Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Diomedes]

He and I are making man babies and sending them for your guns.

[MadMarchHare]

Still, earning something > earning nothing.

These farging union knuckleheads need to wake the farg up.

[Diomedes]

No.

The Republican knuckleheads who have turned this issue into an opportunity to wage war against organized labor need to wake the farg up.  Union has made concessions over the past year or so and has indicated willingness to do so in the future as well.

They've been fair.

[MadMarchHare]

That's revisionist.  The car makers are the real iceholes at fault, and no money should flow to any of those companies without at least everyone from director up being fired without compensation.

That being said, the big 3 are so farged up right now that only further concessions can save them.  Everyone needs to eat some.  These farging morons know how to drive one rivet, before it goes to the next station.  They should make the same as a cashier at WalMart.

[Geowhizzer]

I agree with Dio that the union has made concessions, and that the lion's share of the blame lays with the management of the companies, which have been run horribly since the 1970s.

That said, it looks like the unions are still going to have to make more concessions to get the ship righted, or risk losing their jobs altogether.

Hard conditions need to be part of any bailout, though.  I just don't see the government having the balls to do it.

[shorebird]

That's revisionist.  The car makers are the real iceholes at fault, and no money should flow to any of those companies without at least everyone from director up being fired without compensation.

That being said, the big 3 are so farged up right now that only further concessions can save them.  Everyone needs to eat some.  These farging morons know how to drive one rivet, before it goes to the next station.  They should make the same as a cashier at WalMart.

Exactly. Fire them all. They were making Escalades and Suburbans while Foreign companies were getting years ahead of them with hybrid technology. Honda has a Civic that gets over 40 miles to the gallon. 110hp, sacrifices must be made.

As for the Unions concessions, they should make them. They are assembly line workers. There are no real skill positions in Detroit anymore. It's all been mechanized.

The UAW has deals that pay over 400,000 retired workers and spouses of retired workers health care and pensions. Their workers should be able to take pay cuts and still have a job that they can go to every day, rain or shine, and get paid like clockwork with great benefits. Thousands of Americans are losing their jobs every week. Quit crying and making a big deal about concessions. Be glad you might still come out of this mess with a goddamn job.

If all those jobs the UAW's would lose wouldn't be so friggen' devastating to the economy, I'd say let 'em eat fargin' cake. The only job thats even half safe in todays economy is the government job. Now the car companies want more money from the government to help them. This time the amount is huge, 10 times the worth of said companies. The whole thing needs the rug yanked out from under it. Almost the same thing you could say about the Eagles and Andy Reid, 'cept on a much huger scale.

[Phanatic]

Factories today are highly automated so there's less people and the folks there operate machinary or fix and repair. Auto plants these days have cool looking robots and stuff. Hell the beer factory here has some cool ass robotic arm stacking thingies that blow me away every time I see them. Depending on what you do 60k a year seems like a pretty reasonable wage to me. Especially as a career.

Am I to be penalized some day because I make more then that? Forget taking this shtein out on the union and its workers. No one asked what the average financial worker was making yet they got gobs more money. Seems there's some sort of double standard.

[ice grillin you]

whenever the wall street bailout comes up people get mad at the ceo's not the employees but when the auto bailout comes up people get infuriated at the blood and guts workers....so why is middle america so much more mad at their own than at the wall street companies who got way more money than the automakers are potentially getting...is it because they know that these are some of the few jobs that they can actually do themselves and are jealous they dont have one or make as much money as these people...and that wall street might as well be oz and isnt a real place to them because they would never be accepted there.....please explain this vitriol

[Phanatic]

I think the main thing is that Conservatives hate unions. Everything else be damned. Unions are evil socialist organizations.

Though I'm not really crazy about unions myself.

[rjs246]

Unions are not perfect. They are frequently corrupt and more importantly, there is almost no oversight of them at the highest levels which means that they are not held accountable for anything which means that they will almost always be corrupt.

Having said that they are single-handedly responsible for much of the quality of life improvements that we all take for granted.

They're easy to dislike and they are in need of massive reforms, but without them this country would be much worse off.

[shorebird]

whenever the wall street bailout comes up people get mad at the ceo's not the employees but when the auto bailout comes up people get infuriated at the blood and guts workers....so why is middle america so much more mad at their own than at the wall street companies who got way more money than the automakers are potentially getting...is it because they know that these are some of the few jobs that they can actually do themselves and are jealous they dont have one or make as much money as these people...and that wall street might as well be oz and isnt a real place to them because they would never be accepted there.....please explain this vitriol

I have said that I don't blame the workers, although there are a lot of places on the internet and elsewere that are laying all the blame on them. But don't act like they or their union are the 'backbone of this country because they aren't, and they don't deserve deserve to have their industry bailed out by the government. They are no more entitled to this government bailout than the workers in the housing industry. No one is buying cars, and no one is building houses. I've worked 9 days in the last three weeks, thats why you see me posting so much in the middle of the day, 'cause when I work, I actually work, and can't post. Unlike some of the people here who seem to have gobs of time to post on a message board on the company dime.

But, I don't belong to the Carpenters Union, so I'm screwed. I don't hate the Carpenters Union because of it. It it what it is.

I don't blame the workers and I'm not infuriated with them. If anything, I'm infuriated with the dickheads who are behind this bailout, the CEO's of the big three, and UAW leaders. The government will throw gobs of money at a problem that can't fix itself. There will be no more restructuring than to drop wages of the workers, which while needed won't be enough. There won't be a clean house of the board rooms. Their won't be any guidlines on what type of vehicles to build. There probably won't be anything done to make for a better run American Auto Industry. That what really pisses me off. That, and the fact that the government thinks that the Auto Industry is so much more important than any other that they are willing to bail them out in the first place when thousands of other Americans are being laid off during the holidays. It makes me sick to get up in the morning and see people on the news talking about billions of dollars like it's tens and twenties. If the Auto Industry goes belly up, then what companies follow to take their place in the market will not make the same mistakes that the big three did. You don't see Honda making humoungus SUV's that get 15 miles to the gallon and cost over $40,000.

Democrats want to think all this is some big master plan by the Republicans to crush the UAW. It's a CONSPIRACY!! Christ, find something else to do with your time. When the government bails out the Auto Industry without any type of real restructuring of buisness practices, I hope you will all STFU.

It is what it is, and if the UAW or corp execs were so blind that they couldn't see this coming then sorry for their farging luck.

[Diomedes]

I'm not crazy about what unions have become, especially the older, larger ones.  They are a vital tool for keeping capitalism in check, much like journalism is vital to keeping the government in check.  But there can be no doubt that very often union leadership makes ricockulous demands, and negotiates for terms which benefit the leaders of the unions more than the unions themselves.  They also take their mission to defend and advocate for the worker too seriously,  throwing common sense out the window and spending a lot of time energy and money fighting for things that hurt their own industry and image.  The NFLPA is a good example..they do nothing to help themselves or the NFL in general (which afterall butters their bread) by stretching out long defenses and appeals for people like Plaxico or Vick.  Another example: Police unions are forever defending the most heinous cops to the point of absurdity.   In fact, many unions do not seem to have any sense of stewardship or responsibility for the health of their industry.  They reflexively and defensivly take a confrontational stance with company leadership no matter what, and that hurts them. 

Of course, corporate/company leadership usually doesn't take care of anyone but themselves unless they are forced to do it, whether by law or by organized labor resistance, or in the rarest of cases by informed consumers.  Which takes me back to the question vigy asks..given that the corporate leaders are scumbags, and assuming for the sake of argument that so are the unions, why is so much more hate put on the workers?

Seems to me the hate for unions comes from a few things, already touched upon.

1.) Conservatives have made a lot of hay out of demonizing unions as socialist, counter-productive, even anti-american.  It is very easy to pit the middle and lower class against themselves by setting the relative 'haves' (union members) against the relative 'have nots' (the unrepresented workers).  Nevermind that they are all working class drones who have a lot more in common with each other than they don't; this is where the jealousy that you're talking about comes into play: the carpenter begrudges the factory worker because he makes 50% more on the same or lower skill.   Resentment and fear are of course the bread and butter of the conservative ideology, and they are very good at sowing it wherever possible.

2.)  America does not value labor.  It values profit and the right to it at all costs.  The American dream is to get rich no matter who is made poor by doing it.  Unlike the execs who run the show, the union can't hide behind their jobs.  That is to say, the execs can always say "it's my job to maximize profit no matter what.  it's nothing personal, it's what I'm supposed to do, and it's good for America."  Unions who operate with that same mentality (e.g. "it's our job to get as much as possible for our members no matter what," are a lot easier to demonize because in this country we worship the profit machine as a holy institution.  It's okay for mercenary execs to serve their machine without regard for reason or decency, because their mission is higher.  It's not okay for unions to operate the same way because it's their job to be worker bees who are supposed to be grateful to spend their lives working at all. 

[shorebird]

Dio is right, Americans that are getting laid off  have seen the Auto Industry caked off by the government in the past and are somewhat reasonably begrudging and jealous. When this bailout goes through, those feelings will become greater. Is that all part of the master plan? If so then who is it that is instituting it, the conservatives who don't want the bailout, or the liberals that do?

[MadMarchHare]

Look, as stated above, the CEOs of the Big 3 are totally to blame for the mess they're in, even more so than the bankers perhaps.  You can't change their previous fargups, all you can do is try to fix it.  That's going to take deep concessions from everyone, and probably federal dollars.

Earning less > earning nothing.  Now is not a good time for the UAW to get bitchy, just like SAG.

[ATV]

The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees, GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said.

Yea I guess I mis-read that.

farging lazy overpaid bastiches.