Thursday, November 20, 2008

Event: More Reasons for the Bailout...

LeftHandedMan posted this brilliant comment on DailyKos:

The GOP never dreamed it would get to kill a massive part of organized labor and have an entire region of the country completely collapse on the Democratic parties watch to boot, but that is just the opportunity that has arisen for the Limbaugh/Coulter wing of the GOP.

A 25 billion dollar loan, with strings attached mandating the auto industry stay the fuck out of monkeying with healthcare reform and making them go green or else, could save hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending over the next 10 years alone.

10 to 12 million jobs lost, boom!, 200 to 1 trillion dollars in emergency social spending to deal with the collapse's impact on the region, the UAW dead and Wal-Mart the biggest employer in the region, Michigan in full economic collapse and millions of voters ripe for being in play in the next round of the Culture War.

The GOP, and the media pundits who are all clamoring for Obama and the Congress to let the auto industry die will be damning us and running against the Democratic Party as the party that 'Let Michigan Die' or 'Let Detroit Die' for a generation if the auto industry is allowed to die.

The auto industry is 4% of our GDP.

If it goes, thats several years added on to the economic crisis that we face.

And probably Bobby Jindal in 2012 running as Ronnie Reagan on a white horse to "save" America.

Labels: auto industry, economics, EVENT, labor, Michigan, politics, Republican Party

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Event: Letter from the UAW.

This email arrived in my Inbox this morning (four days late). I pass it along in the interest of promoting a respondible loan to the Big Three through congress. Please consider writing a short letter. My thoughts and qualifications are here.

---

Dear Connor Coyne,

Please respond right away to this urgent request by calling your
Senators or Representative through this toll-free number: (877)
331-1223. Or send an e-mail:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autojobs

The auto industry needs help in Congress right away -- and if we
don't get it, the jobs and benefits of hundreds of thousands of
our active and retired members and millions of other Americans
are at risk.

Next week the House and Senate are expected to vote on
legislation to provide an emergency $25 billion bridge loan to
GM, Ford and Chrysler to help weather the current severe credit
and economic crises. Without this assistance, there is a real
danger that the three companies will run out of cash and be
forced to cease all manufacturing and business operations in the
near future.

The collapse of these companies would be devastating:

-- In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Big Three workers
who would lose their jobs, up to 3 million other workers could
see their jobs disappear at dealers, suppliers of components and
materials, and other businesses that depend on the auto
industry.

-- Almost 1 million retirees and their spouses and dependents
could suffer cuts in their pension benefits and the loss of
health insurance coverage.

-- The federal pension guarantee program could be saddled with
enormous liabilities, jeopardizing its ability to protect
benefits for millions of other workers.

-- Because of the importance of the auto industry to our entire
economy, the collapse of the Big Three auto companies would
aggravate the current recession, creating further hardships for
working families and communities across the United States.

-- Revenues to federal, state and local governments would be
sharply reduced, forcing drastic cuts in vital social services
at the time they are most needed.

Congress can prevent these devastating consequences. The federal
government has already stepped forward to provide assistance to
Wall Street and financial institutions. It is now time for
Congress to help Main Street by providing urgently needed help
for the auto companies.

You have probably seen or heard some commentators who are trying
to blame you and your fellow UAW members for the current
situation of the companies by attacking our "overly rich" wages
and benefits. We need to rebut these false charges, and make it
clear that active and retired UAW members have already made
enormous sacrifices in the 2005 and 2007 collective bargaining
agreements.

Other commentators have tried to blame the Big Three for their
current situation by saying it is attributable to their
insistence on producing "gas guzzling" vehicles. This overlooks
the major progress the companies are making in bringing forward
more fuel efficient vehicles. More importantly, it ignores the
fact that the current crisis is due to the huge drop in overall
auto sales that has been caused by the larger credit and
economic crises that have engulfed our entire nation.

Auto sales in October were a mere 10.8 million on an annualized
basis, the lowest level in 25 years. All automakers reported
steep declines in their sales. The problem is not that consumers
don't want to buy the quality products that GM, Ford and
Chrysler are making. The problem is that consumers have stopped
buying vehicles from any companies.

Please call your Representative and Senators now. Urge them to
vote for legislation to provide an immediate $25 billion bridge
loan to the Big Three auto companies. Tell them this is
essential to prevent the liquidation of these companies and
devastating consequences for millions of workers and retirees
and for our entire economy.

You can use the following toll-free number to call your
Representative and Senators: (877) 331-1223. Or send an e-mail:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autojobs

The legislation to provide assistance to the auto industry will
likely be taken up by the House and Senate sometime next week.
So please call or e-mail right away!

--------------------------------------------------

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.

http://www.unionvoice.org/join-forward.html?domain=Uawire&r=p1AD3mEqTS5H

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for
UAWire at:

http://www.unionvoice.org/Uawire/join.html?r=p1AD3mEqTS5HE

---

UPDATE: Here is the letter I sent to Jan Schakowsky, Dick Durbin, and Barack Obama.

Dear Senator Durbin and Congresswoman Schakowsky,

I know you're getting a ton of mail on this subject right now, and are well-versed in the pros and cons. I will try to be succinct.

I strongly opposed you both on your support for the Wall Street bailout because I saw it passed with what I saw as a lack of discretion. I registered protest votes due to this (something I haven't done since 1996), because I do think that congress should be penalizing any corporate interest that relies on the taxpayers to save them from bankruptsy. In practice, they are essentially holding the economy ransom to get what they need to continue.

This loan to the auto industry seems more sound to me than the other bailout. It is a much smaller amount (not that billions are anything to sneeze at), and I understand the myriad ways that the automotive industry impacts the American economy at large.

Here's the thing: you shouldn't have to write a blank check in order to help the auto industry. The Big Three have taken some steps in necessary retooling and restructuring; demand that they take more. Eliminate what fluff you can, and pass a bill with stringent requirements. You win with the Big Three for giving them breathing room. You win with the public for representing their interest. And with me, I will both happily and enthusiastically vote for you, because I expect my senators and representatives to fight for me, and I am proud when they do so.

I know that this sort of middle-road and straightforward approach is often taken off the table (and for all the wrong reasons); you cannot help the the environment in which you are debating this issue. But this is a straightforward case, and this is the most reasonable solution.

Sincerely,

Connor Coyne

Labels: auto industry, economics, EVENT, labor, u.s. executive, unionization

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Event: "We'll make 'em fit! It'll be fun!"

???

Dear Mr. Danziger,

For several years now I've openly described your work as my very favorite of political cartoonists. Your drawing has a precision that goes beyond a canny resemblance and your cutting captions can sum up an issue in better than a thousand words. Yours is a medium in which cheap shots seem to be both available and abundant, and the care which you take in your selections has always impressed me. After all, any sane critical thinker could spend eight years pummeling the Bush administration; your statements have been fresh and trenchant, and you've had ammo left over for the Democratic primaries, for Chinese domestic and foreign policy, and for all of the other misguided and tragically uninformed errrors in American politics this decade. Which is why I'm so dismayed by the lone autoworker you have exclaiming "we'll make 'em fit! It'll be fun" as he holds an oversized croquet mallet aloft this week.

I come to this personally: practically everyone in my family has worked for GM in Flint, Michigan and Oakland County. My father worked at Buick for almost 40 years before being bought out this year because the last plant in his division (Powertrain North) has closed. My aunt worked at EDS, my grandmother was a secretary at GMI, and my grandfather made spark spugs for AC Delco from the moment he got home from World War II.

Look, I know that doing what you do you are bound to anger people, that you can't be over-sensitive to anger, that calling things as they are is inevitably going to bruise some ribs along the way.

But I've always seen you as being very selective in choosing your targets, and more importantly, in choosing their foibles. In your recent piece you show an autoworker standing like an uneducated buffoon, a "Joe V6" who doesn't know a thing (and doesn't care) about anything other than banging metal on metal. Granted in the past you've called out the American automakers for their incompetent leadership, and maybe even for your perception that our domestic automakers have produced an inferior product. I have disagreed with many of these strips, but this is the first time it seems you've crossed the line.

Actually, excuse me, that's not right.

I should say, instead, that you've failed. After all, there are no lines that you should not cross. The mark of a great political cartoonist is the ability to eloquently disagree, and to render such disagreement visceral and visual to the larger public.

But why have you abandoned the rigor of your other pieces?

Why are you taking cheap shots at our autoworkers instead of their leadership or even their product?

For that matter, if you want to criticize autoworkers, why are you holding them up as mentally incapable, instead of criticizing a union that is as stubborn as it is often ineffective? Or holding accountable a rank-and-file that is often unable to look beyond their next paycheck to address the consequences of the agenda their employer is pursuing?

Why not pick a disagreement worth stating instead of promoting inaccurate misconceptions about the education and drive of our nation's most assertive and robust union workforce?

I could disagree with you on many of these other possible arguments, but these would be disagreements worth having.

Your characterization of the auto-worker in your recent strip is trite, pointless, obnoxious, insulting, and irrelevant. It does nothing to promote a worthwhile political argument, and it is a waste of both my own and your time. I wouldn't be so disappointed if not for the fact that you are my favorite political cartoonist. I hope that the abundance of material these days doesn't mean that your standards (the standards I most admire) are slipping; one could safely argue that an informed and powerful political critique in all media are more important these days than ever.

Sincerely,

Connor Coyne

Labels: auto industry, economics, EVENT, Flint, labor, Michigan, politics

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Event: Obama's Speech in Flint, and Other Good News.

The Washington Independent: Obama Laces into McCain's "No Change Express"

The Flint Journal: Presidential candidate Barack Obama promises at Flint appearance to help auto industry refashion itself.

I wish I could have been at this. I would've waited for hours and hours...

It's icing on the cake that the Journal actually avoided making one of the innumerable puns that presented themselves. "Obama Ramped Up Flint for Change," or "Candidate Obama Says Flint Auto Change Soon." The Journal can write good articles, and I'm glad when they don't derail them with lame headlines.

Actually, Flint has had several pieces of good news lately:

Flint Journal: We're rolling again: Flint spots get another movie close-up; This time it's 'All's Faire in Love' with Christina Ricci and Bill Engvall.

It seems that puns have been traded off for run-on sentences.

A worthy compromise.

Labels: Barack Obama, economics, elections, EVENT, film, Flint, journalism, labor, politics

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Event: I'm not the only one thinking that the UAW's pretty smart at this go round.

A Daily Kos diary: UAW on Strike for Job Security.

I realize that, with the strike off, there's a perceived lack of urgency to this particular subject, but the issues that caused the strike in the first place are very much intact. And I particularly like the way this notion is shared:

The media seems to think that GM can break the union at will, but they seem to miss that for the UAW killing GM may be the price that has to be paid to provide their members job security. The GM brand isn't going to die, and if it's forced into dire economic straights a sale to private equity is possible. Meaning that a new set of managers focused on creating long term value instead of maximizing stock prices can be brought in. Like just happened at Chrysler.

In short, we don't want our unions, including the UAW, making the same mistake that the Democratic Party makes all the time: letting short-termed number-crunching discretion replace the need to make decision. Any opportunity in such a highly contested field is going to require risks. In this case, the risk has paid off so far.

Labels: EVENT, labor

Event: The Strange Death of Liberal America.

I found this blog post through its own self-promotion on the New York Times website. It's argument isn't as airtight as it could be, but there are still some interesting points here.

Labels: EVENT, labor

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Event: Why GM should hope for a UAW victory.

The New York Times' Caucus Blog (which I normally enjoy) has posted a blatantly misleading post on the Candidates and the U.A.W. Specifically, it fails to mention Obama's high-profile support for the union, and even worse, it mischaracterizes the reasons for the strike in general. I managed to post a couple comments, and the better of the two sums up my reasons to support this particular strike (besides a general support for the U.A.W.). Unlike the 1998 strike, this strike is unique in that it is looking toward the horizon. That is, a reasonable U.A.W. victory basically mandates that GM take a reasonable approach toward attaining its own solvency. This is a step that GM's leadership has not taken, itself.

I've corrected my own typos below.

So many of these comments are rehashing the same points. If this post is about the political capital cost/gain of endorsing a strike, then the UAW ought to emphasize the following:

- For a decade the UAW has been making concessions, and not in a combative, strike-eager environment.
- In this round, the UAW has also granted GM their chief demand: a HUGE concession in the form of a trust to manage health expenses.
- Given the percentage of GM workers currently employed in the US (as UAW workers), the benefits everyone here is complaining about are no long a decisive issue for GM.
- The demands that have brought about this strike in the first place concern job security, not wages. GM is reluctant to grant these demands, frankly, because the UAW is the only union left with any power to direct the corporation's policy at all. In short, GM wants to downsize the UAW to irrelevancy.
- Company restructuring in the last several decades (ever since Roger Smith) has driven lines to design similar vehicles with a high margin of profitability. *This* is why a Chevy looks like a Pontiac looks like a Buick (looks like a Saturn). This is also why GM sales have foundered.

All of these observations lead to one interesting result: GM will be much better off if the UAW carries this strike. Why? Because most UAW members in GM have a greater stake in the company's long-term viability than your average GM shareholder. The workers' whole futures are at stake. Shareholder loyalty is only measured one quarter at a time.

In the end, GM has to start selling their cars again. They cannot continue to view their workforce as "excess fat," an excuse to avoid improving their product.

I am glad that Edwards and Obama are supporting the strikers... and I’d been leaning toward Hillary until now. Really, though, I see this as an issue of UAW self-promotion. They have to go public with their real priorities in a big way, and not let unlikely adversaries (like the New York Times) erroniously spin the story that this strike is about wages.

It isn’t.

— Posted by Connor

Labels: economics, EVENT, labor

Monday, September 17, 2007

Event: No Dwarves, No Cars, No What, Whatever (what ever).

Thank God the Flint Journal has continued it's 24-7 coverage of the Dwarf Decapitation Crisis. This is their third article on the subject in the last week.

Meanwhile, while the Journal gives the ongoing GM/UAW contracts the requisite nod, at least the New York Times is able to do the Journal's job for them.

Seriously, what does it say about a community's daily when local issues of crushing economic importance are better covered by a newspaper 600 miles away?

Labels: economics, EVENT, Flint, labor