UAW Golf Center Inspires Further Confusion, Anger

Not for us though. We’ve had the luxury of several pre-bailout months of foreknowledge of this particular $33m white elephant. The kids at Fox News, on the other hand, seem to have only just found out about the UAW’s Reuther Family Education Center, and they’re downright apoplectic. The $33m resort, nestled on “1,000 heavily forested acres” has lost $23m over the past five years, despite charging as much as $85 in green fees. Besides improving the UAW’s collective handicap, the Family Education Center provides accomodations for retreats and conferences which give members “a deeper understanding of the UAW and the union movement away from the routine of their daily lives,” according to the Center’s website. All of which has Fox reaching for the “union-basher” volume of its rolodex.

According to Justin Wilson of the Center For Union Facts, the UAW covers costs for the Reuther Center from the interest it earns on its strike fund, according to tax documents, but massive losses in the past five years have forced the union to make heavy loans to keep the center afloat. “Unions certainly have had real estate investments in the past, but investments are supposed to make money, not bleed money,” says Wilson. “It’s funny that they call it an education center — it’s a resort,” said Wilson. “If I was a union member, I would prefer that they rented out a room at the Ramada Inn.” According to the UAW, some 10k visitors stay at the Reuther Center each year in order to “learn, experience unionism (and) commit to labor’s cause.” Needless to say, it’s much easier to convince someone to “commit to labor’s cause” on a stunnning, $6m Rees Jones course than at a Ramada Inn. But with private jets and executive compensation being given up by Detroit’s management for bailout bucks, the UAW golf retreat kind of takes a little of the je ne c’est pas from the union’s proletariat credibility.