Fred Barnes explains the South’s 20-year project to destroy the UAW. Their plan is on the cusp of completion, but we can still stop them and turn the tables on them by unionizing the southern automakers. We just need to avoid to total collapse of the Big 3 automakers long enough to pass strong pro-Union legislation. But if you want to know why Bob Corker and Richard Shelby are so keen to see Detroit die, Fred Barnes explains it.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Perfect.
More confirmation.
Good piece from Barnes. Of course, he makes it quite clear that in return for no unions in the foreign-owned plants, the workers are paid really well. Dunno why, but I somehow sorta get the feeling that American executives “copying” the foreigners will try to skimp on paying their employees any more than they’re paying now. They’ll try and get everything their way without any reasonable quid pro quos.
he makes it quite clear that in return for no unions in the foreign-owned plants, the workers are paid really well.
BINGO
In the mail business UPS and the USPS were both unionized, as I recall FedEx wasn’t. FedEx was good at keeping wages competitive with the other two in order to prevent unionization.
Which shows another positive of unions. Even if you’re working at a non-unionized place the unions raise your wages. And benefits. If the UAW is broken expect the wages in those non-union plants to nosedive.
Yep, when the UAW is gone and/or crippled the wages will drop.
So when there is no one left with money to buy a car in the US? Well Nissan and KIA will just move their factories to another country. A country that can enrich them with cheap labor costs relative to the price of the automobiles they sell.
Its easy to realize a profit from $2000 cars if you only pay $10 an hour in labor costs. As long as the profit is there its cool. Hybrids? Forget about it, they are too expensive for the workers whose salaries we pay. Goodbye you are no longer useful. We want to destroy living standards across the world. Its just more insanity from the shortsighted idiots.
The south? They have never been particularly loyal to the Union when labor costs are involved. BTW….Fuck you Corker.
Absolutely.
What nobody’s talking about is sales for foreign cars are plummeting across the board too in the US. It will only get worse, and these at-will, non-union jobs start to vanish. Honda is already scaling back production in the US. And should the Big Three get hurt and their chain of parts suppliers take a body blow as well, that’s only going to make things much, much worse on these foreign car manufacturers.
So when Detroit runs out of gas, it’ll take Japan and Korean automakers with it.
The GOP is willing to destroy millions of jobs in order to break the UAW and the US manufacturing middle class once and for all.
But then again, that’s the goal. Cheap, expendable, uneducated workers make fat cat CEOs and shareholders very, very rich.
Unionized workers start thinking they have job security and the means to improve themselves at the expense of management and shareholders, and we can’t have that.
The old goal:
Cheap, expendable, uneducated workers make fat cat CEOs and shareholders very, very rich.
The new goal:
Cheap, expendable, highly educated workers make fat cat CEOs and shareholders very, very rich. That’s why IT workers have been busted in the chops and have no overtime pay protection.
Anyone know what kind of health benefits or retirement benefits these non-union auto workers get?
thanks for this info
They have been going after Unions since they were first enshrined. UAW is the crown jewel. Off shoring has been directly targeting union jobs for a long time. Directly attacking the democrats funding base. Obama’s campaign via small donors must’ve been a shock. We will have to see what they do to prevent that kind of campaign in the future.
Thom Hartmann made an interesting statement on Olbermann’s show Friday:
So here we are facing 2009 and it doesn’t look like things will change anytime soon.
The Republicans have kicked the UAW in the face by not supporting the Big 3 auto makers. Now, unless the TARP is hit for support of the auto industry by Bush’s Treasury Department, we will see at least GM and Chrysler go bankrupt (Ford is apparently in a little better shape… but not much) and unemployment in the industry, including suppliers and dealers and even the waitresses in the restaurants where employees get lunch, will grow quickly.
Obama’s election may signal change, but such change will not upset 28 years of deconstruction with any immediacy. And, remember, we still have people like Mitch McConnell in the Senate who will work very hard to get us into the Depression that the Republicans seem to be aiming at something they have not been able to pull off since Herbert Hoover.
It seems to me that it is necessary now to start planning to remove more Republicans in the 2010 elections… even though we know that mid-Presidency elections often swing to the opposing party. Keeping America focused on its real needs is a very hard job, but it will offer progressive blogs a deep and important subject to which we may commit our ongoing work.
Under The LobsterScope
It shows that this did not have to take place. I don’t even feel it was by evil design. Unintended consequences of Reagan’s narrow minded views. The incompetence of the Republican party, a party that only wants to be elected no matter what the cost. They have no idea how to govern. This culminated in George W Dimwit and his merry group of idiots. Thats when the SS United States finally went under.
Do any of you actually belong to unions? You pro-union guys?
Because I do, and have done so for over 40 years.
The Musicians Union.
And I have had extensive experience with other unions.
Actors, stagehands, so-called “electrical workers” (network video editing), etc.
I am sure that they reflect the same problems as the industrial unions, and those problems are basically as follows.
They are as crooked as the companies that they unionize. Just as venal, just as unimaginative, just as weak-minded. And they reflect their membership in these regards, just as corporations reflect their stockholders. The whole system is bloated and essentially rotted out.
End of problems.
Now that is not to say that they are all that way, any more than one can say that the entire corporate world is totally without merit. Nor are the problems necessarily permanent. Positive changes do happen. But then again sometimes there is a regression.
I personally live on both sides of the union thing. The musicians’ union only does a “good” job…and it’s not all that good really…in areas where the amount of money being spent on the music is sufficient for the union to make a profit. (Unions are businesses, too.) And it does not spend much time dealing with minority musics, either. Why? Both because most musicians of races other than white simply do not trust the union, for starters, and because since the political culture of the union is almost entirely white the union organizers simply do not really have much of a grasp on how music works in minority cultures. Plus of course the money being spent by white middle class people on Broadway and classical forms dwarfs the amount being spent on latin and jazz styles, as does the mainstream Hollywood and pop recording system.
Mechanization?
The entire commercial recording scene got mechanized (synthesizers and digital recording techniques) right out of existence in the ’80s + ’90s, and the union was as lame in its response to the problem as have been the industrial unions in dealing with similar issues. Broadway shows are next. Bet on it. Google “virtual orchestra” for all you need to know on that matter.
The spread out from heavily unionized areas (LA, NYC) to less unionized situations? just exactly the same as what is happening in the auto industry. Work follows wages. All the way to Sumatra if things get really out of hand.
I offer no solutions, other than government applying pressure to unions to improve the same way that it is now applying pressure to the corporate and financial worlds. They are all intermingled, really. And a further problem is that government itself has been involved in the same downward spiral over the past 40 years or so.
When I say that the whole system is rotted out, this is what I mean. Kneejerk support of “unionization” is no more intelligent and will be no more effective than equally kneejerk support of free market corporatism.
Only support of overall excellence…including governmental prosecution of criminality…will begin to change things.
Why did so much industrial work leave the U.S.?
Basically because it could be done cheaper elsewhere.
Why is that?
Because the American standard of living became inflated.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but there it is. We got soft and bloated, and it is time to trim on down.
You think that wages will decrease in the southern auto plants if the UAW goes down?
Could be. If they decrease suufficiently,, then a new union will appear and the same cycle will commence once again.
Would it be “better” if the union survived so that the unionization wheel does not have to be forever reinvented?
Sure.
Then the union has to trim down, too.
We are ALL too fat.
“Leaner and meaner” said Barack Obama recently.
“…leaner, meaner and ultimately more competitive and more prosperous.”
Yup.
This is where he is right on the money.
The unions, the corporations, the financial system and government as well.
It ALL has to lean on down.
And kneejerk support of bloated unions is not the answer.
Peace.
It’s what’s for dinner.
And prosperity as well.
But not in gluttonous proportions, please.
We done already bogarted the world’s joint to a point where we are Public Enemy #1 across the globe.
Time to back offa the feed trough a little.
We be bettah off if we do.
Leaner and meaner.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
I think you are onto something here. A lot of us have had personal experience with unions in one shape or another, and end up really frustrated.
Years ago, we used to go to trade shows, which meant setting up booths in convention centers. In Union halls, you weren’t allowed to plug anything into the wall socket – you needed an electrical worker to come by and do that for you. Just to plug something in – the sort of thing you would do at home without a 2nd thought.
My wife works in sales for a company that has a unionized workforce in the warehouse. Those guys get a break at a certain time of day, so if you get up there and need something, you have to sit around and stew until these guys go off of break. Nobody bears a grudge that they do get a break, but the problem is that there is no flexibility at all to help out the other people who work for the company.
There are countless more examples like this that you hear out in the real world, and because of all of this, a lot of people view unions with great skepticism. Thus it doesn’t surprise me that the auto workers in the South vote down the unions – in terms of personal benefits they feel like they are already doing OK.
They are doing ok because the unions got them 40 hour work weeks and weekends off. Autoworkers in for the UAW start at $28 an hour in Smyrna they start at $25. Odd that figure is so close.
I realize this, but it was generations ago that the unions won those things, and today most people don’t remember.
True a more progressive media would go a long way in changing that fact. Last night on History Channel they had a two part documentary on FDR. I missed the first part which was the one I wanted to see. So maybe things are beginning to change.
It ALL has to lean on down.
And kneejerk support of bloated unions is not the answer.
Its all leaning on down. The unions are people they are making concessions where needed. My wife is in a union here in the state of VA. A “right to work” state and believe me when I tell you it is not bloated or corrupt. You cannot take your personal experience with the musicians union and project it on every situation. I would say Corker and his buddies are the people having “kneejerk” reactions to unions.
In the present and coming tough times we are going to need unions. We need them to make sure the common man shares in left.
Make that “shares in what is left.” After this massive loss of wealth and realignment has run its course.
This is a long rant, so I wouldn’t even try to respond to it point by point.
I was in my letter carriers union (NALC) since the day I hit the workfloor. I was active as a shop steward and twice was an officer. Are unions imperfect? You bet. Are there people in positions of power who shouldn’t be there? Of course.
Here’s a problem many unions have. The membership is composed of people who do a job. Most don’t have an educational background to go toe to toe with management stooges. Most people don’t even have the courage or emotional makeup to stand up to bosses on the workfloor, especially if it’s someone else’s butt you’re defending. What you need is a union presence where people are not afraid to stand up for their rights, where rules are enforced equally, and where union leadership is fluid enough to provide new faces and new ideas. Unfortunately, most people, if they get a good job like a union officer’s job, don’t voluntarily give it up. And the longer they stay in office the more distant they get from the “workfloor experience”.
We have plenty of problems in our branch (I remain a member in retirement) and I’ve kept on making suggestions (often not listened to) to improve the effectiveness of the union. Sadly, since I left office things have gone downhill, and not just because I stepped down. Human beings are, unfortunately, human beings.
Nevertheless, what’s the alternative? Does anyone really think that management will act for the benefit of the workers? Every worker protection by government came into existence by the pressure of unions. Does anyone really think that they’d stay in place without unions?
Ultimately what America needs is a true Labor Party, a party whose purpose is to represent the interests of all working people. We already have an anti-worker party.
Wow that is where my wife works. She has worked for NALC for 22 years. They just cut their retirement. Here in Va. they are not exactly a strong union but its solidarity never the less.
One that is actually more of a political issue.
As in “politicians.”
Most people who gravitate towards political office…and union officials are politicians, bet on it…are people who do not like to work at whatever normal jobs are open to them. They like the political experience better.
In a union situation…and I admit that this idea holds more true in a high craft situation like the Musicians’ Union than it does in a regular, work-at-a-job-that-feeds-the-family union…it is very rare that you find a union official who really enjoys the work that is done by that union’s members. Working for the union is a step up for most of them. As a result, they eventually lose what you call “the workfloor experience” and actually share more in common with their so-called adversaries than they do with their own constituency.
This holds right on up the line to the big, big union.
The United States and its state and federal governments.
Again, other than pointing this out I have no real solutions except trying to get people to realize what is up.
Which may be the only “solution” to the problem. A temporary one at best, because historically people only wake the fuck up when their very existence is seriously threatened, and even then it is a rare occurrence.
As Bob and Ray (a great radio comedy team with roots in the Depression) used to say in their sign-off:
Best of luck in the future.
Later…
AG
I’d also add that the musician’s union would not be a typical example of a labor union. It involves a field where there is incredible disparity in wages (compare what The Police make on a weekend with someone playing an acoustic set at the Noe Valley Ministry). There is no industry-wide standard for contracts. A bassoon player in a symphony orchestra is different from someone playing drums at a bar on Thursday nights and different from a keyboard player in a pit on Broadway. Or the fifth grade teacher playing piano for a school play. Or the violinist playing in front of the BART station.
Some musicians make a living playing music, most don’t. Those kinds of occupations have a lot of extreme internal differences in potential membership that aren’t so striking in other industries.
I’m not arguing against unionization of musicians, or unionization of certain segments of the industry, just that it’s problematic and not the equivalent of industrial unionization.
The Police…or any other big-time pop/rock/rap/country band in the world…do not deal with “unions”. And these days, even the sidemen that they sometimes have to hire often have no union coverage as well.
Bet on it.
The union only represents the unfamous.
And it represents many people who do not make a living playing. That is actually one of its downfalls, because the weekend polka accordion player has the same vote as the 365 day/year working musician.
You are right that there is no “industry-wide” standard for contracts. However there is an attempt at parity in big markets for similar jobs, including those who play in major symphonies, those who record a great deal in a commercial kind of setting and those who play what I like to call functional background music…pit players and wedding band folks.
NOT such an “incredible disparity in wages” through that group of players. A living middle class wage is the norm. Generally speaking, adequate but by no means either opulent or poverty level.
At least…that was the case for a fairly steady number of musicians over nearly 70 years until the advent of mechanization in the form of synthesizers, recorded music at live events and digital technologies that allow a mainstream functional level of recording to be done at fairly low levels of expertise both for the recordists and the musicians. Digital technology can make a terrible player or singer sound like a fairly good one pretty easily now. Even the recording engineer doesn’t really need to know much. If you know which buttons to push, presets do the rest.
A bassoon player in a symphony orchestra is not so different from from a keyboard player in a pit on Broadway.
They are both highly skilled worker bees, both easily replaceable because anonymity is their basic game and there is no shortage of players coming out of the university/conservatory system who have been well trained in the craft of anonymity by the system now in place.
It’s not about art, the music business.
It is just about doing a job for 99% of the people who make a living at it.
You bring up the Post Office above. I often refer to Broadway show work as a post office job. The players trudge in, do their repetitive job…the same notes played the same way 8 shows or more a week…send in subs when the rules allow them to do so and they can afford it ,and change jobs once every several years or so when one show folds and another one has an opening.
If they have the time and skill, they do other jobs to make extra money. JUST like postal workers, except usually those jobs are also about the skills they use in their regular job.
They are covered by health benefits, etc. as long as they are working regularly, can get unemployment benefits when they are not working and 30 or 40 years later, they retire to a fat Social Security/union pension system.
Symphony gigs? Pretty much the same, only they pay a little more, are not so repetitive and have better perks in terms of ancillary teaching opportunities.
Sounds like “industrial unionization” to me.
No?
Later…
AG
do you know of any unions (in America) that have a grasp on non-white political culture?
Sure.
AFSCME (The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees)
The union that represents apartment workers in NYC. (And probably equivalent union in every other city in the U.S.)
The Transit Workers’ Union in NY…again, probably in every other major city in the U.S.
I am sure that there are hundreds more.
Why do you ask?
In fact…why do you have to ask?
AG
you mentioned people not doing it right and didn’t include indications of those who have a good model!
Just to refresh your memory on the definition of “mean”, as it applies here:
Yeah … way to go Obama – a “meaner” society is just what I’m looking forward to.
This society has got far “meaner” over the last 30 years than I care to think about. We don’t need to get “meaner” still.