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Working People and Good Jobs are the Foundation of Our Economy, Not the Problem
Get ready for corporate America's favorite game: blame the victim. As pundits address the various reasons for the American auto industry's problems a frequent target won't be bloated CEO salaries, a lack of executive accountability or a flawed business plan. The target will be the men and women who go to work every day doing the best job they can.
Just last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gratuitously blamed the United Auto Workers union for the auto industry's current state three times in his column without a hint of evidence behind his allegations. As the bailout debate continues, there will be many more examples to come.
This blame the victim concept is inaccurate and goes against the basic foundation of the American Dream.
First, critics of autoworkers - or construction workers, public service workers or any number of other employees who have sometimes managed to join together and win decent wages and benefits - fail to mention that workers have been taking it on the chin and making sacrifices for years. At the Big Three automakers, workers have already taken significant wage and benefit cuts in their last two contracts negotiated in 2005 and 2007. By the end of the current contract, the gap in labor costs between union and non-union U.S. auto companies will be nearly eliminated. At the same time, studies continue to show that union represented workers, both in the auto industry and in general, are more productive, more efficient and have superior health and safety records.
But even more disturbing than the inaccuracy of the attacks against working people is the premise on which they are based - that in order to survive, workers in Detroit and everywhere must match their wages and benefits to workers who make less and labor under worse conditions.
The American Dream is about upward mobility through middle class jobs, not an economic race to the bottom. Middle class jobs built our country by allowing one generation to work hard, support a family and give their kids opportunities they never had themselves. And those jobs were based on good wages and benefits that improved over time to meet the demands and costs of a modern society.
We are told huge corporate salaries and multi-million dollar bonuses are necessary because these lofty incentives drive the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit behind a free-market economy. But when that same free market economy allows workers to negotiate for wages and benefits that match their skills and production, they ludicrously get the blame for ruining an entire industry.
As the union representing the men and women who build America, we hear the same thing in the construction industry. Anti-union groups complain about prevailing wage jobs that pay the workers responsible for building our roads, bridges, mass-transit and energy systems in the highest skilled positions as much as $40 an hour. That's a good, family-supporting job. But it's less than what a typical corporate CEO literally makes in 10 seconds - despite being in part responsible for our current economic crisis and now lining up for billion-dollar handouts.
Everyone will have to make sacrifices before our economy turns around. Working people have already made more sacrifices than most. But we cannot go backwards, lowering standards and degrading the foundation of the American Dream. Working people and good jobs built our economy and they are the key to our economic recovery.
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I read a report that GM plans to use the US bailout money to build auto factories in Brazil. Then fire American workers in the USA. Is that true? This needs to be answered first.
Great article Terence.
A lot of people seem to forget the reason workers were forced to form Unions; because management was extremely abusive to their workers, demanding that employees work 7 days a week for very low wages under the most horrendous conditions
The truth is, if business owners and their managers were left to treat the people working for them decently they would never do it voluntarily, they would choose instead to increase the bottom line by slashing the cost of labor until workers were getting slave wages and barely able to feed their family, in essence during the robber baron era labor was treated more like indentured servants than an important part of the overall operation of the company.
Lets ask people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'rielly and the Tom Friedman's of the world to forgo the $5,000 an hour they are earning for the good of the country, instead of suggesting the abolition of Unions and the return of abusive conditions, low wages and perhaps bringing back child labor.
Unions exist to extract above market wages and benefits from companies that are usually in a monopoly or oligarchy situation. When there is true competition unions cease to exist. Not everyone can have above market wages and if a significant percentage of the labor force has above market wages, the economy goes into an inflationary spiral or grinds to a halt. Why do union dominated industries always end up in financial trouble? Look at the auto, tire, airline, steel and governmental entities, they are our most inefficient organizations. Unions derive their power from the abliity to legally extort from business and government.
@texastrixie
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Why is making a decent salary as a blue collar worker an excess when its considered "just compensation" for someone who pushes a pencil all day.
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$55-$60 p/h for unskilled labor is way WAY beyond a "decent" salary.. Getting paid $30+ p/h for doing absolutely NOTHING is obscene..
As for someone pushing a pencil all day is "just", you won't catch me saying that. I am against ALL the bailouts...
Michale....
First, it's NOT unskilled labor! It requires skill to do pretty much ANYTHING! Just because you can learn it on the job does NOT make it UNSKILLED!!
Second, that's not obscene, that's what it takes to be middle class nowadays! EVERYONE should be able to get a job up to that level!
Third, you want to know OBSCENE?? Call for a plumber/electrician/etc.... Even if it's not an emergency they are charging more than $100/hr!! Granted, the WORKER doesn't get that much, but STILL!!!
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First, it's NOT unskilled labor! It requires skill to do pretty much ANYTHING! Just because you can learn it on the job does NOT make it UNSKILLED!!
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I use the term in the context of being hired off the street and having OJT, as opposed to having a degree.. It wasn't meant to be derogatory.. Imagine how you would feel if McDonalds went to Congress begging for 50 Billion dollars and it was learned that McDonalds rank and file employees on average earn $50 an hour...
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Second, that's not obscene, that's what it takes to be middle class nowadays! EVERYONE should be able to get a job up to that level!
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Yes, in a perfect world EVERYONE would have a job like that. But, then who would serve us our Big Mac Value Meals???
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Third, you want to know OBSCENE?? Call for a plumber/electrician/etc.... Even if it's not an emergency they are charging more than $100/hr!! Granted, the WORKER doesn't get that much, but STILL!!!
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I agree. That is obscene...
Michale......
I should also point out that my "obscene" reference was referring to the Jobs Bank program where employees are paid $30+ p/h for doing absolutely nothing..
I am sure you would agree that THAT is obscene in light of the industry having to beg and whine for the US Taxpayer to bail them out..
Michale.....
I am furious that the Congress' main response to the GM fiscal mess is that we must break the unions and cut the pay scale of the workers drastically. Exactly what percentage of salary did we ask the worker bees of all levels at AIG, or Citi or any of the other financial entities to give up? 50%? 25%? Oh yeah - NOTHING. I
f you push paper for a living, in a nice airconditioned office, and have an hour for lunch, and can easily get off work for a day or two if your kid is sick, we tried to save your jobs and asked nothing from you in return. Many of your co-workers lost their jobs, but if you still one, you are taking home that same $50,000 or $75,000 or $150,000 a year! No one insisted that you weren't worth your salary. Only blue collar people are ever considered to make too much money. Only regular people are ever considered as being fine no matter how little you pay them.
And by the way, all these legacy (retirement) costs. Your union contract is up. You want $2 more an hour. The company pleads poverty but says, how about we allow you to retire at 55 OR we pay your medical co-pays in retirement instead. Then, just like Social Security, the company spends all the profits and does not put anything aside to pay for their promises. And then everybody screams this is the workers' fault.
Great article brother O'Sullivan. As per usual, management uses the "anybody's fault but ours" approach to divide workers and go after givebacks. In thirty years of union life I have yet to see a giveback save an industry or company. And I have yet to see the giveback funds go anywhere but into management's pockets. Mr. Friedman disappoints. Perhaps he'll reconsider.
Now is the time to re-establish a large strong middle class which is the foundation of a strong economy. It worked well in decades past, but the economic pyramid was turned upside down by corporate greed, not by workers wanting a living wage. All the money has gone to the top. Let's right the pyramid, and make things right by the workers of the world. A strong capitalistic economy has a strong middle class as it's foundation, and government regulation to keep corporate greed in check.
Let's hope we can get the Card Check bill passed NOW and make unions and the middle class strong again.
Card check isn't about secret ballots, it's about stopping employer harassment after employees have decided to join.
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As per usual, management uses the "anybody's fault but ours" approach to divide workers and go after givebacks.
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Can you point to any HuffPo commentary that attempts to justify the excesses of the CEOs or the Management of the Auto Industry??
No, you can not.
Yet, I can point to dozens of HuffPo commentaries that attempts to justify the excesses of the Unions.
Why is that???
Michale.....
Why is making a decent salary as a blue collar worker an excess when its considered "just compensation" for someone who pushes a pencil all day.
Because placing someone in the middle class is not an "excess" but placing someone in the top 1/10 of 1% of workers can be an "excess"
The fact of the matter is that you keep lying about the $70/hr thing, and then claim to not be against the unions and the union workers!
This whole economic crisis if today's markets is all about diminishing the unions and finally eliminating them.
The Obama Era is so scary to the rich that they fabricated the economic downturn of today by stashing and hiding their "BIG BUCKS" and acting like they are still in charge.
We are still under the dictatorship of the"BIG BUCK BULLY" ,who can not grasp that the world is becoming a "UNION",and it will remain so for the years to come.
No more "SLAVE LABOR".
@Biffmeister
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"I don't know enough about the industry to assign percentages of blame so I won't do so.."
Okay. And yet...
"The unions are 35% of the problem."
But you just said you didn't know enough to determine this, which is apparently true.
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Actually, it was Maverick_39 who claimed that "the unions are 35% of the problem", not I..
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"I merely state that the Unions DO share responsibility in the problems of the company..
THAT is my one and only overall point in all of this.."
Which you have failed to substantiate, offering only rumor and innuendo.
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I think it is clear to any objective person that the Unions are not completely blameless in the issue of running the auto industry into the ground.
The excessive wages, the excessive benefits, the Jobs Bank programs are simply a few examples of this..
While it is unfair to blame the Unions exclusively, their tendency to play the victim simply serves to piss off the average American even more so than they already are..
Michale.....
Unions are comprised of people, therefore imperfect. The UAW has shot itself in the foot, but that doesn't mean they should be disbanded. Workers MUST have some say in the boardrooms, and unions are the best way to do it. The corporate run media has succeeded in the PR battle that portrays unions as bad, corporate governance good, but maybe the pendulum is swinging back in favor of organized representation of labor. If it does, let's try to do it a little better this time. This economy is the result of corporate mismanagement, transferring jobs overseas, and expecting workers here to exist as an easily disposable column of numbers on the balance sheet. People need GOOD, STEADY JOBS! Thanks for the post, it made my day.
Excellent! Well said, sir.
@Maverick_39
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NO! The unions are 35% of the problem. Their giving unions a bad name all over if you ask me. The UAW just keeps pushing and pushing GM for more and more until GM has nothing left to do with what their suppose to be doing and that's make "GREEN" cars. Meanwhile, You got piss poor CEO management just sitting back and collecting what they can. The big 3 were bailed out a few years ago with some $77 billion and all they kept building was SUV's and pick-up trucks.
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I don't know enough about the industry to assign percentages of blame so I won't do so..
I merely state that the Unions DO share responsibility in the problems of the company..
THAT is my one and only overall point in all of this..
Michale.....
"I don't know enough about the industry to assign percentages of blame so I won't do so.."
Okay. And yet...
"The unions are 35% of the problem."
But you just said you didn't know enough to determine this, which is apparently true.
"Their (sic) giving unions a bad name all over if you ask me."
No, they help set a standard that all workers should aspire to. I'm in a different union in a different industry, and I support my UAW brothers and sisters 100%. It is management that has failed, and yet the CEOs make ten to fifteen times their Japanese counterparts.
"The UAW just keeps pushing and pushing GM for more and more until GM has nothing left to do with what their (sic) suppose to be doing and that's make "GREEN" cars."
This sentence makes no sense what-so-ever. However the union has been taking cuts over the past several years. Union members work as directed. They build what the executives tell them to (a legal/contractual requirement). If the parts offered up in the plant and on the assembly line were for green cars (a great idea) that is what they would build.
"I merely state that the Unions DO share responsibility in the problems of the company..
THAT is my one and only overall point in all of this.."
Which you have failed to substantiate, offering only rumor and innuendo.
@LeftRight
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Michale, it's STILL not labor costs.
Think of it this way. I have three cars with car payments. Shouldn't I be able to count my insurance as a car payment????
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No, but it's logical to count your insurance payment as AUTO EXPENSES..
Just as it is logical to count retiree benefits as LABOR COSTS...
But, regardless, that's really not the point..
My only point is that the Unions DO share a measure of responsibility in running the company into the ground..
Michale.....
But even so I'm STILL not counting it as an auto PAYMENT. THAT'S what that $70/hr figure is!! The fact of the matter is that they are NOT PAYING $70/hr to their employees in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM!!! They are paying $28/hr to their employees, plus any benefits costs that they have. After they are done with that, they are paying x dollars per month to their RETIREES and COUNTING it as though they are paying it to their EMPLOYEES!
Since you didn't like my prior analogy, this is similar to the companies counting the cost of electricity to light the factory as though it were a labor cost, since without the lights the employees cannot build the product. It's not a labor cost, but it IS essential to the labor.
@LeftRight
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However, part of the REASON that they aren't competitive are the so called "free trade" agreements. The fact of the matter is that EVERYONE has a lot of tariffs in place protecting their national economy, EXCEPT the USA!
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Complete and 1000% agreement.
The US should mirror the exact trade practices as the country we are trading with applies to the US...
Michale.....
Not only that, but if you are making a product in China and it costs you $1/day to make the product, and you can make it in the states, but it costs $10/day, there should be a tariff to bring the cost up to that level!!
@ Pearlswan
You honestly and truly feel that the Unions are completely blameless in all of this???
That there pushing of more and more benefits and higher and higher pay for less and less work did not contribute to the demise of the auto companies??
That the wasteful programs like the Jobs Bank that paid workers $30+ per hour for doing absolutely nothing was not part and parcel to the auto companies problems?
You honestly believe that the Unions have NO responsibility in running the companies into the ground??
Really???
WOW.. I honestly do not know how to respond to such a delusional and myopic view of reality..
Michale.....
@Pearlswan
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And management is responsible for not retooling their factories and building better vehicles. Management had no vision. Workers deserve their benefits and management had the job of earning profit. CEO salaries exceed retiree benefits by a long shot. What about wages in the tens of thousands of dollars per hour and a golden parachute to go with it? How many CEOs got those wages in the last 30 years? Too many, I'm sure. Do some math then come back and complain about the worker's wages, please.
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Could you please find ANY post I have made where I have claimed that CEOs and Management are completely blameless??
You can't so don't even bother looking.
I have said it time and time again.. They are ALL to blame. CEOs, Management AND the Unions.
As I also said before, the Unions playing the victim won't endear themselves to the American public.
How many HuffPo commentaries do you see that attempt to defend the excesses of the CEOs or the Management?
NONE... ZERO... ZILCH... NADA...
Compare that to the dozens of HuffPo commentaries you see defending the excesses of the Unions and you'll see my point.
Michale.....
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