Bailout Watch 329: Congress Wants to Give UAW Free Ride
Two hours after President Bush announced he’d reversed his position– tapping into the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)– to bailout Detroit, United Auto Workers boss Ron Gettelfinger announced his intention to get the incoming president to remove the wage parity provisions included in the deal. Why wait? Reuters reveals that “Legislation proposed on Friday to tighten the sweeping U.S. corporate bailout program omitted specific targets for labor concessions that were a key feature of last month’s Bush administration rescue of distressed automakers. A portion of the bill proposed by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank sought to codify the auto bailout with terms, that with two exceptions, basically mirror those imposed by the White House when it extended $17.4 billion in emergency loans to General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC.” Meanwhile, “Frank’s plan also seeks to formalize oversight of the auto bailout under a trustee or ‘car czar.'” Bottom line: no UAW haircut (a.k.a. business as usual) unless the Senate reinserts the original language. And a Big Stick wielder to make sure that GM and Chrysler realize Congress’ green dreams. I mean, return to profitability. Don’t I?
More by Robert Farago
Comments
Join the conversation
The Dems and the unions are in this together. The unions gave the Dems hundreds of millions of dollars last election and the UAW came about as a direct result of the old New Deal. One of the first things Pres Obama wants to do is take away the secret ballot vote to join a union and have the union thugs go around asking people to sign union cards. The Democrat party considers this more fair.(so would Joseph Stalin) Lots of goodies for unions will be a major part of the new New Deal.
Barney Frank should not be allowed to craft ANY legislation dealing with economic matters. He was one of the congressmen that allowed Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to get out of control, and to this day he denies that he had any part in creating this mess.
The left-wingers over at Firedoglake are officially paranoid that the right-wingers want to break the UAW. In a recent post there, I brought up the UAW's golf course, linked to TTAC, and got scolded for it. Here... ... and probably here, too.
bluecon, the legislation you're talking about won't take away secret ballots. Card check is just another option, that's all.