There’s plenty of room for criticism of the way the Big 3 have been managed, but there’s one particular grating bias that permeates most of the reporting that’s being done:

All week long, Senators and Representatives from both parties have lamented the decades of bad management that have put the auto industry in its current predicament: investing in SUVs when the rest of the world, eyeing the future oil crunch, was betting on smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; spending millions lobbying Congress to avoid regulation that would force tougher environmental standards; and giving its union unsustainably generous deals on salary and benefits that hobbled its ability to compete with Japanese and European carmakers.

Consider for a moment that right-to-work states that make it impossible to unionize might have given an unfair advantage to foreign auto makers.    

The contempt for labor — and for blue collar workers in general — by people who would never work for the $14-16 an hour that a new union employee in the 2 tier system now makes in the latest UAW contract is oozing out of almost every story written.

There’s an expectation that workers should be happy with MacDonald’s wages, and that asking for more is — well, just plain greedy.  

We allow corporations to organize as individuals and engage in completely amoral behavior.   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."

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

How about we pass Employee Free Choice and make it easier for unions to go into right-to-work states and organize Toyota and Honda?  How about leveling the playing field by letting workers’ argue for a middle-class wage, rather than telling them they need to be the ones to sacrifice while their bosses fly around on private jets?

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.