Does a work force who averages $29.75 an hour really need their health care costs taken care of for them? I’ve pondered this question for some time. From an employer’s perspective, to pay a worker that much AND cover all the health care bills seems like a bit of a burden on payroll don’t you think? No wonder so much manufacturing has gone overseas. If the UAW keeps this up they’ll ALL price themselves out of a job at some point.

You say I should man up and do something to change the system, and one could say that I have:

I left it and never looked back.

This may not “change the system” by the conventional definition but it certainly changed it from where I stand. I was doing nothing but manual labor jobs for my entire working life. From flipping burgers in high school, to several factory jobs, enlisting in the Navy, wrenching on cars at dealerships, grunt work is all I ever knew. This is precisely what gave me the motivation to get my ass in college, get that degree that I wanted, and leave the slave-labor environment once and for all. Nothing against those who choose to stay, but it’s not for me.

Perhaps some former workers would like to try the same and pay for it with some of that generous $30/hour savings.

The anti-union comment at the end of this blurp seems not only out place but in poor taste. Unions exist so workers DONT get “raped”.

So they DON’T get raped huh? Sure, try telling that to the workers who got their pensions yanked by UAW Local 662 in my hometown. And the few who got screwed there, are not alone; unions have cannibalized their own members’ pensions in other areas of the country as well. I don’t know about you, but that’s no way to thank someone who gave nearly 30 years of their life to you. Now as to whether this qualifies as “corruption”, I couldn’t care less; I’m just glad to never been part of any worthless union, and never will be.

The anti-union comment at the end of this blurp seems not only out place but in poor taste. Unions exist so workers DONT get “raped”.

What happens if Delphi gets no bailouts and completely goes kaput?

GM files for chapter 11. They would have no choice but to pay out the nose to take Delphi out of bankruptcy or have their parts stop coming in. GM really can’t afford either option.

Hooray for big business and their paid politicians.

It mentions United Airlines and US Air as another examples where the government allowed a business to loot a pension by replacing cash with stock, that turned out to be worthless. Did they ask the beneficiaries of these pensions how these plans worked out? No. Because they turned the pension worthless.

There is a reason why only 10% of a pension’s funds can be invested in the company’s stock. Now they want to make one more exception to the rule.

I hope the UAW and lawmakers fight that idea tooth and nail. It is wrong on so many levels. The PBGC (taxpayers at the end of the day) already has enough liability it is already on the hook for. The last thing it needs to do is start bending the rules so even more pensions can be looted and fail in spectacular fashion.