Union Busting

I am not one to blindly support unions and do I think the Big 3 automakers deserve blasting for their lack of foresight and vision. But have no doubt the Republicans have one agenda here and that is to bust the UAW a huge political force behind the democratic party.

Here are the facts, yes GM, Ford, and Chrysler are in trouble. Yes they put themselves in this position. They did not look to the future and put the development and resources into developing cars that would sell when the inevitable high fuel prices peaked. They went for short term gain rather then long term solutions, kind of like what the Congress has done for decades.

The UAW is not without fault either, yet, they have already negotiated down many things including labor rates, health costs and pension benefits that will bring the labor costs of the big 3 into competitive balance in 2010.

Congress is also at fault. We like to blast the Big 3 for making the wrong cars. Why because Congress also failed to show vision and push for higher cafe standards among other things.

Who else is at fault? The American consumer. The big 3 made the type of cars that we were buying. Last I checked, that is what a successful business is supposed to do. So as you whine and cry about your tax money going to this, be sure not the soil the seats on your gas guzzling SUV that you apparently needed to navigate the rough roads of the suburbs.

No one is happy about this, but the reality is we cannot let the last major manufacturing sector in our economy fail. The question is do we do it now getting reasonable concession and changes by all concerned before a complete recession, or do we let the republicans break the union and further damage our economy in the process.