Tag: UAW (page 3)

Now that the federal government (actually, you and I as taxpayers) owns a majority stake in General Motors Corporation some things need to change, particularly when it comes to the UAW and politics.  For years they have been entrenched in the political process, particularly here in Michigan, at every level. Since these union members are now on the public dime a monumental adjustment needs to take place regarding the approach they take towards campaigns and campaign contributions.

The alleged unwillingness of banking giant JPMorgan Chase to renegotiate the terms on conversion vans full of cash owed by Michigan based auto giant Chrysler LLC was going to throw a monkey in the wrench of a potential merger with Fiat Group SpA, they told us.  Hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs were at risk.

The only thing to do, obviously, was cut up your Chase credit cards, close out your checking accounts and hide the cash under your mattress.  

They filmed themselves taking scissors to their plastic.  

They blogged about it.

They circulated petitions.

They launched a Facebook group.

They even brought in other cogs of the Soros / Stryker money machine to help spread the word.  According to Progress Michigan:

"By refusing to help Chrysler negotiate on its debt, JP Morgan Chase is all but assuring thousands of hardworking Michigan families that joblessness is an inevitability, said Leigh Fifelski of Progress Michigan...

If Chrysler is forced into bankruptcy, as many as 300,000 auto workers stand to lose their jobs and their health insurance coverage. Chrysler retirees, too, could suffer a significant setback, as pension benefits and ongoing health insurance plans could be liquidated. This threat is especially significant for Michigan auto workers, as Chrysler and the rest of the Big Three auto makers comprise a large backbone of the state's consumer economy.

Ms. Fifelski is right about one thing... a Chrysler bankruptcy could kill 300,000 Michigan jobs.  And she and the rest of the regressisphere is right, in principle, about something else... Fiat is threatening to walk away from a job saving Chrysler merger.

One little issue, though.  It's the lack of a willing negotiating partner in UAW, not Chase, that could scuttle the deal.

The Detroit News reported yesterday:

Fiat Group SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne is ready to walk away from a proposed alliance with beleaguered Chrysler LLC if the U.S. automaker's unions do not agree to concessions that would put their pay on the same scale as workers at North American plants owned by foreign car companies...

"Absolutely we are prepared to walk," he was quoted as saying by the Toronto newspaper. "There is no doubt in my mind. We cannot commit to this organization unless we see light at the end of the tunnel."

Ron Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership continue to take a hard line on negotiations and all-in labor costs at the Big 3 remain, by most estimates, nearly double those of automobile manufacturing employees in Right to Work states.  Not other countries.  Other STATES.  That's between $20 and $30 an hour more, for every employee just to operate here in Michigan.

If Gettelfinger and his team continue to stonewall in defense of programs like the "jobs bank," Fiat appears poised to walk away from the deal, killing 300,000 Michigan jobs.  Union jobs.  

What says the regressisphere?

Well yesterday they said nothing.  But I understand, conceptually, how group-think works.  They need to wait for their marching orders out of C4P, the Open Society Institute, MDP and the DNC.  It can take some time for orders to filter down to all of the troops.  I get it.

So I checked again this morning... still crickets chirping.  Crickets chirping and a lot of very crude sexual humor.  (Because nothing says "my ideas are better than yours" than scatological snickering.  Welcome back to the sixth grade.)

How about it, regressives?  When a bank was going to stop a merger because it wouldn't negotiate you threw a fit conniption and cut up your credit cards. No one now willing to call out Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership?  No one willing to cut up your UAW membership card?

We're talking about the EXACT same principle.  The EXACT same problem.  The EXACT same terrifying reality threatening to ninja kick this State in her collective face.

Nothing?  Really?  So much for principle and integrity.  

Hypocrisy thy name is regressisphere.

I did an op-ed piece about a week ago on Obama's heavy-handed, central planning, statist-inspired canning of Rick Wagoner, then-CEO of General Motors, among other things.  At that time I used as my illustrative video the "lyric video" of John Rich's "Shuttin' Detroit Down."

Just because I know that there are some country fans (besides me) in RightMichigan-land, I thought that I'd post the official video, which premiered this past weekend.  I know that it doesn't have all the zip and flash of autobots and decepticons, but I happen to think that it's pretty cool.

Feel free to comment on either this thread or the original op-ed.

Given the two most recent GM-related headlines coming out of the Associated Press, perhaps Mister Rich was singing truer than he knew.

But really isn't it much more likely that the universe understands what we're going through as a state and figured it'd pitch in with the appropriate mood lighting and soundtrack?  

Even when there are glimmers that the winter is going to break and that sixty degree days are around the corner, things like the news that the UAW finally agreed to what passes for a concession or two with Ford we're reminded in the next paragraph that there isn't a deal anywhere close to done with GM and Chrysler.

Those "concessions," by the way... they're things like giving up one paid federal holiday, going without a Christmas BONUS at the end of 2009 and suspending annual pay raises.  

I don't think I've ever gotten an annual pay raise myself, but that's neither here nor there and I don't begrudge any employee anywhere in the state from getting whatever he or she can for his honest day's work.  You can get someone to sign on the dotted line, bully for you.  

But memo to Big Labor leadership: Don't lecture the rest of the nation about how rough you've got it at $73.50 an hour when hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers aren't pulling down that much a day.  Especially with work hours, pay and benefits being cut everywhere these days, not just in UAW shops.

Places like... well, read on...

I am a recent GM retiree and a Union member. I have had intimate experience with the UAW during my 30 years as a GM employee. I believe there was a time where the Union did serve a purpose. However, my experience has shown that the UAW has become what at one time they fought against, a bloated, corrupt, bureaucracy run on nepotism.

I've made two handfuls of posts regarding the shenanigans in Macomb County because of their bloated budget. In short, the Democrats on the Commission are in cahooots with the labor unions, who bail them out of making tough decisions at the expense of their own membership, doing so by overturning lawful decisions of their own membership, slap back efforts for real reforms, use human shields to ram their agenda through, and stand there in front of the voters with a straight face and a tin cup.

Today, the Macomb Daily reports: County secures concessions from several unions.

Macomb County officials are about two-thirds of the way toward securing $10 million in concessions -- and narrowing an $18 million budget gap -- after ratifying contracts with four employee unions.