« Fear of SocialismThe Power Elite Playbook, Controlled Conflict and Staged Incompetence, Part 20 »

In auto bailout, don't make workers pay the price for corporate greed

December 23rd, 2008

Mary Shaw

I don't usually see eye-to-eye with George W. Bush, but I am grateful that he took some steps last week to bail out the auto industry.

After all, how could we bail out the Wall Street elite without also making an effort to save the largest single segment of the U.S. manufacturing industry?

In other words, how can we bail out the white collar bankers without making a similar gesture to save the blue collar auto workers who have traditionally formed the foundation of the U.S. economy?

The price of inaction would have been devastating to our already devastated economy.

Nevertheless, the auto bailout seems to be a soap-box magnet for the anti-worker crowd.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has already had to make some concessions under the bailout. But apparently that is not enough. Some people just want an end to unions. Gotta keep the power away from the little people.

I keep hearing the right-wing propagandists complaining that members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union make more than $70 per hour (thereby somehow justifying their demise). But that allegation is deliberately misleading.

The truth is that the average UAW member makes about $30 per hour in wages, bonuses, overtime, and paid time off, with maybe another $15 in benefits.

So let's do the math:

$30 per hour x 40 hours per week = $1,200 per week.

$1,200 per week x 52 weeks = $62,400 per year.

Plus the usual benefits. Nothing special.

So the UAW members make a solid middle class living at $62,000 per year, for doing some good, hard work. What exactly is the problem with this?

Many of their critics are in positions that easily yield a much more lucrative hourly fee. So why do they want to deny the hard-working auto workers their own chance at the American dream?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question. It's clearly all just a political or ego-driven thing -- or both.

So the anti-worker folks keep calling for labor concessions to keep the industry going.

Never mind the fact that the workers' salaries are a drop in the bucket compared to what the CEOs have been raking in (not even counting their private jets).

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Along with the so-called "free trade" practices that have done so much to support our overseas competition in the auto industry and other major industries. And along with the fact that Detroit lags way behind Japan in designing and producing vehicles that could reduce our dependency of fossil fuels.

Those things are not the fault of the line worker. They are the result of corporate greed. Doing the right thing sometimes temporarily cuts down on corporate profits and CEO bonuses. So doing the right thing is unthinkable, of course.

That is what got us into this mess. Nevertheless, again they want the workers to pay the price for the sins of the backward-thinking corporate executives.

Labor is used to making concessions. The executives are not.

And look where that got us.

It is time to change that paradigm, if the industry is to be saved for the long run. I hope that the Obama administration will do so. You know, change we can believe in.

And it seems that we may have some hope in that regard.

Hilda Solis is Barack Obama's nominee for Labor Secretary. And she has a solid track record on the side of labor.

Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden-Solis administration remains powerless for another four weeks.

Hopefully the holiday season will be enough of a distraction to keep things from getting too out-of-hand in the meantime.

-###-

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com

No feedback yet

Voices

Voices

  • By David Swanson, World BEYOND War According to Columbia Magazine , published by Columbia University’s Office of Alumni and Development, but ultimately named for a brutal imperialist mercenary, in 1933 while Nazis in Germany were burning books by Jews,…
  • Paul Craig Roberts Trump and Zelensky have agreed on a cease fire, a pause in the conflict. How does this benefit Russia? It doesn’t. The Ukrainian military is collapsing on all fronts. 86% of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk has been retaken, and the…
  • Tracy Turner Chupacabra America: A nation gripped by greed, excess, and decline. Explore the stark contrast between America's stagnant Trumpcession societal rot and Europe's prosperous sustainable progress in this eye-opening critique by Tracy Turner.…
  • Cathy Smith Explore the decline of modern Christianity from televangelist scandals and prosperity gospel corruption to church schisms and socioeconomic divides, this analysis reveals how materialism and greed have overshadowed the transformative spirit…
  • Chris Spencer Syria's Alawites were seen as favored by the regime of Bashar al Assad, now more than 1,300 Alawites have been murdered in 2025 in Syria. Early 2025 saw Syria's fragile post-Assad situation degenerate into a brutal cycle of sectarian…
  • Fred Gransville There was something unusual on the White House driveway on March 11, 2025. Elon Musk was selling Tesla vehicles in collaboration with Donald Trump, the sitting President of the United States. From conducting business at the White House…
  • By Tracy Turner Uncover the toxic history of U.S. industrial and military pollution, from Hanford to Camp Lejeune. This inquiry exposes how government and corporate inaction have led to cancer clusters, ecological destruction, and human agony. Explore…
  • By Mark Aurelius 70% of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza are women and children This essay contains controversial statements that could alarm people who are not tolerant of contentious assertions or questions, such as regarding religious beliefs,…
  • Tracy Turner The economic crisis of 2025 under the leadership of Donald Trump and Elon Musk draws alarming parallels to the Great Depression of 1929, exacerbated by the dismantling of critical U.S. infrastructure and the breakdown of federal regulatory…
  • Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic Hamas, or according to its full name, “Islamic Resistance Movement”, is a Palestinian political-national organization with a military wing of a conservative Islamic nature and orientation. Its purpose is to resist the Israeli…
March 2025
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
 << <   > >>
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

  XML Feeds

Online manual generator
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor
ozlu Sozler GereksizGercek Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi Hava Durumu Firma Rehberi E-okul Veli Firma Rehberi