Swords into Plowshares
I find it funny that people like Michael Moore are telling us that the auto industry should be converted to making mass transit/light railroad cars, tracks, and more green cars. Does he know what’s...
View ArticleStopgap $15 billion dollar Auto Bailout now being drafted
Well we expected them to do something and here it is. A stopgap measure designed to put the American Big Three auto industry on life support through the early part of next year.With time short,...
View ArticleThoughts on the Auto Industry Bailout
Like most people, I have conflicting thoughts on the prospect of a bailout for the hapless American auto companies. At one level, the chickens have finally come home to roost after decades of almost...
View ArticleBig Three or Nothing
There has been a hot debate over whether or not the government should bail out the big three. What is the other option? How would losing three million relatively well paying jobs help anyone? What...
View ArticleHere Is The Draft Bailout Bill
The draft Auto Bailout Bill is out and unless you are opposed to the entire concept, the bill is pretty good.The program is overseen by one Presidential designee, with no Senate confirmation, who...
View ArticleThe Art Of The Compromise
Check out these excerpts from an article on the proposed bailout for the auto industry...and then shoot me.Democrats bent to the will of the president on several key demands, most notably in agreeing...
View ArticleWeekly Audit: Chicago workers strike back, jobs strike out, Obama strikes new...
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire bloggerPresident-elect Barack Obama rolled out his highly anticipated priorities for an economic recovery package this weekend, but the current Congress...
View ArticleLegacy Profits Outweigh Legacy Costs
By Gregg Shotwell, UAW Local 1753 (Retired)After the first bailout was voted down, President Bush warned that if we didn’t hand over $700 billion the House of Cards would fall and all the King’s...
View ArticleAuto Bailout Deal Reached?
Is a deal at hand on a bailout for the auto industry? Maybe:The White House and congressional Democrats yesterday reached an "agreement in concept" on a plan that would throw a government lifeline to...
View ArticleCongress wastes another $15 billion.
Each day I find my self closer to throwing a bandanna over my mouth and nose and looking for someone using tear gas. Once again I have been lied to in order to quell my objection. My party has...
View ArticleHouse Approves $14 Billion Bailout
And now, it's on to the Senate: A $14 billion rescue package for the nation's imperiled auto industry sped to approval in the House Wednesday night, but the emergency bailout was still in jeopardy from...
View ArticleAre southern GOP Senators playing loose with NASCAR's future? (w/poll)
Lets see... after southern Republican Senators (Shelby (AL), Sessions (AL), McConnell (KY), Corker (TN), DeMint (SC)) along with other sections of the U.S. (Ensign (NV)) have shown that they are...
View ArticleStop Stalling: Time to Hit the Reset Button on Detroit
Cross-posted from the Breakthrough InstituteLast night, the US House of Representatives approved 14 billion in emergency loans to keep GM and Chrysler on life support into the new year. Senate...
View ArticleThe big3 & the Baby Bell idea
Some have suggested that in ordered to save the domestic automakers, we need to effectively dismember them – spin off brands into smaller, leaner companies. The punditry class isn’t wrong when they...
View ArticleCNNMoney: White House may tap TARP funds for auto industry
Rescue still possible?Bank bailout funds could be used for DetroitSources: White House warning GOP senators Wall Street bailout funds might be used for automakers now that auto loan package has...
View ArticleThe GOP Must Be Destroyed.
"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"-- Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, 1954I once was a strong believer in the importance of a...
View ArticleConservatives Push Romney as Fox-in Henhouse Car Czar
As the American auto industry teeters on the edge of total collapse thanks to the union-busting efforts of Senate Republicans, others on the right have adopted a different strategy for punishing the...
View ArticleYou support the auto bailout, but do you buy the autos? (Poll)
Alright, I'll come right out and say it: I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to the whole auto bailout issue. I'm not very familiar with all the arguments about employment and the U.S. economy. But I do...
View ArticleExecutive/Employee Wage Disparity
Real wages have been decreasing for 30 years. Savings are gone. Credit is gone. And yet corporate executives are doing well for themselves. Is there a solution to this?Read below the fold to find out!
View ArticleA Few Words On Cars...
Lately I've been disturbed by the sheer amount of resistance toward any sort of bailout of automakers. Free-market conservatives have relished the death of the bailout bill in the Senate, which they...
View ArticleSouthern Senators and the Big Three
The southern Radical Republican senators who killed the proposed $15 billion US bridge loans to Detroit's Big Three were short sighted at best and may well be the act that could return their party to...
View ArticleGM expanding Mexican plants while seeking bailout
GM and Chrysler are expanding their production facilities in Mexico -- where labor is $3 an hour -- while reducing production at US plants where labor is $25 an hour, and, while seeking bailout cash...
View ArticleUnqualified Republican at DOT, What is Obama Thinking?
Originally posted at The Seminal.Ray LaHood (R-IL), who has a lifetime LCV score of 27% (p. 31, pdf), is your new Transportation Secretary. I repeat, a Republican with a consistently bad record on...
View ArticleOn-Ramp to Labor's Future Shock
UAW Activist Gregg Shotwell on Democracy NOW (link to video/transcript)
View ArticleWhy the UAW is important and why Republicans want to destroy them
I've read and posted on some fascinating blogs here regarding organized labor. Some are right on and some are way off base on their ideas. Quite often what is missing in the discussion is the history...
View ArticlePalin Opposes Big Three Loans, Even in Heavily Unionized Alaska
Oh, this is just rich.I would have done what the GOP did yesterday and said 'no' to additional bailout efforts of one industry. Picking winners and losers in Washington, D.C., is a dangerous thing to...
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Open Letter to Auto Workers in the South
http://www.autoworkercaravan.org/openletter Retired and active auto workers wrote an open letter to their counterparts in non-union auto plants across the country to express solidarity and a hope that...
View ArticleDetroit Auto Show Auto Worker Rally
On January 11, 2009, active and retired autoworkers, labor and community activists, and others concerned about the future of U.S. manufacturing, healthcare, the environment, the economy, and working...
View ArticleCar Problems
I spent years as an auto mechanic in Orange County, California. The owners of Orange County domestic car dealerships lived in several of the choicest homes at the end of the Newport Peninsula. For...
View ArticleIf you want to Rise up from the Ashes . . .
Please take a moment to read UAW activist Gregg Shotwell's Live Bait & Ammo #124: "If you want to Rise up from the Ashes" :
View ArticleVIDEO: Sit-Down! UE 'Recovery & Resistance' Tour Detroit
Leaders of the factory occupation at Chicago's Republic Windows & Doors – Bob Kingsley, UE (United Electrical union) National Director of Organizing, and Armando Robles, President UE Local 1110 –...
View ArticleWhat! We’re Smarter than Detroit? Fiddlesticks!
Lincoln Logs, An Ape named Travis, a 5000 DOW, and mendacity.Fellow American’s- What a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black. Home of the brave, land of the free; welcome to Freedonia,...
View ArticleWhen is a contract not a contract? If it's a union contract.
It is outrageous enough that President Obama's Chief Economic Advisor Larry Summers openly admitted to the government's double-standard approach regarding forced economic sacrifice when he said the...
View ArticleWorkers Occupy Chrysler Parts Supply Plant in Windsor
If international solidarity is what workers around the world have long needed, this opportunity is about as conveniently packaged as it gets:
View ArticleWhy the Auto Industry should be saved or "get out your wallet"
I started this diary as a comment on Muskegon Critics' diary to "STFU". There is a lot I agree with in there but that hasn’t moved the discussion forward much. I’ve approached this diary in a few...
View ArticleGM and Chrysler in the balance
The fate of GM and Chrysler is now in their hands. Obama has told them the hard truth -- either make major changes that are needed to remain viable, or go under. A lot of missteps have gotten them to...
View ArticleNo Nostalgia for U.S. Automotive Industry
The Big Three US automakers have spent the past 3+ decades making cars that were too big, used too much oil, and valued an outmoded sense of style over innovation and 21st century function.I for one am...
View ArticleA Death in the Family
A Death in the Family By David Glenn CoxLike a junkie or a crack head, American industry has become addicted to third world labor. The driving force in the economic equation has become finding the...
View ArticleUAW Chrysler "Vote No" Leaflet
The following leaflet was written by rank-n-file UAW members for rank-n-file UAW members (feel free to circulate):
View ArticleAlan Reuther Writes Senate re: GM's Plans for Your Taxes
GM's taxpayer-funded restructuring plan is to import more vehicles built in low-wage countries and sell them in the United States.Should U.S. tax dollars really be used "beef up" GM's foreign...
View ArticleWorking Class Tragedies = Lame Hollywood Comedies
Paramount Entertainment's new comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard starring Jeremy Piven appears to be (haven't seen it but Pivens hasn't seen Saginaw) the latest in a recent string of Hollywood...
View ArticleMichigan Is Obama Country
Some folks think that Michigan may be in play this November. Particularly because Michigan is the birthstate of Mitt, and his father was a former Governor back in the day. Those who think Michigan is...
View ArticleMother America Always Loved Manufacturing Most
Manufacturing is powerful. And power is coveted. That’s why mother America always loved manufacturing most. Since the early days of this country, visionary political leaders like Alexander Hamilton and...
View ArticleAmerican Workers: The Best Bet
Faced with the results of failed Republican trickle down policy in 2009, President Obama went with change. He focused on workers, believing restoration of the nation’s great middle would drive economic...
View ArticleRomney Claims Paternity for Detroit, Disowns Orphan in Boston
Mitt Romney is now claiming paternity for President Obama's auto industry rescue that saved over a million jobs nationwide. But while he most certainly isn't the father of a reborn Detroit, the...
View ArticleThe Two-Tiered Model comes to Canada: Lower Wages for Autoworkers!
This started out as a rant to my wife last night and turned into a Facebook post this morning, so I figured it would be better to preserve it for later review as a diary.From The Globe and...
View ArticleEd Schultz BS Obama's Legacy- Cutting the Big 3
Ed Schultz is at it again, on his show last night he threatened to withhold support for Democrats if they touch the Big Three. He did this in 2010 when talking about Dems not extending unemployment...
View ArticleFord loses $1 billion due to Trump's idiotic tariffs, plans layoffs
Donald Trump is illiterate in nearly every conceivable way, and economics is no exception.If you wanted to enact a policy that nearly every credible economist in the world thinks is a bad idea, your...
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