Further to yesterday's discussion about Republican senators' efforts to block government assistance to the automotive industry, MSNBC's Countdown has obtained an internal Republican strategy memo which includes this:
This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.
Can we now drop any pretense that this was about the UAW specifically and not about organized labour in general? And can we drop the pretense that these senators were acting out of principle, or pragmatism, or anything else but political considerations?
No, that doesn't mean that anyone who agreed with this particular stand is necessarily guilty of the same kind of motivation. But walking back from high-fiving these jackasses might be in order because their stand on this had everything to do with punishing their partisan opponents and seeking political advantage on the backs of people losing their jobs. It had nothing to do with what might be best for the overall economy.
H/t to Josh Marshall.
Immediate update:
And a hat-tip to Jeff House in comments on the earlier post. He reported this news this afternoon and I was too distracted when I read his comment to grasp the significance.
Further update:
Auto Worker “Parity” and the Corruption of America’s Political Elite
Detroit's “business model,” now so widely condemned by those who control a failed "government model," was not GM’s alone; it was, and still is, America’s business model. They made the cars and trucks we wanted, and we used our tax dollars to build highways and unsustainable credit schemes to build sprawling communities across America to show off our freedom. If they were blind, so were we. And if that model must now be radically reformed, we and our leaders must take collective responsibility for that task, not put it on the backs of auto workers.
More at the link.
Hey pogge, thought you might be interested in this piece by John Conway in the current issue of Briarpatch mag.
Well, they ARE acting out of principle - the principle that unions are bad and must be crushed at all costs. They're certainly not acting out of pragmatism.
the principle that unions are bad and must be crushed at all costs
So that's where I went wrong. I had that pegged as more of an obsession than a principle.
I'm of two minds on the auto industry bailout. I think its much better put together than the bank bailout, and I'm aware that if we don't do it the result will be loss of most of the remaining US (and Canadian) manufacturing base and lots of people out of work.
However, I don't think people appreciate that this isn't a matter of bad management, the industry of building and selling private automobiles is unsustainable at the present scale, given resource depletion and market oversaturation. This isn't the matter of providing some money to tide the industry over until better days. It means that the auto industry will wind up being government supported permanently, and if this is going to be a national priority, why not just nationalize it?
Instead the vote has turned into a test of whether you like unions, and regional politics.
the industry of building and selling private automobiles is unsustainable at the present scale
I agree with that. But hopefully the transition towards something sustainable can be done in a way that minimizes the pain. On the other hand we can simply pull the plug and run the risk that the shock to the economy pushes us into a depression that creates more pain for more people and makes it more difficult to restructure the economy in ways that are sustainable.
the vote has turned into a test of whether you like unions
Blame Republican senators for that. I'll repeat here what I've said in previous discussions: the UAW had already made concessions and had offered more during the talks about the American plan. But what their Republican opponents were intent on doing was moving the goalposts. Those senators represent Right To Work states which is really code for a legislative regime that favours the employers and makes organizing more difficult. To insist that the UAW workers accept parity with workers in those states is to insist on a race to the bottom. The wages of the workers at the non-union plants can be lowered at any time and suddenly the UAW is being pressured for parity all over again. Where does it stop?
The thing that grates on me is that there clearly is a car glut, and there clearly is a need - at least in a "if I had my own way" sense - for rather massive retooling of the auto industry to make entirely different sorts of vehicles.
And if people just thought big enough those two facts could be complementary, couldn't they? I mean obviously the guy who stamps the hoods for an SUV isn't someone who can design a better lithium battery, or even make the factory tools which make plug-in hybrids - I don't mean anything that crudely simplistic. But if the auto industry were to try to "turn on a dime" towards a new type of efficient vehicle, it would require a big huge dislocation with stoppages and inefficiency.
If we're facing a big huge dislocation with stoppages for other reasons, it seems like a shame to waste the opportunity for radical changes in the product being manufactured. And it'd make the idea of supporting the auto workforce and their employers more palatable, with a dual-purpose, long term payoff for the taxpayers. Better employers, better hope of return, reduced market externalities (carbon) for the taxpayers to deal with later.