Jennifer Foster: Big Three bailout request rejects capitalism
Columnist
Published: November 24, 2008
The CEOs of the Big Three automakers and the president of the United Auto Workers are painting a Doomsday scenario similar to what financial leaders told Congress ahead of the first bailout fight back in September: Unmitigated disaster looms if Congress doesn’t fork over another $25 billion (or more).
(The Big Three have already gotten $25 billion from the federal government for research and development this year.)
I’m curious: Do the Big Three and the UAW chief also support a bailout for the newspaper industry? Journalism is the only constitutionally protected profession in this country. How about the construction industry? The contractors, their subs and suppliers comprise many more jobs than the Big Three. What about real estate professionals? They are completely at the mercy of the market.
These are national industries. The Big Three is mostly a regional industry.
But there is no bailout talk for journalism, construction or real estate.
Their job losses are just as painful. So why should UAW jobs be insulated from the economic downturn and protected above and beyond other jobs?
Complicating the Big Three’s quest for bailout is the relatively new auto industry in the South.
At a news conference Thursday, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger took potshots at Southern success – specifically, Alabama’s Mercedes, Hyundai and Toyota operations:
“We can help the financial industry and give incentives to let foreign automakers compete against us,” Gettelfinger said. “But at the same time, we’re able to walk away from the industry that is the backbone of our economy.”
No.
One, whatever incentives Alabama has offered any business – foreign or domestic – to locate here has been Alabama’s choice and sacrifice. No one from Montgomery went to Washington and begged federal lawmakers to pave the way. If Gettelfinger wants to compare Alabama’s state incentives with the Big Three’s bailout request, then he should be rapping on Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s door.
Two, Alabama’s incentives total a fraction of the billions Gettelfinger and the Big Three seek.
Three, Alabama’s incentives have created new American jobs in a new industry and spawned new suppliers that employ American workers in just the past 15 years. The Big Three, by contrast, have been in business for a combined 288 years. Shouldn’t the more established automakers be better equipped to weather the downturn?
Finally, and most disturbingly, why does Gettelfinger believe that Alabamians and Georgians and Tennesseans are somehow less entitled to jobs in the auto industry than Michiganders or Ohioans or Indianans or Pennsylvanians? I know the answer to this, and you probably do, too. I just wish he would admit it.
A compromise might allow the Big Three more latitude with the R&D money it secured earlier this year. And they can always file for bankruptcy, reorganize and return stronger – like regular Americans do with their businesses every day.
No company is “too big to fail.” Every company can fail, just as every company can succeed. That’s the hazard, and the promise, of capitalism.
But the Big Three CEOs and Gettelfinger need to ask themselves: If they happily enjoy their profits but refuse to take responsibility for their failures, are they even capitalists anymore?
Jennifer Foster is a political enthusiast who lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News. She can be reached at
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
By the way if my college educated co-worker is able to do his job as well as mine, then I should either find another way to benefit my company or expect to lose my job. The great thing about America is that we still have the freedom to choose another job or work out butts off to keep the one we have.
So your definition of “united” is to do whatever the group tells you regardless of your own personal beliefs…you just do it? So I assume you like more government because they can control more decisions for you and your family….they can give you more handouts regardless of whether or not you give any effort….while your neighbor the “non-union” worker works two jobs to better his life gets nothing for his sacrifices because the “government” taxes those extra earnings to death in order to pay for many people who choose not to work extra or in some cases work at all?
As a union worker you think it helps your company become more successful by being inefficient? How does this help you as an employee…as you eventually cause your product to be over priced! Your management then cuts jobs…Please tell me how unions are efficient? You would have to really stretch the truth to support this…I have seen it first hand in many states and many operations…The reason the auto industry in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia is successful seems to correspond with the absence of a union.
A union can dumb down its employees because it takes away the employees ability to think for himself…and use his God given talents to seek improvements for his employer. Most union workers have pride in their union…“not” the product they put out. You have supported my claim with your comments.
If you choose to take the passion you have responded with in your comments and re-direct them into efforts at your job, your employer will respond by paying you more…if not, you go get another job! There are many, many employers that are looking for good passionate employees….I work with employers all over the place and their number one problem has always been finding good employees who have a good strong work ethic…
I might sound like I am totally down on unions…but unfortunately I have not had any good experiences with them in all of my years….That does not mean that there are not good ones in this country…
The reason 1 lazy union worker, your description not mine, might refuse to do a job that was not within his “job description” Is because there is another lazy union worker, who if someone else does his work, may have his job eliminated. Thats why they call it a Union - We are United. If your college educated co-worker begins taking on your work load, how long do you think your services will be needed.
It seems the link I provided in my last comment doesn’t work.
This is what it should have taken you to:
MY EXPERIENCES WITH LABOR UNIONS
My first experience with a labor union was when I was just a high school kid hoping to earn enough money working on weekends for my Dad doing menial tasks in his plastering contractor business to go to Memphis and attend the wedding of Barbara Jo Walker who had just finished her reign as Miss America.
On a Saturday morning I was alone doing some cleaning in a school building in Chattanooga when a man walked in and asked to see my union card. I told him I didn’t have one and tried to explain what I was doing. He became very vocal and told me to leave the site and to tell my Dad that if I came back to work he would see to it that none of my Dad’s workers, who were union members, would ever be back to work for him. I left hoping to help save my Dad’s business, and the jobs of his employees.
In the early fifties, like many other Tennessee hillbillies, I went to Detroit and got a job working in an automobile manufacturing plant. Until I worked there a certain period of time I wasn’t allowed to join the union and be paid at the same rate of union members who were doing the same work I was. That was a union rule, not a company rule. After the required time, I either had to join the union or lose my job….another union rule.
By then I had seen enough of unions to quit one job when required to join the union, and get a job in another factory. I worked in 3 different factories while there because of that. They were all pretty much the same as far as unions and management are concerned.
While working in those factories I learned who ran the factories. There was a union boss in every department and he ran it rather than it being run by management. His word was law. If management wanted to make some change he would either approve it or say no, and that was the end of it. The department union boss would call breaks of from a few minutes to perhaps nearly an hour at times, but the breaks were for union members only. During the breaks union members did as they pleased as long as they weren’t working, but they were still “on the clock” and being paid for whatever they did. Some department union bosses doubled as “bookies” on company time. When they asked you to place a bet, no matter whether you could afford to or wanted to, you either did or they would find a way to make life difficult for you.
Oh, times may have changed since then, I’ll admit. But I doubt that they changed for the betterment of the companies that pay the salaries and hope to make a profit. I think that the condition of the Big 3 companies today probably is a result of the way things have changed. Those changes are killing the companies, and jeopardizing the livelihood of the union employees the unions are supposed to be protecting.
Labor leaders are just as greedy and uncaring as top-level management. There’s enough blame to share on both levels for what’s happening to the Big 3 now.
I’m driq, and I approve this diary.
I agree with the comment posted by Papa Will.
He, and others, may be interested in reading “MY EXPERIENCES WITH LABOR UNIONS” which I posted on the very liberal “Left in Alabama” blog recently @ http://www.leftinalabama.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3066.
After reading the individual’s response who obviously is an ex union man, I shudder to think he understands what it is to compete in the business world based upon merit versus being handed a job. I am 52 years old and have seen first hand what unions have done in this country. I have experienced the unbelievable laziness that union workers exhibit as they have a sense of entitlement. Unions were started with good intentions but we have taken a good concept and of course taken it to an extreme that has pushed many industries into a non-competitive position. This man speaks as if he believes he is entitled to a job for a specific pay regardless of whether or not the product he helps to produce is price competitive! As most union workers are now acting like sheep…not truly understanding the basic concept of supply and demand. Why is it that a union worker seemingly cannot think for himself? Is it coincidence that all union workers vote exactly the same about everything….how many actually know or better yet understand issues that are being supported by union leadership? My Father was a United States Steel Union employee for 35 years…..I have experienced several situations where as at a union warehouse, the workers refused to do anything not specifically in their job description…..I have seen the inefficiencies that silly union operations employ. I have owned American made cars….....but will not purchase another until the Unions go away! $78 an hour is more than most with college degrees that they worked hard for….sacrificed for….paid for..with sweat and money. How in the world can a sane man think the irresponsible management of any company is deserving of a buyout…“Loan” that every industry does not have access to??? Let the Big “3” go to banks or those with capital just like we in the business sector have always done….Would it be because they could not pass the scrutiny that basically says….we will not lend to an unsound business….You say this young lady should not write about something she does not know about….I would contend she has a much better grasp of reality than you!!!
The Big Three are asking for loans, or actually co-signers for loans. They will be paid back with interest. Nobody told Aig how to spend their BAILOUT money, and yet the Big 3 have to jump thru hoops for a LOAN. Where do you think the profits from the Mercedes and Toyota go? They go home. There is no loyality to American made anything. Senator Shelby is an idiot that should be tried for treason. He certainly goes against his own Country. You think things are bad now? Let the Big 3 go under and see what happens. Its not a doomsday prediction - its fact. I’ve been thru one Plant closing and its not pretty. The town I lived in sank right along with it. You shouldn’t write about a subject you obviously don’t know much about. Work a day in my shoes. You probably couldn’t make it back out to your Foreign car to drive home. I’m tired of hearing about how spoiled autoworkers have ruined the Big 3. We made concessions in our last contract and when they take effect of 2010 will relieve the Big 3 of the Burden of our insurance. People act like our benefits and payscale are outrageous. Its usually an attractive Woman reading a story from behind a desk that has been prepared for her. Male or Female, I’m sure they are making alot more than me for reading a script than I am for building an automobile. Get over it. Truth is not many can or would do this work for much less. The Folks in Bama, Tennessee etc. must have been desparate. Thats the only way you’d catch me in a Foreign Car Plant.
QUESTION: So why should UAW jobs be insulated from the economic downturn and protected above and beyond other jobs?
ANSWER: Because union members normally block-vote for Democrats and the unions contribute to Democratic office holders and candidates.
“Money and power” might be a shorter answer.
Advertisement