Unions are being scape-goated!

The Big Three Bailout Debate

Dear friends –

Apologists for unfettered greed are taking to the airways. Unions are being scape-goated for the failures of the Big Three Automakers!

Prior to the November 4 elections, so-called friends of labor courted the labor movement. Now that the elections are over organized labor is being placed on the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” list. One all-important concern is being left out of the bailout discussion, or is being trivialized.

If the Big Three go under, hundreds of thousands of U.S.jobs will disappear. Those jobs are more than mere conveniences. They are absolute necessities. When jobs disappear, so do incomes. Mortgages do not get paid. Health insurance is terminated. Pension accrual is scuttled. The dream of sending kids to college becomes an impossible dream. Unemployment often leads to broken families, substance abuse, battery, and even suicide. And then there are the ripples effects. The unemployed run short of money and often find it necessary to forego buying items that the rest of us take for granted, like a new pair of shoes for our young ones, or a winter coat, healthy food, or having dental work done. The list goes on and on. Other workers who provide goods and services get laid off because of diminished demand for what they produce. What about them? It is a vicious cycle. The only constant is that the wealthy will remain wealthy even as poor and middle class families suffer. So let‘s rethink any proposed bailout. Let’s demand a structured bailout!

1) Give pink slips to the CEOs of the Big Three, after cutting the ripcords on their golden parachutes. Same with the Boards of Directors. They can all be replaced by fairly-compensated Trustees.

2) Freeze dividend payments to shareholders until the companies are returned to solvency

3) Remember, workers have no say in the design of the cars they make.

The Big Three must be made to re-engineer, then re-tool their auto plants. Quality, efficient, environmentally-friendly, affordable automobiles are not futuristic concepts. This nation has the wherewithal to produce such cars. Now all we need is the will. Too many “friends of labor” who loved autoworkers prior to the elections, and talking heads on TV, are now saying that the unions need to make concessions. Huh? That’s like inviting those workers to participate in a ten lap race after nine laps have already been run. What’s more, pundits and politicos evidently suffer from selective memory loss.

Over the past three decades workers’ wages have stagnated, yet the wealthiest 10% in our nation have grown richer and richer. Autoworkers have seen hundreds of thousands of their jobs moved offshore. United Auto Workers are bearing a larger share of the cost of their health care than they did three decades ago. Pension expectations have been lowered. Jurisdiction has been lost. And now the idea is to elicit even more concessions? What about the wealthy stockholders who received hefty dividends over the past 30 years? Are they being asked to give a little of that wealth back? Where is the call for the big-wigs at the Big Three to return their ill-gotten gains? See? It’s always workers who are asked to sacrifice. (Perhaps a compromise can be reached. Workers can consider making concessions the day that politicians who represent the corptocracy that seized control of our nation’s capital start wearing uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we can identify their corporate sponsors, and the day Rupert Murdoch and his minions begin telling the truth.) Whatever happens, workers must not be jettisoned. A humane nation would not do such a thing. Part of President-elect Obama’s program calls for job creation. He courageously proposed something akin to “New Deal” policies wherein people would be put to work re-building our nation’s infrastructure, manufacturing green cars and electrical grids, and working in any number of other enterprises.

Let’s not allow the right-wingers or the faint of heart in Congress to undermine our President-elect. Let’s demand a structured bailout Let’s end the practice of sacrificing workers for the misdeeds committed by greedy executives. Let’s rid Washington, D.C.of that putrid odor! If it was your job that was on the line what would you want? Enough is enough! If Democrats in Congress do not protect working class families then we were all hoodwinked on November 4. Write or call your Members of Congress! Tell them we will not allow them to sacrifice workers while the filthy rich go on their merry ways!