41 cut military spending much less than that and nearly destroyed the army. The only place to save money is by cutting troops. Troops are all trying to retire because without retirement benefits it’s stupid to stay in longer than a single tour.

You can’t get away with it again any time soon.

Those opportunities still exist. The UAW never had a monopoly on those jobs, and, if anything, the union’s continued existence relied as much on the unsustainable Jobs Bank and a truck boom that put off the inevitable day of reckoning for the Detroit Three.

Saying that middle class jobs will disappear with the UAW has as much credibility as saying that we won’t be able to buy a new car if GM goes under.

psharjinian: And yet we’re actively cheering for the destruction of the empowered through questions like “Why, if the “average” worker outside of UAW shops doesn’t make UAW money, should anyone?”.

And that’s the wrong question to ask.

Most of us aren’t asking that question. Instead, we are asking why we should be expected to subsidize through our tax dollars jobs that have no reason to exist, because the demand for the product the workers make does not exist.

Or, at least, said demand doesn’t exist in quantities sufficient enough to ensure employment at current levels, and customers clearly aren’t willing to pay a price high enough for the product to allow companies to subsidize the Jobs Bank.

The union wants government aid because it knows the real answer to the dilemma faced by GM and Chrysler (not so much Ford) is a reorganization that involves shutting down factories, divisions and dealers. All of which will result in a major reduction in the number of both white-collar and blue-collar employees.

psharjinian: The question we should be asking is “Why are we allowing the middle-class wage erosion to occur?”.

The UAW members make wages above most middle class Americans. And please note that the workers at the transplant operations make solid incomes. They aren’t making the minimum wage, despite the hysterical claims of the UAW and its supporters.

psharjinian: It’s a disturbingly American attitude: to begrudge collective prosperity because of individual bitterness.

What I see is a spoiled union demanding that people who had nothing to do with Detroit’s demise step up to the plate so that it can pretend that it’s still 1965.

I don’t care if UAW members make $200,000 a year and have four months of paid vacation. If their company can afford it, good for them for grabbing as many golden eggs as the goose can lay.

But when times go bad, it’s not my responsibility to ensure that UAW members can live in the style to which they have become accustomed.

The UAW reminds me of a teenager with wealthy parents. He had the best of everything because mom and dad were rolling in the money. Which was great while it lasted. But now mom has lost her job, and dad took a cut in pay, and said teenager expects ME to step up and allow him to continue living the good life.

carlos.negros: You can’t compare Detroit with cars built in Germany, Japan, or Canada.

We don’t have to. We can compare their cars to cars built in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas by the transplants. Employees at these facilities receive health care coverage through their employers.

carlos.negros: Get this: People there pay very little for health care or college.

They pay through their taxes, and everyone who can afford to do so supplements their coverage with private insurance.

And their colleges and universities, with few exceptions, tend to be worth about what they cost. The U.S. is still the leader in higher education, precisely BECAUSE its universities and colleges are relatively expensive and not open to just anyone.

Cut military spending in HALF!
Stop the national Debt from growing
Offer cheeper secondary education and medical
Lower wages can now follow

Generally this may be hard to see but Up north in Canada we have access to medical and education for most every one. Of course I would HAVE to find a job with wages that can support myself and family’s medical education expences. I can’t even phathom what my education in the good old US of A would cost compaired to what I have paid for in Canada. Money spent on all is better done than money spent on a few. Sorry Detroit

I would say “UAW jobs are one of the last bastions of working-class jobs with upper-middle class compensation.” UAW members’ compensation packages put them pretty high on society’s income pyramid.

UAW members’ pay and benefits are due to the Wagner Act, which established a labor monopoly for the D3 automakers, and the D3’s oligopolistic control over the US auto market. The UAW succeeded in wresting remarkable compensation from the D3, and before imports changed the marketplace, the D3 could pass on the “UAW surcharge” to consumers. Who paid the price? Everyone who bought a domestic car. That has changed, however. Detroit still pays the UAW surcharge, but in addition must cut the prices of their vehicles below that of the more popular foreign brands.

Gettlefinger protested “further deep cuts in wages and benefits for active and retired workers.” Well, to be precise: the “deep cuts” in wages are mostly prospective, and will apply to new hires. The “cuts” in benefits for UAW retirees have been modest (e.g., a prescription co-pay). I am sure that if the lazy media provided us with actual dollar amounts of pensions and other benefits the average American would find the “cuts” to be quite unimpressive.

Filing for bankruptcy will be the true game-changing event.

You might be wrong, but the burden of proof would be on the other side.

Of course, this is about cars and the component is UAW labor.

One other thing, many, if not most, UAW workers have more education than HS. At least they likely could get accepted. Instead, they went for lifetime employment so they could have a nearly free lunch. They were trapped by that choice, and by the UAW who got them into a rotten deal.

We all know America is not perfect and the people in charge make too much for the jobs they perform. But why should that mean we should side with the UAW and not critisize.

I grew up with the same story line as TaurusGT500 but different industry and different part of the US. I grew up in a one company town where the union ate it’s young in the late 70’s to 80’s and by early 90’s, 90% of the blue collar jobs were gone. They truly did not know how good they had it.

~$33/hr. (in 2008 $US, indexed)
-That’s what Detroit should be paying for its nut-tighteners in total package of Salary+401k+Health.

@Gary Numan: I concur.

You can’t compare Detroit with cars built in Germany, Japan, or Canada. Get this: People there pay very little for health care or college.

People in the U.S. can pay $30k for a broken arm, or 45k for a year of college. It costs more to live here. In fact, it cost three times more to live in the U.S. than in Mexico.

It is easy say, let the carmakers go under. But whose side are you on? The Chinese? When one in ten is out of work, when the suppliers go under, then all you will have left is your blame for the unions. Guess what? They have unions in Germany, Canada and Japan too. More than us.

If the top echelons of GM did half as good a job in their positions as Gettelfinger is doing I am sure GM wouldn’t be in this mess. In fact since there is nothing to lose now why doesn’t the federal government put in as one of the conditions of any bailout that management and workers switch their roles? This would give us a good idea who is worth what whether the executive idiots are worth even the 150K that supposedly the workers get paid. I bet most wouldn’t be worth that much on the assembly line. Yet they collect millions, bonuses, bankruptcy-proof pensions sitting on their ass behind their expensive exotic wood desks.

But let’s blame Marx for the incompetence of Wagoner. If Wagoner had as much smarts in his head as Marx had in his left foot finger GM would still be king. Under socialism the idiots were often at the top of many companies the difference was their were only paid about 3-4 times the workers salaries. And let me tell you I would be hard-pressed to think of a socialist CEO who was as incompetent as Wagoner.

But let’s get to Gettelfinger’s claims. Would Mr. Niedermeyer care to explain what exactly is wrong with the points being made?

For Christ’s sake Wall Street got 700 bil. And that’s just the official figure bandied about. By the time it’s all done it’s going to be more like 1.5 – 2 trillion according to respected economists and that’s just if the US economy avoids depression, with depression who knows.

Do the Detroit workers go on junkets to Scotland and California like the good people from AIG fresh of their 125 billion gift from the US treasury. And again 125 billion is just to get started on AIG. And the posters here complain about 25 billion for assembly line workers who just want to keep their job, pension and medical insurance.

Wow, Americans, you truly are a breed apart!

GM- Corvette and Trucks
Ford- Mustang and trucks
Chrysler- trucks

They make no money on the other cars in the lineup that someone will buy.
Giving them money to “retool” for what;

A hybrid- Toyota has that covered
A small sporty econo-car- Honda has that covered
A luxury car- MB, BMW, Lexus have that covered
A sports car- Porsche, Nissan, BMW have that covered.

Even if they made exact clones of Toyota, Honda models, people will still buy the real Toyota or Honda.

No one wants to by a Chevrolet car, a Ford car or a Chrysler car.

I grew up as part of the Big 3 culture. The new generation of buyer thinks of Honda, Toyota, BMW before they think of the old Big 3.

The money is better spent on the suppliers that need to survive to support the new powers of the auto industry. There is no way that money is going to help any of the Big 3- they are toast, as is the Union. Welcome to the real world- if you can’t sell for more than it costs to build then you have no business- shut it down.

Or sell out to the Chinese- the money used for the bailout is coming from them anyway.

The US is on the hook for:

-Giving them enough to pay off huge debt.
-Giving them enough for the pay-offs to shut down excess dealerships and brands.
-Giving them enough continue to pay idiots like Waggoner.
-Giving them enough for their pension obligations.
-No end in sight.

Post-Chapter 11 Bailout:

The US is on the hook for:

-Only the Pensions that exceed what the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp reserves can cover.
-Possibly some debtor-in-possession financing for reorganized, leaned-down, viable businesses.
-Possibly charging GM and Ford an insurance premium to underwrite their warranties.
-None of the big three debt or dealership obligations (shutting down Oldsmobile alone cost billions).

The choice is easy.

With regard to the UAW – the legacy costs for retired workers are very high, and may have to fall on the PBGC (as mentioned above it is still the better option). However, the problem with current workers is more that there are too many of them, not that they are paid too much.

“But officer, I lost my job and had to choose between food or clothes!”

The point is that the opportunity for the average person to earn a wage that was more or less at functional parity with that of thirty to fifty years ago is gone.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t at all like the UAW’s methods or it’s short-term-gain, damn-the-torpedoes mentality, but a middle-class that’s less beholden to creditors and more independently wealthy is also far less likely to be exploited and manipulated by the wealthy. And yet we’re actively cheering for the destruction of the empowered through questions like “Why, if the “average” worker outside of UAW shops doesn’t make UAW money, should anyone?”.

And that’s the wrong question to ask.

The question we should be asking is “Why are we allowing the middle-class wage erosion to occur?”. Have a listen to this podcast by Walter Benn Michaels: it’s indirectly about wage erosion (the topic is the fallacy of purpose of affirmative action, but the reason for that fallacy is fascinating). Gutting the middle class does America no favours at all, and yet both poles of the political spectrum have been hoodwinked into supporting it.

It’s a disturbingly American attitude: to begrudge collective prosperity because of individual bitterness. There’s far too much whining about “Why does X make more money than me for a job I value less?” or “Why should I pay for X’s health care?” when the real questions should be “Why am I working eighty hour weeks with no compensation?” and “Why do I have to pay so goddamn much to see a doctor?”

Story headline here should be……”Parasite kills existing Hosts, looks for new Host in the form of the USA Government”.. ie us taxpayers.

What are the benefits or value proposition for the vehicle buyer that the union provides over other USA labor that is not unionized in other plants? Are UAW vehicles better quality? Better priced? Better resale value? Better technology? Better MPG? Less Polluting? What? What?

How about the whole market concept and reality that many USA vehicle buyers purposely avoid buying UAW built vehicles out of disdain and disgust for the UAW.

BTW….Shirley Bassey is the best Bond song singer!

Granted, the UAW has been able to insulate its members from job losses through the Jobs Bank, but that may end up being one of the factors that kills the golden goose.

Very politician-speak, meaning he answers generically and says nothing that isn’t already obvious. Annoying to listen to, TBH.

You’re about a year behind. Incoming Detroit 3 workers will earn roughly half the wages of current employees, and the negotiated VEBA was set in place to deal with burdensome legacy costs. New UAW-sanctioned work rules have led to some Chrysler plants earning higher Harbour efficiency ratings than Toyota.

Read up on Chrysler’s World Engine plant in Dundee Mich. sometime. Its example, along with the aforementioned factoids, may alleviate some of the preconceived notions about the modern UAW espoused here.

Toyota, Honda and Nissan non-union U.S. plants paid salaries and benefits totaling $48 per hour, or $96,000 per year. Japanese companies in the U.S. showed profits compared to Big Three losses. Toyota’s 2007 pre-tax profit was more than $900 per car, while GM lost more than $700 per car.

Notwithstanding Japanese cars are generally acknowledged as superior to their American counterparts, American auto workers get roughly 50% more pay than workers in Japan’s American-based car industry. Clearly, for the industry to survive, much less thrive, autoworkers must lower their wage rate as well as executives foregoing obscene bonuses that accompany their large salaries.

In no other industry do high school graduates earn an average of $100,000-plus a year, as do workers in the auto industry. Without revamping the excesses, a series of $25-billion bailouts will solve nothing.

For me this is deja vu all over again. …Grew up in a steel mill town a generation ago. It was home court for the United Steel Workers.

The unions didn’t get it then there… and they don’t get it now here. …Because, apparently, the laws of supply and demand don’t apply to unions. … uhhh, except for the part where they do.

And twentyfive years later those steel mill towns? They’re still decimated and devastated socio-economically.

Gettlefinger is playing it out as expected, but it’s still dismaying to see.

Man, I’m sure glad that Paulson and his Wall Street buddies with their $150,000 secretaries had the decency to not selfishly petition Congress to protect their “venal self-interest.” I swear, I get a little choked up at their sheer altruism. Makes me downright proud to be a ‘merican.