Mostly, watch and listen at 4:11.



The UAW worker speaking is from American Axle and the staffers at the table have never heard of American Axle. NEVER HEARD OF IT. Why is that important? An 11 week strike this past winter.

How can we expect the Republican Senators to be able to pull their heads out of their asses if their staffers can't even keep up on an 11 week strike that SHUT DOWN GM plants all over the country, in Mexico and also hit Canadian autoworkers? Are these rely the people who should be making policy about how and if money should be loaned to manufacturing in this country?

Idiots and asshats. Because of them, there's no money out there in the form of a LOAN for the auto industry!!

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I headed over to John Cole's Balloon Juice for some talk about Republican Union-Bashing and I found this nugget in the comments:

Exactly. But when it comes to union busting, there’s no lie too big. Romney said what he meant in that editorial, though:

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end.

The only way, from an executive’s perspective, to make that enmity stop is to bust the union and give all the power to management. As a union member, I respond with "Fuck you very much."

This comment was based on the posting about Republican union-bashing and their disdain for working Americans represented by a union. From Cole:

this is union busting on a grand scale. There have been dozens of signs over the past week what they really want, starting with the Mitt Romney editiorial in the NY Times:

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

When Mitt Romney says a “new direction” for unions, the new direction means planned obsolescence. It is important to remember what Mitt Romney does to make his money, and when he gives advice to what should happen to the auto industry, you need to understand that his vision for America is more of the same- in his worldview, everyone is working for $8 dollars an hour at Wal-Mart, getting their health care from medicare/medicaid, and barely making it.

On Monday last week, Todd Harris picked up the ball and ran with it:

Harris: Republicans are going to be looking-as we talk about concessions on the management side, we’re going to be looking, when you talk about bailing out Detroit, looking at reopening some of those ridiculous union contracts that have been huge, massive giveaways.
***
No, I don’t-I don’t think that this is class warfare. I mean, you talk about a company like AIG or a company like Citigroup, and there was bipartisan consensus that they were simply too big to allow to fail.

Now, you haven’t heard-at least I’m not aware of any Republicans saying, no, you have got to protect the AIG management, or you have got to protect the Citigroup management. If they need to be hung out to dry, then let them hang them out to dry. But, when you talk about some of these union contracts that are really crippling the Big Three, it’s not just that they made bad cars or that they made cars that used a lot of gas. They certainly did, although their cars are a lot better now. But, if you’re going to address fundamental reform in Detroit, you have got to have the union issue on the table.

And just so you are completely clear on what the real agenda is for the Republicans, the WSJ brings it home this morning:

Consider labor costs. Take-home wages at the U.S. car makers average $28.42 an hour, according to the Center for Automotive Research. That’s on par with $26 at Toyota, $24 at Honda and $21 at Hyundai. But include benefits, and the picture changes. Hourly labor costs are $44.20 on average for the non-Detroit producers, in line with most manufacturing jobs, but are $73.21 for Detroit.

This $29 cost gap reflects the way Big Three management and unions have conspired to make themselves uncompetitive—increasingly so as their market share has collapsed (see the nearby chart). Over the decades the United Auto Workers won pension and health-care benefits far more generous than in almost any other American industry. As a result, for every UAW member working at a U.S. car maker today, three retirees collect benefits; at GM, the ratio is 4.6 to one.

Highly recommend heading over and participating in the conversation if you get a chance. Don't want anyone missing comments like this:

Let’s see…professional athletes have strong labor unions, but the leagues are doing well. Service workers like janitors have unions but I don’t see the hospitality industry dying. And there were no unions in finance industries that were run into the ground. But it’s the unions’ fault. Always is.

It's nice to see folks willing to say what needs to be said, that Unions aren't at fault in the current mess. This mess if far more complex and it starts with the letter R, Recession. Funnily enough, that's also the letter that starts the party name that brought us this Recession. Amazing how that works.

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Labor history is significantly longer than Michael Barone understands. What has happened today is more closely related to the time of the Robber Barons popularized by the Carnegies, Rockefellers and their ilk. Decidedly anti-union, anti-worker and all capitalism all the time. Panics and economic shut downs of the late 1800's primarily caused by issues related to those same robber barons did not help the crisis that lead up to the Great Depression. And it was the Pro-Capitalist wing of the Republican Party, the hands off approach of Taft, Harding, Coolidges and Hoover that took that slow walk into financial crisis from the Post WWI period and gave us the Depression.

Barone is so hateful of Obama and the possibility of changes in our economy that he tries to link them to things in our history as if to do so would make his point. It does not, it is really only laughable at best, take this paragraph for instance:

Barack Obama and other Democrats have used the financial crisis to spin a narrative. The problem, they say, is deregulation and greed. This is not strictly speaking accurate. Obama and the Democrats opposed tighter regulation of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and John McCain supported it. Unregulated firms like hedge funds have done well, while heavily regulated banks have had troubles.

OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) is charged with GSE oversight (Fannie and freddie and Ginnie) and for the past 7 years have been pretty well sidelined by the administration from doing any kind of oversight of the GSEs.

During meetings on credit scoring, OFHEO told a group of government housing and loan policy makers that they were not able to instruct Fannie or Freddie on issues of credit underwriting or lending. At the time, several members of Congress from the Republican Party put forward talking points about eliminating OFHEO. The regulatory authority this columnist and others refer to would have been something different than OFHEO and would not have had the power OFHEO has but has also been constrained from using due to this administration.

Now, for the anti-union crap from this craptacular piece:

Their card-check bill will promote unionization and do to much of the private sector what union contracts have done to the Detroit Three automakers. Higher taxes and overregulation could reduce economic vitality and creativity. Comparable worth laws could have bureaucrats setting private sector salaries. America could move some distance to becoming another France.

First off, poor management, bad reads of the market, and GM's bailout of their lending arm (GMAC industrial bank and mortgage company) has done more to grind the "big three" into the ground than any labor agreements or disagreements.

The labor of workers is not a commodity no matter how much an economist tries to claim it is. Workers cannot and do not negotiate individual agreements with employers. Employers offer employees agreements. You can take it or not. As a worker, the only way to be treated as a market force is to band with other workers and collectively bargain with your employer. From many, one. One voice negotiates with the employer for what workers want.

okya, next piece of crap:

But some had adverse economic effects and proved unpopular: high taxes on high earners, industrial unionization.

Unionization began in the early 1800's. Trades were formed and then reformed and unions evolved over time. They didn't just appear one day during the depression. Employers caused severe problems for workers that lead to unionization from Haymarket to Triangle Shirt Factory Fire to Matewan to "baby stikers" and it took a long time until we had laws in place to restrict the manner in which employers treat employees. Again, another historical point that Barone leaves out. Unions have not caused "adverse economic effects," they have evolved as the regulations of them have as well. Personally, I'd like to see a Republican like Teddy Roosevelt back in the White House, one that supported unions and wanted to end monopolies. Unfortunately, those Republicans do not exist.


And he completed this pathetic anti-union rant with this equally pathetic statement:

But voters tend to consider only the history they know. They might do well to look back a little further.

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that he's so eager to dismiss history that not only does Mr. Barone not understand, but clearly that he also hasn't read.

It's so simple to blame unions and Democrats for issues related to the current crisis, but it isn't Democrats who've been at the helm for the past 8 years. Republicans have controlled legislation since 1994 (except intermittent Dem control of the Senate) and have had complete control of this country from 2001 until 2006. In that time, September 11th occurred, we invaded 2 countries, Fannie and Freddie cooked their books to down play their excessive profits (2005) and then collapsed just 3 years later, etc... Seriously, did this guy even live in theis country over the past 20 years? It sure doesn't seem like he did.

The only common denominator between the Financial Crisis of today and the Great Depression is that both were brought to us by the Republican Party.

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From AP (and no, still not a fan of AP for lots of previously stated reasons)

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week increased by 25,000 from the week before. The unemployment rate in May jumped to 5.5 percent, up from 5 percent in April. It was the biggest one-month gain in 22 years.

"The American people are waiting to see if Congress is going to help them," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.

But the White House already has threatened to veto the bill, and Senate Democrats have said they won't try and force their Republican colleagues to consider the House legislation.

Okay, so Reid isn't going to waste several weeks battling over a bill that will never be considered (meaning that Republicans will block it by voting to continue debate, i.e., cloture), so Reid, has decided that he wants to make sure that unemployment benefits are extended, and what better way than to attach it to a bill Republicans won't defeat:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will try to bring up the House bill, but he won't force the issue if Senate Republicans object. "We're not wasting weeks" on it, he said. Instead, Reid said, Democrats might attach the jobless benefits extension to the Iraq war spending bill, a move also opposed by the White House.

Nice, Reid, nice, I applaud your resolve to help American workers.

Of course, the article goes on to listen to the whining Republicans who seem to think it's okay to fund war, but not help out Americans like those in Van Wert who've been locked at by Kongsberg Automotive.

And just to be even more clear, how much are we talking in weekly benefits for these workers? Depends on what state you live in, for instance, if you are one of the Janesville GM workers who will lose your job due to the closure of the facility, you're looking at a weekly benefit of: $278.89 while the Moraine Ohio worker would get $299.55. But if you're one of those mortgage industry folks working in Mississippi, you can expect to receive $178.67.

Now for everyone thinking wow, that's free money, think of it this way, at minimum wage of $5.25 an hour and 40 hours a week, these same people would earn $210 a week. On the other hand, they are likely losing a job that paid $500 to $1000 a week with benefits and now, they're getting almost nothing with no benefits.

So, explain to me why it's okay to screw workers? I'm sure there's some great explanation about Market forces and how raising the minimum wage destroys the economy, but I have to wonder how many of these people talking about market forces have any idea what it's like trying to get by on $178.67 a week with no benefits. I'm guessing, there's no clue on their part.

You can check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics info on the Washington Post.

If you're in Ohio this weekend, head out to Van Wert

United Steelworkers of America Local 1-524 is organizing the rally set to kick off at noon at Fountain Park, located at Main and Jefferson.

Judy Grubb, union vice president, said the rally is a chance to boost morale for the workers at the Kongsberg Automotive plant who have been locked out since April 2. The company locked out more than 300 employees who had voted against ratifying the existing labor contract because the company sought to slash wages

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Okay, that’s a little spun for a headline here, but right now, it sure feels right.

You see, Republicans in the Senate blocked further consideration of a bill that would have allowed the Justice Department to pursue OPEC members for price fixing, from the Post:

The bill also would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue members of OPEC for alleged price fixing and required oil traders to put up more cash on futures exchanges to address speculation, which many observers believe is contributing to the unprecedented run-up in world crude oil prices.

The bill did a few other things as well, like taxing oil company windfall profits as well, but the goal here is that they want to drill. Yep, the Republicans in the Senate, with their heads up their asses, continue to deny global warming and their idea on global warming is to drive more, burn more and drill more. Again, from the post:

They said the nation could combat high fuel prices more effectively by increasing domestic oil supplies by permitting new exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in waters on the Outer Continental Shelf. Most congressional Democrats oppose drilling in those areas.

But for once, I have to agree with Kay Bailey Hutchison on this one:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) added: "Anyone in America who is filling their gas tank must think that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. The idea that we would bring up a bill that is called an energy plan, that has no energy production in it, is ludicrous."

Of course, her stand would make more sense if she also supported tax breaks for renewable energy, ah but there’s no need for that sort of thing. Of course, I think that Sherrod Brown hit the nail on the head in this Politico piece by way of CBS News (BTW, Politico, do you also note all the conservative Senators? I’m guessing, you don’t…good thing that Sherrod doesn’t mind being labeled).

Brown, a liberal freshman senator whose home state of Ohio has been particularly hard hit by manufacturing job loss, seemed almost apologetic for voting against the bill. He called global warming "the moral question of our time" and said he supported a cap and trade system. But Brown said he feared that the cap and trade system as written would allow the United States to "export emissions" rather than reducing them because foreign countries without tough pollution standards would take the U.S. jobs eliminated under a cap and trade mandate.

Gee, that’s what Brazil, Poland, China and Mexico have been doing for years. Wait, I wonder what the oil executives view all of this is? The NYTimes posted a little ditty on their testimony before Congress and I had to chuckle as the same White Men’s chorus has been sung out loudly by Republicans in Congress lead by the solos of Mitch McConnell:

The executives politely but just as firmly insisted that Congress should focus its efforts on allowing more drilling and exploration for domestic oil — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific, and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. They insisted that they were investing heavily in search of new oil supplies.

And they strongly warned against other measures: any new tax on profits would put American companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease oil supply; a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would increase demand and only raise prices more; lawsuits against foreign nations would do nothing to lower prices.

I was really worried that the CEO’s that make more than I can even think of could actually sit before Congress and tell them and the world that lower profits is bad for the world because it means more money paid by the little guy. I’d probably buy this argument if one of them even knew what it meant to be a little guy.

On the issue of Fuel costs, Food Costs and drilling in ANWR, Republicans are dead wrong. Their half assed backwards and wrong. But what’s worse is that any of us in this country could even have illusions that anything is going to bring down the price of oil. Oil isn’t the future, it’s the past and we need to invest in renewable sources for energy. If we don’t, there will not be roads to repair, crops to harvest or houses to heat. Life as we’ve known it over the past 100 years is over and we need to find the next great thing, we need to find our next “oil” to meet our energy needs.

Oil is finite and until we all realize this, we’re all screwed. I suppose that's what Oil Executives love, screwing consumers. And it Oil Execs love it, you know thier lap dogs, Congressional Republicans, can't wait to help them do it.

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