Bailing Out The Auto Industry
Posted: Monday, December 15, 2008
by Dan Bimrose
Liberal Fix
Sometimes I do not know exactly what to write about when I sit down at my desk. There is nothing that gets me going like a little injustice though.
Today I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.
I recently heard something that I just could not believe. I discovered that when workers get laid off at General Motors they still are paid 95% of their salary.
They are no longer working but they still are making 95% of their income. At most factories, and in my distant past I have worked in some, people do not look forward to lay offs. Why? Because you stop making money. I am 39 years old and I have always thought that when you were laid off, the company did not pay you to do nothing.
Do not get me wrong, lay offs, for a lack of a better word, are never a good sign for the company that is forced to impose them. They are unfortunate. They are an indication that the company is not doing well but it is supposed to allow them to free up some money so that the company can keep its head above water.
Another shocking fact to me was that the average auto worker receives $73.20 an hour in compensation of one form or another. Seriously?
Is there really a mystery as to why the auto makers are struggling with an impending recession and a vast reduction in sales?
Do not get me wrong, the auto manufacturers made a huge error by pushing SUV's and other gas guzzlers when they should have spent a little more money and investment on hybrid vehicles and alternative energy vehicles.
The Boy Scout motto is "be prepared", perhaps the CEO's of the auto manufacturers should have been Boy Scouts, because they sure as heck were not prepared.
What about the United Auto Workers Union that negotiated the unbelievable hourly raise and very attractive lay off programs? What are they saying? Well they are saying that they will not accept wage concessions or benefit reductions.
Huh? Where I come from, when you ask for a handout, you better have something to offer in return. You have to give something up. You have to compromise.
What is so troubling is that there are no guarantees that the auto makers are willing, or possibly, able to make.
They need this money to get through the next few months. No one knows if they can make it after that. At the end of that time they quite possibly are going to need another bailout or will have to declare bankruptcy.
Giving them money now, seems to me, like delaying the inevitable or placing the industry on life support.
Obviously a large proportion of our economy is tied to the auto industry. We should do everything necessary to ensure that they can survive.
Forcing them to declare bankruptcy allows them certain advantages like renegotiating contracts and terms of their debt.
They should be given nothing without restrictions on bonuses, mandates concerning production of fuel-efficient vehicles, enabling them to renegotiate salaries without fear of strikes, and getting rid of their absurd, preposterous lay-off terms that they have been forced to agree with.
In order to get something, you should have to give something up. That is the way it works where I am from.
Dan Bimrose is the creator of coffeeandprozac.com which features daily Opinions, Editorials, and Stories and the website tuesdaysreleases.com which is devoted to recently released DVD movies.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Hi Dan,If you want to become even more outraged, go to Google and search for "Camacari". In the top 4 listings, you will start seeing things about Ford's auto plant there (in Brazil). It is considered the most advanced, most efficient and leanest auto manufacturing plant in the world. But they can not build such a plant in the United States because the UAW will not allow them to make the necessary changes to the current system here....Please log in to respond to this comment.
Jean hits a home run. I asked where is the "loan" money going that they might receive and no one addressed that? Not my congressman, senator or anyone. The fact is that these "All American Companies" own the world. They took America Dan and dismantled it and spread it all cross the globe, piece by piece by piece and the only thing we have left is WPA. As for the Unions, well no sympathy, they took what they could just like the rest. Yet this situation goes deeper then any company it goes to the very root of our nation and our society. Never mind us we are dead already, what will our children have? Good job, Robert.Please log in to respond to this comment.
Dan,I haven't bought an American car in 30 years. However, all of this focus on the US bluecollar autoworkers whose bailout represents a fraction of the total bailout plan seems like cruel and unusual punishment. Where is the cry for accountability for the rest of our money? Why are we not up in arms about investors and banking companies and CEO's taking our 700 billion, padding their wallets and giving their shareholders a Christmas present? And we are concerned about the UAW? Also, your figures are wrong. The average automaker in the US makes closer to $26 dollars an hour which is comparable to non-union employees of Toyota. Health benefits are added because the Japanese subsidize that amount governmentally. Your figures represent salary plus the money in a pension which affects all former UAW employees Lets spend more time talking about the white collar theft that has resulted from our bailout. I don't hear anybody screaming about that, which constitutes 90% of the money we gave away.Please log in to respond to this comment.
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