Welcome To My World ,Or, (You Are SO Screwed)
American Dream at stake in Delphi-UAW showdown
Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:16 PM ET
By Tom Brown
DETROIT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - At first glance, the showdown between turnaround specialist Steve Miller and organized labor would seem to be good news for the U.S. auto industry. For auto workers, though, it could mean the end of the American Dream.
The hard-charging Miller, who took over as chief executive at giant auto parts maker Delphi Corp. in July, and steered it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 8, wants steep wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers and other unions as part of its reorganization.
If he gets what he wants, it could open the door to dramatic cuts in pay and benefits for UAW-protected hourly workers at General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. giving Detroit's distressed automakers sorely needed labor-cost relief.
At the very least, Delphi could exert strong influence on the UAW's negotiations with GM, Ford and the Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler, when new labor contracts are hammered out in 2007.
"More than anything it tells the UAW that their bargaining power is gone," said David Cole, who heads the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based, Center for Automotive Research. "The market is defining wages and benefits of the future and the best they can hope for is to work collaboratively with the companies to survive."
By indicating that he wants to slash UAW wages of $27.50 to as little as $10 an hour, Miller is asking for a fight, however, and UAW leaders have already warned that he may face a potentially crippling strike. In Detroit, where working-class Americans have long been able to lift themselves into the middle-class through well-paid jobs in the auto industry, he also risks becoming Public Enemy No. 1.
Until now the UAW, which is Delphi's largest union, has enjoyed wages and benefits that are the gold standard of industrial America, even as other unions including the Teamsters and United Steelworkers suffered serious setbacks. But with Miller, who took Bethlehem Steel into bankruptcy in 2001, the good times may finally be over.
"THE GREAT AMERICAN DREAM"
In remarks last week, which angered the UAW's leaders, Miller said globalization had swept over the workers in Delphi's factories, effectively ending their pursuit of "the Great American Dream."
His trump card lies in the fact that he could quickly start selling off Delphi's assets. Apart from job losses, shortages of key components could have an industry wide impact. GM, former parent of the top U.S. parts supplier, is its biggest customer and most vulnerable.
"If we do all this right, Delphi will remain one of the world's leading global automotive suppliers," Miller said. "But if we do it badly, Delphi may be broken up into small pieces. The impact of the collapse could potentially injure most of the world's automakers and perhaps fatally wound General Motors."
Henry Ford was credited with a stroke of genius by creating a whole new group of consumers for his company's products back in 1914. Ford doubled the pay of his workers, saying he wanted them to make enough to buy the Model T's they built. But 91 years later Delphi workers could soon find a new car, built with the parts they produce, totally out of their reach.
"This is a total reversal of Henry Ford's landmark insight," said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, who blames many of the domestic auto industry's problems on bad U.S. trade policy, outsourcing and globalization, not U.S. labor costs.
"You have these U.S. parts companies and the U.S. automakers themselves trapped in this cost-cutting spiral which winds up driving down the wages of many of the customers that they're relying on to buy their products," he said.
"The bottom line that Delphi and companies like it seem to be serving up is that it is not possible to manufacture sophisticated products in the United States while paying First World costs. But that is not an acceptable message for this country," he said.
"Whether it be in the trade union movement or the captains of industry, the vision that we have for America ought to be for a better America," said Richard Shoemaker, the UAW vice president responsible for contract negotiations with both GM and Delphi.
"It ought to be a vision of how we make life better for those people that live here; not a vision for dismantling the manufacturing base and taking the quality of life that we've known and enjoyed down to that of a Third World country," Shoemaker told Reuters.
He did not elaborate, but the UAW's membership has fallen by about half from a peak of 1.5 million in the 1970s as the number of well-paid, unskilled manufacturing jobs declined across America.
(Additional reporting by David Bailey, Chicago)
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Now. Let’s see what happens when the sissies who sat on their asses while the poorest of us got reamed with no benefits and low wages get a taste of what it’s like to survive on $9.00 an hour. Serves ‘em right. It also means that as these folks get their bit of the ‘American Dream’ shoved down their throats we will see some kind of uprising in America against the rich who control these wages.
At that point with federal troops in place in the states (under the guise of ‘natural disaster’ or ‘bird flu’) and the “Patriot Act” controlling all manner of labels and definitions these uprisings will be labeled ‘acts of terrorism’ and ‘traitorous’ and the people who seek to organize these formerly higher paid Americans will be spirited away and incarcerated who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long and ‘legal’ will have an entirely different meaning from what it meant last year or the year before.
The “Patriot Act” also controls our right of free assembly, and so we will not be able to gather in groups to organize in order to fight these issues.
What I find dismaying is that rank and file Americans—our backbone of citizenry are so oblivious and indifferent to these events and the potential that these events have to turn America into a fascist state controlled by the likes of George W. Bush who is no more than a puppet for some organization or another who pulls his strings. It sure as hell ain’t Karl Rove or any other individual: we’re talking maybe the top 1% of the top 1%...bankers, oil men, vastly entrenched financiers and despots who seek not only to control America but our planet. Global domination? You bet.
America as an ideal of freedom in the world no longer exists. It’s dead, and we are not even at the wake yet. We haven’t got the call that tells us our country is dead—and when the majority of us finally get the word we will find in place laws that do not allow us to change the events that we detest.
Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:16 PM ET
By Tom Brown
DETROIT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - At first glance, the showdown between turnaround specialist Steve Miller and organized labor would seem to be good news for the U.S. auto industry. For auto workers, though, it could mean the end of the American Dream.
The hard-charging Miller, who took over as chief executive at giant auto parts maker Delphi Corp. in July, and steered it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 8, wants steep wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers and other unions as part of its reorganization.
If he gets what he wants, it could open the door to dramatic cuts in pay and benefits for UAW-protected hourly workers at General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. giving Detroit's distressed automakers sorely needed labor-cost relief.
At the very least, Delphi could exert strong influence on the UAW's negotiations with GM, Ford and the Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler, when new labor contracts are hammered out in 2007.
"More than anything it tells the UAW that their bargaining power is gone," said David Cole, who heads the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based, Center for Automotive Research. "The market is defining wages and benefits of the future and the best they can hope for is to work collaboratively with the companies to survive."
By indicating that he wants to slash UAW wages of $27.50 to as little as $10 an hour, Miller is asking for a fight, however, and UAW leaders have already warned that he may face a potentially crippling strike. In Detroit, where working-class Americans have long been able to lift themselves into the middle-class through well-paid jobs in the auto industry, he also risks becoming Public Enemy No. 1.
Until now the UAW, which is Delphi's largest union, has enjoyed wages and benefits that are the gold standard of industrial America, even as other unions including the Teamsters and United Steelworkers suffered serious setbacks. But with Miller, who took Bethlehem Steel into bankruptcy in 2001, the good times may finally be over.
"THE GREAT AMERICAN DREAM"
In remarks last week, which angered the UAW's leaders, Miller said globalization had swept over the workers in Delphi's factories, effectively ending their pursuit of "the Great American Dream."
His trump card lies in the fact that he could quickly start selling off Delphi's assets. Apart from job losses, shortages of key components could have an industry wide impact. GM, former parent of the top U.S. parts supplier, is its biggest customer and most vulnerable.
"If we do all this right, Delphi will remain one of the world's leading global automotive suppliers," Miller said. "But if we do it badly, Delphi may be broken up into small pieces. The impact of the collapse could potentially injure most of the world's automakers and perhaps fatally wound General Motors."
Henry Ford was credited with a stroke of genius by creating a whole new group of consumers for his company's products back in 1914. Ford doubled the pay of his workers, saying he wanted them to make enough to buy the Model T's they built. But 91 years later Delphi workers could soon find a new car, built with the parts they produce, totally out of their reach.
"This is a total reversal of Henry Ford's landmark insight," said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, who blames many of the domestic auto industry's problems on bad U.S. trade policy, outsourcing and globalization, not U.S. labor costs.
"You have these U.S. parts companies and the U.S. automakers themselves trapped in this cost-cutting spiral which winds up driving down the wages of many of the customers that they're relying on to buy their products," he said.
"The bottom line that Delphi and companies like it seem to be serving up is that it is not possible to manufacture sophisticated products in the United States while paying First World costs. But that is not an acceptable message for this country," he said.
"Whether it be in the trade union movement or the captains of industry, the vision that we have for America ought to be for a better America," said Richard Shoemaker, the UAW vice president responsible for contract negotiations with both GM and Delphi.
"It ought to be a vision of how we make life better for those people that live here; not a vision for dismantling the manufacturing base and taking the quality of life that we've known and enjoyed down to that of a Third World country," Shoemaker told Reuters.
He did not elaborate, but the UAW's membership has fallen by about half from a peak of 1.5 million in the 1970s as the number of well-paid, unskilled manufacturing jobs declined across America.
(Additional reporting by David Bailey, Chicago)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now. Let’s see what happens when the sissies who sat on their asses while the poorest of us got reamed with no benefits and low wages get a taste of what it’s like to survive on $9.00 an hour. Serves ‘em right. It also means that as these folks get their bit of the ‘American Dream’ shoved down their throats we will see some kind of uprising in America against the rich who control these wages.
At that point with federal troops in place in the states (under the guise of ‘natural disaster’ or ‘bird flu’) and the “Patriot Act” controlling all manner of labels and definitions these uprisings will be labeled ‘acts of terrorism’ and ‘traitorous’ and the people who seek to organize these formerly higher paid Americans will be spirited away and incarcerated who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long and ‘legal’ will have an entirely different meaning from what it meant last year or the year before.
The “Patriot Act” also controls our right of free assembly, and so we will not be able to gather in groups to organize in order to fight these issues.
What I find dismaying is that rank and file Americans—our backbone of citizenry are so oblivious and indifferent to these events and the potential that these events have to turn America into a fascist state controlled by the likes of George W. Bush who is no more than a puppet for some organization or another who pulls his strings. It sure as hell ain’t Karl Rove or any other individual: we’re talking maybe the top 1% of the top 1%...bankers, oil men, vastly entrenched financiers and despots who seek not only to control America but our planet. Global domination? You bet.
America as an ideal of freedom in the world no longer exists. It’s dead, and we are not even at the wake yet. We haven’t got the call that tells us our country is dead—and when the majority of us finally get the word we will find in place laws that do not allow us to change the events that we detest.
posted by FancyRage at 11:35 AM
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