In Auto Bailout, Don't Make Workers Pay the Price for Corporate Greed

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By Mary Shaw (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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So the anti-worker folks keep calling for labor concessions to keep the industry going.

Never mind the fact that the workers' salaries are a drop in the bucket compared to what the CEOs have been raking in (not even counting their private jets).

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Along with the so-called "free trade" practices that have done so much to support our overseas competition in the auto industry and other major industries. And along with the fact that Detroit lags way behind Japan in designing and producing vehicles that could reduce our dependency of fossil fuels.

Those things are not the fault of the line worker. They are the result of corporate greed. Doing the right thing sometimes temporarily cuts down on corporate profits and CEO bonuses. So doing the right thing is unthinkable, of course.

That is what got us into this mess. Nevertheless, again they want the workers to pay the price for the sins of the backward-thinking corporate executives.

Labor is used to making concessions. The executives are not.

And look where that got us.

It is time to change that paradigm, if the industry is to be saved for the long run. I hope that the Obama administration will do so. You know, change we can believe in.

And it seems that we may have some hope in that regard.

Hilda Solis is Barack Obama's nominee for Labor Secretary. And she has a solid track record on the side of labor.

Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden-Solis administration remains powerless for another four weeks.

Hopefully the holiday season will be enough of a distraction to keep things from getting too out-of-hand in the meantime.

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http://www.maryshawonline.com

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views (more...)

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