Dec 13 2008
Blaming the unions
The GOP senators are trying to blame their refusal to pass the $15 billion auto bailout on the unions by citing false statistics, but there’s something fishy going on here that I think Thursday’s Rachel Maddow show and Friday’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann David Schuster took a good look at. Personally, I totally get trepidation about bailing out the auto industry, except that the amount of scrutiny that the auto industry (their unions included) are getting just get $15 billion is ridiculous compared to the sheer lack of questions that were asked of the financial industry before getting $700 billion and I don’t believe that these Republican senators, whose states have non-union foreign auto makers in their jurisdiction, are doing a very good job of hiding their anti-union bias.
Whether you’re pro or anti bailout or unions, at the very least, I encourage you to watch the below clip and the read the transcript to make sure you get both sides of the story.
Unfortunately MSNBC does not seem to currently have video for Thursday’s show up (which is weird because they do have video for the Friday and Wednesday shows). So bear with me, I’ll keep an eye, but for now, I’ll just have to provide you with the lengthy transcript of the segment she had on the bailout that night:
MADDOW: Yes, it’s a good point. Thank you, Keith.
We begin tonight actually with a little bit of breaking news. The “Associated Press” is reporting that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has reached a tentative deal on the $14 billion plan to help the auto industry. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the “Associated Press,” quote, “We are ready to go.”
The deal is not quite final though. NBC News reports that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the banking committee, has just spoken on Capitol Hill and he said, quote, “We agree on some things, but not on all.”
What no one knows, at this hour, are the details of the agreement or if Republican senators are going to go along with it. It’s those Republican senators who spent much of today threatening to kill the plan that passed the House last night; they have been pushing a plan of their own that would reduce wages and benefits for U.S. autoworkers so they would be closer to those for U.S. workers at Japanese carmakers. Now, it’s not clear how much of the Republican proposal is in the tentative deal. Apparently, it may be reached tonight.
Now, why is this such an exciting cause for Republican senators-reducing American wages? Why are they unifying around the “kill the workers” plan? What’s the principle they are fighting to uphold here?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DAVID VITTER, (R-LA): Let me be clear. I’m not trying to block this package in spite of job losses that would occur if these companies went down. I’m trying to block this package because of that.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY): It is delusional to think that a company which spends $71 per labor hour could compete with a company in the same industry that spends $49 per labor hour.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: They are rallying around the idea of the extinction of American autoworker. You snow, Senator, show me the paycheck that shows the American autoworker taking home $71 an hour and I’ll show you my national healthcare plan I.D. card. Neither of those things exists.
Well, let me get this straight. Senate Republicans have found, at last, an organizing principle, a reason for living, after just getting their hats handed to them in the past two elections, and that reason for living is to reduce American wages. Unilaterally, from Washington, by fiat, because it’s a little known free-market conservative principle, I guess, that politicians should run companies from Washington, purely for the purpose of cutting the income of the Americans who get paychecks from those companies. Wow.
Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says this about the car companies. He says, quote, “I’m not trying to get rid of thee unions, but I am saying that they appear to be an antiquated concept in today’s economy.”
Anybody else looking forward to the day when being a union-busting southern senator who crusades against good wages for American workers on principle is itself an integrated concept? Well, Jim DeMint is also looking deeply into his principles about the American economy and Americans who have to work for a living and there he has found riots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JIM DEMINT, (R-SC): We’re going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs when somebody else is being bailed out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: He says, “We’re going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs and somebody else is being bailed out.” Violence, he says, because, I guess, workers will be angry the American auto industry doesn’t slide into ruin?
The point here is that Americans are worried about jobs, good jobs, being able to stay employed and make a living. There are millions of American jobs connected to the auto industry. But query this, query why those southern Republican senators don’t seem to have those same worries that Americans do at large? Or if they do have those same worries, why aren’t they acting on them?
If you query that, you end up finding two things. Number one, you find an ideological hatred of unions. And if you have a minute, google “textile strike 1934,” if you want to unspool that history. You’ll find this ideological hatred union, right?
And you’ll also find what’s euphemistically called “parochial interests.” In this case, it’s a foreign, non-union car companies in the southern senators’ home states. South Carolina, home to Senator DeMint and Lindsey Graham is home to two BMW plants. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, it’s also home to Toyota’s largest plant outside of Japan.
Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the banking committee, he has foreign automakers, Honda and Hyundai and Mercedes in his home state of Alabama. And Senator Bob Corker, who presented the Republican plan that may be moving ahead today, he’s from Tennessee, home of a Nissan plant. All foreign plants, all non-union.
The latest NBC/”Wall Street Journal” poll shows that more Americans support the auto bailout plan than they do the already approved $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
Today, President-elect Obama expressed his concern about the end of the American auto industry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT-ELECT: We cannot simply stand by and watch this industry collapse. Doing so would lead to a devastating ripple effect throughout our economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That’s what most Americans are worried about with this issue. What are the Republican senators worried about who say they don’t want the deal unless they can break the unions in its way? Besides their friends in Japan, I guess, who have state-subsidized plants in their home states, we can tell that Senator Corker’s plan requires even further cuts from union workers and stakeholders in the companies than already have been offered.
“Blame the workers,” especially, blame the United Auto Workers, that’s what we’re hearing from Senate Republicans as our auto industry skids toward the brink of extinction. And they’re saying, if you do save the industry, they want to do it with conditions that break the unions while the industry is being saved.
It appears to me that Senate Republicans are on an ideologically driven, union-busting adventure here that happens to have the prospects of increasing the market share of the foreign-owned companies who work in their states. American-owned companies and the American economy as a whole be darned. Those foreign-owned companies that serve the individual states of these senators who are objecting to this bailout, they are the ones who are getting served.
Why aren’t Democrats making them filibuster this? Making them stand up and defend this, if this is really what they want the country to know they are doing?
Joining us now is Robert Reich. He’s the former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
Professor Reich, Mr. Secretary, it’s nice to see you. Thanks for joining us.
ROBERT REICH, FORMER CLINTON SECRETARY OF LABOR: Good evening, Rachel.
MADDOW: What do you make of Republican Senator Bob Corker’s plan which may be moving ahead tonight in the Senate? It focuses on getting concessions in Washington from workers.
REICH: Well, the plan, as I understand it, and I do think it is forming the basis of some consensus in the Senate right now. It would require the UAW to give concessions that ultimately match the wages of southern autoworkers for Nissan and Toyota, and all of the other foreign workers who are not unionized. This is a way of saying to the UAW and to all the UAW workers, “You are essentially irrelevant.” Every worker in America should get the same as a non-union worker.
The other thing, Rachel, I want to say is that, I think it’s very interesting that Bob Corker and indeed none of the other Republicans, when it came to the big $700 billion bailout of Wall Street demanded that there be wage and benefit cuts for Wall Street employees.
MADDOW: So, they feel like, you know, if you’re wearing a blue collar and your company needs a bailout, you obviously are the problem. But if you’re wearing a white collar and your company needs a bailout, well, let’s just talk about the company.
REICH: Yes.
MADDOW: I-yes.
REICH: I think there’s something to that. I think there’s also, as you alluded to, a little bit of a war between the states going on. Because, not only are the foreign automakers in the south and they by and large non-unionized, but 18, count them, 18 Japanese and Korean and German companies have-they have announced 18 new plants in the south. Foreign automobile companies are actually building 18 new automobile plants in the south, and they will all be non-unionized.
MADDOW: When-when those states in the south have wooed these companies, wooed these factories to come and relocate there, obviously, they are promising them, “Don’t worry, it’s the south, you won’t have any trouble with unions. Our workers won’t pressure you to give them too good a deal.” But they’ve also given them big subsidies, haven’t they?
REICH: Yes, indeed. In fact, the governors of the southern states that have wooed all of these foreign companies have provided tremendous taxpayer subsidies and every one of these companies comes with a big, big price tag for Americans. Now, granted they are creating jobs in America, they are just creating jobs that are much lower paid than UAW autoworkers are getting or have been getting in northern states.
MADDOW: Does it matter for the American economy that those companies are not owned by Americans, that those are foreign-owned companies? It would seem that we would want foreign-owned industry, wouldn’t we?
REICH: Well, you know, I think the big difference, Rachel, honestly, is in terms of pay-the number of jobs and the pay that we are providing. I mean, we want good jobs. We want good pay. Whether it’s officially an American headquartered or not American headquartered, is becoming less and less relevant, because after all, capital is coming from all over the world. But whether the jobs actually are unionized and pay well is a big, big difference. And these foreign companies are almost all non-unionized.
MADDOW: The “Wall Street Journal” is reporting that General Motors has hired a bankruptcy lawyer to consider whether or not it should file for bankruptcy protection. Chrysler executives say they will run short on cash in January. How high are the stakes here and how devastating would bankruptcy be?
REICH: Well, the stakes are very, very high. I mean, even if this bill gets through the Senate tonight and if it does, that’s only $14 billion, it sounds like a big figure, it’s $14 billion, it would be kind of a bridge loan for the auto companies.
But then, next week, the House would have to reconvene and pass it, but that’s only through March. The auto companies say, the Big Three say they need much more money than that. And if they go down, if they go under, if they liquidate, we’re talking about not just directly 500,000 jobs, but we’re talking indirectly about 3 million jobs if you count in all the dealers and also all the auto parts manufacturers spread throughout the Midwest.
At a time when we’re losing jobs left and right, we’re hemorrhaging jobs-this probably is not the best time to let the Big Three go down.
MADDOW: Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, professor of public policy at U.C. Berkeley, thank you for being on the show tonight. I always feel like if I need to understand how big a barrel we are over, you can always accurately the size of the barrel. Thanks, sir.
REICH: It’s a big one.
MADDOW: Yes.
REICH: Thank you, Rachel.
