I happen to disagree.
Its a pity that the UAW refused to learn from the examples of Citigroup, AIG, and other paragons of personal responsibility and rugged self-reliance.
The Republicans saw this as a chance to bust unions and they took it. Their useful idiots on this board swallow the GOP bullshit hook line and sinker.
Essentially yes. They’ve known that with the rediculous Union rules causing horrible overhead and inefficiency there is simply no way a unionized auto industry can be a profitable industy in the world today, and that step one in any recovery is casting off the hobbles of that outdated crap.
Actually, the House Republicans were the ones who voted against the Wall Street bailout the first time around.
Didn’t this die in the Senate?
I’m sure they wanted the pension because of the defined benefits. Lets face it, your typical union autoworker isn’t probably going to be a a Wall Street savvy investor. With a 401K, the worker is bearing the risk of a lesser return, rather than the company.
And my cynical side says that it’s a Union Pension (I believe the Union actually manages it). WIth a 401K, the worker can leave and take it with him. Not so with the pension. While that is in the worker’s best interest, it’s not in the Union’s.
I agree, but one of the cool things about unions is that you hire people to give you advice - that’s one of the things you can do when thousands of people pay dues - some of whom should be Wall Street savvy investors. Some who should be taking an active interest in auditing the pension funds and making sure they are adequately funded and reviewing the assumptions. What was union management doing when my accounting professor in 1986 was saying “these guys are going to get screwed on pensions.”
With either system, the worker is bearing the risk - in a 401k they bear the risk that they get a lesser return - with a pension they bear the risk that the company will go bankrupt and be unable to pay their pension.
No, but almost everything here is tied to the fate of the automakers. I don’t pretend to have the knowledge or even the urge to defend the Big 3’s past decisions or the UAW’s policies, but I do know that if GM and Chrysler go under a whole lot of innocent people in Michigan are going to get fucked. Proper fucked.
I’m hugely skeptical about unions.
I think some are bloated parasites upon the economy, and often upon the workers they claim to represent. I think some are just what they’re supposed to be, and educated advocates for their member’s interests.
Having said that, I can’t see the justice in bailing out Wall Street and then hitting the Big Three like this, because the unions aren’t willing to automatically roll over for the gov’t. The demand a couple of weeks ago was for a plan, and the impression I’ve had is that the Big Three met that requirement.
Which is hugely more than AIG, or BoA or any of the other idiots on Wall Street seem to have had to do.
I’m still not convinced that the Big Three can continue to compete. But putting all the blame on the unions is like the old children’s book Drummer Hoff: There has been a whole chain of errors and institutionalized fantasies that have lead to this position, not simply one person’s or group’s actions.
Well, yeah, but where’s their compassion for the sad fate of the executives, who face the ignominy of being cut dead in the Hamptons, or being forced to sell the ancestral condos in Aspen? Who weeps for them, turned out with a few paltry millions? How long before they are forced to sell brie and wine on the street corners. Domestic vintages, mind!
Happily, it looks as though the fix is in. Bush will siphon off some of the TARP money to the Big Three, which means the Pubbie Senators get to make a grand gesture, squealing in porcine rage at the cigar-chomping labor bosses, without any real consequences. If it doesn’t work, they can pat themselves on the back for their foresight and prudence, and if it does, they can just quietly ignore it. If it doesn’t work, they can blame Bush, pointing out that he wasn’t a *real *conservative, after all…
And they get the money with none of the strings attached, which was no doubt the RePug gameplan all along.
Yeah, because one cannot legitimately oppose this bailout for anything but political reasons.
Agreed, or at the minimum they should have mandated third-party protection or insurance of the pensions, but the company actuaries and management are ultimately to blame (not the workers/unions) for creating an unsustainable long term retirement benefits structure.
I have both a 401k and a pension at the same company. Long-term, my pension looks far more secure and stable, it is backed-up by an insurer so that even if my megaconglomocorp that I work for goes tits up, I still get my check. Management and unions kill my company, I still get my check. My 401k, on the other hand, is in the toilet now and about as worthwhile for retirement as my World of Warcraft gold.
When they are engaging in gratuitous union bashing and demanding the dropping of environmental and other conditions in an agreement all other parties were onboard with, even the Failed-President Bush? No. They trashed the deal for the same failed free-market ideology that has plunged the world into this disaster.
The correct thing for people who are so stunningly wrong as Republicans of that ilk is to disqualify themselves on grounds of proven incompetence, not to continue to screw things up.
If the auto industry folds, the state of Michigan will probably be ruined. It is pretty much just one big “company town”, isn’t it?
I don’t believe this situation sprang up overnight. Blame it on management. Blame it on the unions. All the players are to blame in one way or another. The sad thing is, it won’t be the union bosses or the CEO’s that get burnt, it will be the “little guys” (as usual).
If you bail them out, you are rewarding bad “behavior”. If you let them sink, you end up punishing the wrong people.
This is a no win situation either way.
Not exactly. The state’s economy does depend on the auto industry, though. I mean, we have tons of non-auto businesses, but since such a large chunk of the state makes their livelihood off of something auto-related, we’ll be buttfucked if the big 3 collapse.
Obviously, the first people to go would be the ones working directly for the big 3. Restaurants that basically make their living off of big 3 workers (near an assembly plant, does catering for meetings, whatever) will go under. There will be credit unions that go under. All those people who are unemployed aren’t going to have money to buy much, so it’ll hurt other non-auto businesses, who will have to lay people off, which will then just cause the whole house of cards to collapse.
Fuck the UAW. I don’t give a crap how long you’ve been on the job, unskilled labor should not net you $20+/hr.
I stand corrected, and I get your house of cards comparison. I am betting no matter what is or isn’t done, everything will go to shit anyway. And the most guilty ones will collect their bailouts, handshakes and parachutes, while the rest will be shit out of luck.
Ron Geddelfinger is a pompous fucktard that has his head so far up his ass, he can see out of his mouth. I watched his press conference and watched the DOW stock ticker drop 90 points while he talked. He talked about a bunch of irrelevant bullshit, and again danced around the hard questions. Geddelfinger’s resignation should be at the top of the list of stipulations for getting any of the money. If he can’t see the big picture, and I truly don’t believe he can, we are well and truly fucked.