Time to Secede

[prole]

By sinking the auto bailout, the Southern Republicans just shot another hole through the hull of USS United States of America in a cynical, purely ideologically driven effort to bust the UAW. Real smart. I'm honestly astonished at the complete disregard for reasoned analysis and foresight, their utter dereliction and abandonment of political leadership. Truly epic. In all seriousness, if I had any investments right now, I'd sell them and buy gold.

[Fairweather]

The UAW could have agreed to wage concessions before 2011 too--but they didn't. Just pay your bills for a change and shut the fuck up.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Fairweather

[prole]

My bills are fine. Paid off the credit card in full a couple months ago. Feels good. As far as "shut the fuck up" goes, I've noticed that you've been shut the fuck up for a couple months now. Why is that? Have you any opinions about how badly the ideas you've been espousing around here have screwed this country and the rest of the world on a scale not seen in our (or most of our parents') lifetimes? Any ideas on that Fairweather? Or will you just stick with the bottom feeding, trite, easy shit: the guns, abortion, petty corruption and daily tabloid hypocrisies? Are you in denial? Were you misled? Any thoughts on the way forward? Stock tips? Bushmeat recipes?

[prole]

The UAW could have agreed to wage concessions before 2011 too--but they didn't. Just pay your bills for a change and shut the fuck up.

 

The UAW has been giving up concessions for 25 years, you dumb cluck.

[Fairweather]

The UAW could have agreed to wage concessions before 2011 too--but they didn't. Just pay your bills for a change and shut the fuck up.

 

The UAW has been giving up concessions for 25 years, you dumb cluck.

 

Yes. Exactly.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Fairweather

[dmuja]

...Republicans just shot another hole through the hull of USS United States of America in a cynical, purely ideologically driven effort to bust the UAW. Real smart..

 

 

Look at the positives.. 20% unemployment, a new depression, the end of the Amerikan Empire.. Da revolution will be televised and we can now look forward to the Socialist Republic of the United States!

 

Good riddance to the republifucks (the very definition of "complete assclowns"!).

[bradleym]

By sinking the auto bailout, the Southern Republicans just shot another hole through the hull of USS United States of America in a cynical, purely ideologically driven effort to bust the UAW. Real smart. I'm honestly astonished at the complete disregard for reasoned analysis and foresight, their utter dereliction and abandonment of political leadership. Truly epic. In all seriousness, if I had any investments right now, I'd sell them and buy gold.

 

Hi, I'm the guy who thought building the Hummer would be a fantastic idea. I'm a little embarrassed for cash right now, but its only temporary, I promise, so could I have a few billion?

[STP]

Doesn't seem so clear cut as as a Republican vs Democrat thing.

 

On the financial bailout, the House Republicans rejected the bill but the bill was taken up by the Senate, modified and passed, then sent back to the House of Representatives.

 

Here, the House of Representatives passed the auto bailout bill but the Senate Republicans and some Democrats denied its passage. Looks like more work remains to be done.

 

The Bush administration ended up supporting both bills.

[Fairweather]

 

Good riddance to the republifucks (the very definition of "complete assclowns"!).

 

Maybe if you would try peeling back a couple layers from time to time you would have a more nuanced view of how this thing happened.

[marylou]

Maddow made a good point last night on her show--no one asked the bank employees to take a pay cut.

[Peter_Puget]

These guys just got a pay cut!

[mkporwit]

Maddow made a good point last night on her show--no one asked the bank employees to take a pay cut.

Actually that's not a very good point. The bank employees are not unionized and don't have a contract. Should the bank deem that a wage cut is necessary they will simply impose one, take it or leave it.

 

The UAW has a contract for certain wages, which can only be renegotiated out of the kindness of their hearts or in bankruptcy court. A unilateral attempt by GM to cut their wages would be deemed illegal.

[G-spotter]

No one with an IQ over 60 has bought a Big-Three auto in years anyways because THEY ARE SHIT.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

No one with an IQ over 60 has bought a Big-Three auto in years anyways because THEY ARE SHIT.

 

bullshit

[hafilax]

They sell lots of trucks.

[marylou]

Maddow made a good point last night on her show--no one asked the bank employees to take a pay cut.

Actually that's not a very good point. The bank employees are not unionized and don't have a contract. Should the bank deem that a wage cut is necessary they will simply impose one, take it or leave it.

 

The UAW has a contract for certain wages, which can only be renegotiated out of the kindness of their hearts or in bankruptcy court. A unilateral attempt by GM to cut their wages would be deemed illegal.

 

Sorry, did not think I needed to explain all of that...

[prole]

Good riddance to the republifucks (the very definition of "complete assclowns"!).

 

The golden parachute.

 

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

By sinking the auto bailout, the Southern Republicans just shot another hole through the hull of USS United States of America in a cynical, purely ideologically driven effort to bust the UAW. Real smart. I'm honestly astonished at the complete disregard for reasoned analysis and foresight, their utter dereliction and abandonment of political leadership. Truly epic. In all seriousness, if I had any investments right now, I'd sell them and buy gold.

 

Hi, I'm the guy who thought building the Hummer would be a fantastic idea. I'm a little embarrassed for cash right now, but its only temporary, I promise, so could I have a few billion?

 

From a profitibality standpoint, building all those SUVs WAS a fantastic idea. Remember who buys all those gas guzzlers. Like government, we get the auto industry we deserve.

[Jim]

The UAW could have agreed to wage concessions before 2011 too--but they didn't. Just pay your bills for a change and shut the fuck up.

 

There is a definite contrast between this potential bailout and the financial services. The banks got money with virtually no strings attached - shit - the GAO just said that the Fed did not even set up a system to track the money properly. Given that the financial sector set us back an order of magnitude larger than this car deal, how come there is no "Bank Czar" to keep tabs on things or a push to limit executive pay and bonuses. Hell - the banks are allowed to pay executive bonuses and dividends to shareholders with our money. WTF! How can they be paying dividends if they are in such dire straits.

 

The assclown Republicans are real wingnuts on this one.

[Skeezix]

F-f-f-f-fuck 'em all!

[marylou]

Senate to banks: here's 700 Billion. Fix it.

 

Senate to UAW: no money until your auto workers, who did not make the poor choices that put the US auto industry in peril, agree to lower their wages to match the wages the scabs in the South make. Oh, and UAW workers? Fuck you.

 

(what R Senators are doing is called, in negotiations, the "most favored nation" argument, and it's as petty and insincere in this context as it is in a traditional bargaining environment.)

[G-spotter]

No one with an IQ over 60 has bought a Big-Three auto in years anyways because THEY ARE SHIT.

 

[Peakpimp]

Senate to UAW: no money until your auto workers, who did not make the poor choices that put the US auto industry in peril, agree to lower their wages to match the wages the scabs in the South make. Oh, and UAW workers? Fuck you.

 

 

 

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."

Leo Tolstoy

[Hugh Conway]

Fairweather always piping up like the good lapdog of his economic superiors.

 

Do they give you a reach around? Must be some compensation for living in Tacoma.

 

Labour accounts for $800 of a Detroit vehicle. It isn't the problem. Now go suck some more rich dick

[prole]

No one with an IQ over 60 has bought a Big-Three auto in years anyways because THEY ARE SHIT.

 

 

Thanks for the Canadian perspective.

 

Beyond Wage Cuts, Beyond the Bailout

Sam Gindin for the Windsor Star

 

The global crisis quickly engulfing us threatens to become the worst

since the Great Depression, and this means that past ways of doing

things need to be fundamentally rethought. But Gord Henderson’s focus

on wage cuts for autoworkers (Windsor Star, November 20, 2008) is the

absolutely wrong way to go ­ that much we already learned from the

1930s, when competitive cuts in workers’ wages only aggravated the

depression. When Henderson responds to CAW President Ken Lewenza’s

defence of workers’ wages with a glib “Tell that to all those low-wage

Mexican autoworkers,” what exactly does this mean?

 

In the face of the general concern that consumers are retrenching (and

business consequently holding back investments), how much sense does

it make to advocate autoworkers setting a pattern for lower wages and

less purchasing power? And what kind of notion of progress and vision

for the future does the target of Mexican wage standards suggest?

 

The fact is that Canadian hourly compensation in the auto industry is

now below the U.S., at about par with Japan and less than three

quarters of hourly compensation in Germany (U.S. Bureau of Labour data

for 2006, adjusted for current exchange rates). Because the industry

is integrated into the American industry, Canada is affected by the

higher costs in the U.S., particularly which of health care. But here,

too, the answer is hardly to blame the workers, but rather to point to

the social and economic stupidity of the U.S. not having the kind of

single-payer public health care system that is common in the rest of

the developed world.

 

Union Shortfalls

 

Where the union can be blamed is not in what it has achieved for

working people, but in its refusal to play a leading role in

challenging the direction of the industry, especially in terms of its

laggard move to fuel-efficient, non-polluting vehicles. Saving future

jobs ­ and also addressing the thousands of lost jobs of former

members whom the bailout won’t bring back ­ necessitates correcting

that earlier shortcoming in two specific ways.

 

First, as absolutely essential as the bailout is, it won’t end the

crisis in the auto industry even if the Detroit-based companies adjust

their models. That’s because the industry has so much excess capacity

and slow growth will characterize at least the next few years, if not

beyond. This means that even as the union lobbies to achieve the

bailout, it needs to raise its perspective beyond auto. It needs to

start thinking about the application of existing facilities and skills

to a larger set of products. Here, the environment re-enters, but

rather than being a threat to jobs it holds out the potential of

adding jobs. If the environment is going to be seriously addressed in

this century, it will mean changing not just the kind of cars we drive

and how they are powered, but everything about how we work, consume,

travel, live. To that end, auto’s assembly, component and tool and die

shops, along with its body of skilled and committed workers, are an

asset that can be converted into producing wind turbines, solar

panels, parts for mass transit vehicles, more energy-sensitive

industrial machinery and more energy efficient home appliances.

 

Second, we need to move from thinking about saving the auto industry

to saving communities. The auto industry is concentrated into

particular communities that, like Windsor, were in crisis well before

GM asked for a bailout. What’s at issue is not just hanging on to jobs

in auto (which, as productivity grows, will continue to decrease over

time even with a bailout) but also finding productive jobs for all

those already unemployed or looking for their first job. To address

this crisis in the community means not only introducing new car models

and addressing the kind of conversions of Windsor’s vast productive

potential raised above, but also fixing and expanding Windsor’s

deteriorated infrastructure (like other municipalities, Windsor has a

long list of such projects sitting on the shelf) and addressing the

social needs that make cities into ‘communities’ (from resources for

public facilities and sports, to converting vacant lots into green

parks and gardens; from child-care to in-home assistance for the

disabled and the aged).

 

‘Leave it to the Market’ or Democratic Planning?

 

It should be obvious that none of this can happen if we ‘leave it to

the market,’ or even with some ad-hoc patchwork government

intervention. It requires serious national and city-level planning and

planning that develops the democratic structures to encourage and

facilitate popular participation. This takes us far beyond the auto

industry and many might say ’sorry, I’m too busy surviving to think

about that.’ But that response has a lot to do with why autoworkers

are in their current awful predicament. If there’s anything the recent

past teaches us is that if we don’t start acing on the future now ­ if

we think it will fix itself ­ then ‘later’ becomes too late, or at

least confronts us with even more difficult problems.

 

Survival tomorrow and in the future means daring to think and act

‘big’ today. What kind of country do we want? What kind of community

do we want to live in? How do we get there? •

 

Sam Gindin was the former assistant to the past two presidents of the

Canadian Auto Workers and is currently the Packer Chair in Social

Justice at York University.