Damn Straight:

To recap: We're in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if "marginally attached" workers are included -- those who have given up even looking for jobs -- along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.


Even if the Big Three deserve to die, they shouldn't die now. Economic theory notwithstanding, it would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work -- leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry -- which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we've got.

What the auto companies need is something on the order of $14 billion to survive until the Obama administration takes office and is able to address the crisis in a more systematic way. That sounds like a lot of money, but it's a rounding error in the context of the ongoing financial meltdown. We've already agreed to spend up to $700 billion to bail out Wall Street.

And dude, I've been saying this for the last several weeks...where was the Senate Outrage on the Republican side of Wall Street Salaries, CEO salaries or Dealership sweetheart deals? There was none. Corker even took off the table one of the biggest pieces of the pie, dealerships. Not that I'd want to see service department staff and mechanics to go unemployed, but if the line worker's on the table for a compromis, so the fuck is the dealership, CEO pay and all those salaries on Wall Street and in the Banking industry, and more from Eugene Robinson's piece in the post:

Funny, I don't recall a cry from Senate Republicans for salary caps on the stockbrokers whose jobs were saved in the Wall Street bailout. Nor, to my knowledge, have they demanded that white-collar workers in the auto companies take pay cuts. I do recall lectures from some Republicans in the Senate about how inadvisable it is for government to meddle in the workings of the free market. In my book, renegotiating labor contracts qualifies as meddling.

Yeah, what he said.

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I mean, how often does an administration lead by a Congress controlled by Republicans for years (unitl 2006) allow deregulation of the financial industry, arguably causing issues like Madoff:

They join a list of more powerful investors that have come forward, all worried about the extent of their losses. The roster of names include former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services, among others.

So, in a climate of DEREGULATION, a well respected captain of financial markets gets to pull off the scam of all scams, including DEFRAUDING the likes of GM (GMAC is a subsidiary of GM and provides financial services, including mortgages). Now that GM is out BILLIONS (Madoff scammed at least $50 billion that we know of now), does it make it more likely that Republican Senators will be willing to assist the ailing auto industry? Afterall, helping GMAC is a financial services company and seemingly so much more Republican like, as opposed to dirty, hard working, loud, uneducated, unskilled autoworkers represented by a union.

Hmm, the only ones here I think of as dirty, uneducated and unskilled are Republicans in the Seante lead by the likes of Senators Corker and Shelby. Just writing their names makes me want to go take a shower. I feel so dirty.

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I got this in an e-mail but had to go and read it for myself mostly because at the same time I got this, someone else sent me a link to what states receive the most in Federal aide and those states that utilize the least. And not surprisingly, Republican Senators who receive the most in federal funding are also the senators who voted against a BRIDGE LOAN for Chrysler and GM. Oh and of course the Republicans from Alaska, too (receiving loads, but clearly want to screw Michigan and the rest of the midwest).



Take what Mitt Romney said on Meet the Press this morning, blaming a $2k "disadvantage" on labor, labor benefits and labor legacy (retired workers). Governor Granholm hit the nail on the head when she made sure that everyone knew that this "disadvantage" is about how other countries provide for their citizens. Here, we have companies that must, as in the Detroit Free Press editorial

December 12, 2008

Hey, Southerners: Detroit 3 helped you to survive

BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana and Alabama on Aug. 29, 2005, the automobile companies of Detroit did not harrumph that the gulf coast should have been better prepared.

They didn't sit back and wait for New Orleans to submit a detailed plan for future repair of the ruptured levees.

General Motors Corp., on Aug. 30, donated $400,000 to the American Red Cross 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund, pledged to match up to $250,000 more in employee contributions, and sent more than 150 vehicles to the stricken area for use in relief work.

Ford Motor Co. and the UAW quickly made a joint donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross. The Chrysler Group gave $150,000 to the Red Cross and $200,000 to local New Orleans charities. DaimlerChrysler Services chipped in $200,000 for the Red Cross and pledged to match employee donations up to $50,000.

The three Detroit auto companies together gave more than $18 million in cash and vehicles to the Katrina relief effort in the ensuing months. No strings attached.

The U.S. Senate's most adamant naysayers about whether Detroit deserves rescue loans should have thought about that before now. It might have made Thursday's futile wrangling over a compromise to get $14 billion in emergency rescue loans for GM and Chrysler a bit less tortuous.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., for one, might have dialed down his earlier rhetoric.

Vitter said Wednesday that he plans to vote against the rescue because, in his words, it is "ass-backwards" to give money to the distressed companies before Congress sees more detailed survival plans.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., should think about Hurricane Katrina, too. He has threatened a filibuster against the bill, calling it "a bridge loan to nowhere" and stating that Detroit's automakers should undergo a fundamental restructuring before they ask Congress for money.

None of the logical arguments made by, or on behalf of, Detroit's auto industry seem to resonate with certain congressional critics.

Not the fact that GM, Ford and Chrysler have slashed billions of dollars in costs. Not the fact that they have the nation's top-selling pickups and minivans. Not the fact that they have lots of high-mileage vehicles and more on the way. Not the fact an auto company bankruptcy would have a horrible ripple effect, wiping out scores of suppliers and making hundreds of thousands more U.S. workers jobless.

No, to the most adamant auto-rescue opponents in the Senate, Detroit doesn't make cars people want. It's a dinosaur not worth preserving.

Could the opinions of these senators be colored by the fact that the foreign-owned plants of Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Nissan and Volkswagen -- which compete with the Detroit Three -- are located in their states?

Nah, let's not even go there.

Let's just say that since logic hasn't worked, we should fall back on a simple moral argument.

If you see a fellow American is drowning, gasping for air, do you quiz him for a while about whether he's drunk or why he never learned to swim better? Or do you throw him a life buoy and ask questions later?

That, it seems to me, is where we are with America's car companies.

You have done nothing and failed them, senators.

So now it's up to President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to, hopefully, rush in with emergency aid from the $700-billion Troubled Assets Relief Program.

They could still hold the Detroit Three's feet to the fire afterward, empowering a strong auto czar to bring all stakeholders together to forge business models for these companies that can withstand future shocks.

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.

Just one more time, Damn, Mitt Romney is an ass...ah, and a liar. Wow, glad he's not going to be president. Why are there always more Republicans on the Sunday talks than Democrats? Come on, the CEO of Wal-Mart? Please, focused on working people? Yeah, working them for as little as possible with the smallest wages as possible and then, with little or no benefits. Great model to compare to GM and Chrysler. Why would this joker even be on Meet the Press? Is this what we really want to expand as a model for growth or prosperity?

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I've been struggling with what to say about the incestuous bias in the media against the UAW through the media's repetition of Right Wing lies, distortions and avarice. Problem is that I didn't really know how to sum it up. To boil it down to what I really wanted to say or maybe it was how I wanted to say it.

Until today.

I was over at Dailykos and noticed a comment in a diary on the Bridge loan to automakers:

The lazy, overpaid autoworker stereotype is outdated and tiresome. Just like any other industry, we have our share of slackers, but the overwhelming majority of our workforce "bring it" every day.

You say the UAW needs to accept concessions to help solve this crisis. Apparently you haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years or so. The companies have been asking for and receiving concessions for the last several contracts. The most recent contract allows for a nearly 50% lower wage for the next generation of workers, while also removing health care costs from the company books.

Apparently that's not enough. You want to see us all out of work.

The bottom line is that while the UAW and management have played a part in the past mistakes, both have been working to ensure a solid future for the industry for years.

Over that same time the government has done nothing to help regarding affordable health care, balanced trade and tax incentives that reward companies for keeping jobs here instead of outsourcing. The middle class (led by the unions) tried to sound the alarm years ago. Unfortunately, nobody listened because of their anti-union prejudices.

The comment comes from a 29 year veteran of an assembly line, a UAW member, in the Detroit Free Press.

There is so much anti-union blather out there in the ether that it’s hard to cut threw it and make sense of anything sometimes. Here, on Uniongal, we try to do that. We try to find a way to remind each reader that there is something bigger than the ether, than the anti-union comments you read or the blatant anti-worker bias in the media. There’s something so much bigger out there, it’s solidarity.

This weekend, I read a similar thread on .UnionReview and commented:

We do fight back. Everyday you remember that there are brothers and sisters in your union, you beat folks like National Review. Everytime you talk to some random person about what it means to be in a union, what it means to have brothers and sisters in the stuggle are always victories against these jack asses.
Solidarity means that we come together and everytime we do, they are afraid and when they are afraid, they will take a brush and with broad strokes, they will paint us with the actions they themselves take.
So, when you read their comments and they make their statements, say what you have to, clearly, loudly and with the strength and honesty of those who have come before all of us. From the women at the Triangle Shirt Factory to Wesley Everest and to the current struggles for representation so many are fired for trying to obtain.
And when you do speak, know that you're not alone. We're all with you.
In Solidarity
Uniongal

It was something small. Nothing I haven’t felt or meant to say in the past. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve really thought about it. About what it really means to fight for workers, I just do it. It’s a part of who I am.

Fighting for my brothers and sisters in labor is just something I do, naturally. I have never stopped to think about it and I’m sure many of you haven’t either. I don’t care about the infighting, the dirty laundry, the poaching from one union to another union; it just doesn’t matter as long as workers can bargain, collectively.

Then I met someone who made me actually stop and think about it. I’ve thought about the why and this came about not through the Big 3 or through the constant anti-union sentiments about the UAW or IAM (from the Boeing strike) or how Andrea Mitchell and Tom Brokaw shill for the anti Employee Free Choice Act every chance they get. I started to think about it on Saturday.

You see, I went out with a new friend on Saturday. He's really an absolutely amazing person, just being near him makes me feel this unbelievable electrical jolt, you know, that feeling, when you remember why you do what you do? That jolt from the passion that is taking on the system, or fighting the good fight?

He’d shared some stuff on being a firefighter and me, well, I’ve never been much of a fan of IAFF. On a scale from one to 10 and 10 being my love for my former union (you all know I was a Teamster, right?) and 1 being my feelings toward Right Wingers, IAFF was about a 3, okay, maybe a 4.

But this guy out of the blue had me thinking about stuff. I’m not a retrospective girl. I like things to be clear, kind of orderly and since I’d made up my mind on IAFF, I really just didn’t think of them in the same way that I did IBEW, UFCW, UFW, UNITE-HERE and many others, I just didn’t.

So, he’s read my blog and he and I have had a couple of side conversations about the IAFF. He's told me about the The Secret List.
and how he's seen too many firefighters injured due to new construction issues. He’s talked about how industry standards are so low now, that during a fire, you can’t always head into a building because the materials used in new construction are so flimsy that you fall threw floors or ceilings collapse and roofs as well. Just yesterday, a Firefighter on Staten Island lost his life while battling a blaze when the roof collapsed.


But this weekend for me was different. It started out like any other weekend, busy and then, he sent me an e-mail about solidarity.

Solidarity.

IAFF is as much a brother in the struggle as the 29 year veteran of GM.

Today, I’m reminded of what it is I fight, for my brothers and sisters and there’s no rest on the horizon for any of us and yeah, I also mean you right wingers who idolize the likes of Rick Berman. Be prepared to fight, because I am.

I am now, more than ever, clear that what we need is just a little concept called solidarity.

To my brothers and sisters in Labor, Uniongal Salutes you. And yep, I mean you all in IAFF, too. You’re now a 10 in my book.

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I have been surfing the tubes for more on the e-mail but only seem to find Wing nuts who keep calling this bridge loan a bailout (dudes, seriously, it's NOT a bailout). But in my wanderings, I came across this:

You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.

Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.

The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.

The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:

• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers
• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk
• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion
• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion

Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.

Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.

Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more. We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.

Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.

Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.

Sincerely,

Troy Clarke

Now, I'd link to it, but ugh, right wing sites and the comments made my eyes bleed. So, I decided to look a little further and pull in information that really needs to be out there, and that information is about the consequences of DOING NOTHING.

Should we taxpayers extend a loan to GM so that it can operate until the U.S. economy recovers? I say yes!

If you think a bridge loan to GM so that the lights can stay on through this economic tsunami is expensive, then think about the cost of a GM failure.

Let's be clear, the alternative for GM and the domestic industry is not a cake walk through the bankruptcy courts, resulting in a reorganization that some think would put dealers and the UAW in their place and ensure future success.

No, even if GM could get debtor-in-possession financing to keep the lights on (which is extremely unlikely in today's credit crisis environment), Chapter 11 means a collapse of sales and a downward spiral into a Chapter 7 liquidation.

snip

Do these "instant experts" who call for the implosion of the domestic industry have the faintest clue as to what it means if it were allowed to happen?

GM's 100,000 American jobs will die. Health care for a million Americans will be lost or at risk. Hundreds of GM's 1,300 suppliers will fail.

There are 14,000 domestic-oriented dealers in the U.S. that employ approximately 750,000 Americans with a payroll of around $35 billion. Blink — they are gone.

Take just Texas, for instance. GM builds vehicles, including Tahoes, in a plant in Arlington, just outside of Dallas. The company has a major parts distribution warehouse in Fort Worth. These 4,289 Texans would lose their jobs, the suppliers to these operations would fail, the communities would lose their tax bases, and the state would lose its tax revenues.

The effect of the collapse of the U.S. automobile industry would be devastating in ways in which these "experts" are not considering. Nearly 3 million jobs would be lost in the first year alone — with another 2.5 million to follow in the next two years. Personal income in the United States would drop by more than $150 billion in the first year. The cost to local, state and federal governments could top $156 billion over three years in lost taxes and unemployment and health care benefits. And, due to supplier bankruptcies, domestic automobile production would most likely fall to zero, even by international producers.

The United States is in an economic crisis. The entire U.S. automobile industry has been devastated and it's not just the domestic manufacturers that have been affected, as many have asserted.

The issues facing GM, Chrysler and Ford aren't because of just poor market reading (yeah, they didn't read the market well and produced gas guzzling SUVs for way too long) there are other factors at work here and those factors include everything that Mr. Clarke mentions and all the info mentioned By W. Carroll Smith (Smith is the owner of Monument Chevrolet in Pasadena, a past chairman of the Houston Automobile Dealers Association and a director of the National Automobile Dealers Association).

We have to decide now not tomorrow how we can help the auto industry, Hang'em all isn't a solution to these problems, we need to bridge this gap for them and take the opportunity to get them on a better foundation. We can't afford to have the ENTIRE US AUTO INDUSTRY FAIL.

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First off, here's the Post article to which Dean Baker refers and now, here's what Dean had to say today:

By Dean Baker

We all know how hard it is to get by on tens of millions of dollars a year. That is why the Washington Post was near hysterical in its support of the Wall Street bailout earlier this month. They argued that if we didn't give $700 billion to the banks right away that all hell would break loose.

Those who wanted to put conditions that ensured that the money didn't go into the pockets of shareholders or top executives, or even that the bailout was done the right way through direct injections of capital (as it eventually was) were denounced as reactionary Neanderthals. So, the bailout went through and the Wall Street executives are now getting tens of millions in compensation, courtesy of average taxpayers.

Now the occasion comes to bailout the auto industry and the Post goes ballistic the other way.

After all, the average autoworker makes $56,650 a year. That's almost as much as Robert Rubin makes in a day. Who do these autoworkers think they are?

There are serious issues that should be asked about any bailout of Detroit, but it is a bit obscene to see a paper that in both its editorial and news pages was an active supporter of handing tens of billions of dollars to rich Wall Street bankers suddenly turn around and get hysterical about the idea of helping workers making $57,000 a year. And remember, none of these autoworkers are responsible for wrecking the economy.

The class bias at the Post is so thick that most people should know to treat this one as a leftover from the comics section. But it is still pretty disgusting to see people who make six figure salaries and who anxiously promote policies to help people who make seven and eight figure salaries, get outraged over a policy designed to help people earning $57,000 a year.

Personally, gotta agree with Mr. Baker, and it was really these two paragraphs that really made the case:

Well, we can think of several objections. First, there is the question of whether the U.S. government should be picking winners and losers in a business such as this. It's one thing to bail out the financial sector, whose product -- credit -- is essentially fungible and on which all other businesses depend. Automobiles, however, are not interchangeable, and Congress can't substitute its specific technological and aesthetic preferences for those of the market. What if we lend Detroit $25 billion and still nobody buys its cars?


Second, this bailout taxes the less well-off to protect the relatively privileged. The average individual General Motors production worker, whose job would be saved by the bailout, makes $56,650 per year, according to the Center for Automotive Research, and that doesn't count better-paid, white-collar types. Meanwhile, half of all households-- which typically include more than one earner -- make less than $50,000 per year. Where's the justice in that?

Think about it for just one minute.

Okay, so then let's try again, the Post is ACTUALLY saying here that it's okay to bailout credit and insurance companies whose executives' greed brought down those same companies and destroyed the economy, but it's not okay to LOAN money to the Auto industry because their workers, union workers, make more than $50k on AVERAGE. that's not the median salary, that's the average. Apparently, to the Post, it's still okay to reward Investors over helping WORKERS. And yeah, that's really what this comes down to in the end. The Post is really suggesting that "fungible" industries like finance are essential, but jobs that pay well are simply not needed.

Nice job Post Editorial Board. Nice job.

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