GM to American Workers: Pay for Your Own Execution

The proposition General Motors has presented to the United Auto Workers and American taxpayers in its latest restructuring plan is simple: You must pay for your own execution.

GM, which already took $15.4 billion in bailout money, wants another $11.6 billion and is offering in return this deal: It will close 16 of its American manufacturing plants, terminate 21,000 of its factory workers and double the cars it builds in low-wage Mexico, China and South Korea and ships back to the U.S. to sell.

There it is: GM is demanding that Americans pay to send their own jobs overseas.

In the world where corporate executives live, the one in which boards of directors grant CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses even after companies tank, maybe that's not a perverse proposition.

But in the world where real Americans live, we've had enough of this crap. Decades of foolish tax and other federal policies that encouraged American manufacturing firms to throw Americans out of work and expatriate were bad enough. To expect American taxpayers to bankroll GM's plans to layoff American workers and move their jobs overseas goes too far.

We're taking a stand. It's gotta stop here. The United Steelworkers (USW), the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) and the Mayors and Municipalities Automotive Coalition (MMAC) are conducting an 11-state, 32-city protest bus tour. At each stop so far, hundreds of people have cheered our message: "Keep it Made in America." And they've signed our petition calling for support of a simple idea: Buy it here; build it here.

We will present the petitions at a teach-in conference in Washington, D.C. on May 19 when we will explain to elected officials why GM's plan fails America and why they must require GM to submit a new plan supporting American jobs.

As much as for the UAW, this is a life and death struggle for the USW, American manufacturing, and for millions of Americans in good-paying jobs. Without manufacturing, America is in danger of attempting to subsist on an economy based on nothing more than amorphous derivatives, credit default swaps and Ponzi schemes. The Steelworkers represent hundreds of thousands of workers whose jobs depend on the auto industry, from steelworkers who make the steel, to the rubber workers who make the tires, to the glass workers who make the windshields, to the paper workers who make the glossy pamphlets.

Altogether, more than 7 million paychecks depend on the U.S. auto industry, including healthcare, education, service, retail and other jobs. This bus tour is about preserving those jobs, all of those jobs.

In just the past eight months of this recession, caused in huge part by recklessness on Wall Street, this country has lost 1.2 million manufacturing jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. GM cannot take tax dollars to slash more. Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich agrees. Here's what he told the Washington Post, ". . . it raises fundamental questions about the purpose of bailing out these big companies. If GM is going to do more of its production overseas, then why exactly are we saving GM?"

It's not as if it's impossible for a U.S. auto company to manufacture here. Ford Motor Co., which is not taking any bailout money, is investing $500 million in retooling its Michigan Truck plant outside Detroit so that it can make small cars that it will sell worldwide, including its next-generation, battery-electric Focus. And Chrysler, which is getting bailout money, has made a deal with Fiat under which the Italian car company will manufacture a small car in one of Chrysler's U.S. assembly facilities, which, along with other long-term commitments, will eventually create 4,000 U.S. jobs.

On the first day of the bus tour, I was joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, actor Danny Glover, the angriest mayor in the U.S., Virg Bernero of Lansing, and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, among others.

The Rev. Jackson drew cheers as he remarked that somehow we've given billions to the "banksters," yet somehow we're still hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs and homes each month. He called for a moratorium on foreclosures and plant closings, and I'm with him.

Bernero is tired of Wall Street describing his father, a retired auto worker, as a legacy cost. His father is a human being, a senior citizen, who worked hard every day of his life and returned home exhausted from an honest day's work. Now, however, Wall Street thinks it's fine to reduce him to a sub-human term and cheat him out of the retirement benefits he earned.

Bernero's father made things, real things that could be touched, held in the hand - not derivatives, not figments of the imagination that turned out to have less than no value at all.

Now Wall Street and GM must be made to understand that Main Street isn't going to take it anymore. We're not going to continue allowing corporate America to outsource the American dream. Bernero said it right: "This is America's fight."

Join us. Sign the petition. We have no intention of buying our own noose. We intend to win this fight.

Comments

[SaveDetroitNow]

You've missed a crucial point: GM is NOT demanding that Americans pay to send their own jobs overseas, the Auto Task Force and the federal government are. They are dictating to GM how to run their company. I completely agree that we must not lose another American job. We must not ask workers to make concessions that eliminate health care, pensions and a living wage. We must not send another job overseas. But, please, get your facts straight and point your finger at Washington!

[smythdav]

I completely agree with this comment that Obama (The auto task force - right) is calling the shots here, not GM. For an alleged socialist, he was quick to endorse outsourcing and the destruction of American jobs.

GM made a reasonable attempt to treat employees fairly with regard to health insurance and pension benefits. For this they have been maligned and now destroyed by people who may or may not know what they are doing - time will tell.

Forcing GM into bankruptcy is a HUGE gamble with the future of more than a million people who live and work in the heartland in OEM's, parts makers and in dealerships across the country. Of course, as usual, those making the decision will not have to pay the price if they are wrong.

I fail to see how the adminstration's policy of forcing companies that actually make products into bankruptcy while throwing trillions at the banks via the Federal Reserve helps anyone in this country besides bankers and wall street. The root cause of the economic disaster was the greed and deregulation of banks. Absent to this economic disaster, GM was on the road to turning itself around. Talk about injustice. And by the way, this is NOT the change I voted for.

[hopeforchangenow]

Oh, yea those non-union plants in the south. Yea, some success. $400,000,000 in tax abatements for each. And who do you think will end up paying for them? Then the Japanese and Europeans wil take the profits back to their countries and guess what? They won't pay taxes on the profits due to the wonderful international tax laws that Obama is trying to change. You are right we really won that one.

[KillTheMessenger]

Yawn. Nobody has to work for GM. Of course, for the longest time it looked like a very cushy job... but that was just the looks of it.

[cdrach]

Contracts for employees and their big bonuses of banks that got TARP funds-UNTOUCHABLE- contracts that UAW signed in good faith with Ford, GM, etc-WORTHLESS

[petphotos]

And they wonder why there are people with pitchforks and torches at their doors.

[Rule Of Law]

My dad was an organizer in Chicago in the 30's. He had the scars and broken bones to show for it, but he also had the respect and honor of all the men who benefited from him putting his life on the line time after time.

Our problem today is that we are so far from those times, when the bosses and owners were like gods and the working man was just another tool to be used and discarded, that people have come to believe that it can never be that way again. So, read Ian Welsh's article from today, which shows exactly how it can happen here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-welsh/the-consequences-of-yet-a_b_203317.html?show_comment_id=24327778#comment_24327778

Then come back to this one and read it again! The plan ever since FDR has been nothing more than the destruction of the middle class and all our political and social power. We are a threat to the Oligarchs, and they are on the brink of reclaiming their control. Everyone want to think that this economic shell game we are seeing was some big accident. It isn't.

[ipv4]

I thought this was a post worth reposting by ZJR909

"All battles fought on the home front are ideological, propaganda being the weapon of choice, followed closely by legislation and executive fiat. And it's that battle that has all but been lost. When people blame the plight of American manufacturing on the workers, specifically union workers, you have proof positive that the hundred-year assault on labor by capital has not been in vain. Because it means, quite simply, that a vast number of American workers have come to see themselves as having no relationship with, let alone any indebtedness to, the American labor movement; and that they have come to see union workers as the enemy. This goes far beyond "divide and conquer"; it's closer to self-immolation. Those who actually work for a living, rather than spend their days devising complex schemes to rob other people of their money, practice a form of ritual suicide every time they complain about the UAW's "gold plated contracts" - a ritual which will reach its inevitable conclusion when the last union contract is finally shredded. That's when every worker's salary will begin the free-fall; and every worker will become a serf, willing to sell his labor for pennies on the hour"

[InofTouch]

since when is South Korea a low wage job...Hyundai Motor Company

[mikefina]

You can't make money paying Union wages to build low margin little cars. The money is in the big autos, trucks, etc..

The little 4-bangers need to be manufacutered elsewhere. The Ford hybrids, eclectrics, etc. are going to be too costly to compete.

And before all the Mr. Greenjeans in the crowd start cooing about the promise of "green jobs revolution", remember that the Union and the Industry OPPOSED CAFE standards.

If you are serious about saving domestic manufacturing, then convert to a "right to work" state, and compete in the wage space that your labor deserves.

[ipv4]

Let me tell you something smart guy. The only reason workers that are not in unions enjoy good wages is because of the threat of unions. Everyone benefits either directly or indirctly from unions.

People are fkg really pathetic these days when we live in an environment where the rich are get away with bank robbery yet we still have people wanting to keep the unions out of industry. The union are the only thing in this country that keep companies paying all workers minimum wage.

[Rule Of Law]

And let's remember, too, that Martin Luther King was not assassinated until he began to take up the cause of union workers! They let him agitate for "equal rights" but when his voice was raised against the Owners and became a threat to their control, he was eliminated.

[mikefina]

Interesting that you consider Unionization a threat. Any wonder the market policies itself against a THREAT?

My complaint with the Union demands, is that they are economically unsustainalbe. You can't pay workers the wages and benefits that they demand, incur the legacy costs, and still turn out low-margin vechicles at a sustainable profit.

If you had read my other post, Union shop autoworkers did a great, and profitable job making trucks and SUV's. They know it, I know it, and so do you. That's WHY they opposed CAFE etc. Govt. interferrence is what is making Unions non-viable.

Pay attention.

[cdrach]

perfectly said-look to Wal Mart's treatment of employees

[Ben6768]

This is all so unfair. The tradition of MARCHES and DEMONSTRATIONS, like in the civil rights times and in the 60s, should be started again. In Europe there are HUGE marches, sometimes with millions of people, marching down the main avenues of a city.
Lets do the same here : let them know our point ! UPRISING !

I look forward to voting for the new U.S. LABOR PARTY that I understand is being created.
The GOP and DEMS are two mummified antiques, corrupted by money.

[steelwheels]

Take an hour out of your very buzy day to watch this video. This is not what COULD happen. This is whats HAPPENING now. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5488926059460319590&ei=LyELSv_BGZCWrQK9wsmoAQ&q=john+pilger+globalization We have elected officials who wont vote as we've asked them to. We (our country) is being run by the 1%ers, who think of us as children who should just do as their told. We have a Federal Reserve Bank, that has nothing to do with the Federal government. See it here: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=creature+from+jeykell+island&emb=0# When I thought about my children, and will they be alright after I'm gone, I worried about W*a*r, or a ter*roist thr*e*a*t. I had no idea that their wor*st ene*my, might just be their own counrty.

[babyraymond8]

Great article!! I couldnt agree more. This is madness. Trade agreements have destroyed our manufacturing base and we are about to hit rock bottom. These plants should remain open. It is time to Be american & Buy American. I would not drive a foreign vehicle if someone gave it to me!!!!

[drymartini1]

this is a free country. we as citizens should be able to drive what we want, not what you try to tell us to.

PATRIOTISM IS LAST RESORT OF SCOUNDRELS !!

[iridium53]

Protests are fine, very 60's.
As you point out, however, there is a great deal of legislation that has piled up over the years that has made the business environment in the U.S. quite hostile.

U.S. Congressional and Senate members aren't the sharpest tacks.
You'll have to spell it out for them. Specifically. In detail.

And, you'll have to detail for the American public the most egregious laws - and, explain how these laws have negatively affected their lives.

And, which Congressman and Senator voted for it.

And, what they can do about it.

Vague protests arent' going to get it done. Politicians respond to money and public shame.

[Ben6768]

Good article, Leo !

I´ve signed the petition, and also decided I will not vote for either the Dems or GOP in 2012.
I will vote for whatever new or different party that will propose a new America with a strong manufacturing base.
The time has arrived for new political parties.

[seawolf77]

The main problem with GM are legacy costs. The so called greatest generation left them pensions and health care which would make a thief blush. How dare they steal their children's future. How dare they? And just like Medicare and Social Security is the gun pointed at the rest of our heads, anyone under 50 will be cursing their beloved parents in the years to come. Let all of them rot! I remember asking my mother how she could take all that Social Security when she didn't pay anywhere near that much into it and she said they promised it to us. That was it. They promised it to us.

[davyhulmedes]

I also have to wonder about the loss of tax money if all the work is going out of the country. This is not just from employee's, but GM also. Personally I do not think that they have been making very wise decisions, most seem to be knee jerk. An example might be the delayed introduction of new diesel motors/cars, also the intro of a sport ute (lightweight pickup) from Australia. These companies had better start to build solid reliable and inexpensive vehicles that is where the market is going to be.

[luckybear]

"These companies had better start to build solid reliable and inexpensive vehicles that is where the market is going to be."

Some companies already do this. Honda, Toyota, Subaru.

[mikefina]

And Ford trucks, Dodge trucks, GM trucks.

Oh, and SUV's, too.

But the market isn't allowed to have what it wants anymore. Didn't you get the memo? Al Gore leafleted California with them. Printed on recylcled campaign posters, he dropped them from his Private Jet.