Well said, Jane.

The New York Times argued the other day that workers in the non-union factories like Toyota make almost as much as their Detroit counterparts, therefore unions aren’t necessary.

Was there a name attached the op-ed? Isn’t William the Bloody’s friend the head of the op-ed page? Or is he head of some other big department at the NY Times?

I can’t recall who was quoted saying this - Shelby perhaps - but there was this “I am not going to ask auto workers in Alabama who don’t have health care benefits to pay for fat-cat union workers in Michigan who do.” And in my mind, I was asking, “And, why don’t the auto workers in Alabama have health care benefits? Don’t the managers/executives in those companies have healthcare benefits?” Isn’t there a federal law that says that if you offer a certain benefit to one class of workers in your company, you have to offer it to all classes of workers in your company?

the anti union ferver is actually growing stronger right when we need a strong labor force

if anyone cares to research, it was the union that fdr used to get his proposals done

all a union does is create a collective bargaining force for labor, corporations have to bargain for everything they buy and it is rediculous people think they shouldn’t have to broker a contract with their labor force as well

the solution to union labor is a tariff on products produced without a union

To reverse this argument:
If non-union workers cost almost as much as union workers, where’s the business problem.
You can’t argue that the unions make industry non-competitive and that the unions have no measurable impact on wages in the same breath.

I’m surprised no one has blamed the workers for demanding that their employers build those big gas guzzling vehicles.

And of course it is the Democrats who are making such a big deal of this bailout after they let the bankers get away with grand theft. Nice.

But we won’t allow workers to organize themselves and speak with one voice, because that would be — well, anti-corporate or something.

Which means unions are a sign of good mental health.

I’ll take that.

The level of class bias and lack of understanding among people who haven’t taken the time to comprehend what the loss of three million jobs would do to our economy is gobsmacking.

I think the Dow sure has a comprehension.

1,833 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Thanx for the post Sister Jane, now that you’ve put the fear of God in Joe Lieberwurst and the Washinton insiders maybe you ken deliver a well placed kick to the gluteous maximi of what passes for a national press corps. There is no way that we will EVER get ourselves or the rest of the non-Chinese world out of this economic tarpit without the Free Choice Act…and I’m not certain that the auto makers aren’t committed to filin’ chapeter 7 (not Chapter 11) if they don’t get a deal from the lame ducks.

The voices of our history are callin’ us…all those millions of people who for 75 years gave blood, sweat and sometimes their lives for the right to organize are callin’ us out…I wonder if it’s not too late. (Please tell me we have time for a political solution).

No matter what happens though, Harry Reid must go as Senate majority leader…that’s yer next project Citizen Hamsher.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, WE’RE WAITIN’ FOR ORDERS COMMANDER!!

Thanks Jane.

digg

The actual center of the issue, IMHO, is Health Care.
And, like most issues where it is impolitic to get to the ceentral cause, an easilly vilified subclass is scapegoated.
Union workers, however are a rather large voting subclass.
This could be a mistake.

Oh, those greedy greedy workers.

I’d like to see some of the execs survive a week on the assembly line, much less decades.

I said my piece on this a week or so ago.

Thank you Jane for hitting them more directly with your trademark clear direct voice.

Workers didn’t make the mess. Management did.

The New York Times argued the other day that workers in the non-union factories like Toyota make almost as much as their Detroit counterparts, therefore unions aren’t necessary. Do they really believe that Toyota would be paying their workers that much if they didn’t have to compete with union wage rates?

The level of class bias and lack of understanding among people who haven’t taken the time to comprehend what the loss of three million jobs would do to our economy is gobsmacking.

Bullseye, as per usual.

I have no problem with the CEO’s of the Big 2.5 losing their jobs over this, but it pisses me off that the Wall Street CEO’s and banking CEO’s just skated.

It was a choice moment earlier in the week, executives of the Big Three flying in to D.C., each on his own private jet, each adopting a pious, humble, hang-dog face to assure Congress and the nation that everyone else, customer, factory worker, union, everyone ELSE is guilty of greed.

Sorry. How’s that again?

We Can’t Make It Here

Some of the financial execs escaped with golden parachutes before TARP came in & prevented it. Josh calls it the Golden Shower on the taxpayer.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c.....245246.php

The aristocrats are blinded not only by their money but by the power we have handed over to them.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but We, the People have become like the overweight, out-of-shape lug sitting on the sofa, watching the game, hoping for some team to win some game.

We have begun to get off that sofa. We have elected not only Barack Obama, but many more Democrats.

Democrats are better for society than Republicans, and liberal Democrats are better than Blue Dogs.

But the aristocrats are still in power. With the new administration, there is only the possibility they will begin to lose that power, but not the guarantee.

As a country, we have to stop listening to aristocrats and return our attention to the value of the common citizen. By that I mean making the promotion of the general welfare of our citizens government’s top job.

And I suspect that there is plenty of money and there is the potential for plenty more. The problem is, it’s all been sucked up to the top branches of the trees while the roots and lower branches have been depleted.

There hasn’t been enough trickle-down. Now we’re experiencing crashing down.

We, the People have to rise up out of the crash and keep voting and, between elections, keep demanding our country back.

We must praise — and support by law — union organization so that people are paid more money and have better benefits. Forget the economics of the aristocracy. Societies are healthier when there is less poverty. duh. Societies are healthier when more people make more money. duh.

Don’t be hating on the well-paid union jobs of the UAW workers — they are the only ones left pumping what money there is into the Michigan economy. The aristocrats in their private jets aren’t spending much money down on the ground.

How about freeing employers from the burden of administering and even paying for benefits? Make health care a public benefit like police and fire protection, like free highways. With a funded health-care system that actually cares for everyone, there will be plenty of work to do — well-paid work — getting our country literally healthy again.

How about demanding good schools for all our children? from construction and maintenance of school buildings to professionalizing the pay and work environment of teachers, there can be many good jobs in the school system and we could get some citizens with brains in their heads in the bargain.

How about demanding eco-friendly supertrains connecting population centers? The west coast, from San Diego to Seattle, screams for such a system. And “Detroit” (as a concept, not a particular location) would love to be building those trains.

How about demanding free — free — broadband wireless access for all? It could be done from the bottom up. Cities should just declare wireless access a utility and provide it for their citizens. No one suggests that a corporation should own the interstate highway infrastructure and be allowed to sell access to people. Why should a corporation own the communications infrastructure?

We think we have lots of problems, but we really only have one problem from which most of our sorrows flow. We have to, once again, overthrow the aristocracy. We have to reject trickle-down economics and embrace bubble-up economics. The tree is fed by the roots, not the leaves.

We Democrats have to get back to our roots.

What if unions are ‘reorganized as corporations’ and then would they have the rights that corporations enjoy ALL OVER the US?

I want to get Shelby on the record stating that letting the big three (2.5) dissolve IS NOT a threat to national security and then explain why.

He cannot. It’s. That. Simple.

We need to continue the national security argument in the blogesphere.

And let me correct my post @7…

The film “The Corporation” argues that “the DSM-IV’s Personality Diagnostic Checklist would diagnose a corporation as a sociopath, lacking as it is in honesty, regard for others and remorse.”

Which means unions are a sign of good mental health.

Okay, now it makes sense. More coffee…

thanks jane for addressing what i consider to be the main point in all of this—getting rid of unions once and for all.

back in the 80’s i was involved in the communications workers of america. steward and 1 of 8 members of the safety committee. 4 union reps, 4 company reps.

waaaaay back then, at workshops and training, how companies were disassembling unions and how they are doing it was covered over and over again. 25 years later we are here. the plan carried out exactly as planned.

noone listened, a backlash amongst workers was created and anti-union propaganda won. the ‘why should someone else be getting something you’re not’ meme. the auto industry has always been their best line of attack against union workers, only they have to put the industry under to get rid of the union. big and shiny new industry wioll replace it.and now mitt romney is on news shows spouting verbatim the plan i heard back then. bringing to mind the old saying ‘we end as we begin.’ so they have.

the union movement began in an atmosphere of greed/bottom line, safety issues and job security. it ends as it began.

Good morning, all;

Would it be ‘fair’, would it be ‘honest’, would it be ‘proper’ to term these ‘assaults’ upon ‘workers’, those NOT in ‘control’, those who don’t make the ‘big bucks’, would it be reasonable to call these ’salvos’ acts of ‘class’ war?

If we may make so bold as to do this, then may we dare consider who it is who is waging this ‘war’?

Or, do we not wish to go ‘there’?

And those whiny retirees daring to want the health care they were promised, blindsided by management’s careful pitting of active workers and unions against those who have already served faithfully until their knees gave out, or they accepted offers of early retirement, trusting the system to be as faithful to them as they were while still on the job.

Thanks Jane.

As a long time manufacturing guy working now for half of what I made 7 years ago (with 10% of the benefits) I appreciate you highlighting this issue.

The jealousy of low paid non-union workers exceeds common sense..they just don’t have the old-timey guts to organize or the help.

The level of class bias and lack of understanding among people who haven’t taken the time to comprehend what the loss of three million jobs would do to our economy is gobsmacking

thinking the term gobsmacked may have been coined for just this circumstance - I may wind up permanently agape at the cavalier, capricious (your word here) nature of this chorus

The “journalists”, pundits, newsreaders and bloviators are all in the employ of corporations. When they write or broadcast a story/opinion they know who their masters are. As H.L. Mencken said “You can’t expect someone to know something when their paycheck is dependent on them not knowing.” The conventional 4th Estate has completely failed in it’s educational role of the public.

There’s an assumption here that automobiles are still the wave of the future rather than a thing of the past that probably should’ve never become what it is today in America.

In his piece Too Big to Fail? The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park, P. Saunath advises that India firms are headed the same road to hell as American auto companies did as far back as the 1920s. Here’s a good synopsis of that bit of history alluded to:

But that’s the easy part. There’s a lot more they did, as a major sector of industry - and as part of the larger corporate world of the United States. Over decades, they destroyed both existing and potential public transport. The ‘American Dream’ so far as the automobile went, was an imposed nightmare. In Detroit itself, you can see the skeletons of a once-alive transport system. All across the country, for decades from the 1920s, they bought up public transport systems and shut them down.

Trains were shifted from electric to diesel engines. Sometimes, they were simply done away with and replaced by buses and then cars. Together with Big Oil, Big Auto converted electric transit systems to fuel-based bus systems. In one estimate: In 1935, electric train engines outnumbered diesel train engines 7 to 1. “By 1970, diesel train engines outnumbered electric ones 100 to 1. And GM made 60 per cent of the diesel locomotives.” The electric rail system in and around Los Angeles was almost erased.

Fostering the cult of the individual-owned automobile was a major goal. By 2001, that goal was achieved, beyond belief. Some 90 per cent of Americans drove to work by that year. The findings of the 2001 National Household Travel Survey are striking. Only 8 per cent households reported not having a vehicle available for regular use. The survey showed that “that daily travel in the United States totalled about 4 trillion miles, an average of 14,500 miles per person.” Trips by transit and by school bus each made up just 2 per cent of daily trips taken in 2001.

Well said.

Amazing that the same elitists who were so adamant that the Plutocrats’ Bailout™ had to be passed to save the economy can’t see the great harm that the failure of the auto industry would inflict.

America is like the first Star Wars trilogy:

1. Star Wars:

The colonists overthrow the Empire.

2. The Empire Strikes Back:

In the collective mind, citizens are erased from the national conversation, replaced by consumers. That makes it easy to insert “lower prices” as the national purpose instead of “the general welfare.”

Hell, “welfare” is turned into a dirty word.

3. Return of the Citizen:

Consumers go on strike. With no money in sight, they rediscover the satisfaction of citizenship over consumerism — real power versus pseudopower.

The aristocrats are overthrown, citizens retake society. There is rejoicing in the land and New Hope.

Aristocrats return to their supercaves to plot their own return.

goodness, looking upthread, we all seem to regard ourselves as experts.

hm-m-m-m.

Aren’t the Chamber of Commerce, Auto Manufac. Assoc, and all of the industry associations actually unions?

How about demanding free — free — broadband wireless access for all? It could be done from the bottom up. Cities should just declare wireless access a utility and provide it for their citizens. No one suggests that a corporation should own the interstate highway infrastructure and be allowed to sell access to people. Why should a corporation own the communications infrastructure?

An excellent idea and one that supports the possibility of organizing on the internet to change things. Of course with the present unregulated communications and several national phone companies, it cannot be implemented efficiently. As I mentioned in a post some time ago, my community has three fibre obtic systems of which two are operational. We need to return to the idea of one regulated telephone company and regulated public utilities generally or perhaps we should just nationalize phone companies, wire the country and treat communications as a public service like police and fire departments.

saw Barabara Comstock on FOX this morning explaining why passage EFCA would be the end of the world. what a bogus woman.

don’t mind me. just carry on, pups…

Excellent post, Jane. Here in the south, the majority of people have traditionally bought into the propaganda that unions are foreign, socialistic (or anarchistic), and interefere with one’s rugged individualism and right to be abused by the much admired entrepreneureal class.

As I connect dots, the only way that I could see that free trade ever could really work for the benefit of a U.S. with a large middle class and equal economic opportunity for all, is if the rest of the world becomes unionized. Accordingly, and I hope there’s something I’m not seeing, it seems to me we’ll have to return to protectionism (call it fair trade if you wish) relatively soon to regain a society without huge economic class disparities.

nice catch, heh heh.

I’ll mind ((you)) plenty, thank you very much :D

For anyone now trying to make a go of it in United States for $10-$12 an hour with health benefits a sketchy possibility(having crappy health insurance little better than none) the math is formidable.

In these parts it is not difficult to be facing rents/low end house payment ranges from $900-$1200 a month. At $10 an hour on 40 hour gross it takes two to three weeks just to cover these amounts. Then add costs of transportation,utilities,food and incidentals. It comes out at Insaneville or Crazytown. Millions of Americans doing this everyday,each week and month.

WashingtonDC clearly has little grasp of what it is like to work for $10-$12 an hour with little prospect for wage increases ever. Just trying to put in a 25-50-75 cent an hour raise request in many places may land you in NoJobLand quickly. How dare you as for $10 more a week?!?(.25 X 40 hours = $10.00 more per week) Ask for a $1 more per hour and the derision and laughter will melt any remnant of resolve you may cling to in quick order.

So what is the going “hourly rate” for many American CEOs,execs,Wall Streeters,Congresspeople and WH employees?

Expecting these people to understand or have any comprehension of typical American $8-$12 an hour wage slave living is like going fishing without a hook.

Instead Americans these past 25 years have been bombarded with expensive credit cards,overpriced and over hyped housing and healthcare that for bottom 100 million Americans is not dissimilar to playing “Mystery Date” and getting stuck with a dud.

This ‘crash of 2008′ is more like a slow motion train wreck as viewed over many years.

Anyone think the Pentagon is going to slash the bloated budget it feeds on by 50-60 percent?

Anyone think Congress is going to cut what it pays itself in wages,bennys and pension plan by a third or half?

Anyone think this train wreck is closer to having just begun rather than ended?

Oh…G.W.Bush will be waltzing out of the WH with lots of loot in Jan.2009 and will end up cashing in on his “public service” well and long.

It is not right. Not just. Surely does not pass any smell test.

maybe we ought to all just shut up and let the big boys fix everything?

foolish lil’ child. *g*

If the Big 2 1/2 have any vision an intelligence they would move into developing mass transit systems for the U.S., light rail, trolleys, alternative energy bus fleets. The U.S. has to not only get away from it’s dependence on oil but it’s dependence on the notion that everyone needs at least one car. The lone horseman on the range was at one time the symbol of freedom that was eventually replaced through with the lone driver behind the wheel of his car sitting in traffic. That’s not freedom, it’s merely marketing.

That’s not what you’re advocating, hon.

Don’t go pinning it on me neither.

T’won’t work.

I’s put on me teflon jumpsuit.

Now run along. You were making some sense there for awhile. Stick to yer bidness, and I’ll just sit here and cogitate on the combined wisdom of the group. I trust that’s okay.

In a war of MANAGEMENT vs. LABOR, each will contend that THEY are the driving force. Consider what the equation would look like without one component. What would LABOR do if management was axed? I believe they would continue to work, and select from within the ranks those most suited to guide . . . to manage. A new “management” would evolve, but a management with understanding of labor realities. On the other hand, if LABOR were to disappear, is it realistic to think that the current MBA management team could take to the production floor, do the grunt work and raise the Phoenix from the ashes? I don’t think so.

My close encounter with yahoos this past weekend revealed a tremendous and at the time seemingly inexplicable fury that’s been stirred by the anti-union message being transmitted to them presumably from the sources Jane alluded to. GM has warehouse operations at the locale in question.

UAW members have already taken HUGE concessions in the past few years and now next year are taking over healthcare from the big 3.

I think it is ridiculous to blame the union for this mess. I guess folks want union workers to make minimum wage with no benefits?

uh OK-we’ll just become one big right to work for less country and not have any unions.

Some proud workers union history:

AFL-CIO

United Mine Workers

And a neat timeline, (with some pieces missing but it is still good.)

LindaR. Where do you file the Kennedys, Byrd, Waxman, Sherrod Brown, Maxine Waters et al?

Does personal wealth equate with aristocracy in your scheme?

Don’t forget the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, proponents of One Big Union.

Can we start calling pensions what they really are? Deferred compensation. That’s what executives call it. Cheney’s still getting checks from Halliburton in the form of deferred compensation.

Companies and unions made deals long ago that the workers would get paid a little less now for future pay in retirement. Then the companies try to renege.

In my mind, the aristocracy is that group of people who don’t have to and will never have to work for a living. Their incomes and wealth are secure. Their children will be given assets and position in society on the basis of their family name, regardless of their individual abilities.

The aristocracy as a collective works to influence laws that enforce and enhance their ownership of the tangible wealth of the nation.

Of course many aristocrats see the value of “spreading the wealth” if having a healthy society is the goal. Warren Buffet also comes to mind, along with the people you mentioned.

For instance, does anyone think “Little Russert” would have his plumb make-job if his daddy hadn’t been an aristocrat — or a darling of the aristocracy, at any rate?

Now yer talkin’.

must see video shared by someone in comments at Agonist

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/haha_america/

Hi Jane: I agree with you that we should pass the Employee Free Choice act and that unions have a pivotal role in creating a sustainable relationship between worker and employer. But $14-$16 isn’t McDonald’s wages, especially in a right-to-work state that can pay you federal minimum wage.

I also just can’t fathom saving a company like GM (the brilliant maker of the H2, H3 and Cadillac Escalades) that hasn’t really innovated or grown in the past 20 years. If we’re going to put the Detroit auto manufacturers on life support, at least give some of this money to a company like Tesla Motors that is developing a 100% electric car. (Granted, their first model is a luxury roadster, but with the amount of money Detroit burns in a month I am sure there are ways to improve product development.)

A little background on the IWW. Most Americans are in the dark on labor history in the U.S. but then many are in the dark period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I....._the_World

LindaR. Thank you for 50 & 51. Yes, understood and agreed. Still, there are those around the edges who were not born with the silver spoons, who worked and slaved and saved, and were/are truly generous, just because it’s the right thing to do. My parents…