Saturday, December 13th, 2008...2:21 pm
New Model Army
Jump to Comments
I used to always hear conservatives tag liberals with a variation on that old saw about the Puritans: liberalism is that fear that someone, somewhere is making money.
I thought about that when I heard that Republican Senators from southern states, with their own non-union foreign owned auto plants, wanted the auto bailout scuttled unless the Detroit automakers brought worker pay and benefits to the levels that they have in their own states.
So, these guys were against the deal because some workers were making more money than workers in their states? Wow. Sounds vaguely Marxist.
6 Comments
December 13th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
And of course, these individuals are the same ones who are outraged about illegal immigration….you know–the brown-skinned folks big companies hire for cheap after unions are busted? This is especially true in the meat-packing plants up north.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Living wage? These same ass-clowns voted against raising the minimum wage, what do they know about living wages? and the folks on Wall street make a shit-load more money than most UAW members, so why weren’t their wages hacked as part of their bailouts?
It boggles the mind that folks like our very own Kyl are willing to let well over a million jobs disappear just to ‘teach the unions’ a lesson.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Ted, by “someone” they mean “Masters of the Universe”. By “somewhere” they mean “in speculative bubbles rigged to enrich those at the tippy top of the investor class”.
Stop being such a Puritan!
December 15th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Actually I think the objection was that the auto workers in the south would see their tax dollars spent to subsidize the higher wages in Michigan.
When the southern workers are making better cars for wages they consider acceptable, I can understand their objection to seeing their own tax dollars used to subsidize their higher-paid, lower-quality-car-making competitors.
The best part was exposing the UAW: despite its pledges of cooperation, when it really came down to details they refused to budge from their company-busting overpriced benefit packages (benefit funds, it might be noted, that are increasingly managed by the union leaders themselves, not by the companies).
December 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am
un-Ted, the lower wages of the non-union auto workers in the South are subsidized by taxpayers. Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina gave hundreds of millions in tax subsidies to foreign auto makers. The Tennessee enticement package included a land giveaway and tax dollars to pay for training workers.
As for the Michigan workers, you do realize that if they lose their jobs and the retirees lose their pensions and health care that you, the taxpayer, will be picking up the tab, don’t you?
December 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Donna, it should also be added that the UAW was willing to make concessions, but the concessions being demanded of them were not being demanded of shareholders or management. UAW was open to wage equalization after their current contract ends in 2010. The lie that UAW was intransigent gets my goat.
Goats, incidentally, may be what we’ll all be riding if the auto industry fails. And if it fails, it’ll be thanks to legislators who put management ahead of workers, instead of asking everyone to sacrifice equally.