Workers of the world -- grovel for your crumbs!

The GOP's war on the blue collar worker continues. Hedge funds just got a $200 billion bailout, just to ensure no ones ascot gets in a twist. UAW workers? Grovel for your scraps. .... I said grovel!!!

Look, I don't have much sympathy for the UAW as they pretty much joined with auto management in the opposition to fuel economy standards, safety standards, environmental requirements -- all things that are coming back to bite the auto industry. The workers will have to take some of the hits - that's the downfall of working in an industry that has failed to move on with the times. It's just the government taking blood from the little guy while letting the rich get away fairly scott free, allowing them to earn whatever they can, is what bothers me.

I'm so disgusted by the hypocrisy of the GOP. They've barely said boo about bonuses much more than $65k to the guys in the financial industry who got us in this mess. But now, all of a sudden, according to the GOP, $65k a year is too much for the average American? Wasn't this the party of Joe 6 Pack a month ago?

The banking industry, who pretty much got us into this mess, gets a blank check and retention bonuses for their employees, while the workers of one of our last major manufacturer industries, are forced to settle for a lower standard of living. Again, I'm not holding the UAW blameless in the domestic auto industry's mess; they've done plenty kill work rule decisions or design of products that would hurt the their own interests over the years even though it would have left their companies in a much more competitive position. I just feel that they shouldn't be held to a different standard.

I believe that all parties need to accept changing economic conditions in the auto industry, but, if the government is going to force the blue collar workers to accept terms such as lower wages, I question why they have not done the same for the workers, who still have jobs, in the financial industry too. Not only do we not hold them to the same standard, we using our taxes going to pay them "retention" bonuses. Hey, if they want to leave in this economy, let them go. There are plenty of others who would be willing to fill their shoes and, after what has gone on lately, could probably do a better job.

If we're going to force UAW workers to take a pay cut, then I suggest every single employee in the financial sector (well, maybe not the janitors) take a similar pay cut. Fair's fair and they're the ones who really hurt the country. The same demands as are being imposed on the blue-collar workers of the automotive industry should be placed on the white-collar workers of the financial industry.

GOP to Joe 6-Pack: Drop Dead

The election is over so it is now safe for the GOP to cater to their Wall St friends and tell blue collar workers to stick it. I can't be the only one disgusted that, after giving a blank check to the people who got us into our financial mess, the GOP wants to stick it to one of the nations's last remaining manufacturing sectors so they can use the opportunity union bust and to further push the working man (or woman) further down the economic food chain.The irony is that Wall Street's insistence on quarterly profits, many times at the cost of long term investment, helped push the automakers into this dilemma.

I'm not saying the UAW shouldn't have to negotiate and accept lower pay and benefits, it's a global economy and domestic workers need t deal with the fact that their competition comes from other countries and lower wages. I'm also not saying that the Big 3 domesticautomakers shouldn't pay a price for making cars people want as opposed to making people want the cars they will build before customers know they want it (would have been handy to have a few more fuelefficient cars around when fuel prices rose -- something that has been foreseeable for years). There has been no inclination of management in the auto industry to produce vehicles that get even better fuel economy without the government mandating that they do so, because that would affect Wall Street's profits.

Still with all that, it's the hypocrisy from the GOP, supposed friend of the average guy, that gets me. Aside from fiscal conservatives, who seem to be running from the party, their base is the blue collar worker. Granted, many of them are in the south, where unions were never as popular as in the north, but if I'm a blue collar worker down there I'm wondering if the GOP is going to stab me in the back as soon as my interests and theirs go different ways. They are purposely destroying the middle class in the United States. This isn't some accident, or blunder... it's by design.

Like them or hate them, we all benefit from the presence of labor unions -- unless you're one of the ones working 6 days a week, 14 hours a day, for minimum wage and no benefits in an environmentally hazardous factory where children are running around assisting you. The labor unions rose to counter act excesses by management in a capitalist system. Labor organizations exist to look out for the interests of the workers, while management looks out for the interests of the owners--and somewhere in the middle the two meet, and figure out what is acceptable. In an ideal world, there would be no need for labor to organize. If management andpoliticians oppose the concept of labor organizations, then giving labor no reason to exist, such as paying workers a fair wage with adequate benefits, would be in order. Again, this is hard to do when other societies, whom we compete with, refuse to do the same.

If the government really wanted to help the Big 3, they would take their healthcare costs off of the carmakers' plates and offer universal healthcare. I'd have more respect if the GOP came out and said we're doomed if we keep handing out money like it was candy. We can't keep paying for bailouts, the war on terror, social security, medical care etc without eventually devaluing our currency and/or defaulting on the national debt -- something is going to give. But they didn't. Instead, the GOP continues to exploit every anti labor opportunity, even though their policies to weaken labor have also eroded the middle class and weakened the economy.

In a nutshell: If it's the GOP's rich, banker friends in trouble, they get a blank check. If it's Joe 6-pack, they get an unemployment check. Folks at the top get richer, snatching up corporate assets at bargain prices, while the average worker foots the bill.The economic disaster that the GOP has been engineering won't affect the super rich, and it won't affect the super poor; it is simply designed to bleed out all of the wealth in between. It is bad enough when it is done to us by our competitors, it is horrible when we do it to ourselves.

Zoom, zoom ... [crash]

Like much of the country, I have been paying attention to the fate of the domestic automakers as they desperately try to avoid death. The latest potential federal bailout was thrown for a loop when the UAW refused to accept government demands that employees immediately accept lower raises and benefits to make them competitive.Going by past history, I can understand why they are loathe to give into their employers.But they may have to bite the bullet and give in. However, it takes two to tangle and theautomakers themselves need to show some good faith.

Both my father and grandfather spent their entire lives working in unions and I saw the good they can do. I've also seen what can happen when they get too bloated and forget their purpose. The UAW negotiated great contracts for their members when times were good. Unfortunately those same benefits are now a humongous chain around their necks and the unions may need to agree to concessions and accept similar pay and benefits to what non-unionized autoworkers get in other parts of the US.

Foreign manufacturers, with plants in parts of the US have discovered that it is easy for employers to get rid of unions: just treat the employees as if they were unionized, offering them decent wages and benefits. And this is not limited to manufacturing. 7 years ago, Wegmans supermarket opened a store in my NJ neighborhood. Unlike the other chains in the area, Wegmans is not unionized. Yet, they were flooded with applications as they offered wages and benefits comparable to the unionized markets. The union had protesters outside the store's parking lot urging a boycott for almost a year. The protesters are gone now and the store is still there, bigger, cleaner than it's competitors with competitive pricing (some things are cheaper, some things aren't).

Many of the store's initial employees were kids from the other supermarkets. If working in those stores was like the unionized store I worked in when I was in high school and college, I can understand why. In my store, a management vs. employee attitude was always felt, even when it was detrimental to business and affected customers(fault of both sides -- why should an employee do something extra when they'll receive no benefit and just be sh-t upon by management later). Employees were always in a bad mood. Threats of a write-up were always present, along with contacting the union rep anytime somebody got pissed. Deadwood played the union rules perfectly. I don't sense that inWegmans. Wegmans itself is commonly recognized as one of the top 50 employers in the nation. More importantly, they seem to treat employees fairly so employees don't feel the need to unionize.

That said, love them or hate them, unions have and still do play an important role in our nation's economy. Many employers are not asbenevolent as Wegmans . Others, who pay union like wages simply to keep the unions out, would probably lower wages and benefits if the unions weren't there to keep them on their toes. It is irresponsible of lawmakers, with a hate of unions, to let the Big 3 fail, yet that is what some seem to advocate.

I and my wife have owned foreign cars for a decade. Unlike the domestic cars our parents owned, which always seemed to be in the shop, our cars have usually just gone in for basic maintenance (my 9 year old foreign car finally had a non-routine maintenance issue last month). I spend my money on quality, which has been foreign autos, even if made in the US, for a long time.

That still doesn't mean I want to see the Detroit automakers fail. Domestic car companies and their suppliers are an important piece of the US economy. At a time when the economy is in trouble and buying American may mean buying a Honda mostly built in Tennessee over buying a Ford mostly built in Mexico, it is foolish of lawmakers to make an example of the automakers past mistakes as a reason not to help keep them running for the short term just so they can kick unions when they are down. How many more hits can the economy take before we all discover that divided we stand, united we fall.