But you get a big “5^” on this one. It said everything I thought when I read the same article. Particularly the last part about what has happened to their membership over the last 30 years.

This whole deal has nothing to do with the companies themselves but everything to do with the leadership of the UAW. If they are forced into chapter 11, there goes the power of the union and there also goes any chance they might have to force unions on the southern car manufacturers.

I live in an area where many people drive 50 miles one way to go to work at a Nissan plant. They get paid very well and have good insurance plans as well–all non-union.

Union officials also accused the senators of retaliating for the UAW’s overwhelming support of Democratic candidates in federal races. The union gave $1.9 million to Democrats but only $11,500 to Republicans in the 2008 election cycle.

So they are mad that they paid $2M to the Dems (not even counting many times more than that in indirect support) for their votes and the GOP Senators they worked against didn’t vote the same way? What a shock!!

“Many Democrats support the Employee Free Choice Act, which would take away employers’ rights to demand a secret ballot on whether workers will join a union. Instead, workers could form unions by getting a majority of employees to sign a card in support of it.”

As a pro-union, pro EFCA Republican, I was beginning to suspect the corporate interests who have taken over our party would never allow the truth about the EFCA to get out…but finally, albeit, indirectly, it has. The EFCA has nothing to do with denying EMPLOYEES their right to a secret ballot — they never had that right to begin with. The EFCA denies the EMPLOYER the right to call for a secret ballot, so they can intimidate employees during the voting process.

Rest assured, the 800-pound guerrilla in most of these union-organizing situations is not the union agent, but the company manager.

That said, I do not support using taxpayers’ funds to bailout the car industry. It is time for union and company officials to be responsible for their own actions or inactions. Go through bankruptcy, reorganize, renegotiate labor contracts and come out of this a better, more internationally competitive automobile industry.

Parasite: An organism organization that grows, feeds, and lives on or in another organism organization to whose survival it contributes nothing.

Examples: Labor unions, congressional democrats and career bureaucrats.

Etiology: Unsustainable depletion of the organization’s resources, coupled with diminished productivity.

Prognosis: Failure, or severe crippling of the host organization.

Treatment: Parasiticide, or surgery.

Personally, I’m leaning more toward the invasive techniques.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081214/ap_on_go_pr_wh/meltdown_autos

“Manufacturing is on the edge in this country. This is not the time for a political agenda,” said Stabenow.
Good to know she wants to keep politics out of it.

The UAW’s Gettelfinger said the failure of the legislation showed that Congress should stay “away from the bargaining table.”
Yep, Congress should just provide taxpayer money with no questions asked.

LittleDebbie™ is the dumbest Senator in history.

First of all, manufacturing is NOT on the edge in this country, but it certainly is on the edge in areas of the country dominated by the Democrat/Union axis. Manufacturing is thriving, or at least competitive in areas where “right-to-work” laws are predominate. It’s very instructive – unless you’ve never gotten beyond the constraints of public education (david farrar) – that automobile manufacturers and their suppliers are willing to invest BILLIONS of dollars in manufacturing facilities and equipment in RTW states.

The upshot for those states is relatively low unemployment rates, compared to MI etal, and economies that are diverse and diversifying as opposed to economies that are almost solely dependent on government payrolls.

It’s also instructive that the ONLY segment of the workforce that is experiencing a growth in unionization is government employees. Ya think maybe that’s because the union delivers votes to Dems who make sure the government workforce grows, the concept of “negotiation” with government employees is virtually non-existent, and governmental units can’t/won’t outsource?

I have defended the Detroit 3 auto industry in the past (especially regarding the whole “making vehicles no one wants” claptrap).

I would go as far as to defend most of the individual UAW workers. Most of them do a good job, and would like to do more were it not for Union rules (nothing’s more dangerous than a UAW member breaking their own rules). I recently finished a launch in Spring Hill, and talking with the UAW maintenance there, most of them left northern plants to get away from the overbearing idiocy of the UAW in Michigan and Illinois. They truly wanted to work and do a good job.

I would like nothing more than to see the UAW lose their remaining few teeth, and become completely irrelevant, and then see a more agile, less restricted Detroit 3 rise from the ashes and succeed after throwing off the yoke of the UAW. Final proof positive of the damage the UAW causes. No more hypothetical arguments about product line or legacy costs or foreign government support of the transplants.

It would be a true compare/contrast, before/after comparison.

Break the UAW, turn the union halls into pool halls, and let people have the pride from a job well done!!!