UAW Strongarms Transplants To Help Illegal Aliens

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The UAW and other unions are on the case of Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler again. They threaten to picket dealers of the carmakers, and to disrupt their stockholders meetings. (Good luck doing this in Japan, Korea and Germany.) What did Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler do now? They did nothing, and the unions say it’s an outrage.

A coalition of 15 civil rights organizations and labor unions is trying to overturn a controversial new immigration law in Alabama. That law requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain, if they think that person is in the country illegally. The Obama administration says Alabama is messing with the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration policy, and challenges the law in court.

What does that have to do with Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler? Nothing. Except that Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler have plants in Alabama, and the unions would like to have Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler on their side. The companies could bring their leverage in the state to bear. The companies don’t want to get involved. Now the unions attempt to strong-arm them.

I can imagine that the foreign carmakers, being guests in the country, don’t want to be found on either side of this corrosive issue. Why do the unions attempt to force them on their side? Aren’t companies that were the target of an abortive UAW organize-the-transplants drive odd allies anyway? What’s wrong with the unions? My take: The unions simply want to discredit Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler with the Latino community.

Automotive News [sub] notes that Asian brands dominate new vehicle purchases among Hispanic buyers in the United States, with especially Honda accounting for 13.9 percent of the Hispanic market. The UAW could be trying to change this. “Nice demographic you have here. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Psarhjinian Psarhjinian on Mar 04, 2012

    "The UAW pushes for a libertarian immigration policy, and all of the supposed libertarians sh*t their pants. That looks a lot like pure contrarianism from people with 8 year old minds" As someone who is **totally okay** with fully porous national borders and unrestricted emigration, this made me smile. Nicely done. Why is it that only the rich can leverage globalization? Why can't the (relatively) poor walk through borders? Similarly, if the wealthy can create fictional people (corporations) to protect themselves from liability, why can't the less-wealthy create fictional people to collectively bargain? Good for the goose, good for the gander, etc. So how about this: how about we scrap free trade while we're busting the balls of immigration? Or if we're hell-bent on breaking unions, why don't we do away with corporations at the same time---after all, they're both collectivist fictions enabled by government. I mean, fair's fair. (for that matter, what about abortion and capital punishment?)

    • See 1 previous
    • Racer-esq. Racer-esq. on Mar 04, 2012

      @SCE to AUX Open minds open borders open markets. A house is property. According to someone with free market beliefs citizenship is not. Next you will be claiming that a job is a property right. Making exceptions to pure libertarianism is a slippery slope. It leads to arguments that the government can provide roads or healthcare more efficiently than the free market. I believe that citizenship is a property right, but that is the nationalist socialist in me, not free marketeer in me. Yes, there was a really bad nationalist socialist in history, but that was an extreme. And he was also someone that screamed about the threat of terrorism a lot - which should make you wonder about anyone that screams about the threat of terrorism. Modern Japan, South Korea and Germany are still strongly nationalist socialist countries. All of the idiots above that claim they are going to boycott "American" auto companies because of the UAW should get a clue about the world. I have no particular love for "American" automakers, but what do these idiots think, Japan, South Korean and Germany are, Ayn Rand's libertarian utopias? Wrong. All three are socialist countries with strong unions. Unions in South Korean burn down the factory.

  • Racer-esq. Racer-esq. on Mar 04, 2012

    Open minds open borders open markets. A house is property. According to someone with free market beliefs citizenship is not. Next you will be claiming that a job is a property right. Making exceptions to pure libertarianism is a slippery slope. It leads to arguments that the government can provide roads or healthcare more efficiently than the free market. I believe that citizenship is a property right, but that is the nationalist socialist in me, not free marketeer in me. Yes, there was a really bad nationalist socialist in history, but that was an extreme. And he was also someone that screamed about the threat of terrorism a lot – which should make you wonder about anyone that screams about the threat of terrorism. Modern Japan, South Korea and Germany are still strongly nationalist socialist countries. All of the people above that claim they are going to boycott “American” auto companies because of the UAW should get a clue about the world. I have no particular love for “American” automakers, but what do these people think, Japan, South Korean and Germany are, Ayn Rand’s libertarian utopias? Wrong. All three are socialist countries with strong unions. Unions in South Korean burn down the factory.

    • Racer-esq. Racer-esq. on Mar 04, 2012

      In all honesty I disagree with psarhjinian also. I understand how there can be open migration in libertarian world where everything is private, but I have no idea how open migration can work in a world where the government does provide education, healthcare and other services.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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