Quote Of The Day: The View From The Bunker Edition
Most employers have vigorously opposed unions with every means at their disposal. These pro-employer, anti-union forces continually attack unions and workers that want to form a union…
…Let’s be clear, the contempt for the UAW was so deep that some of them were willing to let the industry collapse in the hopes that they could destroy us. Even the former president recognized the insanity of what they were willing to do.
Ron Gettelfinger fires up the troops in his final address as UAW President, as quoted in the Detroit Free Press. It might have been a moment for reflection and self-examination, but Gettelfinger served up some old-school, union-hall fire-and-brimstone instead. Only Ron didn’t look in the mirror before giving out his enemies’ description. Gettelfinger’s paranoid take on the auto bailout is actually eerily similar to that of the far right wing, in that they both place the UAW at the center of the bailout.
In this analysis, Detroit’s decades-long fall from grace on countless industry competencies was almost incidental to the political battle over the survival of the UAW. Objection to the bailout can only be explained by hatred for the UAW. Or, to paraphrase the proud father of the auto industry bailout (himself no fan of the UAW), “you’re either with us or against us.” Gettelfinger need only look to the deep divisions within his own union to understand the folly of such gross generalizations.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
That reminds me of the "Frog and the Scorpion" parabale.
Self reflection appears to be above the pay grade of union bosses, UAW and otherwise. Ron is right to some degree... there is contempt for the UAW. Couldn't imagine why.
Wasn't the President of PATCO similarly defiant? If we'd had a real President instead of a Cloward-Piven disciple on the indirect union payroll, Gettlefinger and his mob would have learned the real meaning of "concessions" at the hands of a Chapter 11 judge.
>>Nonsense. Chrysler bondholders, especially the Indiana police and teachers pension funds tried exactly that, in front of a Chapter 11 judge. Didn’t work for them. Yes, but the majority of voting creditors (which the judge deferred to, plus possibly the heat he/she was getting from the regime) went along with the pre-packaged bankruptcy arrangement because the Obama administration leaned on them during the construction of that prepackage. So it was over before it was over as far as the dissenting bondholders went. This was pure banana republic stuff, an Obama and union "redistribution" of wealth from secured bondholders to the unsecured UAW.