GM...UAW Woes

I've always wanted to be a lawyer. My old teachers see me now and ask,"Are you a lawyer yet?" I always answer,"No, not yet." When I was able to go back to school I was 29-years old. I had left Wilberforce University in a hail of shame and disappointment 11-years before. I swore that I would never attend another Historically Black College and University (HBCU). They are not my kind of upper- educational institution. All this stuff about being with your own is a crock of bull. People like me do not attend HBCU's. At the time that I was ready to go back to school, I was 28-years old and working at Sears Roebuck and Company. It was the Winter of 1999, and I was ready to get my life on the right track. The only problem that I had was I was in default of my loan from Wilberforce. I had never paid on it. I began to pay for school, because I had discovered that Sears had a tuition reimbursement program that would help you pay for college. I would pay for school up-front, and I was reimbursed after receiving a C or better in the class. I got all A's and got my first degree with the help of Sears. After each semester I'd send a copy of my receipt, to show I had paid and a copy of my grades. My next check was accompanied by a check for 70% of what I had spent. That included all my books and other expenses.

In order to get this benefit, however, I had to pick a major they could use. Pre-Law that is Criminal Justice these days is not one of the choices that I had. Instead, I picked Management. Obviously, it was a degree they could use, and it was my dream to be a manager at Sears, in my department, Sporting Goods. As a manager, you enroll in a little bit of everything. That includes Economics, Accounting, Finance and Statistics. Three classes that were difficult and has everything to do with managing money. I've had Personnel courses, but most importantly I've had Labor and Relations classes. Those are classes all about unions. How they were formed, why they were formed and how they helped to shape the middle-class. Most of my classes in community college were easy. They never really got deep into union issues. I recently took a course at Walsh. The class was online and that meant I had to read, a lot. There was no teacher in front of me that told me what to read to do well. I read the chapters to be able to beat the clock and get a passing grade on my test that I took online. I discovered so much more about unions that I don't even think the people out on those picket lines even know. I have had other incidents in real life about General Motor's (GM) that I find disturbing that I will share.

First, unions were created out of a need for better working environments, better treatment and of course wages. This isn't just poor lighting, which there were studies about that at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Men like Henry Ford, were always looking to get the best from their workers. Children were used, women were used during the war and men died for the eight hour work day. No one is exempt from a rich man's need for more money. People had to unite for the single purpose of survival. Men were working 12 hours or more 7 days a week on the railroads. That caused an enormous up-rising that left men, mostly White, shot dead by security and the police. Men would own their employees. They lived in his housing, shopped in his stores, had their clothes cleaned in his laundry and went to work for him in his factory. These men never got enough for themselves, because while the owner was their master, he also owned the bank. Men were dying in vates of sausage and just not coming home. People were eating their bodies that had been ground up in a batch batch of raw meat. No one cared, and no one even went looking for them, but their families. There was nothing to show, and they got little answers. Women were traded for rent and jobs by their families. To learn more, read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It was part of our reading assignment in high school. There had to be something done about the really bad conditions of the American workforce. Thus the unions...

I wrote a paper on Hoffa. I learned about his start in Indiana and his trip as an adolescent to Detroit, when the auto industry was booming. He quit school to help his mother and was picking strawberries when he organized his first rally against his company. He got tough and stayed tough until his disappearance in 1975. Letting us know that unions are huge. If the trucks stopped running in America, today, commerce in America would come to a complete stop. For that reason at one point in time, Hoffa was the most powerful man in America. He ran the Teamsters with a hard fist. With ties to the mafia and the Kennedy brothers on his back, he had a really bad reputation and a hand in this country that was slightly dirty and powerful beyond what anyone could imagine, today. For the men involved in stealing money from the UAW, today, they are merely satisfying some need to act rich with other people's money. Have you ever seen the UAW contract? It reads like the Bible and is as thick as one. People today, don't have a need for child labor laws, better work conditions, sexual harassment laws or wages. They are doing their best to get rich, while doing very little work and getting a lot of money. While people that truly work get nothing! I have a friend that worked GM for over 30 years, and won't buy a GM car. He says, "I seen too much..."

I know that GM took a bailout. I also know that the workers took concessions. Now, the country is going towards a recession. This is a bad time for union negotiations. GM may have the money for it now, but we have no idea what is going to happen in the next three years. We know that a recession changes the way that people buys cars. Mostly they don't buy cars. They stop buying larger vehicles to cut on gas, and the money that GM is making now is coming from large sports utility automobiles. Nancy Pelosi just announced that she is asking for an impeachment inquiry, which will most likely lead to an impeachment. That will no doubt make the American economy shaky. Remember, Allen Greenspan and his stabilizing of the economy with lower interest rates, but the banks weren't extending any credit. Homes were being lost, due to shady mortgage practices. Then came the "stimulus checks", meant to have Americans spend more money and help build the economy. Economics is the flow of money in our business flow. A flow that means recessions that can't be avoided. Buying cars is a luxury item, and should be seen as a basic necessity, American usually don't shop for cars that way. At least they don't shop like it's a basic necessity, until a recession. That's when they see it as a drain on their monthly budget. During a recession, no one buys anything that is able to be fixed. Washers, dryers, lawn mowers, stove and cars, will not bought, but fixed! Large trucks and sports utility vehicles are often replaced by smaller, more gas efficient autos.

There is no need for strikes. The past has enlightened us to the fate of the auto industry in Michigan and all over the country. The idea that anyone should make $30 an hour, and get the benefits GM workers get, today. They get more than any blue collar group in this country that works in plants. In fact, there is no need for a UAW of yesterday. The conditions of the plants is excellent. People say that the plants wear on their body. Yet, these same people don't want to quit, because the money is too good. What is the truth is they have over-extended their lives and credit and can't stop working, because they have too many bills. They are trying to make GM pay for the mismanagement of their household spending. Since I was a young, children would say, "My Daddy works in the plant!" "My Mama works in the plant!" Sometimes both parents work in the plant. Now, no parent works in the plant and all the plants, besides one, in Pontiac are closed. Why? I worked for a company called Manaman and Rexroth. The sold sliders, pneumatics and robotics. One part of the company was sales and the other part was technical, the people that fixed the machines that were sold. What I believe that GM is up to is technology. Technology to shrink the amount of human workers needed in their plants. I think the workers understand that. They want too much. Robots don't strike!

There was a man on TV who said that this may be their last chance to fight. I believe that if GM has there way it will be. People are greedy and I know that GM is greedy. Most businesses are, but the their personnel budget is usually 80-percent of their income. Then they have to do everything else. Everytime they get a surplus, the workers want a raise and benefits. A recession is coming. It will be here soon. If everyone involved were smart they would begin to save money. As I stated before, no one saves for a rainy day. Rainy days will always be around, and we have to be prepared. The money that the workers get today, may be conceded tomorrow. They are wasting money with these nine days, and just might have to do over-time to make it up. What about those temporary workers and entry-level workers that want to make that "GM money" in the future. These antics could make those jobs vanish. Due to the greed of the higher-paid workers that encouraged the strike. The days of "Two Fisted" fights are over. The middle-class has been creating and is slowly disappearing. The middle-class as it is, no longer is made-up of blue collar workers, but technical workers. People that build computer systems, create new programs and use cyber technology to advance different sectors of the working class. Those are the people that will make-up a new kind of union in the future. At some point in the future that will be who you are talking about when you say, "working-class".

While working at Sears, I had a wonderful experience and we did not have a union. I worked at Meijer and had a union on site and I did not have a good experience. Being a "Right-to-Work" state I didn't have to join the union to be represented, and that's was my problem. While working at Sears, I met a man. I forget his name, but he was a GM worker. This man was also a drug addict. He came to work with me at Sears, after he had retired from GM. He had been given a job where he had a company car. Being a drug addict, he gave his GM vehicle to the dopeman for crack. He got so much rock that he didn't go to work for three days, but when he was ready to go back, he couldn't, because the the dopeman hadn't returned the car. He never returned the car and this man never went back to work. Not until the police found the car battered and torn-up in the streets of Pontiac. He spoke to his union steward, who told him to go to a drug rehab. With the excellent medical insurance he was afforded by GM, he was quickly ushered into a program. GM had to honor his rehab stay and not fire him, because drug addiction is a disease. It is no different than cancer or diabetes. The fact that he had given the company car to a drugs wasn't really addressed. They had insurance for those kinds of things.

After he had worked for about two-months, GM retired him with full benefits. He lost everything. He was working for Sears and drawing his pension, but he wasn't old enough to get his social security. I bet he's a part of this fight now, if he is still alive. This was 20 years ago and I saw him in the store one night. I used to take him home some nights, because he had lost his car, too. I walk into the store and he had his drink in hand. I asked, "Oh so you back to that again." He wrapped the paper bag tighter on the bottle of liquor and said, "Yeah, and I got my rock back!" He walked away with a smile on his face. My boss was recovering and had gotten him the job working with him at Sears. He gave him every chance and he didn't do him right. He didn't do anyone right. To me that's what unions have turn in to to me. Just a bunch of people trying to get more. That man was shocked about his own situation. He thought he was going to be fired and lose his pension. He lost everything, but the UAW made sure that he didn't lose what matter. Even if he did get all his benefits, only to be back to the streets.

Americans must do better. They can't get rich working a blue collar job, because it is all based on the health of our economy that can threaten our way of life. Outsourcing is another issue that they have to take into consideration. Countries like Mexico, India and some in Middle Eastern countries may take jobs from American workers. Outsourcing is changing the face of the world. People that can not otherwise get jobs that take care of themselves and their family are looking forward to outsourcing. They'll work for pennies, much less than the amounts that US workers work for, today. They need to secure something, but nothing's carved in stone. If a company can't pay, they can't pay and all this negotiating will be for nothing. I say go back to work. Manage your money better, and you can retire at a good age and not try to work through retirement. What GM should bargain for is Finance classes, and try to teach their employees to budget for a rainy day and not buy boats and motorcycles, because they can. Negotiations are about reality and the reality is the times of huge paydays are over. There is so much that makes the GM worker obsolete and they should start acting like they are an endangered species and not irreplaceable, because they soon will be.