered the valentine to Corker’s Nashville office.
