FARLEFTFIELD

thoughts on the contract

2011-09-28T12:32:00.001-05:00

(Editors note - I wrote this after many friends asking my opinion on the tentative agreement. I post this after ratification to clarify to many why I voted no.)

I have made my decision on whether to support the tentative agreement. My decision is based on many issues but even more so my decision is based on an overall thought process - The absence of courage. My leadership has become a pack of cowards.

They neither represent my views nor do they speak for me.

They don't speak for me when they offer concessions from our retirees (they took away the annual $700 bonus) to the company as the company offers record bonuses to management. They don't speak for me when they tell our temps that we value your vote but don't value your work (no signing bonus and no job offer). They don't speak for me when they tell our 2 tier members that its ok to wait for another full contract before having any idea when or if they will become full production. They don't speak for me when they tell every single employee that the thousands in concessions that the company extracted from us was necessary at the time but insignificant enough to ignore at the bargaining table (no cola, no overtime, no holidays, no break time).

I keep hearing the puppets at the local level and the international tell us that this is the best agreement that we could get during these times. Which times are those? The times where the company has had 6 straight profitable quarters? The times where our sacrifices made those profits possible? Will there be a better time to negotiate our concessions back? I couldn't agree less!

The signing bonus. This disturbs me the most. The bonus is big enough to entice people that are struggling financialy. I just never imagined that it would be my union that would be the ones that put them there. For too long our "leadership" has negotiated concession packages and contracts that should have been called concession packages for membership to live with while offering the hope that someday we will rise again to regain our rightful earnings. If not now...when?

This agreement may pass, but it doesn't speak for me! My no vote will speak for me!

Verizon Attacks Workers In Our Name

2011-08-23T12:37:00.003-05:00

Ralph Nader wrote a column today about the recent Verizon strike. Nader brought up some great points:

“Mr. Lowell McAdam would surely have trouble feeling the pain of his workers who brave the elements storm or shine to afford him a salary of over 1.5 million dollars PER MONTH plus perks and benefits.
Watching Verizon profits soar year after year, noticing Verizon stock rise faster than its competitors, knowing that the company's top five executives took in over $250 million between them in the last four years, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) took their members on strike on August 7, 2011. "Unfair and unacceptable" was their cry on the picket lines up and down the east coast.”

Nader then points out that Verizon spent some of the $951 million they received in tax returns, while making $32.5 Billion in profits, to buy full page ads in the Washington Post, The New York Times, and other large newspapers. They used their taxpayer funded bully-pulpit to preach their corporate brand of “pull down” economics! One ad argued that non-union workers at Verizon pay a portion of their health care costs so should the unionized workers. Nader responds:

“There you have it - the "pull down" ultimatum to the level of the voiceless majority of Verizon workers. Of course Verizon bosses with their fat paychecks do not have to worry at all about co-payments and larger deductibles in their gold-plated health plan.”

At the bottom of each ad Verizon tells us that they are threatening their workforce, asking for over 100 concessions from their workers, and demanding nearly $20,000 of cuts from each worker while paying its top five executives more than $258 million in the past four years is claiming this is - “all in an effort to best position Verizon to serve our customers.”

I agree with Ralph Nader:

“Verizon keeps saying that what they're doing just "reflects the changing times." The times are changing - skyrocketing executive pay packages and corporate profits - slashing benefits for the workers and their families - shredding of all moral authority by example from the top.

If negotiations break down in the coming weeks and the CWA goes out on strike again, consumer advocates and their organizations should make it explicitly clear that Verizon can't excuse what they're doing to workers in order to better "serve our customers."

Verizon is going increasingly wireless. They are also going increasingly shameless!”

I will not let Verizon continue to operate in this manner on my behalf! If a fair contract is not worked out soon I will terminate my contract with them for good!

Why I will no longer shop at Target

2011-06-24T13:18:00.001-05:00

I have finally had enough. For years I have refused to purchase anything from Wal-mart based on several reasons including; anti-union practices, lack of fair and responsible treatment of their workers, sourcing (not offering made in USA items/knowingly using sweatshop suppliers), and the fact that they spend their profits financing politicians that are the exact opposite of my political ideology. Target has slowly been amassing the same record and after recent reports about their clothing suppliers I can no longer in good conscience spend my money there.

The dirt:

- “Sexual predators and serial rapists run wild At Wal-Mart Supplier in Jordan” is the name of a frightnening report about Wal-mart, Target, Kohls and other stores named in the report that purchase clothing from these suppliers and have known about reports of sexual abuse and rape at their suppliers since at least 2006.

- The headline reads “Target forces employees to watch this anti-union propaganda video” and this article has a link to the actual video. The video shows that Target is not only anti-union but they are proud of it! If that doesn’t bother you Target’s use of wild stories regarding how unions will prevent employees from interacting with management and how unions prevent employees from working more hours, should bother you because both are lies.

- Target plays an image of good corporate citizen while funding both politicians and political action committees that are openly hostile to the gay and lesbian community. Furthermore; after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars funding hate, Target committed to stopping the practice while it simply ignored its public promise and continued to fund all of the anti-gay politicians. Read more here.

- After all of this I found this article from way back in 2006 that discusses the same problems I have laid out here, so this is nothing new!

I am not calling for a boycott and I am not going to stand in front of Target with a picket sign (YET), but I will no longer fund this insanity!

Round Up

2011-06-17T12:20:00.001-05:00

Michigan Liberal had a great post about Leigh Fifelski leaving the area. I have only had a few dealings with Leigh but have admired her work greatly! Michigan will miss her and Texas is lucky to get such a hard working progressive leader! Check out the full post.

The bad news is in! looks like Gary Peters caught the brunt of the Gerrymandering mess the GOP has made. Politico has this article.

A Target store outside N.Y. City is set to have a vote to unionize and tensions are getting high! Here is link to a video/story about it. In the story a small clip from an anti-union video that Target shows its employees is featured, here is the full video.

Cool video #1 called “Wall Streets robber barons have declared war on American workers”

Cool Video #2 called “The Truth About the Economy”

In a never ending effort to promote American made and Union Made products here is a great list of union made beers!

Wisconsin Supreme Court update

2011-04-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

The whole thing reeks of foul play!!!

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is still in limbo. Here is a quick roundup of some interesting info.:

- Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to take a look at the elections and possibly conduct an investigation.

- Ramona Kitzinger, the Democratic member of the canvassing board for Waukesha County, has released a letter clarifying what happened following the election. “The reason I offer this explanation is that, with the enormous amount of attention this has received over the weekend, many people are offering my statements at the press conference that the numbers jibed as validation they are correct and I can vouch for their accuracy. As I told Kathy when I was called into the room I am 80 years old and I dont understand anything about computers. I dont know where the numbers Kathy was showing me ultimately came from, but they seemed to add up. I am still very, very confused about why the canvass was finalized before I was informed of the Brookfield error and it wasnt even until the press conference was happening that I learned it was this enormous mistake that could swing the whole election. I was never shown anything that would verify Kathys statement about the missing vote, and with how events unfolded and people citing me as an authority on this now, I feel like I must speak up.”

- The updated numbers currently are within the 7,500 margin which will allow a recount to be conducted at no cost to the challenger.

- Pretty good opinion piece about Kathy Nickolaus.

More to come!

Responsibility

2011-04-11T18:17:00.003-05:00

(I recently had the honor of attending the UAW CAP conference in Washington D.C. and submitted the following report to the membership. Our local will hold elections in the coming months so I tied the report in with those elections.)

I would like to thank the membership and leadership for allowing me to participate in the 2011 UAW National CAP Conference. The conference was filled with elected officials, civil rights leaders, tv personalities, and even former NFL players. Many of the speakers delivered powerful words and thoughtful commentary on the state of the country and of the UAW. I left Washington DC thinking of our democracy.

The ancient Greeks were the first to experiment with democracy in the 5th century B.C. Demos – meaning ‘people’, and Kratos – meaning ‘power’ or ‘force’. The Greek citizenry had grown weary of being ruled by an Oligarchy, where power lay in the hands of relatively few elites (sound familiar?) so they overthrew the rulers and started a radical experiment called democracy.
2500 years later the experiment continues.

What started so long ago in Greece is the model the founding fathers used for our great country. But, as was the case in Greece, we have responsibilities in a democracy. Democratic citizens need to recognize that they not only have rights, they have responsibilities. Democracy requires an investment of time and hard work – a government of the people demands constant vigilance and support by the people.

It is said that you get the government you deserve. For democracy to succeed, citizens must be active, not passive, because they know that the success or failure of the government is our responsibility, and no one else’s. Our union functions under the same democratic principles as our country. In order for it to operate best more involvement from its members is necessary.

As we approach our union elections we should keep these thoughts in mind. Many will approach us asking for our votes. It is our responsibility to inform ourselves about the candidates, their experience and their ideas. Many candidates will be quick to point out flaws and highlight the mistakes without offering any proof that they have the skills to do better. We must demand that candidates offer us something other than the ability to tear down; we must demand union leaders that can build up. Many will call for change but we must remember that merely asking for change can also include a change for the worse. In closing, I offer the wisdom of President Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knew victory nor defeat.”

FARLEFTFIELD

2010-10-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

FARLEFTFIELD

2010-10-27T18:04:00.001-05:00

ONE ISSUE VOTERS......
Have you ever heard someone described as a “one issue voter”? That usually describes a person who is so locked in on one issue, that it doesn’t matter what the candidate’s skill set is, or their character, or their experience, or their position on any other issue. If they don’t agree with your “one issue” they are not getting your vote! Sounds pretty narrow-minded doesn’t it? Sounds pretty intolerant doesn’t it? Sounds pretty ill-informed doesn’t it?
Most of us take a measure of pride in being an informed voter. We study the candidate’s positions, we analyze the impact of legislation, we read, we listen, we talk to our friends and family, and we even work on campaigns and go door to door. Sounds like a lot of work, and most of us are tired….really tired.
There is an easier way. I am going to take the liberty of being a “one issue voter” for this election cycle, and this election cycle only! Something has happened in the last year that has never happened before in modern history, and that is my “one issue”.
On November 2nd I am going to say THANK YOU to the courageous candidates that supported me in my darkest hour. On November 2nd, I will exercise my right to cast my vote for people who fought for economic justice, who supported our membership, and who saved our job and income security from certain disaster. On November 2nd, I will cast a vote of gratitude for people who protected my family when we all faced an uncertain future. On November 2nd I will show my appreciation for people who cared enough about our retirees to ensure that their pensions were intact, and not transferred to the PBGC. On November 2nd, I will set aside hot button issues that have divided this Nation such as gun rights, abortion, immigration, big government, taxes, campaign finance reform, healthcare bills, financial reform, etc. etc. Those issues have been at the forefront of American politics for decades and we will all have our chance to debate them for decades to come. But this year, I have just one chance to say thank you.
Thank you Virgil Benero for putting your face all over the place and getting angry enough to expose the graft and corruption on Wall Street, and fighting for my job on Main Street.
Thank you Mark Schauer for standing strong on Capital Hill, and having the guts as a first term congressman to stare into the face of evil, and cast your vote in our behalf.
Thank You to all the State Representatives that understand the value of secure, good paying union jobs for our Michigan economy.
Thank you to all our UAW endorsed candidates because we know you will continue the fight for our future.
To paraphrase a quote by John F. Kennedy “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to act on them.”
On November 2nd, I encourage you to become a “one issue” voter and join us in showing our appreciation through our actions.

We Begin Again

2010-10-26T20:29:00.002-05:00

There are several recent incidents that should alarm labor activists. We saw a female citizen in Kentucky be overtaken, thrown down and beaten by Rand Paul supporters. In Alaska, we recently saw a reporter get handcuffed and detained by Senate candidate Joe Miller’s private security for asking the wrong questions. A news organization recently came under a bomb threat in retaliation for firing a news analyst. Add to these incidents the constant right wing drumbeat labeling Democrats as “socialists” and the willingness of right wing candidates to legitimize the belief that the President of the United States of America is a Kenyan Muslim and you begin to notice a pattern.

This should sound very familiar to labor activists. If we look back to the birth of labor we might remember Eugene V. Debs being jailed, Sacco and Vanzetti being executed, Reuther and Frankensteen being beaten on the overpass, the “red scare” that was used to purge labor leaders and union organizing meetings having to be held in secret.

And so, we begin again.

There is a concerted effort by today’s Republican candidates to not only return us to the failed policies of the Bush administration but to roll back all of the historic gains made since FDR’s New Deal.

Minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, a free press, bargaining rights, immigrants, the democratic process, safety and workplace regulations are all under attack. The media has been co-opted to deliver the message and/or under report the incidents, as they too are intimidated through threats of violence.

Of course, there must be an answer. We have the model. All of the above mentioned labor leaders have shown us the way. We know of the stories, we have been taught the history and now we must act. It is our time to take part in the process that will decide the direction of our country; we vote. We take our family, friends and neighbors to vote. We make phone calls; knock on doors and display yard signs. For labor, the current political climate should bring back memories. The question then is: are we the generation that gives away the store? Do we begin again or do we carry the torch?

History does not repeat itself; men whom are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

GOP hall of SHAME!

2010-07-02T12:04:00.003-05:00

Here they are! These Senators have voted to filibuster Unemployment Benefits (multiple times) while their home state has a double digit unemployment rate.

Senator(s)-State-Unemployment Rate-Votes Against Cloture (Out Of Three)
Sens. Jeff Sessions (R) and Richard Shelby (R)-Alabama-10.8%-Three each
Sen. George LeMieux (R)-Florida-10.4%-Three
Sens. Saxby Chambliss(R) and Johnny Isakson (R)-Georgia-10.2%-Three each
Sen. Richard Lugar (R)-Indiana-10.0%-Three
Sens. Mitch McConnell(R) and Jim Bunning (R)-Kentucky-10.4%-Three each
Sens. Roger Wicker(R) and Thad Cochran (R)-Mississippi-11.4%-Three each
Sen. John Ensign (R)-Nevada-14.0%-Three
Sen. Richard Burr (R)-North Carolina-10.3%-Three
Sen. George Voinivich(R)-Ohio-10.7%-Three
Sen. Lindsey Graham(R)-South Carolina-11.0%-Two (Missed vote on 6/17)
Sen. Jim DeMint(R)-South Carolina-11.0%-Two (Missed vote on 6/30)
Sens. Bob Corker(R) and Lamar Alexander (R)-Tennessee-10.4%-Three each

This is a continuation of the Republican Party’s War on the unemployed. Here are a few of the GOP’s more pitiful moments:

Feb. 26, 2010 Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) – “tough S*#T!” about blocking Unemployment

Sen. John Kyl (R-TX) and Senate nominee Sharron Angle (R-Nev.) - UI a disincentive

June 15, 2010 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) - unemployed = drug user

Congressman Dean Heller (R-NV) - unemployed = hobo

Rand Paul (Kentucky Republican Senate nominee) - Unemployed should suck it up

Hat tip to Think Progress for the Chart as well as some great coverage of this issue in their article - 17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates repeatedly vote to filibuster unemployment benefits.

2010-06-28T23:38:00.002-05:00

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote an Op-ed for the NY Times that dealt with China’s recent decision to modify its policy of manipulating its currency. Krugman starts out with a brief overview of the effects of China’s actions:

The effect of this currency undervaluation is twofold: it makes Chinese goods
artificially cheap to foreigners, while making foreign goods artificially
expensive to the Chinese. That is, it’s as if China were simultaneously
subsidizing its exports and placing a protective tariff on its imports.

This policy is very damaging at a time when much of the world
economy remains deeply depressed. In normal times, you could argue that Chinese
purchases of U.S. bonds, while distorting trade, were at least supplying us with
cheap credit — and you could argue that it wasn’t China’s fault that we used
that credit to inflate a vast, destructive housing bubble. But right now we’re
awash in cheap credit; what’s lacking is sufficient demand for goods and
services to generate the jobs we need. And China, by running an artificial trade
surplus, is aggravating that problem.

Krugman explains the effects of the Chinese modifications, which he calls “basically a joke”, which will offer little to no change and delivered at a snail’s pace. Then Krugman minces no words:

So what comes next? China’s government is clearly trying to string the rest of
us along, putting off action until something — it’s hard to say what — comes up.

That’s not acceptable. China needs to stop giving us the runaround
and deliver real change. And if it refuses, it’s time to talk about trade
sanctions.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing also waded into the discussion after a CEO used the usual tired talking points and tried to package China’s unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and dumping practices into cost of labor. Betsy Devos would be proud! Josh Green CEO of Panjiva:

“There are people who argue that American manufacturers can’t compete with
Chinese manufacturers because of China’s currency policy. In my opinion, people
who make that argument are half right. They are correct that American
manufacturers can’t compete with Chinese manufacturers, but it’s not because of
currency policy. The wage rates in China are so much lower than they are in the
U.S., that even if there was significant change in Chinese currency, American
manufacturers would still be in a position of being uncompetitive.”

The Manufacture This blog summed it up nicely:

Sorry, Mr. Green. You’re missing the bigger picture. What makes
China such a huge juggernaut is not simply low-wage labor. There’s also
dumping, subsidies, currency manipulation, and weak enforcement of
environmental
standards.

If you get the chance you should really check out both of the linked articles –
quick reads and very well stated!

In Flanders Fields

2010-05-31T06:31:00.001-05:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Where Was The Union?

2010-05-08T01:44:00.001-05:00

(I wrote this article for my union’s newsletter a while back, it’s still relevant so I thought I would post it here.)

The recent deaths of 29 coal miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, W.Va., have brought the attention of the country to the horrifying safety record of Massey Energy Co.’s CEO Don Blankenship. a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) report on Upper Big Branch and federal records, not to mention the 49 miners killed at all Massey operations since 2000, lay out an air-tight indictment of Massey’s overall safety record:

Since 1995, Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big
Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years. [MSHA]

In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]

Blankenship has been very vocal about his feelings towards safety regulations over the years as well:

When asked about safety regulations in June 2009, months after 9 miners died in the Crandall Canyon Mine tragedy in Utah, Blankenship said –

“They’re very difficult to comply with. There’s so many of the laws that are, if you will, nonsensical from an engineering or a coal mining viewpoint. A lot of the politicians, they get emotional, as does the public, about the most recent accident, and it’s easy to get laws on the books that are not truly helping the health or safety of coal miners.”

Blankenship held an Anti-Union Labor Day rally last year at which he said –

“We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming.”

In the most egregious case of preventable death before the Upper Big Branch explosion, Massey’s Aracoma Coal Co. agreed to “plead guilty to 10 criminal charges, including one felony, and pay $2.5 million in criminal fines” after two workers died in a fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Melville, West Virginia. Massey also paid $1.7 million in civil fines. The mine had 25 violations of mandatory health and safety laws before the fire on January 19, 2006, Blankenship passed the deaths off as –

“Statistically insignificant.”

Rush Limbaugh recently joined the discussion asking:

“Where was the union here? Where was the union? The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?”

There’s a simple reason the union didn’t protect the miners: the Upper Big Branch Mine, like nearly all of the mines under Massey CEO Don Blankenship’s control, is non-union. In fact, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) tried three times to organize the Upper Big Branch mine, but even with getting nearly 70 percent of workers to sign cards saying they wanted to vote for a union, Blankenship personally met with workers to threaten them with closing down the mine and losing their jobs if they voted for a union. After the last union drive failed; Blankenship cut bonuses in half and increased hours by fifty percent.

Since 2002, less than one-fifth of the total mine worker fatalities have occurred at unionized mines. And the reason is simple: workers at a unionized mine are not afraid to report unsafe working conditions. “I can absolutely say that if these miners were members of a union, they would have been able to refuse unsafe work…and would not have been subjected to that kind of atrocious conditions,” said United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.

Also, unions have the right to accompany mine inspectors on their rounds, providing accompanying documentation and testimony, so it’s not simply the inspector’s word against the company’s. But Blankenship has made it clear that he considers the safety and health of his workers as secondary to squeezing every penny out of his mines that he can.

For once I agree with Rush, WHERE WAS THE UNION!!!

Ernie Harwell 1918 - 2010

2010-05-06T13:02:00.002-05:00

Ernie Harwell passed away on Tuesday night after a battle with cancer. There have been many fitting tributes to Harwell here are a few:

Mitch Albom wrote this column on May 5th - Ernie Harwell: Gone now, but never forgotten.

And this column on May 6th - Ernie Harwell: A voice for Detroit's Tigers fans
Loving tributes speak volumes about him.

The Sporting News compiled some quotes from around baseball and the state of Michigan here.

Al Kaline had the impossible job of accepting an award for Harwell, the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting, Kaline toughed it out through an emotional speech:

"Ernie ... thought Vin Scully was the greatest baseball announcer," Kaline said after he choked up and took a long pause to regain his composure. "We Tiger fans respectfully disagree."

Read more here.

Rest in Peace William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell January 25, 1918 – May 4, 2010.

Labor Notes Conference

2010-04-23T13:43:00.006-05:00

I am at the Labor Notes Conference in Dearborn, MI. this weekend. I thought that I would do some occasional updates throughout the day, my version of live blogging without the table space in the classrooms to actually write updates during our sessions.

UPDATE

I recently wrote about some of the troubles that union workers have been having with a pattern of anti-union actions from the Mexican government, here is a link to that post. It turns out that some of the 44,000 workers from the electrical union that have been fired by Mexico’s president are here and they did a presentation and showed a short film about their struggles. It was very cool getting to hear from them and getting to meet them in person. I even showed them the blog post I wrote.

Something called Bloggers Alley in an hour, I wonder what that’s all about. I will update with new info ASAP.

UPDATE

Its pretty rare that you have a serious dilemma at informational conferences where you are debating on running back and forth between classes because you are eager to be at two or three different sessions. An embarrassment of riches!

Blogger's Alley is just an area that has wi-fi and power strips. I was hoping that there would be some sort of workshop for bloggers, cant have everything I Guess!

FINAL UPDATE

So it turned out that I didn’t have the time to actually do a live blog from the conference and since returning my head has been swimming with the information I gathered and the people I met.

The speakers at the Labor Notes were great, I can remember at several points actually feeling goose bumps during more than one speech. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers leaders were there, leaders of the National Union of Mine and Metalworkers (who celebrated their 1,000th day on strike while at the conference) from a Mexican copper mine were there, the IWW was there, a teacher that literally marched across California was there, if the left and or labor has a type of radical group they were well represented!!

I met a few of my favorite authors, sang old labor songs by Joe Hill, met old leftists and new radicals and watched documentaries on subjects ranging from the Columbian Coke problems to the Wall St. meltdown. It was AMAZING!!! I will return to this conference!!

Good Stuff

2010-04-19T13:07:00.001-05:00

Plenty of juicy tidbits to review!

Interesting Op-Ed in the Macomb Daily: GOP flirts with Tea Party disaster

“Republican politicians who have cozied up to the Tea Party people, claiming the two groups have so much in common, may soon find that the partiers have caught on to the GOP's two-faced ways.The Tea Partiers are already feeling betrayed. They're fed up with politics as usual, especially deal making and double-talking. So, they will eventually reach their tolerance limit when they scrutinize the hypocrisy shown by Republicans who claim the fiscal responsibility mantle.From Washington to Lansing, the GOP is trying to play both sides of the fence. They tell the Tea Partiers that they hate big government, but their actions belie their words.”

Politico has a follow-up regarding Wall Street Reform that I wrote about last week: Harry Reid to Mitch McConnell: Come clean

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to disclose details of his meeting two weeks ago with Wall Street executives”

ANOTHER ROUGH WEEK FOR TOYOTA: Toyota to pay record $16.4 million fine

“If not for regulations that capped the fine at $16.4 million, NHTSA would have fined Toyota $13.8 billion, according to a letter the agency sent to the automaker in April.”… “"By failing to report known safety problems as it is required to do under the law, Toyota put consumers at risk," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood”

AND: Toyota recalls 9,400 Lexus GX 460 SUVs

“The automaker recently suspended sales of the luxury SUV after a report Tuesday by the magazine Consumer Reports. The magazine said its test drivers uncovered a problem during routine tests.”… “That situation could lead to a rollover”… “The magazine urged car shoppers not to buy the GX 460”

Labor Notes Conference will be taking place in Detroit: Labor Notes Conference 2010

Activists from across the country and around the world will be in Detroit April 23 to 25, 2010.

Some campaign news:

If you haven’t heard; Mike Rogers is being challenged by East Lansing High School’s own Kande Ngalamulume for the 8th congressional district. Please stop by Kande’s website and learn more about his campaign to take back the 8th district.

Over in Michigan’s 85th House district Pamela Drake is running. If you have been involved in 8th congressional district activities recently then you already know Pam, she is a tireless activist in her community helping countless charity organizations. Find out more about her and how you can help at her campaign website.

UAW brother Art Reyes is running for the Michigan’s 51st House district Representative. He has a Facebook page titled Art Reyes for 51st District Michigan State Representative check it out if you can.

And finally, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales from Dexter, MI. recently got some love from the NY Times! The times published a ranking of Belgian style beers and:
“Oro de Calabaza, from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales in Dexter, Mich., beat out 19 other beers, several of them from -- you guessed it -- Belgium.” I urge you to get out and support Michigan made products!!

SOLD! Wall Street Buys Republican Leadership

2010-04-14T00:21:00.001-05:00

We were warned back in Feb. when the Wall Street Journal reported:

“Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street”

The Journal continues:

“In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks' best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.”

I have been puzzled many times by the various ideas that Republicans campaign for, but running for office as the protector’s of Wall Street Executives and lobbyists is mind boggling. It is mind boggling that ANY politician would champion this cause so this quote from Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) REALLY freaks me out:

"I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer's remorse on Wall Street,"

Two things regarding this statement; first - Cantor implies that Democrats were purchased by Wall Street. Cantor, a United States Representative is not offended by the idea that an elected official could be purchased and is rather matter of fact about it. Second – Cantor is just pissed that he wasn’t the politician that got bought off and now he and his party leaders are trying to convince Wall Street Executives that they will be a much better investment. WTF!!

Moving ahead to April 8th, 2010 from Fox Business Network:

About 25 Wall Street executives, many of them hedge fund managers, sat down for a private meeting Thursday afternoon with two of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in Congress: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas who runs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one of the primary fundraising arms of the Republican Party.

What was the result of the meeting you ask? We move ahead to April 13, 2010 – from the N.Y. Times:

Drawing the lines for a fierce election-year battle over regulating the nation’s financial system, Senate Republicans on Tuesday insisted that legislation proposed by Democrats and the White House would only encourage future taxpayer bailouts of big banks.

First I will point out the obvious – McConnell’s translation of the financial reform bill:

“We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts,”

And

“The way to solve this problem is to let the people who make the mistakes pay for them, We won’t solve this problem until the biggest banks are allowed to fail.”

Is wrong! Larry Kudlow, a former Reagan economic advisor had this to say:

"Sen. Chris Dodd's financial-regulation proposal raises the possibility of substantial progress on the road to ending "too big to fail" (TBTF) and bailout nation for banks and other financial institutions."

And

"with the Dodd plan, the possibility remains that a true bankruptcy process will replace government bailouts.
This is vital, since TBTF and government bailouts are among the root causes of the banking crisis, where large financial companies have a moral hazard to take too much risk at taxpayer expense."

And

"Chris Dodd conceivably may have opened the door to ending TBTF and bailout nation."

Go to the link above for a very detailed analysis of the bill, section by section of mostly praise for the bill.

Back to Mitch - I would also like to point out that despite the hyper-partisan, Wall Street financed rhetoric from Mitch McConnell we should remember that more than half of the Senate Republicans voted for president Bush’s TARP bill. (Including McConnell) of course this type of fake vitriol from Sen. McConnell has been well orchestrated as TIME magazine’s political blog “Swampland” points out (writing about McConnell’s floor speech against Wall Street Reform):

"If the outline of his speech sounds familiar, it's because it is the exact argument pollster Frank Luntz urged Republicans to make earlier this year in a widely publicized memo.

Compare the excerpts below (emphasis mine):

Luntz: "The single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout."

McConnell: "We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks. And that's why we must not pass the financial reform bill that's about to hit the floor."

Luntz: "Taxpayers should not be held responsible for the failure of big business any longer. If a business is going to fail, not matter how big, let it fail."

McConnell: "[The Dodd bill] gives the government a new backdoor mechanism for propping up failing or failed institutions.... We won't solve this problem until the biggest banks are allowed to fail."
Luntz: "Government policies caused the bubble and its ultimate crash. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, and the Community Reinvestment Act all had a role in the catastrophe. The government inflated economic bubbles with easy credit policies."

McConnell: “It also directs the Fed to oversee 35 to 50 of the biggest firms, replicating on an even larger scale the same distortions that plagued the housing market and helped trigger a massive bubble we'll be suffering from for years. If you thought Fannie and Freddie were dangerous, how about 35 to 50 of them?""

A scathing summary of Republican leadership behavior from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says:

"Do you believe that Wall Street and McConnell came to a meeting of the minds? Do you think The Street is truly cool with “letting the people who make the mistakes pay for them” and allowing the biggest banks to fail without government intervention, as McConnell claims to advocate?
I certainly don’t, not for a New York minute. Less than two years ago, remember, most of those same independent-minded, free-market Wall Street folks were on their knees begging for Washington’s help, pleading with them not to let the big banks fail. Henry Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs chairman, literally went down on one knee to beseech House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for help.
In fact, when crunch time came on Oct. 1, 2008, that bold free-marketer Mitch McConnell and 31 of his fellow Republican senators voted in favor of the TARP bailout to save Wall Street. That was their chance to prove just how deeply this supposed free-market purity ran in their souls, and they folded."

The full article is REALLY worth the read!

Thank You President Obama

2010-03-31T23:19:00.001-05:00

I was thrilled to see that the Obama administration made several recess appointments last week. Two of them were for slots on the National labor Relations Board (NLRB). Craig Becker and Mark Pearce were nominated in July and received Senate Judiciary approval, but Senate Republicans blocked final approval. With the NLRB only having two members of a five person board for over two years president Obama did the right thing:

“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis. Most of the men and women whose appointments I am announcing today were approved by Senate committees months ago, yet still await a vote of the Senate.”

During the two years which the board had only two members the short handed board made over 600 rulings which the Supreme Court is deciding their validity right now (New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board), if the ruling goes against the board all of the 600 cases could be thrown out. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts (a very conservative judge appointed by George W. Bush) even questioned Neal Katyal, Deputy Solicitor General, why a recess appointment hadn’t yet been made:

“And the recess appointment power doesn't work why?”

As usual Republican’s were against something the president did:

“I will admit that doing 15 recess appointments on a Saturday is slightly excessive. But the one that really I think is offensive in the group is … this guy [Craig] Becker [who] is essentially an agent, an advocate of the unions in what is — the NLRB — a quasi-judicial body.

So it's like having a prosecutor on the jury. You really ought not do that.”

That’s Charles Krauthammer, whom you can find on FAUX news just about any night of the week or at the National Review Online (I won’t link to either). What bothers me most about this group think/talking point is that if a lawyer that has made a career of representing unions and/or labor is somehow unqualified to serve at the NLRB why is a lawyer that has made a career of representing management/corporations/business groups somehow acceptable? Another question is- who then is suitable to serve on the board? Should we only nominate people that have never represented workers or management and if so do we really hope to find the most qualified people to serve on a board that has as its mission statement:

“to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector.”

I would bet that it would take years, maybe even decades to obtain an expert knowledge of U.S. labor law and it likely would only be accomplished from having worked on behalf of one of the two groups that I mentioned above; labor or management.

Republican opposition to the recess appointment to the NLRB is two-faced and disingenuous. Not only did Republican President George W. Bush make more than 170 recess appointments, but according to the Congressional Research Service, 8 of Bush’s recess appointments were to the NLRB and nearly all of them were pawns of big business.

Bush’s recess appointments to the NLRB were:

1. Peter J. Hurtgen (NLRB – Designated Chairman) – 8/31/2001

2. Michael J. Bartlett (NLRB – Member) – 1/22/2002

3. William B. Cowen (NLRB – Member) – 1/22/2002

4. Ronald E. Meisburg (NLRB – Member) – 12/23/2003

5. Peter Schaumber (NLRB – Member) – 8/31/2005

6. Peter N. Kirsanow (NLRB – Member) – 1/4/2006

7. Ronald E. Meisburg (NLRB – General Counsel) – 1/4/2006

8. Dennis P. Walsh (NLRB – Member) – 1/17/2006

Chinese Currency Manipulation

2010-03-24T03:15:00.001-05:00

There has been a ton of stuff on the issue of Trade lately and with the President scheduled to visit Asia in the near future the talk will undoubtedly get louder.

Paul Krugman (NY Times columnist and Nobel prize winner in Economics) had a great Op-ed on the issue of China manipulating its currency value to artificially make its products even cheaper to increase its exports. Krugman argues that the Treasury must take the step of recognizing and pointing out officially that China is manipulating their currency; the Treasury is required by law to report countries that manipulate their currency. Many believe that the Treasury is afraid of repercussions from China and its large amount of U.S. dollar assets. Krugmans view?

What you have to ask is, What would happen if China tried to sell a large share of its U.S. assets? Would interest rates soar? Short-term U.S. interest rates wouldn’t change: they’re being kept near zero by the Fed, which won’t raise rates until the unemployment rate comes down. Long-term rates might rise slightly, but they’re mainly determined by market expectations of future short-term rates. Also, the Fed could offset any interest-rate impact of a Chinese pullback by expanding its own purchases of long-term bonds.

It’s true that if China dumped its U.S. assets the value of the dollar would fall against other major currencies, such as the euro. But that would be a good thing for the United States, since it would make our goods more competitive and reduce our trade deficit. On the other hand, it would be a bad thing for China, which would suffer large losses on its dollar holdings. In short, right now America has China over a barrel, not the other way around.

(Read full Op-ed here.)

The massive trade deficit with China was further examined in a recent policy briefing paper by the Economic Policy Institute:

the jobs impact of the China trade deficit is not restricted to job loss and displacement. Competition with low-wage workers from less-developed countries has also driven down wages for other workers in manufacturing and reduced the wages and bargaining power of similar workers throughout the economy. The impact has affected essentially all production workers with less than a four-year college degree—roughly 70% of the private-sector workforce, or about 100 million workers. For a typical full-time median-wage earner in 2006, these indirect losses totaled approximately $1,400 per worker

The briefing paper also touches on China’s currency manipulation and gives thorough analysis of its effects.

Locally Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was a co-sponsor of The Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2010. This legislation addresses Chinese currency manipulation and provides meaningful sanctions, including countervailing duties or tariffs, if currency negotiations fail. The AFL-CIO blog wrote about the bill recently

It’s About Time!

2010-03-12T06:20:00.001-05:00

Rep. Mark Schauer (D, MI-07) Rep. Dale Kildee (D, MI-05) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D, MI-01) have all co-sponsored a bill that would repeal NAFTA. There a total of 28 sponsors of the bill originally introduced by Rep. Gene Taylor (D, MS-04). H.R. 4759 is short and to the point! The bill is introduced:

“To provide for the withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement.”

What else do you need to read? You can follow the link above if you want to read the half-page long bill.

Obviously labor is happy!
“The lives of average workers in Mexico and in the U.S. have gotten so much worse since NAFTA,” says Jim Hoffa, head of the Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million American workers. “When you realize you’ve made a bad deal, you try to get out of it.”

More surprising is conservative Pat Buchanan ranting against NAFTA:

“No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production and today before tomorrow.

Nations rise on economic nationalism; they descend on free trade.”

I never thought I would say this but, you really should read the full Buchanan article. Good stuff Pat!

Finally, while I hate to say it – the current administration is failing us in regards to trade.

US trade representative Ron Kirk says he will press hard to persuade trade-wary Democrats and Republicans of the merits of President Obama’s trade policy agenda for 2010. The agenda includes completion of the Doha Round of global trade liberalization and passage of pending US free-trade agreements (FTAs).

The US has negotiated FTAs with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea – all of which are awaiting congressional ratification.

As Mayor of Dallas U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk was a big supporter of NAFTA. Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, co-founder of the House Trade Working Group, said he was "deeply concerned" about Mr. Kirk when president Obama nominated him:
"His past trade policy positions do not reflect the views of most Americans. They also do not reflect the reform agenda that President Obama has pledged to an American public clamoring for a new direction on trade,"

If you haven’t already urge your Rep. to sponsor H.R. 3012 and its Senate version S. 2821 – the Trade Act. This legislation is described by the Citizen Trade Campaign as:

This bill frames a bold new debate, marking out policy space for a more balanced way to expand trade.
Past free trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are not actually free, and have come at great costs. The price we pay in offshoring of jobs, downward pressure on wages, loss of farms and damage to our environment is far too great.
The TRADE Act maps a fair path forward, explaining what we can all support in a good agreement.

GOP ends attack on unemployed

2010-03-03T05:17:00.000-05:00

It looks like the Republican assault on the unemployed will temporarily stop. But Jim Bunning’s hypocrisy is stunning; from a Feb. 14, 2003 press release on his website after passing a temporary extension for unemployment benefits:

“The 108th Congress is off to a solid start, this is hopeful news for our most needy families in Kentucky. By approving this legislation we will help those folks who are currently without work continue to make ends meet until they can find new employment.”

Bunning was even willing to talk about the effect that the extension would have for unemployed people and their families:

Passage of this legislation means that there will be no lapse in assistance for the nearly 10,000 Kentuckians who have filed claims so far for extended benefits.

I wonder what changed during the 7 years that made Bunning “for it, before he was against it”. Could it be that back when Bunning was for extending unemployment benefits (2003); the senate was controlled by Republicans, but currently while Bunning is against extending unemployment benefits; the senate is controlled by Democrats?

Several Republican colleagues have supported Sen. Bunning’s “tyranny of the petty”–

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) – “I respect him for the courage he’s showed.”

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) has said that Bunning’s move is something that the Senate should “honor”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) dismissed the issue as unimportant

Rep. John Boehner offered support while trying not to meddle in the business of the Senate.

Sen. Jim De Mint (R-Batshit) - “He’s my hero this week”

Now that the political grandstanding is over, hopefully the thousands of workers affected can go back to work and the unemployed people without a check this week can stay afloat.

Unions Attacked in Mexico

2010-02-15T16:20:00.000-05:00

There has been a frightening series of events unfolding in Mexico. Unions have come under attack over the last several months. While this has been a common practice for corporations throughout Mexico this time the perpetrator is the Mexican government.

Many of us remember the first big blow against unions in the United States; Ronald Reagan firing more than 11,000 union air traffic controllers. It seems that Mexico is trying to deal organized labor its death blow south of the border. The Mexican government has pushed an attack against trade unionists all over the country over the last few years:

In October 2009 the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, ordered a public utility company closed and the workers fired. Calderon did not seek the approval of congress. This lockout affects over 44,000 union workers from one of the largest and most militant unions in the country.

In July 2007 miners went on strike after a 2006 explosion that buried 65 miners alive. In mid 2007 independent industrial safety experts found extreme health violations to add to the Mexican labor department’s list of 72 serious safety hazards at the site. A Mexican court ruled recently in favor of the company terminating the union contract. Many fear bloodshed as the Mexican government will try to take the mine back by force.

In April of 2007 a labor organizer was found beaten to death in his office. The Mexican government has dragged its feet during the murder investigation and as one union official put it:

“We think Santiago’s murder was a message to the union to back down, But we have no intention of going away.”

Many American labor leaders are now attempting to make their voices heard. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka urged the Obama administration to:

“take immediate and decisive steps to hold the Mexican government accountable for its systematic violations of fundamental worker rights and its effort to dismantle independent unions.”

The Mexican electrical workers union has been touring California unions to inform American unions of their ordeal and to ask for solidarity. You can read more about the tour and help the union by writing a letter, here is more information.

Toyota - unsafe at any speed!

2010-01-29T03:30:00.001-05:00

(A co-worker asked me to submit this article to our local union newsletter and I thought I would post it here as well!)

Several years ago General Motors was accused of selling pickup trucks with exploding gas tanks; you may remember the Dateline NBC story that featured a GMC pickup blowing up to demonstrate the danger. The problem was that the producers of the story rigged the explosion to create a more frightening image to the public. GM filed a lawsuit and NBC quickly came clean about the story and issued an apology. Too little, too late! The fiery explosion image had already done its damage and GM issued $1,000 voucher towards purchasing another vehicle to truck owners that had filed lawsuits around the country. Media sensationalizing a story to get ratings caused significant damage to GM’s image of quality. The Government never found any wrongdoing against the company yet the image of a GM pickup truck in a ball of flames is what the general public will remember.

The national media has hardly noticed the Toyota recalls, now over 6 million vehicles in the last few months. The news has slowly trickled in that Toyota has the largest safety recall EVER and has yet to find a solution. Toyota has known about this issue since at least early 2004 and has tried to dismiss the severity as a minor repair. With the death toll climbing when will the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demand that all of the vehicles, which are a danger to every single one of us, be removed from our neighborhood streets? Why are the national media and the NHTSA so quick to demonize an American company but slow to act and forgiving of foreign automakers? I urge each of you to contact the NHTSA and demand that these death traps be removed from our city streets immediately!!

Here is the e-mail address:

https://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/email.cfm

Here is the phone number:

Toll-Free: 1-888-327-4236

Solar Panel Company Headed to Saginaw

2009-12-21T01:00:00.002-05:00

The holiday spirit is in full force in the Saginaw area as a new employer will be setting up shop. GlobalWatt plans to build solar modules, or panels, made of crystalline cells that can be used to build solar energy farms and to power individual buildings.

Saginaw beat out Corpus Christi, Texas to win the new location for the California company. From a local Corpus Christi news source:

The Michigan city won out over Corpus Christi because of its proximity to a
large, new polysilicone production plant, a cell manufacturing plant and a
supply of skilled, unemployed auto workers, Mussio said. Saginaw is a city of
57,500 about 100 miles northwest of Detroit.

“Michigan and especially Saginaw Valley is in an established supply
chain that GlobalWatt could become an integral piece of,” she said. “That made a
huge difference. It’s different than plopping a business down in a city alone.”

Congratulations to Saginaw and one of its struggling neighborhoods, and what great timing in an area with so many out of work. Read more here.

Another Toyota Recall

2009-11-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

I have already documented the clear bias that media darlings Toyota receive in the under-reporting of massive recalls of their vehicles. But to have nearly 4 MILLION vehicles recalled in the span of two months and still receive back page status or not be covered at all when safety risks are involved is nearly criminal.

CNNMoney.com is reporting a recall of more than 100,000 Toyota’s this month with this warning:

“The agency urged Tundra owners to remove the spare tires even before taking the vehicles to a dealer to be remedied.”

In other words DON’T DRIVE THESE TRUCKS, EVEN OUT OF THE DRIVEWAY, until you remove the spare tires!! The recall also warns of possible brake system failures.

Last month Toyota had a massive recall of 3.8 MILLION vehicles because of a potentially deadly issue with floor mats and accelerator cable problems.

The under reporting of safety issues is unacceptable! As demonstrated in the link above the last Toyota recall could be fatal. The issue in the last recall was also a problem that was found to be years old and now a police officer, his wife and their children are dead. At some point companies that knowingly withhold safety recalls, for years in these cases, need to be made accountable.

Repower America

2009-11-17T05:54:00.000-05:00

NEW LINK! NEW LINK!

(Combining two of the most important issues facing our state Repower America addresses both environmental issues and the creation of new jobs. Here is a brief intro to the organization and a link to add your name to this important cause.)

Michiganders from all walks of life are today coming together to support bold action on clean energy and climate change. An unprecedented coalition of business people, faith and military leaders, hunters, farmers and conservationists is coming together because moving forward to clean energy and solving the climate crisis is good for the economy, strengthens our security and protects our environment for our kids and grandkids.

America’s addiction to foreign oil hurts our economy, aids our enemies and puts our national security at risk. Rather than continuing to send billions overseas for foreign oil, new clean energy policies mean spending that money here at home on clean energy sources, creating new jobs and building new industries, and making us more secure.

It’s not surprising that the big oil companies are fighting these changes with everything they have. They’re spending millions to protect their billions in profits and to maintain the status quo. But more of the same hasn’t worked for American families -- average household energy spending increased $1,000 between 2001 and 2007. We just can’t afford it anymore.

That’s why leaders of both political parties are coming together with environmentalists, faith leaders and some of the biggest companies in the world to push for bold action on clean energy and climate change in the Senate this year. Add your voice to this incredible effort at the Repower Wall (www.repoweramerica.org/wall) - a new campaign by Repower America that brings together Americans from all walks of life to address these critical issues. Share your story and your resolve to do right by our economy, security and our kids.

Now is the time for our leaders to finally act and put America back in charge of our energy future with clean American energy.

Teabagger sinks to new low

2009-11-16T03:05:00.000-05:00

I was able to get in to the health care town hall meeting put on by Rep. Mark Schauer in Delta Township on Friday Nov. 13th. a largely pro health care group was very well behaved and at one point before we entered the building to be seated I noticed that the only two teabagger’s had to each hold three signs because apparently they didn’t have the numbers they thought they would. Sad, they had no intention of asking questions or actually going into the meeting and one of the signs featured the misspelling of the word “creates”-who are these people?!

I was sitting next to a friend that was called on to ask a question. After relaying their story that less than two months earlier he was diagnosed with cancer and had then been through surgery and is currently receiving medication that is not fully covered by his health insurance to the tune of $400 a month to prevent CANCER from returning. His question had to do with prescription coverage’s and what sort of cost capping measures the bill contained. Several minutes later a couple on the other side of the room stood up and started to leave, they walked to the back of the room and passed right by me and my friend. As they left one of them leaned in between my friend and me, looked at him and whispered, “you should be ashamed of yourself!” and then quickly scurried out of the auditorium. I was shocked, and then I was pissed! I am used to absurd behavior from the “teabagger” set but telling my friend he should be ashamed for having cancer! I suppose this is a good example of what we are up against. Many of these people aren’t interested in dialogue, honest debate or actual solutions – many of them are simply interested in their way or the highway and if fomenting fear and creating confusion is a means to that end, so be it. I didn’t think that trying to guilt trip cancer victims was in their playbook but I guess I was wrong.

Layoff Due to Outsourcing

2009-10-30T22:45:00.001-05:00

The headline reads “GM to idle because of parts shortage.”

Apparently there is a labor strike in India. I guess in their hurry to outsource every job possible GM sent transmission parts production to India; I wonder how much per part they will be saving next week? I am constantly bitching about trade issues on this blog and this is a perfect example of why! The terms of when I work are now being driven by a parts plant in India. When you couple that with foreign transplants dictating what my wages will be its enough to make a guy wonder who he works for and in what country! What am I talking about? The concession package from earlier this year brought with it a very short statement regarding what will come in 2011.

“…binding arbitration with wage and benefits improvements to be based upon GM maintaining an all-in labor cost comparable to its U.S. competitors, including transplant automotive manufacturers.”

This is verbatim from our concession overview booklet (bold type and italics emphasis added by me) regarding how our wage structure will be worked out in our next contract.

I hope India will allow me to go back to work soon. Looking a bit further down the road; I also hope that Korea, Germany and Japan wont be too hard on us when they decide what our wage structure will be for the 2011 contract.

By the way if you believe that this sort of thing is spurred on by the sad state of this county’s unfair trade policy support the TRADE act by asking your elected official to co-sponsor this important legislation here.

Trick or Treat

2009-10-16T00:46:00.000-05:00

Halloween is aproaching quickly and here are some American made options for everyone buying candy:

Tootsie Roll’s and many of the products that Tootsie Roll Industries makes are not only made in the USA but they are made by UNION workers!! Check out their line of products here.

Hershey’s kisses and chocolate bars are also made in America by union workers!

Reese’s peanut butter cups … MMMMMM are made in America by union workers.

(Hershey’s has moved some of its production out of the country so make sure to turn the bag over and look for the old “product of USA” or “Made in USA”!!!)

There are long lists of candy made in the USA and made by union employees at
The UAW website
The AFT website
The CWA has a list
The UFCW’s list
Make sure to double check on the bag as many of these companies have production outside of the country as well.

Black Lake and the future of the UAW

2009-10-04T22:26:00.006-05:00

I spent the last week at UAW Black Lake training. What a wonderful week of learning, inspiration and fellowship with union brothers and sisters from around my region. The last time I was at Black Lake for training I was barely active in my union and was only just starting to be involved with politics. What a difference nearly a decade makes! I am now Internationally appointed, an UAW CAP delegate, a precinct delegate and am often referred to as the political guru of my UAW local (not to mention having my own blog!)

I absolutely loved all of the instructors and even spent time outside the classroom having long discussions with them and even arguing with them regarding politics and the UAW.

The grounds are incredible and should be visited by every union activist at least once! Here are a few pics:

An amazing view of the lobby area.

A view of the Reuther brothers statues.

The eternal flame for Walter and May Reuther.

To me the most important part of the week was getting to spend time with people from my local union that I didn’t really know that well. I enjoyed eating our meals together and was thrilled that the lessons in our classes spilled over to the dining hall nearly every day. We had a great mix of retirees, active members and union leadership. it was an interesting combination because at my local; our leadership has a lot of seniority and will likely retire over the next few years. Here, collected at one event was the past, present, and future of my local union. Some of them have no idea that they will be called upon in the coming years as I was called upon after I returned from Black Lake- so many years ago.

The leadership of the international spoke to us repeatedly and covered such topics as the recent concessions, the status of the Saturn deal, the VEBA (retiree health care) trust and many other topics. Many in the audience spent that time shifting around in their seats, much of the news was bleak. Our leaders were speaking to us in clear, concise language and they were not speaking from a position of strength. Sobering straight talk. Many in our membership need to hear that.

At the end of the week I found that I was leaving with a positive outlook. Bad news, straight talk, sobering reports; we are exactly where we don’t want to be- but here I was smiling on the drive home thinking of my weekend. Sometimes hearing the hard facts are necessary, sometimes straight talk and sobering news sheds a little light on who,what, and where you are. With membership at an all time low, with factories being shuddered across our nation, with entire name plates being left by the side of the road somehow I have optimism and a grin on my face. Have I lost my mind? Willful ignorance? No, I am now a little more familiar with whom I stand. I now know what the faces of our future leadership look like. I broke bread with, had long in depth conversations with and yes, even shared beers with the people that will likely be my local union and regions next generation of leaders. My optimism doesn’t come from the belief that we will suddenly score a string of immediate victories it comes from the belief that the most important victories are long term struggles. Currently our opponents have the upper hand so we will sit and bide our time learning the lessons that patience, endurance and perseverance are powerful forms of strength. With our ranks diminished the future will undoubtedly hold monumental battles that will pit us against impossible odds; yet I grin. One thing I am sure of; we have broad shoulders, strong backs and when we fight together nothing can stand in our way. Our history teaches us that we can endure nearly anything… and win!! The bloody battles with corporate giants to start our union, the no strike clauses during world war II, our women carrying the load during world war II, Civil Rights, OSHA, COLA, FMLA, Minimum wage raises and on and on. The future battles will have different issues and our future leaders will have new names but our cause will stay the same; labor will always fight the battles of working people everywhere. Just like the song “Solidarity Forever” says:

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

And even as I write this – I grin!!

Massive Toyota Recall

2009-10-01T18:53:00.000-05:00

Big news from the automotive sector came out this week while I happened to be at Black Lake Educational center. The news of the Toyota recall of 3.8 million vehicles was a small blurb in national media markets but in Michigan it is very big news. I found it ironic that news of the breakdown over the Penske/Saturn deal was top national news but a possible deadly issue with nearly 4 million vehicles gets little to no attention. You can hear the 911 call that launched the recall, which the company is downplaying by calling it a safety alert instead of a recall in spite of the death of an off duty police officer, his wife and their two daughters.

Also mentioned in the article was the fact that Toyota knew about the problem that caused the accident. Toyota had issued a recall in 2007 over these same issues. I wonder what the U.S. media would have done if the recall had come from one of the big three?

The Devil's Healthcare update

2009-09-26T04:18:00.003-05:00

OK, first things first- The Baucus health care bill is horrible in so many ways. But, we must not lose sight of the fact that the 3 in the House are very good and the other in the Senate is good but could use some work. Some of us will be asked to express deep concerns with the Baucus/ Finance committee product. And we should. No, let me rephrase that- we must.

Opposition to the Baucus bill doesn't mean that you're opposing health care reform. It means that you're opposing provisions within the Baucus proposal but letting the process move forward so these bills can be put together and voted upon.

In a nutshell, we're not even in the second half of the game yet. But, just like in any game, you must play both halves if you're going to win. Honestly, we've put forth a good effort in the first half but we have to really turn up the heat in the second half.

A few of the issues are:

How do we pay for it? The Baucus plan uses an excise tax on insurance companies. Sounds OK. It's not. this tax will be passed on to consumers. Insurance companies readily admit this. The House versions don't use this funding. They use a surtax on people making over $300,000 annually. These folks get enough write offs and are more than making ends meet. They got the biggest tax decrease in history during the Bush years- we got bupkis. Even Warren Buffet, billionaire told Democrats a few weeks ago that the rich need to pay more in taxes. The irony.

Leveling the playing field- Most people get health care from their employer. Many of our employers competitors do not provide insurance. This puts our employer at a severe disadvantage. This is called the pay or play. If employers don't want to provide it, fine, don't play, but you must pay. Right now, the pay part is too low. We have to tell Congress that the play has to be more meaningful.

Public option- This is important. It has received a lot of attention. It's baffling and the lies around this are plain silly. Opponents (GOP and so-called moderate Dems/Blue Dogs) clam that the Gov can't do anything right. Really? The Veterans health care is government run- they get about the best prices for drugs. The delivery system needs some work but it's because they have been underfunded for years (think massive tax cuts under Bush and the influx of newly returned service members from Iraq) Medicare has the lowest administrative costs. This means that more money can be spent on delivering health care- a very good thing. Medicaid- has low administrative costs, get's better drug prices than Medicare and is government run. The problems that you hear about with these programs are not due to them being poorly run or bad programs- it's completely political. Want to "save Medicare"? raise the tax level above $90,000. Any income a person makes over this amount is not taxed right now. The number hasn't moved in I don't know how long, but it needs to. Many people are leery of government intrusion etc. It's time to sit down and read about how a public option will decrease costs for everyone because insurance companies will have to compete with these more efficient plans.

How serious are GOP about fixing health care? They still haven't offered a plan. In the Finance Committee, they keep saying that they have the workers in mind. The only idea they've offered, aside from saying no no no no no no no no, is to give people vouchers to buy their own insurance or tax breaks of like $5,000. This doesn't mean that you get $5,000. This means that you don't pay taxes on $5,000 of your income. So, let's just say that you're in the highest tax bracket (which you're not unless you're making about $250,000/yr. The max you would really receive is $1,500. How much does an individual plan cost on he open market? Around $8,000. You just lost over $6,500 dollars (over $500 month). Not a good deal.

How serious is it right now? Very. The House is starting to talk about an excise tax as being part of their financing. It will be much better than the Baucus lunacy and most likely will only hit plans of Goldman Sachs execs. Still, we need to beware and fight like hell against it.

we're the only major nation in he world that doesn't provide health care for all. We're the richest country in the world. It's time to change this so families are better off, businesses can compete on a level playing field and people, not profits, are the focus of health care.

Racism Alive and Well

2009-09-02T14:24:00.001-05:00

This story was recently covered in the South Bend Tribune:

He started to ring up the shoes as the shopper pulled a department store credit
card out of her wallet. When she looked up, the associate was leaning over the
counter."The next time you come shopping," he warned her, "make sure you bring
your green card with you."The statement stunned the shopper, who is
Mexican-American. She said she did nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that
could justify his behavior toward her.

This is not uncommon. If you ask any person of color or woman they will likely have a story about being discriminated against or being called a racial slur. What they may not share is the fallout from those stories. They may not share the part where they have to answer the questions from their children: “why did he ask you for a green card?” You will likely not be told of the sense of fury over having to explain what that person meant or defining the racial slur or explaining what bigotry is. You will likely not be told what it feels like to watch a piece of your child’s innocence be ripped away.

I remember my sister-in-law telling me a story of how as her and my two nieces were leaving a grocery store a large truck sped past them nearly hitting the two girls. As the truck drove off the passenger yelled, “go back across the border, beaners” as he waved the middle finger. She was quick to mention the white guy that witnessed the incident, dropped his groceries (except for a bottle of soda) and ran across the parking lot yelling at the truck and throwing his soda at the truck. I watched my sister-in-law relay this story to me and then I saw what was the worst part of incidents like this; her children didn’t understand what happened. She told me of her inner struggle over whether or not to explain what the man in the truck meant, why someone that didn’t even know them hated them and if she should explain the racial slur and comments. While she was relaying the story to me she wept openly and was visibly shaking; a mix of emotions overtaking her. In the end she decided that it was a rare opportunity to show the sort of mindless hate her children will experience in their life and the sort of goodness that they will also experience.

I dread the day when I have to explain racism to my daughter those racial slurs or the concepts of bigotry and racism. We dream that our children will never have to know bigotry or racism. This what bothered my sister-in-law most; that dream was lost for her children on that day.

The person in the news article above is a family member. She said she felt hesitant about reporting the incident and said that after some thought, she felt obligated to relay her experience so that the worker can’t treat someone else the same way. I agree, and I hope that more people are intolerant towards racism. The dream of our children never knowing bigotry is still alive for my family. We have come a long way but racism is still alive and well in our society. Hopefully with more people speaking out I will never have the moment where I watch my daughter feel the horrid sting of racism for the first time.

Sen. Kennedy R.I.P.

2009-08-26T04:52:00.002-05:00

Sen. Edward Kennedy passed away last night after battling brain cancer.

Kennedy will go down in history as one of the most effective Senators in American history. His time in the Senate was used to help pass OSHA, Civil Rights legislation, Head Start, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), fought for raises in the minimum wage, higher rates of student aid for GI’s, and countless other programs. The first time Ted Kennedy introduced health care legislation was in 1969, the battle taking place today was his life long fight. Ted Kennedy has been waging this war for more than forty years.

I had the privilege of hearing him speak while campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 and will always remember his memorable speech at the 2008 Democratic convention. The story goes that months after the May 2008 diagnosis of brain cancer Ted Kennedy rose from his bed on the day of the Democratic National Convention, combed his hair over a visible bald patch where his head had been shaven for treatment, covered the IV port on the back of his hand with a bandage and refused to stay home on the night the candidate he endorsed would accept the party’s nomination. Here is the video of his speech that night:

The last words of his speech were part of his speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention as he was thanking his supporters and conceding to Jimmy Carter:

“The work goes on,
The cause endures,
The hope still lives
And the dream shall never die.”

Rest In Peace Sen. Kennedy.

Terrorist for Oil

2009-08-24T05:19:00.000-05:00

All weekend I couldn’t get the story of Scotland releasing a Libyan terrorist out of my mind. The story seemed incomplete. TIME magazine may have some insight into why anyone would release a terrorist that was found guilty of 270 counts of murder:

Libya watchers and oil analysts said they believed that the decision to free the only person convicted in the 1988 Pan Am Airlines bombing was connected to British investment interests. "It [Megrahi's release] was a matter of when, not if," says Molly Tarhuni, manager of the international security program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. "It's a very strong possibility" that a deal was struck, she says. "There are benefits to Britain having done it. This was the last in a long chain of deals."

FBI chief Robert Mueller was not happy! He wrote a very strong letter rebuking the actions to the Scottish Justice Secretary:

Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of "compassion." Your action rewards a terrorist even though he never admitted to his role in this act of mass murder and even though neither he nor the government of Libya ever disclosed the names and roles of others who were responsible.
Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical personnel who first faced the horror of 270 bodies strewn in the fields around Lockerbie, and in the town of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of volunteers who walked the fields of Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of debris related to the breakup of the plane; the hundreds of FBI agents and Scottish police who undertook an unprecedented global investigation to identify those responsible; the prosecutors who worked for years--in some cases a full career--to see justice done.

Read the full letter here.

I thought about the families of all of the victims watching the freed terrorist make the exit from the plane the way their sons, daughters, mother or fathers never had the chance to; and then I saw the confetti and the heroes welcome that this person was receiving. I have no idea how the victims families were feeling but I am still struggling to understand. I imagine after more than 2 decades some of these wounds may have started to heal; I also imagine that they have just been torn wide open again. Why? I have the feeling TIME hit the nail on the head. Money. Again, men are willing to do just about anything to profit and I have the feeling we will hear more about this down the road.

Debate?

2009-08-13T11:04:00.008-05:00

The health care “debate” has been escalated to absurd levels from opponents that believe that halting discussion is a way to hand President Obama a big defeat. What is actually being lost in all the manufactured hoopla is the opportunity to actually discuss one of the most important issues in the country today. It seems that the right wing and insurance companies are intent on turning town hall meetings into mayhem rather than have the general public become informed and have their questions answered.

Here are some of the images from the folks that are hell bent on fomenting anger and fear:

Yes, that is a Hitler mustache on the President!

Here is more hate:

They actually combined thinly veiled racism with the widely debunked "death panel" myth! Well done young corporate apologist!!

CNN did a short piece proving Nancy Pelosi correct about swastika's showing up at the protests, here it is:

I hope that clears up any of the "no Nazi references at the health care protests" confusion.

This picture actually has a swastika and an image of the President in "Mao" clothes.
Disturbing images of people that have no interest whatsoever in dialogue or civil discourse

Chamber of Commerce double standard

2009-07-31T11:12:00.001-05:00

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out with “guns a blazin’” over the recent nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker is the Associate General Counsel for the SEIU labor union. The Chamber sent a letter to elected officials claiming that Becker was worse than Osama Bin Laden! OK, not really but they did send a letter that was pretty heated! The letter (PDF version) stated:

Mr. Becker is currently Associate General Counsel of one of the most aggressive unions
in the United States, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has a record of using questionable pressure tactics with the goal of forcing employers and workers to recognize unions without the democratic protection of secret ballot elections. This close association raises questions about Mr. Becker’s ability to impartially judge cases that may come before the Board.

I could guess that you are aware that when captains of industry or corporate lawyers were appointed to the NLRB the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was not so concerned with their “ability to to impartially judge cases that may come before the Board.” In fact the letters sent for blatantly pro-business Bush appointments were the exact opposite of the letter above:

we have seen a disturbing trend in the tone of the debate. Instead of disagreement, we have ad hominem attacks, instead of criticism, hyperbole, and instead of reasoned discussion, vitriolic rhetoric.

I guess the Chamber only finds nominees with whom they agree defendable. Predictable. In my opnion it is about time that the NLRB had a member that has workers interests

the Chamber also threw a hissy fit about congress advancing legislation that would impose new rules on executive compensation.

This legislation would create a command-and-control regulatory scheme, Employee compensation should be a decision made by appropriate levels of management or the board of directors and based on a variety of factors, including merit and promotion.

That’s a quote from Tom Quaadman, an executive director of the Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce; “standing up for Goliath isn’t easy!”

Republicans support Government run health care

2009-07-31T09:53:00.003-05:00

Given the opportunity to actually practice what they preach not a single Republican vote against Government run health care. None.

I gotta admit, I never heard of Anthony Weiner (D - NY 9) but I am impressed! Rep. Weiner really went on offense and called the Right wing out. The rhetoric just doesn't match up for the Republicans that are ranting about government run health care and its nice to see someone finally speak up.

Lonely Jim DeMint

2009-07-30T04:43:00.003-05:00

Jim DeMint, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, is usually one of the most hyper-partisan politicians that lobbying money can buy! However he actually came out in defense of the President dismissing the conspiracy theorists (read: fringe extremists) that believe that President Obama is not an American citizen. DeMint said at a Heritage Foundation event:

I may have disagreements with [the president] on issues, But he is my president, he deserves our respect, and we need forget that nonsense ... He is not only a citizen, he is our president.

Jim DeMint is known to disagree with Democrats on just about everything so it must have pained the far right wing Heritage Foundation crowd to hear their water bearer say such “controversial” things!

In case you missed the videos of the guy asking Republicans whether or not they think the President is a citizen you really need to check it out! Here is a link.

Hiller's Markets Supports America

2009-07-26T19:14:00.003-05:00

I was made aware of a blog post from the CEO of Hillers markets entitled “Why I Drive An American Car”. I was so impressed that I am going to cut and paste the entire thing! Anyone from my local union that recognizes this from the union newspaper I apologize, but I think this story needs more press.

I didn’t always drive American cars.

About five years ago I woke up one day with the realization that any purchase I make directly impacts people in my neighborhood, my town, my state. Plus, I expected and hoped my fellow Michiganders would choose to shop in my stores, support charities I believe in and otherwise contribute to the well-being of our community – but I didn’t behave the same way in return. My purchases weren’t governed by a local-business-first focus, looking for the quality, service or selection in products made close to home before turning to sources from afar, because I didn’t believe one person could make a difference.

I was wrong.

My epiphany came as I stood on slick-top pavement in a moon-lit night, waiting for my car after a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

I stood with General Motors Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz, watching foreign car after foreign car drive away into the rain-slicked night. He turned to me as those foreign luxury vehicles peeled out of the parking lot and said, “How many people realize that when they buy an American luxury vehicle, they’re providing work for a dozen people for at least a week?”

Before then, I hadn’t felt in my bones the direct connection between the car I drive and the people in my hometown being in, or out, of a job. Many of my friends had told me so, but I didn’t listen – friends from other countries, shaking their heads in disbelief at the thought of neglecting one’s homeland.

I see it now.

And I feel it in my heart.

It struck me that night that I expected all of these people to support my local causes – ALS of Michigan for one – with their presence and their pocketbooks . Why didn’t I expect the same from them with regard to the place that gave us life and ensured our freedom of consumer choice?

I don’t even remember what kind of car I was driving, but the next day I bought a Cadillac STS and loved it. All of my preconceived notions that foreign cars were better-made and were longer-lasting, well, they proved untrue.

As a son of the Motor City, I can honestly say that for years, I found it easy to look across the ocean and see nothing bad in a car born overseas– a rose-colored view of the exotic promise of a place I didn’t know the texture of or the smells. I can describe the air-clear scent of the Detroit River and the open-sky echo of children on a summer day on Belle Isle, but I couldn’t tell you about the rapid plod of workers’ footsteps in a Korean, German, Bavarian or Japanese town or the series of sunset hues in their dusk.

Intimacy doesn’t always breed loyalty. In my own backyard, I could hurl the easiest accusations, based on nothing factual at all, and believe them true.

It’s harder to see a beautiful thing from close up.

My Cadillac is a superior vehicle in every way. Yes, I feel duty-bound and even intellectually-motivated to buy American, but I have to say that I buy American cars first and foremost because I know I’m getting a great product crafted by hands I know and with whom I share a destiny.

Plus, as I drive down the road, I feel like I’m part of a secret society of people taking care of one another.

Of course, any car you buy locally and drive off a lot owned by a guy who lives on your block means you’re in some way supporting local commerce. Still, it’s infinitely compelling to know that 100% of the car I drive was created, assembled and finessed just a few miles from where I live. Dozens of Michiganders took part in the creation of my vehicle, from concept to the moment I drove it off the lot.

American cars have a long illustrious history. It’s OUR history, for we come from a place of innovation and belief in the discovery, invention and possibility of great things.

I hope you are as impressed as I am!
Here are Hiller’s locations and hours, happy shopping!!

Back to Work

2009-07-17T13:30:00.001-05:00

The news for Lansing Delta Township (LDT) has been very good amidst a company and industry in turmoil. Nearly everyone on lay off has been called back already or has received their notice as to when to report back to work.

The supply of vehicles went from nearly 300 day supply when I left to around 70 day supply of vehicles currently. The plant went to working a 10 hour day 4 days a week schedule with some Friday overtime already scheduled. The news of the Chevy Traverse coming to LDT has been widespread and the increase in sales of all three of the vehicles made at LDT and the Traverse was the only news of increased sales in the corporation. We are hearing rumors of three shifts next year and that we will likely be running a lot of overtime to catch up with demand and to prepare for the Traverse coming.

What a difference a few months make!

In the plant a very small article barely noticed outside our world made quite a stir:

Ex-GM CEO gets retirement package worth over $10M

Nice.

I wonder how much of our latest concession package went to fund that?

The story is very CEO friendly saying that this sort of package is “in line” with other CEO packages. The article then goes on to compare the compensation of other CEO’s; ALL of whom were the subject of extreme scrutiny and in my opinion shameful in their wildly out of touch greed and self-worth. Buried at the end of the article is a very telling figure:

From the beginning of his career at GM through the end of 2008, Wagoner received
compensation totaling about $63.3 million, with $38.7 million of that coming
during his years as chief executive.

This does not include the life insurance policy that the company held for him, current cash value of $2.57 Million, or the perks of the job such as using the corporate jet for travel, company cars and so on.

Many of my coworkers fumed about this for hours and will likely talk about this for weeks and maybe even years. I understand their anger. To me it is more important to look at the thousands of our UAW brothers and sisters that may never work at their old jobs again and be thankful. The country and the state are at frightening levels of unemployment; thank goodness we have a job.

Irony at its worst

2009-07-05T16:20:00.001-05:00

After watching this weeks “off the record” I was irritated by Bill Ballinger and Dawson Bell both preaching objectivity of media; what a joke! The topic was regarding a news story that broke about Sam Riddle saying that he was paid “hush money” from the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) to not say anything negative about Gov. Granholm during the 2006 election. Here is a small recap:

2006 MDP hires Riddles media consulting firm to look at both message and speakers during the campaign.

Monica Conyers has a series of issues ranging from erratic behavior to federal investigations. (Sam Riddle was the former chief of staff to Monica Conyers)

As the investigation continues and names are being drawn out Riddle appears to be trying to throw the investigastion away from himself.

Detroit News prints article saying that Riddle made “hush money” allegation.

The same day in an interview with WJR radio Riddle denies the News’ story and recants “hush money” statement.

So the story had a life of a few hours and Bill Ballinger and Dawson Bell feel the need to feign being insulted because a media consultant was being “bought”. They actually had the nerve to say that they believed that Riddle was an objective voice and that he shouldn’t be projecting himself as non-partisan. HA! Bill Ballinger, former Republican state Representative and now news reporter is throwing stones about media objectivity and who is his partner in crime? Dawson Bell! It was almost too shocking to watch. I was waiting for Nolan Finley to make an appearance to quell the liberal rhetoric coming from Susan Demas. I always watch off the record on Sunday, I don’t know when they taped the show but during the show, right in the middle of Ballingers self-rightous tirade, a message crawled across the screen saying that Riddle had denied the story of the “hush money” payments. It was almost comical accept for Ballinger making an ass of himself with his absurd hypocrisy regarding objective media.

I have long wondered how people can take media like Joe Scarborough and Bill Ballinger seriously. They are both members of and former elected officials from a political party. Their lack of objectivity should be obvious. I am in no way defending Riddle or his attention hungry circus act, but Ballinger and Bell should really look in the mirror before getting atop their high horses.

2009-06-25T23:20:00.002-05:00

What a strange week or so!

John Ensign, Mr. Family Values, admits to having an affair. No real shock there, I am very used to Republicans being hypocrites.

Mark Sanford, Mr. Family Values east coast, admits to having an affair. Sanford made a huge spectacle of himself before going down in flames so he gets points for that! If you missed it before; I am used to Republicans being hypocrites. And then the fun started:

- "I would never in my life have believed that Gov. Mark Sanford was capable of doing something interesting,” - Steven Colbert

- "people were shocked because Republicans don't traditionally do well with Hispanic women.” -Conan O’Brien

- "Why can't he be like our governor and use a local escort service?” - David Letterman

And then came some very sad news:

Farrah Fawcett dead at age 62.

And the bombshell:

Michael Jackson dead at age 50.

What a terrible way to end the week. RIP to two legends.

$138 Million slipping away from Michigan

2009-06-17T15:04:00.001-05:00

I was asked to go to the capitol to lobby for 2 bills that would bring $138 Million of Federal stimulus money into Michigan to pay for unemployment extensions. One extension would be for workers that are in a training program; they would be allowed to finish the training AND receive unemployment benefits while doing so. The second extension is for people that take part time jobs due to lack of work and lose their unemployment benefits; essentially this worker is punished for working. The Federal government has attached the strings that these two extensions be put into place before any of the $138 Million will come to Michigan.

While at the capitol I heard the Senators saying that they were worried about the cost to businesses down the road. They said that they weren’t going to let the federal government force them into new laws. There are too many strings attached to the $138 Million.

My answers to them were:

- I find it discouraging that you are so worried about the cost to businesses 4 or 5 YEARS down the road while unemployed workers in this state are worried about what food they are going to put in front of their children 4 or 5 DAYS down the road!

- If action had been taken by the state legislature prior to the federal government laying out the stimulus plan, the state might not be in the sorry shape it’s in.

- The strings that are attached are laws. The legislature writes laws. That is what you people do for a living. When the federal money runs out, write another law revoking the programs; end of story. Your precious business community won’t have to pay a cent!

As you can imagine wide eyes and slack jaws followed the shop rat with no job tearing the Senators new ones in their offices. Now I need your help. These senators said they won’t even bring it to a vote. That means that $138 Million that could go to the state of Michigan will be left in D.C.

I need you to contact your state senator; the senate Democrats have written a letter that will be sent to your senator – here it is. Michigan can ill afford to let $138 Million go back to D.C. unclaimed!

Hedge Funds Find Their Spokespeople

2009-06-08T20:08:00.002-05:00

Snake oil salesmen and con men everywhere would be proud of the shell game that hedge fund managers have come up with now. When a small group of investors tried to stop the bankruptcy/sale of Chrysler because they were not going to profit heavily enough from their last minute purchases of debt from the ailing company, Americans largely had little to no sympathy. So as a group of people who have no morals or ethical standards might do they are hiding behind a baby to avoid getting hurt and still get what they want.

Who are they using as there shield? Indiana teachers and cops. Not really teachers and cops, but their pension funds. The story goes that if the Chrysler sale goes through that thousands of Indiana teachers, cops and other civil servants will lose huge portions of their pensions. As usual the mainstream media is doing their best roll over job and letting the lawyers for the parties say anything they want unchecked and without question. I smell a rat!

So how did teachers and cops get involved siding with hedge fund managers anyway? Well late last July the investment managers for the Indiana pension fund in question decided amongst all the dire warnings and forecasts about the auto industry that the possibility of profiting during an eventual bankruptcy was to juicy to pass up. If you remember president Obama called this group “speculators” when they initially tried to hold up the deal, John Dingell went so far as to call them “vultures”. What changed?

It seems the hedge fund managers found someone to fight their battle for them; putting a retired Indiana school teacher in a commercial ought to generate some sympathy! Don’t get me wrong I think that it’s awful that someone is gambling with retirees futures like this and the investors that did this should be held accountable. I would venture a guess that pension funds all across the country are doing horribly over the last few years as has most Americans 401k’s. Slippery slope? NO!! Thieves hiding behind teachers and cops to get some more blood from the Chrysler corpse is what it is.

Twisted!

The part about the hedge fund managers being behind the lawsuit is COMPLETE SPECULATION on my part. I just have the feeling that Indiana pension funds aren’t exactly the biggest concern for the lawyer that represented the original group of “dissident bondholders”; an awfully big fish for a public pension fund for Indiana civil servants to land as a representative isn’t it?

Back to the facts. In June of 2008 Standard & Poors lowered the credit rating of Chrysler to “CreditWatch with negative implications” or STAY AWAY!! At the time it seemed like every day another announcement cam damning the auto industry further. To buy the debt was a big risk to begin with and a risk that only paid off in the event of bankruptcy or decades down the road from a financially secure Chrysler. Remember; “speculators”, “vultures”. BusinessWeek spoke to Shelly Lombard a credit analyst and portfolio manager of high-yield and distressed corporate securities, here is what she had to say:

“Even though the debt was secured, it was clear the auto industry was very, very
troubled at this time, if it wasn't, it wouldn't have been offered at such a
steep discount.”

She goes on to talk about the lack of due diligence on the part of the investors handling the pension fund:

In this recession, Lombard says, even secured bank debt is not a guarantee. The
market's low price could have been due to a lack of buyers or because the debt
was impaired. She compares the deal to buying a house at a bargain price:
"Either there's a divorce and the people just want to get out of there, or the
foundation is cracked. In an industry in such turmoil, due diligence becomes
even more critical."

You can read the full BusinessWeek article here.

In the article the lawyer for the “dissident bondholders” and the Indiana pension funds, Thomas Lauria said the deal “is great for workers”. That statement could only come from someone that has no clue about the full context of the “great” deal or who is so interested in getting their share of the winnings from the case that they will say anything. For Lauria to suggest that this deal is “great” is asinine! Undoubtedly not aware that this arrangement is a concession on a concession on a concession for retirees of the big three Lauria sounds like so many of the idiots willing to speak about something they know little about.

The original VEBA was a 2005 mid-contract concession; it set up a trust that was supposed to be funded by the big three to cover retirees health care, allowing the companies to get the costs of their books and prevent bankruptcy we were told. The 2007 contract contained further health care concessions (still waiting for the funding). Then the 2009 concessions contained further health care concessions AND a massive giveaway of the debt to fund the VEBA, also originally secured debt. I doubt Lauria will ever mention this because the media will never bring It up. It is simply too easy to bash auto workers without any pushback nowadays.

Hobby Lobby

2009-06-05T19:57:00.002-05:00

In this age of unethical business practices and corporate greed there are a few shining examples. I wrote about Costco and Google back in 2007 detailing their practice of paying their employees well and having CEO’s that don’t take absurd amounts of pay and bonuses even though they run very successful companies. Another company recently did something quite out of the ordinary in todays business world; they gave their employees a raise. Hobby Lobby had a very good year last year ($1.8 Billion in 2008 revenue) so the CEO and upper management sought “to share the wealth with workers” according to Hobby Lobby spokesman Chad Previch. Communist! The idea of giving employees a fair share of the wealth they help generate comes from the top! CEO David Green is the founder of Hobby Lobby and he is the reason the company treats its workers so well:

"We believe our success...is directly attributable to our outstanding employees and our strong corporate values, which are based on biblical principles, including integrity, service to others and giving back to those in need."

Im not kidding the CEO really said that! This is not the first time that this company has acted responsibly; last year when upper management at big oil was gouging the country at the pump Hobby Lobby gave their employees a quarter an hour raise to compensate for the increased cost of gasoline.

Many people right now are saying that this is not possible, business men don’t behave like that and it is some kind of P.R. move. To them I would say; it all happened, MEN should treat each other like this and if it’s a P.R. move why haven’t you heard about it? The sad thing is when a company acts responsibly it doesn’t get enough attention. To make up for that as best I can:

HOBBY LOBBY

When a company acts like this I want them to have my business and so should you!

Bankruptcy

2009-06-01T10:04:00.002-05:00

Bankruptcy.

After what seems like years of dragging on, GM finally filed for bankruptcy. With agreements in place with the UAW and creditors we can only hope that this process goes quickly. The coverage is extensive and in my opinion that may be part of the problem.

I spoke to the third reporter in as many days this morning. This one from the BBC, she was looking for someone still working; sorry about your luck. I have been getting interviewed by many reporters and they seem to ask pretty basic questions:

What will you do? Will it work? How did it come to this?

Fair questions. My grievance is this. The coverage also includes opinion pieces from people who know absolutely nothing about the auto industry. The NY Times features an op-ed today that is a pitiful attempt to opine over the news of the day at the expense of depth of knowledge on the subject.

The topic is hot! Let’s do an op-ed! No one with any automotive expertise to contribute? No problem we’ll wing it!

Give it a rest! One of the reasons that GM is its current sorry state is the lack of long term planning and putting people in places where they had little to no expertise. We have board rooms full of CEO apologists that have no idea what they are doing; we don’t need another set on the editorial boards of major newspapers. The NY Times uses the tired phrase “building cars Americans want to buy”, this drives me crazy! Its as if no one is buying GM cars. In 2008 GM sold nearly 3 MILLION cars in the U.S. alone, outselling its closest competitor by 760,000 vehicles. CLEARLY someone is buying these cars and they are Americans. The Times then starts with the usual double speak about building cars that are profitable and fuel efficient while claiming that we as stakeholders in the company deserve assurances from the Obama administration. Lets start with the “profitable and fuel efficient” thing – the most profitable vehicles are large SUV’s and trucks; that’s why Toyota and Honda recently came out with their own (Tundra and Ridgeline). I will agree that fuel efficiency in these vehicles is particularly important because they usually have the worst MPG ratings. HOWEVER; the media still touts the Toyota Prius as the savior of the auto industry as well as the planet. Well the media savior couldn’t even outsell the Chevy Malibu last year. Then the issue of profitability- Toyota loses money on every Prius sold. The company will eventually profit from this line but the amount of money currently involved in R & D and manufacturing don’t reap a profit even after years of production. Next point; the thought process of an investor/shareholder is in terms of the next quarter (3 months), a company the size of GM needs thought process along the lines of the next decade. The recent past leaders of GM had no vision or long term plan and we are all paying a price. Americans should not have the mindset of shareholders of GM but of stakeholders with a long term investment.

At the end of the day moving forward towards a profitable GM will involve a combination of the government pushing the company to appoint board members who are experts instead of yes men, the government also forming a legitimate industrial policy that helps domestic production along the lines of competitors governments, and the public rejecting blow hard talking heads that are speaking outside of their scope of knowledge. It’s easy to parrot the guy on TV, real problems require genuine reflection and study. I fear that asking David Brooks, a right wing political pundit, about the auto industry will be a weekly segment on the Sunday morning talk shows. There are many things that someone like David Brooks could discuss for hours; speaking from months studying the subject, conducting interviews and doing research; the auto industry is not one of them.

UAW Concessions III

2009-05-27T13:53:00.001-05:00

There is a commercial where Evander Holyfield (former Heavyweight boxing champion) is running through offices yelling at a sportswriter that wrote some insulting remarks, “Come get your whipping!” on my way to go hear about the latest round of concessions (third time in five years) I felt like the heavyweight champ was telling me to “come get my whoopin’!” I have the feeling that the vote will ratify the new concessions. Most of the people I know were expecting many of the new cuts.

The list of concessions was particularly brutal to retirees (again). Retirees will lose ALL vision and dental coverage. They will now have increased prescription co-pays (2nd time in 3 years that this will happen to them.) the VEBA fund which is to start to fund all retiree health care starting in 2010 took the brunt of the concessions having a massive portion of the funding of the trust carved away and a portion of the funding that will be paid will be paid out in GM stock (as good as gold!)

I won’t get into the specifics of all of the concessions that the active took that list is too long. The Detroit Free Press has released the entire summary that I got at the meeting and vote that will took place at the Lansing Center today. If you care to read it here is the link.

As I sat in my third meeting to review our concessions in 5 years I looked at a friend sitting with me and said “I hate these meetings!”, we both laughed so hard that dozens of people were giving us dirty looks. In a room full of layed off workers, retirees and active workers the mood was as good as can be expected. I guess when your options are “take these concessions or let a bankruptcy judge decide what you get” you have limited options.

Disappointing

2009-05-19T00:12:00.001-05:00

I spoke with a person from Organizing for America the other day at the Michigan Policy Summit regarding the Obama administrations direction with trade policy. I wasn’t very reserved. The conversation was in a very large room with people all around us but we were talking one on one and I let my feelings be known. I told her that a continuation of the Bush administrations trade policy was unacceptable. Without getting too detailed as to the specifics of the conversation we parted with her fully understanding how this layed off auto worker was not happy with the early signals from a president I campaigned heavily for.

One of the underlying issues with the failed trade policies of the Bush administration was its disastrous effects in the auto industry. GM recently dropped another bombshell by announcing that it plans to move a huge section of production overseas; nice timing! Get a huge government loan and then announce plans to take the U.S. taxpayers money and hire moving vans; typically oblivious upper management move. Autoworkers are used to these decisions, were no longer surprised when things like this happen. The backlash has caused Fritz Henderson to say that they may reconsider that decision. Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI, 09) spelled it out as simply as possible for Fritz:

"The priority has to be to keep domestic American jobs. The reason the taxpayers have made substantial investments in these companies ... is to keep American workers working in American plants."

I guess that wasn’t obvious for Fritz!

And then we move to the resurgence of the Panama Free Trade Agreement. Again…nice timing! The country is at scary levels of unemployment, autoworkers are getting axed left and right, business big and small has seen sales drop like a rock so what is congress going to do about it? Lets sign another NAFTA! I will repeat myself: UNACCEPTABLE!! It is time again to flood the congress and the white house with e-mails.

Citizens Trade Campaign has a letter for your elected officials asking them to come out against the Panama version of NAFTA, here is a link to the letter.

The UAW is urging people to contact the white house and urge the administration to push for GM to save AMERICAN jobs. Here is the link to e-mail the white house. You can also call the white house at (202) 456-1414.

There is also a rally on June 1st called “Reinvest in America: Keep the Dream Alive!” there is a march as well. This takes place in Lansing, MI and more information is available here.

Michigan Policy Summit Roundup

2009-05-16T20:01:00.000-05:00

I had a great time at the Michigan Policy Summit. I was able to meet some bloggers and hang out with some I already knew. There were lots of people I knew and it was good to get to see everybody all in one place. The speakers were very good and I urge you to read what some of the other bloggers wrote about the various speakers and their take:

Jim Ramelis is a machine! He pumped out six or seven different posts over at Blogging for Michigan (BFM).

Allison Rocky had two posts over at BFM; the first about Grace Boggs award and the other about Dean Baker.

Perfectstorm was busy with an open thread at MichLib and a breaking news post about John Conyers and another post over at Rainbow Mittens.

Terry Bankert had an ongoing post that had a lot of photos and video at BFM.

I apologize to those I missed; PLEASE add other coverage in the comments section.

Criminals Swift Boating Health Care Reform

2009-05-13T12:47:00.002-05:00

The art of misinformation continues as right wing interests, the folks who brought us the swift boat veteran’s ads, are funding and help smear a new target; health care reform. Fittingly the swift boat people have picked Rick Scott to be the face of “Conservatives for Patients Rights”, their misinformation campaign; here is a little information about Rick Scott:

From a Forbes article –

…the nation's largest hospital chain, known until recently as Columbia/HCA
Healthcare pleaded guilty to a variety of fraud charges. It admitted to
bilking various government programs and agreed to pay a total of $840 million in
fines and penalties. The fraud settlement is the largest in U.S. history…

The guilty plea follows a seven-year federal investigation that
resulted in charges being filed in five different federal courts in Florida,
Texas, Georgia and Tennessee, where HCA is headquartered. The fraud revealed by
that investigation ran deep within HCA's way of doing business.

And of course who was behind all of these criminal activities? The article continues:

The investigation and the plea is an obvious blow to a company that became a
Wall Street darling by promising to bring first-class business practices to the
hospital sector, still dominated by not-for-profits. Under former Chief
Executive Richard Scott, it bought hospitals by the bucketful and promised to
squeeze blood from each one. Scott was forced to resign in the wake of the
initial fraud charges…

The article details the long history of systemic fraud and blatantly overcharging and cutting illegal deals with other criminal agencies:

The company admitted to systematically overcharging the government by claiming
marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care
agencies, and by filing false data about how hospital space was being used. The
company increased Medicare billings by exaggerating the seriousness of the
illnesses they were treating. It also granted doctors partnerships in company
hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. In addition,
it gave doctors "loans" that were never expected to be paid back, free rent,
free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.

The opposition to health care reform has chosen a criminal to sell its poison kool-aid to America, how fitting. Sadly he has been getting air time on the cable news outlets without a word of his criminal background. He has done several interviews where he actually lists his time with HCA hospital as a positive thing:

I believe there needs to be a strong advocate for patients’ rights, someone who
has worked in the health-care industry. I hope my experiences focusing on
reducing costs and improving outcomes.

This interview was a series of softball questions with no pressing follow ups done by the National Review. I have seen this guy on CNN, without his background mentioned at all, he was interviewed by Politico and none of them are pressing him about his past, SAD!!

So if you see the ads from Rick Scott and his group on CNN and Faux news remember who is behind this and what their background is, fraud, stealing from the government and a laundry list of criminal activity. How typically right wing!

The SEIU has a letter asking CNN and FOX news to stop running the ads because they have lies in them; here is the link to send the letter.

The group Health Care for America Now has several great pieces about Rick Scott including his ties to the Iranian government, check it out.

Karma, it’s a beautiful thing!

2009-05-06T12:39:00.002-05:00

If you wait long enough karma has a way of sorting things out. Tuesday a federal bankruptcy judge gave the small group of holdouts that drove Chrysler into bankruptcy two major setbacks and paved the way for the Chrysler/Fiat merger to go through.

The judge approved the bidding procedures that the Obama administration and the company had requested. The extra drops of blood the holdout creditors were hoping to get by forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy seem to be slipping away. From the NY Times:

The decision by the federal bankruptcy judge, Arthur J. Gonzalez, is a setback for a group of Chrysler creditors who have argued that liquidation of the company or some other transaction could yield greater value. These lenders, primarily investment firms, have said that the plan for the Fiat transaction ran afoul of bankruptcy law and would chill efforts by others to produce competing, potentially higher bids.

The judge earlier in the day had ruled for the disclosure of the identities of the Chrysler creditors which had claimed that revealing the names might lead to retaliation. In other words “we know that we are awful, pathetic people and our behavior effects the livelihoods of millions of people but hey were trying to make a couple of extra bucks here! You can’t really expect us to do this type of thing in public!?”

While owning less than 5% of the $6.9 Billion Chrysler debt these “vultures”, as John Dingell called them, held out for more money and it may end up biting them in the ass! And just in case you were wondering, here is the list of creditors as listed on Bloomberg:

The Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders are as follows, according to the filing:

Schultze Master Fund Ltd. of Purchase, New York;

Arrow Distressed Securities Fund at the same Purchase address;

Schultze Apex Master Fund, at the same address;

Uniondale, New York-based Stairway Capital Management II L.P;

Group G Partners LP, based in New York;

GGCP Sequoia L.P., at the same New York address;

Oppenheimer Senior Floating Rate Fund, in New York;

Oppenheimer Master Loan Fund LLC, at the same New York address;

Foxhill Opportunity Master Fund LP, based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Sacco and Vanzetti

2009-05-05T11:57:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1920 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for the robbery and murder of a payroll guard and paymaster. At the height of the post-Bolshevik Revolution Red Scare and debates over immigration quotas the two Italian Anarchists were taken into custody for what would be one of the most famous trials in American history.

Many believe that the two men were railroaded and the trial was a mockery. Sacco and Vanzetti ended up becoming larger than life after their execution and there is still a large debate about whether the judgment was a fair one or was it backlash against immigrants and Anarchists.
There is a lot of really good reading on the subject:

Democracy Now had a great piece on the story.

The Atlantic has this page that features three stories published in its pages from 1927, 1928, and 1977. (The first article is written by a future Supreme Court justice)

The New York Times had an Op-Ed a few years back that was insightful.

I couldn’t help but think of Sacco and Vanzetti and the justice systems failures with immigrants over the years when a recent verdict came down ruling that the beating death of an immigrant was not a hate crime. Both of the trials leave a feeling that somehow justice wasn’t quite served.

Who Killed Chrysler?

2009-05-01T14:33:00.001-05:00

The recent actions of a few shamelessly greedy executives at a handful of hedge funds have driven one of the big three into bankruptcy. Oppenheimer Funds, Perella Weinberg Partners' Xerion Capital Fund, and Stairway Cap Management are the greedy bastards that would not budge hoping to leech a few extra drops of blood from the corpse of Chrysler. The Michigan House of Representatives reacted, in my opinion, in a just, clear and appropriate manner. They passed a resolution to divest of all investments with these companies and then leaders from both parties at the federal and state level unloaded on the hedge funds:

“They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none. Some demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting. I don't stand with them,"

- President Barack Obama

“Bankruptcy is only required today because of the greed of a few hedge funds that held a fraction of Chrysler's debt,"

- Rep. Candice Miller, (R-Harrison Township)

“We basically have a hold out of three hedge funds as the predominant reason that this bankruptcy happened, and I'm not too happy about that.”

- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

"Unfortunately, some of the creditors stood in the doorway, I think it was unenlightened self-interest. I think they've stood in the way of progress and I don't think they came out any better.”

- Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.)

“The president's statement today was very, very powerful and I hope that the folks who are the holdouts here realize that they're not going to be able to throw a monkey wrench into the gears.”

- Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

“Unconscionably, too many in our country consider our auto workers and retirees are disposable people – statistics not souls.”

- Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)

Of course I applaud all of the Michigan politicians who stood with Chrysler. And as usual I am more than willing to name the 34 Michigan State Representatives who voted against the resolution to divest from these socially vampiric hedge funds. Here is a list of the Nay votes:

Agema, Elsenheimer, Kurtz, Pavlov,
Amash, Genetski, Lori, Pearce,
Ball, Green, Lund, Proos,
Booher, Haveman, Marleau, Rogers,
Calley, Hildenbrand, McMillin, Wayne Schmidt,
Caul, Horn, Meekhof, Paul Scott,
Crawford, Rick Jones, Moss, Stamas,
Daley, Knollenberg, Opsommer, Walsh,
Denby, Kowall

If anyone can point out a Democrat on this list please do so in the comments section.

Obviously these hedge fund executives are just the latest in the long series of executives to push Chrysler into the hole that It currently finds itself, but I only hope to see the Obama administrations strong words help sway the bankruptcy courts decisions. With any luck the judge will side with management and workers alike and all of the other players in this scenario that made sacrifices to try to stave off bankruptcy and leave these pitifully greedy hedge funds to fight over the scraps like the rodents they are.

Fair Traders Still Fighting

2009-04-24T08:38:00.004-05:00

The following is a speech given by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). He is one of fair traders strongest allies in the Senate. Another trade fight is brewing in Washington. enjoy the speech, it's really good.

Senator Sherrod Brown's Speech to the Washington International Trade Association and the George Washington University Elliot School for International Relations
April 22, 2009, Washington DC

Thank you to the Washington International Trade Association for inviting me to speak today, and thank you to the Elliot School for hosting this morning's breakfast. Thank you also Professor Suranovic for that kind introduction.

We're at an important moment in our nation's history with economic conditions threatening all segments of society.

For too long, and the last eight years in particular, our economy has been rudderless. Our economy has lacked a comprehensive strategy that connects wages with productivity, employment with housing, or trade deficits with foreign-owned debt.

But we can't change our failed economic strategy of the past unless we change our trade policy.

Let me start with a few stories about how trade is working - or not working - for workers and communities around the world.

About ten years ago, I traveled to the border of Texas and Mexico to see the effects of NAFTA. I crossed the border into Reynosa, Mexico, just five miles away from the Texas border. There, I met with a young married couple who worked together at the local factory. They lived in a small hut with a dirt floor, which would turn into mud when it rained.

There was a rickety plank over a canal ditch near the huts. Below, children played with factory debris floating along human refuse in the canal. Public health officials have cited canals within a five mile radius of our border as some of the most toxic in the Western Hemisphere.

I could tell where the couple worked, along with the similar workers inhabiting rows of neighboring huts, because the huts were made from packaging material from the factories where they worked.

These factories were within eye distance from the workers' huts. The factories looked like any other manufacturing factory in our country - in Akron, or anywhere in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and throughout our industrial base. In fact, the factories looked newer than the ones in our country.

The major difference between the Reynosa factory and the factory in Akron, however, is that there was no parking lot at the Reynosa plant. That's because the workers couldn't afford the cars they were making.

Travel to Costa Rica and you see factory workers not being able to afford the toys they make. Travel east to a Chinese bicycle factory where factory workers can't afford the bicycles they make.

You can travel around the world and see the same story of workers not sharing the wealth that they create for their employers.

These stories represent a current trade policy that has yielded decades of stagnant wages, rising income inequality, and stifled middle class growth around the world.

These stories represent a broken trade system.

That's why I will be asking the Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive study on our current trade agreements. A GAO report on trade would provide non-ideological, non-partisan analysis of what is working and what is not working in our trade policy today.

This is an important step towards redirecting U.S. trade policy that will provide critical solutions for our nation's recovery strategy. The basic premise of redirecting U.S. trade policy is that we must see evidence that our trade model is working before we pass new trade agreements - whether with Panama, Colombia, or South Korea.

We must see evidence that our current trade policies level the playing field for U.S. and foreign companies and for U.S. and foreign workers.

We must see evidence that our current trade policies link productivity to wages, so that economic activity doesn't simply enrich top executives, but rather, it raises the standard of living for workers and enriches communities around the world.

Let me continue our travel around the world to a meat packing plant in Nebraska and explain how our trade policies have not enriched our communities or workers, nor provided adequate food safety standards for American consumers.

Meatpacking workers used to be heavily unionized, providing necessary worker and food safety standards. Unfortunately, over the last fifty years or so, meat packing unions have been marginalized, and our safety standards have diminished.

The line speeds at American meatpacking plants average more than 300 cattle per hour. In European factories, the lines average 100 cattle per hour.

American meatpackers work at such high speeds that they can't maintain worker or food safety. Meatpackers are easily injured, and knives dropped to the factory floor are merely wiped on a dirty apron, in haste, as cattle quickly move down the processing line.

Meatpackers in Nebraska have said they enjoy work on days when the meat is being shipped to the EU. The reason is because the lines are slowed, and the workers can work more safely and productively. The reason is that the European Union has stricter food safety standards than the U.S.

Those meatpacking workers in Nebraska, or in any one of the countries I just spoke about, are not sharing the wealth they are creating, nor are their communities safer. Their working conditions and wage disparity represent an unfortunate shift in our nation's history of trade policy.
From World War II to the advent of the current trade model, we had more balanced trade, and wages increased with productivity. Today, sovereign wealth funds and private capital without public accountability dominate our trade and financial systems.

Since 1987, manufacturing's share of GDP has declined more than 30 percent. That's almost exactly the percentage increase in the financial services industry over the same time. As a percentage of all corporate profits in our country, the profits of the finance industry have more than doubled over the past decade, to more than 40 percent.

To put in more stark terms, in 1980 the richest 1 percent of Americans took home 9 percent of total national income. By 2007, the richest 1 percent took home percent. Now I'm not saying our trade policies are the only reason for this widening disparity. But combined with tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and an economic system geared towards enriching the wealthiest of our nation instead of our middle class, our trade policies are a major factor in contributing to income inequality in America.

A decade ago, the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that nearly 40 percent of the increase in inequality was attributable to U.S. trade policy. That's when the trade deficit was $166 billion.

But it's not just developed nations that have experienced increase income inequality as a result of trade. Despite increased exports and foreign investment from the U.S. since NAFTA, Mexico has seen neither robust growth nor shared prosperity. Per capita economic growth has been just over 1.5 percent annually. Poverty and inequality remain high.

And since NAFTA, we've experienced expanding deficits - now 5 percent of GDP and real median wages are at early 1970s levels.

Rising income inequality also coincides with a trade direction that has kept us borrowing from our trading partners. Over the last eight years we've had a $3 trillion trade deficit, as our trading partners use those dollars to purchase US treasuries. And until last October, these conditions allowed our economy to look healthier than as it has been.

Our enormous trade deficit has resulted in our nation not only importing goods and services, but also importing the dangerous safety standards of our trading partners.

In Toledo, Ohio, patients died after taking contaminated Heparin to treat their heart conditions. The manufacturer of Heparin had outsourced the making of the drug, and as a result, did not know where the contamination occurred.

The patients in Toledo, or the factory workers in Reynosa, or the meatpackers in Nebraska illustrate that continuing our trade direction is not a ringing endorsement of our trade agenda. Their stories represent a continuation of a policy of broken promises.

To reverse this misdirection in trade, I offer three major recommendations to overhaul our status quo trade policy:

1. I am requesting President Obama to convene a blue ribbon commission on trade policy.
2. In the interim, we need stronger enforcement of our trade laws.
3. We need to reassert Congressional oversight over trade policy-making.

First, a blue ribbon commission acknowledges valuable recommendations from the public and Congress that can help create a new path on trade. Combined with a GAO report, a blue ribbon commission on trade policy would not delay trade agreements. Instead, it would guarantee evidence-based decision-making on future trade policy.

If in fact President Obama does not open up NAFTA for review, we must not continue the failed system for future trade agreements.

Second, while a blue ribbon commission would address trade policy making for future trade agreements, in the interim, we must use all of the tools available in current trade agreements - including stronger enforcement of our trade laws.

During the eight years of the Bush administration, it never accepted a 301 petition, including a petition for an investigation of Chinese currency practices and a petition of Chinese workers' rights. The Bush Administration also never acted on 421 cases, even when the ITC found injury. In most instances, the Bush Administration made its decision in single day without adequate review.

Non-enforcement has left struggling companies unable to compete against unfair trade practices. I am encouraged by the Obama Administration's emphasis on trade enforcement, and I will work with Congress to ensure trade enforcement is a government wide-practice.

In the short term, the Obama Administration can enforce trade laws by accepting review of AFL-CIO's Section 301 case alleging worker abuse by China, and other trading partners. The Obama Administration can also use the Section 421 safeguard mechanism that defends American businesses from import surges from China.

Stronger trade enforcement can also re-balance our trade relationship with China. We have not seen an increase in our exports that was promised during the China PNTR debate. In fact, our exports have increased more to non-FTA partners. Our 14 trade agreements illustrate 6 percent export growth with our FTA partners and 14.4 percent for non-FTA partners.

Strong trade enforcement also means addressing China's currency manipulation. I am disappointed that the Treasury Department did not cite China as a currency manipulator, but it's clear that China's estimated 30-40 percent undervaluation has an enormous impact on Ohio's manufacturers.
Third, Congressional oversight must be re-asserted in trade policy making. Congress should give President Obama the authority to negotiate better trade deals. But Congress needs a stronger role in the process. And that means Congress must review, renegotiate, and revitalize trade.

That's why Congress should enact the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment (TRADE) Act that I introduced last Congress and plan to re-introduce in a few weeks. The TRADE Act is a forward-looking, pro-trade legislation that requires a review of existing trade agreements, and provides a process to renegotiate existing trade agreements. It also outlines principles on labor, environment, investment, and food safety to be included in future trade agreements.

With any delegation of its authority to negotiate better trade deals, Congress must ensure negotiating objectives are binding, and that there is a Congressional vote on trade agreement before it is signed by the president.

Reasserting Congressional authority must also ensure Congress' public policy prerogatives are respected by international trade organizations, like the WTO. We must not find our public policy subject to corporate rights of action at the WTO or NAFTA that outweigh a government's responsibility to preserve the public welfare.

A global system, like the WTO, that doesn't give countries policy space risks the very legitimacy of global institutions. The public demands and Congress will ensure that the WTO adapt to public policy realities and not vice versa.

I recognize the framework I've outlined is only one strategy. But I think we call all agree that our current trade model has not been working. When we change the process for writing trade deals, we can make trade deals work for more people.

I will leave you with a quote:

"They who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

Can anyone guess who said this?

Karl Marx in 1848? Fidel Castro in 1959? Hugo Chavez in 2001? Bernie Sanders in 2009?

I'll give you a hint, John Kenneth Galbraith said of this thinker and his book,

"It is much celebrated by the ministry of the righteous right, few of whom have read it. Were they to do - disapproval of the corporate form, approval of a wealth tax - they would be greatly shocked."

The quote was from Adam Smith in 1776, in his The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

His last job was as a Scottish tariff collector.

Bailed Out Banks Refuse to Budge

2009-04-22T12:58:00.003-05:00

In a case of corporate welfare recipients dictating terms to the United States, four major banks have rejected an offer to help save Chrysler from bankruptcy. JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley have all rejected an offer from the treasury dept. (which runs the auto task force) and produced a counter offer that Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI 09) called “asking for a windfall”. It has become the norm for the corporate world to put profits before anything else (war profiteering from Halliburton, federal bailout recipients handing out huge bonuses to executives, Wal-Mart demanding a meager amount from a permanently disabled former employee, etc.) so I guess I really shouldn’t be shocked by this but the arrogance of these banks is amazing, from the NY Times:

On Monday the banks, led by JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, rejected the administration’s plan outright, with some of the debtholders arguing that they would rather break up Chrysler and sell its assets — notably its Jeep brand — because they believed that they would receive more money selling the assets than they were being offered by the administration.

This ignores the possibility that by taking some portions of the debt in stocks that the banks may actually come out ahead in the long run. This is exactly the short sightedness from corporate America that got us into this mess and the longer they refuse to look beyond the current fiscal quarter the weaker they will remain.

The banks then made a very clear threat to the auto task force:

It is unclear what assets would be left to the banks, but representatives of those financial institutions have warned the task force “that a bankruptcy would be very messy and everyone would lose — those of us who carry the debt, and those in the government who are trying to save jobs,”

To use the language of other criminals, “give us what we want and you won’t get hurt!”
Read the full NY Times article here.

Congressman Gary Peters issued this statement:

“This is not a serious counteroffer. These debt holders were offered fair market value for their debt and the banks have responded by asking for a windfall. It is extremely disappointing that while other stakeholders have agreed to work with President Obama to advance Chrysler’s restructuring, financial institutions that have already taken billions of dollars in taxpayer support are refusing to do the same. This offer is an affront to taxpayers and the many thousands of Chrysler employees and retirees whose livelihoods hang in the balance of the outcome of these negotiations."

Read the rest of Rep. Peters press release here.

This will undoubtedly be the template for GM. The steering committee for the debtholders represent 44 financial institutions, it is likely they are also debtholders for GM. The steering committee is refusing to acknowledge the concessions that have already taken place over the last several years by the UAW’s membership. The UAW is, according to the NY Times article, ready to accept stock as payment towards the VEBA fund that was part of a mid contract group of concessions four years ago.

In case you’re keeping score at home, to date, these financial institutions have received:

JP Morgan: $25 billion through TARP, $400 million as an AIG counterparty

Citigroup: $25 billion through TARP, $2.3 billion as an AIG counterparty

Goldman Sachs: $10 billion through TARP, $12.9 billion as an AIG counterparty

Morgan Stanley: $10 billion through TARP, $1.2 billion as an AIG counterparty

If you missed my post about JP Morgan Chase and how to contact the white house regarding these negotiations here it is:

JP Morgan Chase - eager to get back to the good ole days

JP Morgan Chase - eager to get back to the good ole days

2009-04-20T12:10:00.003-05:00

I recently wrote this for my local union paper:

JP Morgan Chase bank has been bailed out to the tune of $83 dollars for every man, woman, and child in this country ($25 Billion). They are also the bank that has dipped their claws into our unemployment by creating a debit card system that has very high usage fees attached to it. With a track record like that I am sure you won’t be surprised to find out that JP Morgan Chase is refusing to renegotiate their debt with Chrysler. The Chrysler/Fiat deal hinges on the ability of Chrysler to renegotiate with bondholders; JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest debt holders.

The greed of these financial “Teflon Dons” has no end. They get us when we have to pay for their disastrous business decisions; $25 Billion taxpayer funded bailout. They get us when we work; their refusal to bargain with the companies we work for pushes those companies to bankruptcy. They get us when we lose our jobs; the unemployment debit card scam.

There are a growing number of people saying “ENOUGH”! An online petition has been created calling for citizens not do business with JP Morgan Chase until their business practices change. The petition will be submitted to the company. The petition can be found at:

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/jpmorganchase

If you are on Facebook, a group has been created called “Americans Boycotting JP Morgan/Chase” look it up and join if you can.

Shortly after writing this article news came out that JP Morgan Chase had a first quarter profit of more than $2 billion. The CEO was recently quoted as saying of accepting the $25 Billion in bailout money:

“it's become a scarlet letter”.

No word on driving the company to the point of bankruptcy, no word about how steering the company and the country to the brink of financial collapse is “a scarlet letter”. In fact the CEO was eager to payback the bailout only to get back to the practices that lead the entire financial sector to the brink of collapse:

Banks that have accepted federal bailout funds are now subject to greater government scrutiny and limits on how much they pay their top executives.

Part of the problem in much of the corporate world is that they are rewarding each other with ridiculous compensation packages and disregarding performance. These guys sit on each others board of directors and put together a “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” deal and expect the same thing in return. Not even an ounce of remorse over their very public failure in regards to managing their companies, they are in fact eager to return to the “good ole days”. Pitiful!

JP Morgan Chase may be just one of the debt holders for the big three but they are still refusing to budge even after concessions from the UAW and parts suppliers. These financial giants are basically pushing the big three closer and closer to bankruptcy everyday they refuse to negotiate. The presidential auto task force is scheduled to meet with these debt holders and the UAW is urging the friends, families and members of the big three/UAW to call or write an e-mail to the Whitehouse urging them to recognize the sacrifices already made from the UAW’s members and the parts suppliers while the debt holders such as JP Morgan Chase are unwilling to compromise so that they can return to the era of giant bonuses and golden parachutes.

To reach the Whitehouse:

Phone numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

E-mail

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

2009-04-18T18:24:00.001-05:00

The men and women of our military may be getting short changed again. News that lightweight armor intended for troops in Afghanistan has been caught up in red tape within Army leadership. Troops often carry gear weighing 130 lbs. over rough terrain, especially in Afghanistan.

I just can’t imagine how this is happening AGAIN! The last time this happened it took the military months to get reinforced vehicles that protected troops from roadside bombs and IED’s. The delays are largely due to an antiquated requisition system. From a NY Times 2005 article:

Many of the problems stem from a 40-year-old procurement system that stymies the acquisition of new equipment quickly enough to adapt to the changing demands of a modern insurgency, interviews and records show.

Read the full article here.

The lack of appropriately armored vehicles likely cost many lives. A report from the pentagon came out stating that 30 lives were probably lost due to the delays, from the report:

As a result, the department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines.

So how did the leadership respond?

Marine Corps spokesman Maj. David Nevers pointed out the inspector general found no "evidence of criminal negligence" in the Corps' actions.

They were only concerned with covering their ass! Shameful.

I hope that this latest case of long delays and foot dragging won’t end up causing more preventable deaths. The soldiers and their families deserve better.

Mike Ilitch Does it Again

2009-04-10T21:12:00.004-05:00

What a day to go to the ball park! I had the honor of going to the Tiger’s home opener at Comerica park today. The Tigers destroyed the Texas Rangers and a good time was had by all! But there was something different about Comerica park. In case you haven’t heard, General Motors had to pull their sponsorship of the fountains in center field due to financial hardships. I sit down and look out to centerfield and what do I see?

It seems that the owner of the Tigers Mike Ilitch turned down offers from other companies, to the tune of $2 Million for 3 years to buy the space. Why? As Ilitch put it:

"The Big Three, where would this city be without them? I mean, my father came from the old country and got a job at Ford's. It put food on our table.”

So the business man did something unheard of in todays business world; he gave the space away for free. As Mitch Albom recently wrote:

“So Ilitch told his people to thank the potential paying customers, but to say that the centerfield fountain this year was spoken for. It would be the feature site for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
For free.
No charge.
Not one penny.
"It's just a small opportunity to respond to what's happening," Ilitch said, embarrassed by the attention.
There's nothing small about it.
Every business has been affected by the collapsing economy; baseball teams are no exception. Walking away from a couple million dollars is not considered a wise financial move. Who turns away paying customers?
In this case, Ilitch did.
Because sometimes it's about the where and the who, not just the how much.”

I apologize for using such big sections of Albom’s work lately but when writing is this good you just point to it and let others read it for themselves; here is the full story.

If you get the chance to see a tiger game this year remember how the giant signs in center field got there. Thanks Mike Ilitch!

Check out the new format

2009-04-08T21:07:00.003-05:00

So...what do ya think?

Got a lot of time on my hands so I figured I would fix up the place! In all honesty the old format chopped off things in the sidebar so it had to go.

Hope you like it!

Nation – 1; National Review - 0

2009-04-03T14:05:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of attending a debate between Katrina vanden Heuvel vs. Rich Lowry last night in Grand Rapids. The event was actually titled “President Obama's First 100 Days: A Debate”; but it was really about watching the editor of the Nation magazine debate the editor of the National Review magazine.

There was a really good turnout and the church that the debate was held in was an amazing building. The debate lasted about 2 hours and it was formatted similar to a real debate.

The details:

There were two debate topics that each of the speakers was allowed to speak for 10 minutes and then a 5 minute rebuttal. The first question was regarding the economic plan of the Obama administration and the second question was regarding the foreign policy of the Obama administration. For the most part the answers were along the lines of what you would expect. Lowry thinks that the Obama economic plan is going to fail and Vanden Heuvel thinks that it will succeed. Lowry thinks that diplomacy is not very effective and Vanden Heuvel thinks that engaging foreign leaders is a worthwhile process. The surprises came in the minutiae of their answers.

Lowry called the Obama administration economic plan cynical and opportunistic. I looked around to see if I was the only one shocked by this. Coming from a war profiteer apologist I was very surprised that Lowry was accusing the current administration of using this crisis to further their agenda. I must have missed his editorials taking the Bush/Cheney administration to task for no bid contracts and rampant overcharging from KBR/Halliburton. I am sure the eloquence of Lowry was mind boggling as he railed against the Bush/Cheney cabal as they tossed aside prevailing wage laws in the after math of hurricane Katrina. Lowry’s response was disingenuous to be polite.

I also couldn’t help but hearing many in the crowd actually giggling and sighing as Lowry called for LESS regulation to help spur the economy. The crowd was actually audibly laughing at him and looking at one another. I heard the two, late 60-ish ladies in front of me say “you’ve got to be kidding!”

There were several points where Lowry acknowledged the Bush legacy as a burden on the current administration, to many in the audiences’ relief. But he also brought out a lot of the old conservative standbys.

- We need tax cuts to spur growth.
- The Obama administration wont acknowledge the surge worked.
- FDR didn’t get us out of the great depression.
- We have built a friendly democracy in Iraq, it was worth it.
- Military spending good, social spending bad.
- Reagan good, Clinton evil.

It was mind numbing. To hear a member of the party that has had their ass whipped in the last two election cycles rehash the talking points that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney drew up was surprising to me. The only thing I was more surprised by was the reception he was getting; chilly at best. The crowd noticeably clapped louder for Vanden Heuvel during and at the end of her commentary. Lowry also looked as if he needed to go to the restroom in the worst way; he was squirming in his seat like a 8 year old boy during a church service while Vanden Heuvel spoke.

I must give Lowry credit for this; after the two debate topics were covered there was a question and answer period from the audience. During this time period Lowry seemed to speak much more honestly and rationally. He gave clear pragmatic answers and agreed with portions of his opponents viewpoints. During this question and answer a guy got up and accused Vanden Heuvel of many things one of which was, hating America. Vanden Heuvel responded well and received a healthy round of applause from the entire audience. Lowry promptly stood up and said that the idea that Katrina hates America is ridiculous and wrong. It was a classy thing to do and the right thing to do. We can have legitimate differences of opinion regarding the policies of this nation and shouldn’t be accused of hating our country because of them.

In my opinion the debate wasn’t even close. I am of course biased, but I think Vanden Heuvel came across with the more well thought out and clearer points.

Take your $20 Million and get out

2009-03-31T14:46:00.001-05:00

So I have been avoiding writing about the auto industry to save the small amount of sanity I have remaining. Must control urges…can’t rant endlessly…use the force…it is your destiny. Alright I give in.

I have been overwhelmed with the talking heads telling me what a great job Rick Wagoner did as I am trying to plan how to deal with not having a job (no $20 million parting gifts included). Looking back at this whole thing I realize that our careers at GM were simultaneous, Wagoner took over North American Operations in 1994 and I hired in shortly thereafter in 1997. Wagoner took the CEO reigns in 2000. GM lost market share in nearly every year of that time period and in Wagoner’s last 4 years GM has lost more than $80 Billion. We can examine the pitiful legacy he leaves behind over and over and it would be hard for anyone to genuinely believe that Wagoner did a good job, BY ANY MEASURE! I will also say that from the shop floor some of the moves have appeared dimwitted at best.

The belief that the most profitable vehicles were what was best for the company was not only short sighted it was catastrophic in terms of market share; attracting new, young buyers; and environmental responsibility. The decision to fight higher CAFÉ standards was not initially his (it was in place long before he took over); however it was Wagoner that continued the fight. The UAW was complicit in this battle that may have actually been beneficial in the long run for GM. The pull back on research and development and the dismantling of the EV 1 project were all things that occurred on Wagoner’s watch.

Back to the talking heads. So I keep hearing about the bad precedent it sets for the president to have the power to ask for the resignation of a CEO. I think the president is about to ask tens of thousands of autoworkers to make similar choices. I think that the sacrifices of these thousands of auto workers won’t come with a $20 million golden parachute and they are a lot less responsible for driving a profitable company into the hands of the federal government for help. To me this reeks of the same hypocrisy that oozed from the treatment of AIG contracts as rule of law while autoworker contracts must be rewritten for the good of the country.

LET THEM EAT CAKE!!

I suppose if I belonged to the same country club as some of these corporate execs, the talking heads may become apologists for me as well. Let them have an extra mulligan during 18 holes and you’re a great guy! “Hey you are such a great leader, what is it you do again?” the golf course can reveal the real measure of a man’s ability to perform.

THE PIGS ARE WALKING!!

Settle down! Settle down! OK, I am about to go into a populist rant so I will wrap it up. It is becoming more and more apparent that the Washington, Wall Street, and media set are at each other’s disposal. Whether it be to loft a softball question, defend the indefensible or spread a layer of hypocrisy so that it appears that it is a consensus opinion that should be listened to. The same rhetoric is coming left and right. This appears to be a giant circle jerk and livelihoods, pension plans and the future of the country are on the line. Frightening.

The Wrecking Crew

2009-03-27T08:28:00.002-05:00

All are familiar with conservatives' rallying cry, "Government isn't the answer, it's the problem."
Thomas Frank chronicles their destructive approach to government in his book, "The Wrecking Crew." With seventy pages of footnotes, this book is a great resource.

He details how conservatives spent our money like drunken sailors, yet systematically cut public servant wages; deregulated; privatized, appointed incompetent cronies (remember FEMA's Michael Brown?); and enlisted powerful lobbyists to market the very earmarks they are howling about today.

Privatized federal dollars now circumvent the wallets of military and civilian personnel and go directly into the coffers of the well-connected who then donate to conservative candidates or right wing think tanks who churn out press releases and articles with the underlying theme, "Government isn't the answer, it's the problem," thereby insuring another election cycle of cash flow.

Have they outdone themselves? They succeeded in abolishing the very regulations which allowed criminals to destroy Wall Street.

As the economic dominoes continue to fall, stay informed. Read 'The Wrecking Crew' and watch "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" at 8 p.m. and "The Rachel Maddows Show" at 9 p.m. weeknights on MSNBC.

Playing Politics . . . Poorly!

2009-03-27T00:53:00.000-05:00

After recently being called out on their inability to present anything other than obstruction the GOP released its alternative to President Obama’s budget. It was 19 pages long and didn’t contain a single number. No, seriously. They held a press conference and everything. Rep. Boehner even looked offended when reporters asked about the lack of details. If you care to read it here it is.

The fact is that they got called out by the president on Tuesday night and they had to respond. The sad part is that this document contains the same tired arguments that the GOP have been making for weeks. The “plan” has no substance whatsoever! It is simply another version of “your plan is bad”. The first page is a pretty good sign of the rest of the documents contents. Nearly the entire page is devoted to bashing the President’s budget without offering anything new of substance. Exactly what they were called out on in the first place!

The GOP got caught playing politics … poorly!

So, what the hell is an earmark?

2009-03-20T02:48:00.002-05:00

Earmarks, they could be in your state. They could even be in your city! Beware, they may be as close as your own backyard. They're coming, they won't stop. Are you scared yet? Well, you shouldn't be.

Republicans in Congress have chosen about the silliest thing in the world to focus on in their effort to get the trust of the American people back. Their focus on earmarks in the budget are utterly ridiculous and earmarks are not the cause of any budget mess, bankruptcies or any other economic problems we are experiencing today.

An earmark, in it's simplest definition is- a directive of how Congress wants money to be spent. Is this a good thing? Yes, in many cases, an earmark provides a great value. But, like anything else, earmarks can be abused. Plain and simple, it's what you're earmarking and almost as important, why?

For example, the earmarks given to Jack Abramhoff, who is now in jail somewhere along with several Republican Members of Congress and Bush Administration officials, were more kickbacks and bribes more than anything else. Were the earmarks themselves bad? Not necessarily. In all honesty, I'm not sure. But, the process in which they were obtained (bribes, kickbacks etc) are the real problem.

Some examples of good earmarks are money going toward construction projects. A Member of Congress may want to make sure that that overpass on I-75 receives funding when the money is released to states for construction projects. So, the lawmaker puts in an earmark request. Democratic leadership has made this a more transparent process than when Republicans were in control of Congress. Is it a perfect process? Nope.

Many like John McCain have made fodder over earmark requests made by President Obama when he was a Senator from IL. One request was for funding for a planetarium to be built in Chicago. Seems ridiculous,? I don't think so. Considering that many kids show little or no interest in science, and especially astronomy, physics and other aspects of science, giving them a chance to see the stars and cosmos up close and personal could help kids become interested in science. So, in the future, instead of relying on imported workers through H1-B visas to design shuttles, land the next Mars rover etc, perhaps Mr. Obama was trying to get kids interested in science. The more important aspect of this is that I seriously doubt that the educational institution that requested the earmark took Mr. Obama to Scotland to golf at exclusive courses or to nice resorts in the islands as Jack Abramhoff did in his attempt to get earmarks from the likes of Tom DeLay. Sounds like a pretty straight forward attempt at education to me.

Those in glass mansions shouldn't throw stones. Senator McCain doesn't use earmarks, he rails against them. Instead, McCain tries to job the system. For example, the Boeing tanker case. McCain hates Boeing, so he tried to steer BILLIONS of dollars to Boeings rival, airbus through the defense budget process. Yes, you saw correctly, John McCain wanted to give our money to foreign workers to build airplanes meant to protect US citizens, instead of Boeing workers in the US. Thankfully, the good folks at the Machinists Union fought this tooth and nail- stay tuned.

Earmarks are just like politicians, teachers and pizzas- some are good, some are not. One closing thought- he number of earmarks increased dramatically while Republicans were in charge of Congress and Bush was president. So, next time you hear conservative Republicans railing against earmarks etc. I hope you'll have a better understanding of what earmarks really are and that they're not to blame.

This is the business we have chosen

2009-03-18T20:20:00.001-05:00

The question is repeated ad nauseam; “you done Friday?”. All day long my co-workers are being asked the fate of their employment status on Monday, four days from now, and they most likely can’t answer. I am lucky, my boss stopped by to tell me late in the day that Friday I will be layed off indefinitely. You may ask why I consider myself lucky. I would rather know. The most difficult issue for me has been the uncertainty of when, not if, I would be layed off.

We eat our lunch and watch the AIG fallout while listening to Wall Street apologists bellow about the sanctity of contracts and wonder when the vote over the concessions in our contracts will take place.

We try to fool each other and ourselves as we speak of all the time off we will enjoy; all the while wondering when or if we will enter the plant again. We occasionally bark comments about fishing or finishing the projects at home and then spend the next 30 or 40 minutes in silence thinking, wondering, planning. The stories of our co-workers that were layed off during the 80’s, for years at a time, are not so commonly discussed anymore. They have seen this scenario before.

I can’t help but remember the line from the Godfather II: “this is the business we have chosen.” While wondering what the next few years of my life will be like.

Lost Week Round-up

2009-03-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

So who new that you have to download days worth of updates after formatting your computer? I guess losing the contents of my hard drive wasn’t the only irritating thing about this past week.

I missed a lot during the week! A small rundown.

Employee Free Choice Act – George Miller is too good for his district!

GM doesn’t need $2 Billion – I hope this sounds like the good news I think it is!

C.E.O.’s are greedy bastards and so are the executives who have helped guide the country’s financial system to the brink of catastrophe!

Some e-mails you can send out to elected officials:

Take Action: The Employee Free Choice Act must pass!

And another one RE: EFCA.

A no-brainer - Hire Michigan First: Creating Jobs For Our Workers.

Say NO to new coal plants in Lansing.

Tell the State Senate to Hold Predatory Lenders Accountable!

Now, back to downloading updates for windows. Ughh!!

Michigan House passes EFCA resolution

2009-03-07T20:33:00.001-05:00

The Michigan House of Representatives brought before it House Resolution 10 (H.R. 10) a non-binding resolution supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. I had the pleasure of attending both the Labor committee hearing on H.R. 10 and had a chance to sit in the gallery as it was voted on. I was pleased to see the resolution pass through committee, but I was disappointed to hear the same old tired right-wing talking points from every single member that belonged to the republican party. The corporate elite even sent their lap dogs to testify in front of the committee. Luckily my union president Brian Fredline showed up and decided to testify. I have known and worked with Brian for a few years now and knew he could handle himself in a debate but he shocked me. Brian mopped the floor with the sorry cast of anti-worker pawns that showed up. By the time he was done testifying more than half of the committee was nodding their head in agreement. None of the puppets on the right had anything to say! The chairman thanked Brian and added that he was pleased with his testimony and agreed with him. Within a few hours the Michigan state House of Representatives passed the resolution. There was a highlight; a Republican chose to value working people over party dogma! His name is Tory Rocca from the Sterling Heights area. Feel free to thank him for his support!

(In case you are unaware, the Employee Free Choice Act is a bill that would give workers an additional method of joining a union. The bill is often referred to as “card check”.

Worker intimidation from employers during union organizing drives is well documented. This legislation is long overdue. This fight wont be easy, a who’s who of anti-worker, extreme right wing ideologues have lined up and plan to fight like hell to prevent workers from having a say in their work place. That’s okay; we got the right people on our side! The new administration, the new secretary of Labor, and the legislators that have been fighting on our behalf since day one.

What a difference an election makes

2009-03-02T07:55:00.000-05:00

Mark Schauer has been the 7th congressional Representative for less than 2 months and he has already done more for the working people of his district than Tim Walberg did during his entire term.

I was thrilled to learn that congressman Schauer had asked to meet with some workers from the GM Lansing Delta township plant in his district. Walberg as you may remember couldn’t even be bothered to vote on the auto bridge loan. Schauer came to the UAW local 602 union hall to sit down and talk with us regarding our concerns. Schauer spoke briefly and then spent time fielding questions from anyone who had a question. The congressman answered questions regarding unemployment, trade, TARP funds, stimulus package money, and wall street to name a few. I know congressman Schauer and even though I live in the far eastern portion of the 8th congressional district I campaigned heavily for him. I came prepared to point out what some of the members of my local may not have known.

I thanked the congressman for joining the House trade working group and also thanked him for pushing for “Buy American” provisions in the stimulus package. I read the following excerpt from a letter Schauer and some of his colleagues sent the president:

We also believe that it is in the public interest to “Buy American.” Homegrown manufacturing capabilities are not only vital to the American economy but also a national security imperative. We cannot afford to lose our nation’s competitive edge or the productive foundation of our economy.

We are not looking to erect trade barriers, only to help assure American taxpayers that their money is being directly spent to create or retain American jobs to the greatest degree possible. Spending the nearly $1 trillion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act here at home is prudent policy and will help America get back to work.

I then read an excerpt from a letter the House trade working group sent the president that Schauer had signed onto:

We heartily agree with your conclusion that trade policies "are not sustainable if they favor the few rather than the many." Rebalancing our trade and globalization policies so that they create and retain good jobs in the United States, foster sustainable and equitable development worldwide, and provide government with the policy space necessary to solve pressing economic, climate, and other challenges is critical to prosperity and security at home and around the world.

A hefty round of applause followed each time I read these items and Schauer thanked me for doing my homework. I made the comment that I was thrilled to hear such a different sort of rhetoric coming from the 7th congressional district lately and made sure Rep. Schauer knew how welcome it was.

Congratulations to Hilda Solis!

2009-02-25T11:01:00.001-05:00

After Republicans bent on obstruction finally gave way to the inevitable, Hilda Solis was confirmed as the new Secretary of Labor. Republicans, who ultimately backed down from their threat of a filibuster, ended up supporting her nomination which ended in a 80 – 17 vote in favor even without 2 Democrats voting.

Solis was nominated on Dec. 19, 2008. Her loyal support of labor unions and co-sponsoring of bills such as the Employee Free Choice Act make her a target for right wing ideologues. Scott Lilly, from the Center for American Progress had this to say in a recent article:

"This is just harassment," Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said of the questions raised about Solis. "I haven't seen anything that has been raised that looks like a truly substantive question about whether President Obama should have her serve him as labor secretary."

Hard to argue with that! Unless you’re John Engler (BOO! HISS!) Yes, he makes an appearance speaking out against the dreaded working class at the end of the article.

Solis is labor friendly to say the least. Her father, a worker at a battery recycling plant in the San Gabriel Valley, organized immigrant co-workers for the Teamsters Union to gain improved health care benefits. She has also been a warrior for environmental causes during her time in the House. Here is a great bio-piece on Secretary Solis.

Hilda Solis will be a welcome change to the department of Labor after 8 years of Elaine Chao. President Obama recently summed up the Chao legacy:

“Remember, this is supposed to be the Department Labor, not the Department of Management”

The employees of the departemtn of Labor actually threw Chao a “good riddance” party. They sang in unison “Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, goodbye." In addition, during a speech by a labor leader at the party came the following quote:

"Sisters and brothers, we are 11 days away, eleven days away from freedom."
There was even a cake with the words “Ciao to Chao” on top. Read more about the party here.

Congratulations to Hilda Solis! And good riddance to Elaine Chao!

Shameless Self-promotion

2009-02-20T15:50:00.001-05:00

If you happen to see a clip on CNN about Lansing and GM you may get a glimpse of me. I have yet to see the clip but I did an interview with the impossibly handsome (as my in-laws call him) John King. The story is also online here. I was told the full interview will air on CNN Sunday at 9 AM during “state of the union with John King”. Hopefully my shot at Mitch McConnell wont get cut!

2009-02-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

Throughout the history of this great Nation, we have always protected our Democracy and our American way of life. The Presidential oath of office includes the promise to protect and defend our Constitution, we protect our freedom of speech, we protect our right to bear arms, we protect our borders, we protect our environment, we protect our ports and airports, we protect our citizens, we protect our freedom, we protect our homes, we protect our families, it seems like we protect everything of value in our lives. The only thing we don’t protect is our economy. Funny thing is, if we don’t protect our economy, that allows us to live the American Dream, then we will have nothing left to protect. The minute that we suggest buying American, or supporting domestic manufacturers, the rest of the world rises up with one voice and begins to threaten a trade war. Well you know what I say…Bring It On!

The American economy has always been, is now, and will forever be, the economic engine that pulls the global economic train, and what drives the American economy, The American middle class! For the last decade we have turned our economy over to a bunch of free market supply siders who have created a new global expansion that has enriched the rest of the developed world. China is no longer a third world country dressed in grey MAO jackets, they now wear Armani and own everything from our debt to our jobs. Corporate America’s low bidder mentality has shipped every American job offshore, destroyed our industrial base, created record unemployment and sent our Nation into a economic tailspin. Wall Street then had the audacity to pay billions of dollars in bonuses to corrupt businessmen who, through their irresponsible and reckless actions, caused the crisis in the first place. It is no coincidence that gas prices spiked to four dollars, four months before the election, and Exxon Mobile enjoyed the highest quarterly corporate profit in the history of the universe, all on the weakened backs of the American middle-class.

You want a War, we will give you one. Not a war of bombs or bullets, but a war of dollars and dimes fought by true patriots who purchase domestic products. I truly feel that it is high time we turn our vast resources inward and start taking care of the economic locomotive that pulls the rest of the global train. To the rest of the world, you can help us fix the engine and enjoy the ride, or unhook your dead weight box car and slide back down the tracks. Either way, The American worker will prevail, the American economy will recover, and this time, we will have the wisdom and the will to protect it for future generations.

Gretchen Whitmer Rules!!

2009-02-13T23:34:00.002-05:00

With the new budget for the state of Michigan, state workers face yet another round of concessions and layoffs. According to the local newspaper that posted state workers salaries that I still refuse to link to:

Hundreds of those job cuts ultimately may land in the mid-Michigan area. There are approximately 12,000 full-time state positions in the tri-counties; roughly 9,800 are in Ingham County.

Again! The state workers bear the brunt of the pain yet again! And Sen. Whitmer is PISSED!!!

GIVE EM’ HELL SENATOR!! We got your back!!

Republican Destructionists

2009-02-09T12:01:00.001-05:00

The last charge of the Republicans may be at hand. Many are calling them obstructionists or labeling them as being on prevent defense; I would label them destructionists. The only thing left for a beaten party is to try and see that the current administration fails, which in turn means that America fails. This is actually sad to watch. I saw Richard Shelby (R-Nissan) on CNN today completely avoid answering the question of what he specifically disliked about the stimulus package only to say that the package would fail. Thanks for the insight! I guess when you have no ideas left or all of your economic theories have proven to be failures all you can do is try to tear down the other guy. In this case the well being of our country is on the line.

In a strange twist to all of this is the fact that the Republicans are still clinging to the economic concepts that brought us to the state the country is in today. Tax cuts, tax cuts, and …tax cuts. Oh, I forgot about helping out giant corporations, CEO’s and the incredibly wealthy through…tax cuts. In a war? Tax cuts. Deficit growing out of control? Tax cuts. Deregulation of the financial industry destroying the credit market? Tax cuts. Unregulated mortgage industry run amok? Tax cuts. It makes my head spin. And sadly some of the American people have bought in.

Thankfully we have Paul Krugman! Krugman was last years recipient of the Nobel prize for Economics. He has degrees from Yale and M.I.T. and has taught at both schools. I don’t agree with everything Krugman says but he is just about the only economist I can read for more than five minutes at a time without taking a nap. I try to read his column in the NY Times as often as I can and have read several of his books. He recently wrote a piece debunking some of the lies and rhetoric being flung around by the right wing regarding the economic stimulus:

First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years.

And then he does something that makes Republicans cringe; he tells the truth:

The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 — and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.

Krugman continues:

“Write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money”

And then he explains:

Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens.

The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved.

This suggests that public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan. But rather than accept that implication, conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.

You get the point, and if you want more examples read the piece here.

When I see the Republicans in action, or inaction as it were, I am reminded of the type of people who criticize someone else’s efforts without ever actually accomplishing anything themselves. I guess when your achievements include the worst deficit in history, two wars, the worst recession since the great depression and the dismantling of American government you have to “stay the course”, to quote their clueless leader, on faulty partisan ideology.

Are you building?

2009-02-06T10:52:00.000-05:00

President Obama's inaugural speech resonated with wisdom. One phrase moved me:
"Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not on what you destroy."
Although addressed to world leaders, these words speak to each of us. Ask yourself, do the words you speak build or destroy? Do your actions inspire or bring despair? Are you building or destroying?
We are mired in the worst economy since 1945. More than 3.2 million Americans have lost their jobs, most of the losses in the last few months. We haven't hit the bottom - yet.
It will take individual and collective effort to dig out of this mess. Remember, your words and actions have a powerful effect, especially upon the young ones.
A Billy Joe Shaver song comes to mind: "You fathers and you mothers/Be good to one another/Please try to raise your children right/Don't let the darkness take 'em/Don't make 'em feel forsaken/Just lead 'em safely to the Light."

More Bad News

2009-01-27T11:15:00.000-05:00

Another month, another announcement.

This one is a little more concrete. Plant near Lansing scheduled to lose a shift. That’s me. When I was layed off at Christmas there was a return to work date. Knowing that there is at least a “scheduled” return to work date is a different animal than “indefinitely” layed off. I remember my brother being layed off for years during the 80’s. I remember Saginaw feeling the effects of long layoffs and plant closings. I remember what happened to my neighbors, family and my hometown. Hard times.

It seems that every time I get caught up in a celebration (Nov. elections, inauguration, etc.) I get another shot to the gut from reality.

2009-01-20T08:06:00.002-05:00

TODAY IS INAUGURATION DAY!

I am filled with hope as I watch the sun rise above a bone chilling seven degrees below zero wintry snowscape. (The cross country skiing has been outstanding!)

It's the symbolism of the rising sun is what I'm talking about. It's been a long cold eight year stretch of a bitter battering of OUR CONSTITUTION, a battering of working families, decisions which have brought about the worst economy since 1945 with over 2.6 million Americans losing their jobs, and so much more... But this post is about hope!

May the warmth of God's Love and the Light of God's Wisdom guide this GREAT LAND toward a spring time of blossoming ideas and a heartfelt caring for all.

We pitched in and worked hard to see this day. It's time to reach out and work harder to insure we move forward.

In the words of Martin Luther King ,"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we're free at last!"

Innaugarual Thoughts

2009-01-19T10:51:00.002-05:00

As we celebrate our victory we must make note of what we have won. I believe that the long hard battle that many of us gave hours, days and even weeks of our lives to was for an opportunity. The opportunity to take a bruised and battered America and rebuild it into a stronger and healthier nation. The opportunity to go beyond partisan divides, that have fractured our republic and achieve restoration and improvement. Winston Churchill once said, “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

“Change” is not a talking point and “hope” is not a campaign slogan.

There are moments in history when men and women have stepped up and accomplished remarkable feats knowing that they may not see the fruits of their labor. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have a saying:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love
mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but
neither are you free to abandon it.

Why on earth would we stop now? “Change” will indeed come to America and it will be guided, lead by the people who are willing and able to continue to fight for the America they believe should exist. The past eight years represent one vision of “change” that came from a group determined to imbue their beliefs on the country. Who will the next group of people be? “Change” is not a talking point. Barack Obama once said – “We are the change we’ve been waiting for” to further illustrate my point I will quote Gandhi -“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” The battle over the direction of this country hasn’t ended; in my opinion it has just begun. This moment is when we have an opportunity to mold our nation, this moment is when a new direction can be charted, this moment is when we can renew the American dream, this is the moment we can give each other “Hope”.

In Greek mythology Pandora’s box was opened and evil was unleashed on mankind. Disease, despair, malice, greed, old age, death, hatred, violence, cruelty and war were released.
Only Hope remained with mankind.
In what may be some of the nations most difficult hours in recent memory we still have hope. We have the ability to give each other hope. “Hope” is not a campaign slogan. In the most difficult of circumstances sometimes “Hope” is all there is, sometimes “Hope” is the only thing we can give each other and often “Hope” is just enough.
Barack Obama said – “We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”
The next president will very surely be pressured by the powers of the status quos. It is our duty and our opportunity to also pressure our next president. I have “Hope” that he will be more receptive than our last president.

Click to Read

2009-01-16T13:00:00.001-05:00

Mitch Albom

2009-01-12T18:53:00.000-05:00

For years as a Spartan fan I looked at Mitch Albom as a U of M writer. It seems that I was mistaken. Mitch Albom has taken his column and turned it into a soapbox and Mr. Albom is delivering his message well!! In case you missed his most recent column in Sports Illustrated you can read it on the Detroit Free Press website here. The column is long but right on point. This is where I normally would post snippets of the article and tell you to read the rest. I don’t know which portions of the article to post; there are too many to highlight. JUST GO READ THE ARTICLE!!

Albom also wrote eloquently about the auto bridge loan recently; in case you missed it here it is.

Give ‘em hell Mitch!

Accept the Good

2009-01-08T18:17:00.002-05:00

“Accept the good” is a great line from a really intense movie I watched recently.

Weeks removed from what was some of the most stressful times of my life, being an evil autoworker while the national “autoworker piñata party” was going on. I can now see some silver lining.

We were working a lot of hours and everyone in the plant was on edge over what would happen to the company and their jobs weeks away from Christmas. My plant spent most of the year working six days a week and between 10 and 11 hours a day, by the time the bridge loan debate started many of us were running low on patience and energy.

Something changed. I started to notice it about 2 months before the election. Co-workers were discussing foreign policy instead of sports. People who had never shown an interest in politics were asking me questions about how they could get involved and then would feel compelled to explain why they were for Obama. People whom I had known for years, that had never discussed a topic other than what I was eating for lunch, were suddenly engaged in deep philosophical conversations regarding trade and capitalism. The shop floor was alive with energetic discussion of national issues and the upcoming election.

Obama won. I would guess that more than 70 – 75 % of the plant voted for Obama. Most of the plant felt relief and was touched with “Hope” fever.

Then the announcements started. One after another the rumors mixed with announcements started. Canceling of scheduled workdays, elimination of overtime, layoffs, slowing the line down to layoff more workers, extended shutdown. They kept coming. January production cancelled, a week off in March, Dependant Scholarship program cancelled, jobs bank suspended. It felt like a complete turnaround; one minute we are celebrating a hard fought victory in the presidential election and the next we are all contemplating what will happen with the future of our jobs, company and country.

I will never forget some of the things that I noticed during the weeks that the debate raged on. Lunch and break periods were spent watching Republican Senators rail about the auto industry and how we should be left to go bankrupt. At first many of my more conservative co-workers sat quietly observing what became a crystal clear message from a party that they supported: screw you! Quickly our plant became the focus of media from all over the world. (I was in the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times and in a commercial aired in the D.C. area.) My local union president and the president of UAW local 652 were both on national news shows constantly. It seemed like every day at lunch someone we knew was on CNN. (A little background is needed here. Most of the folks I work with want to come to work and go home, end of story. They don’t want to be involved in the union, they don’t want to spend any more time than they absolutely have to at work and they largely keep their opinions to themselves. Fair enough.) As the debate kept dragging on and the venom kept being aimed at autoworkers my previously quiet and withdrawn co-workers started voicing their opinion, sometimes at the TV in the break room. Sen. Richard Shelby would appear and you would hear a chorus of “Boo’s” from the room. A UAW rep. would appear and you would hear “that’s right,” muttered under the breath of some and “tell him” under others. A moment that sticks out in my mind is when CNN broke coverage during a lunch break to feature UAW president Ron Gettelfinger speaking. (More background- during lunch you have 30 minutes to go to the break room, go to the bathroom, heat up your lunch, call your spouse, eat and get back to your job.) I was listening intently when I noticed that the entire room was standing and slowly moving towards the TV. From my break room I can see another break room across the plant; everyone in the plant was huddled around TV’s and listening quietly to the president of the UAW speak. Workers and management huddled together closer so they could listen. People were vocal, Ron was preaching to the plant and my co-workers were receptive. “Yeah!”, “You got that right!”, and the quiet agreeing nods and smiles of management knowing their ass was riding on this as well. Months removed from a 5 week long strike made this all the more surreal. If my co-workers didn’t know who had their best interest at heart before this mess they sure as hell knew know!

I think the most important thing for me was watching non-political people watch Republicans so willingly throw them under the bus. I think that the plant will likely have its numbers go from about 65-70 % Democrat to about 75-80 %. There has been and likely will continue to be BAD news for autoworkers but I will accept this piece of GOOD news.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T19:37:00.000-05:00

For twelve whole days I barely touched a computer. I gotta tell you, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I hadn’t really noticed how long it had been until I looked at the last post I put up.

I had good intentions, I even had a partial post written and titled “all the strangers came today” about all the recent press that the auto industry and all the highlights from our two local plants. The post isn’t so timely any more and while it was cool to meet some of the people from Time, CNN, NPR and on and on; the subject was intense. I already scrapped the post, I guess I’ll have to find another Bowie line to steal for a title.

Now that I am officially an unemployed autoworker I hope to be a little more active with my blog. Judging from the lack of posts around my favorite blogs, it looks like we all took some downtime over the holidays. Good! I have the feeling the next several months will bring plenty of material.

Happy New Year!

FINALLY!!

2008-12-19T09:22:00.001-05:00

FINALLY!!
Cancel cancelling Christmas.

While there are some vague details that will trickle out with time the good news is that action was finally taken:

The Bush administration will offer General Motors and Chrysler loans totaling $17.4 billion in return for strict conditions mirroring those proposed by Senate Republicans last week.

And King George got to take a free swipe at all of us evil “working people”:

Those terms include not only the conditions agreed to by congressional Democrats, but new limits sought on the UAW contracts including matching wage and benefits of foreign automakers with U.S. plants by the end of next year.

Full story here.

Leaches and Hypocrites

2008-12-17T16:05:00.000-05:00

It is no surprise to many union auto workers that Republican senators would stand against and even go on the attack when the chance to harm the UAW was presented to them. It is also no surprise that many of these same Republicans come from states that have foreign transplant auto factories. What may surprise some is the hypocrisy that these senators are showing; many of these senators have given massive aid and incentives to foreign companies while arguing against providing a loan to American companies. These southern senators argue against using taxpayer money to help the auto industry while being the beneficiaries of more than their fair share of federal expenditures. So, the federal taxes that come from good union wages are actually subsidizing foreign autoworkers that benefit from tax abatements given to them from states who are the first in line at the federal expenditure trough. Here are some facts:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Hyundai) from a state which has given:
Mercedes-Benz, Vance, AL, 1993, $258 million
Honda, Lincoln, AL, 1999, $248 million
Toyota, Huntsville, AL, 2001, $30 million
Hyundai, Montgomery, AL, 2002, $252 million

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Nissan) from a state which has given:
Nissan, Smyrna, TN, 1980, $233 million
Nissan, Decherd, TN, 1995, $200 million
Volkswagen, Chattanooga, TN, 2008, $577 million

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Toyota) from a state which has given:
Toyota, Georgetown, KY, 1985, $147 million

What these states have in common, besides giving away huge bailouts to foreign entities yearly, is that all of them are were “donee’s” of federal expenditures. That means that they are given are larger portion of federal tax expenditures back then they put in. here are their numbers:

Alabama gets $1.66 back for every dollar they put in.

Kentucky gets $1.51 back for every dollar they put in.

Mississippi gets $2.02 back for every dollar they put in.

Tennessee gets $1.27 back for every dollar they put in.

And to further make the point Michigan is a donor state, meaning we give more than we get back:

Michigan gets $0.92 back for every dollar they put in.

It seems the clear goal is a shot at the UAW and they took it. We may see some repercussions for years to come in Michigan politics but more importantly we will wait and see if we see the downfall of the big three in days ahead.

The Memo

2008-12-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

Just in case you had any doubts about whose side Republicans are on they conveniently sent out a memo outlining their intentions on blocking the auto bridge loan ENTIRELY FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES!!!
Here is the actual text of the Republican memo:

From:
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:12 AM
To:
Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout

Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery. They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible. The message they want us to deliver is:

1. 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.

2. This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP. Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it. We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.

The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better. Please contact me if you need additional information. Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes. If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.

(Emphasis mine)

They did it!

2008-12-12T06:29:00.002-05:00

The workers at the Smithfield hog processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, have finally, after 16 long years, voted to have themselves a union! In the least unionized state in the nation, 3.9 percent but now climbing, workers have stood up and empowered themselves to be able to organize against unfair company practices that include forcing sick workers to come on in, anyway.

A big move for North Carolina. Now if we could all just work together and get crazy ideas like forcing the UAW to immediately accept the pay offered workers at Japanese plants in Alabama-how arrogant does one Richard Shelby have to be to think that the rest of America wants to look like Alabama-out of the public square...

Don't forget Alabama gets way more than a dollar's worth of money back for every dollar they send to Washington, so their senators who rail against welfare know exactly what they are talking about.

News to be thankful for

2008-11-27T07:47:00.001-05:00

Bailout.

Bridge loan.

Rescue package.

Whatever! With all the spin going on over the Big Three needing cash there has been some welcomed positive coverage, mostly from the blogosphere (go team!), here are some highlights. (I will undoubtedly miss some; apologies and please add anything worthwhile in the comments section.)

The Washington Post puts some pundits in their place!

It is the rankest hypocrisy for well-paid journalists to decry the "high" pay of UAW-represented employees. I doubt that there is one UAW critic in the media, or on Capitol Hill, who would be willing to settle for a UAW paycheck. I'm almost certain there isn't one who would be willing to trade his or her relatively cushy employment for a year on an auto plant assembly line.
Criticism of "improvident labor contracts" thus smacks of class bias. It reeks of the notion that some work, such as that involving manual labor, inherently deserves less compensation than others, such as expressing one's opinion. It's more baloney.

WOW! You have got to read the rest!

Blogging For Michigan has had several posts:

The Problems Facing Big Three Belong to All of Us
Hey Steny. Got Your Justification Right Here.
Citigroup vs. General Motors
Lt. Governor Cherry Answers Romney in Today's NYT
Financial industry vs. auto industry double-standard

Michigan Liberal:

Media myths about Big Three workers
House leadership snubs Heartland (this one really documents the feelings of many in the UAW right now.)
What next for the Big 2.5?
Enough about the friggin' planes already!
Hey Mitt, mind your own $%#&! business!!

Firedoglake:

Be Grateful You Have A Job Or We’ll Send It To China
Saving Citi But Not GM
Richard Shelby Wants To Place US Government In Bankruptcy And Eliminate Military Pensions And Benefits

Rachel Maddow chimes in:

Talk me down! Since when are auto workers the fat cats?

The “news hour” from PBS did a great national story on Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant the story and link to video are here:

Michigan Autoworkers Face Uncertain Future

Huffington post:

A Kid from Car Country

AFL-CIO blog:

Corporate Class War: Pit Worker Against Worker
Stakes High as Auto Plan Deadline Approaches

There is a great group supporting the UAW once again and it is refreshing to see the tone much friendlier from team “left”! Sometimes, reading the comments section of articles regarding the big three you would think that everyone in the country is against us; thanks for your support!

The View From Here

2008-11-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

With the outcome of the last 2 election cycles clearly in favor of Democrats you would think that Labor would be jumping for joy over their new influence and overwhelming representation of the officials they helped elect. In my opinion our party is not only letting us hang but they are dangerously close to abandoning the very people to whom they owe their jobs.

With the recent news that the Speaker wants the CEO’s of the big 3 to bring them a plan I have a few questions:

1.) Citigroup (twice), AIG (twice), Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, OK this list is just way too long so here is a link to a pretty good list of the money already handed out, most of it with no obligation whatsoever to repay it. Where will the new library, for the plans of the more than 30 companies already on the government dole, be located? D.C. or Wall Street?

I can only assume that the speaker is a very busy woman and hasn’t been keeping a close watch on the American auto industry. For the Democratic leadership to rely on the incompetence that brought us the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid to produce a plan that will save the jobs of millions is shocking. The legacy of bad management has been witnessed by the millions whose livelihood depend on the company’s success and frankly has left many of us in a state of shock at anyone believing that the heads of these corporations could plan a trip to the bathroom let alone the salvation of an industry on the brink of collapse!

2.) Why has no one mentioned the concessions that the UAW have already made over the last decade?
Wage concessions – active workers had aprox. $4 an hour diverted to cover retiree health care (VEBA).
Retirees have health insurance costs taken from their pension checks monthly and can incur more than $750/year in health care costs; they had no vote on this issue. (this concession came in the middle of a contract)
The two tier worker – our sons and daughters now work side by side with us for less than half the wages. These workers will NEVER have a pension. These workers will NEVER have retiree health care provided by the company. (according to the 2007 contract)
Hey Democratic leadership … Lead! Party leadership weren’t the only ones letting us down President Gettelfinger also missed an opportunity to get on a soapbox in front of congress. (it would have been nice to see a member from outside of the rustbelt stand up for us.)

3.) Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the steps towards fuel efficiency already taken? Sure these steps are late in the game but GM alone has 20 vehicles that get better than 30 MPG! As well as more hybrid vehicles than anyone else.

I hope my instinct that the Democratic leadership is just buying themselves some political cover with this “plan” is accurate. But if I am wrong, to hand the Right wing a gift like crumbling the UAW after getting smacked down in back-to-back elections must feel like a Christmas gift they will never forget.

Deal?

2008-11-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

It would seem all of the madness may be drawing to a close… at least temporarily!

Auto state senators reached a deal on a last-ditch agreement to provide $25 billion in quick aid to automakers today, but it was unclear if the Senate and House would approve it before they adjourn for the year, congressional aides said.
A press conference is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today.

Yeah team Michigan! Word is Levin and Stabenow are the ones that put this thing together.

On the mend

2008-11-13T21:54:00.000-05:00

The election is over and thankfully we won!

I am on the mend from an injury that occurred in the final weeks of the election. I chose to ignore the injury and consequently have been out of work for a week. But we won! I thought that any readers that I have left deserved to know why I haven’t written about the victories.

My body on the mend, my mind and heart a little more at ease, I will return soon with renewed vigor.

Farleftfield.

Early Shenanigans in Florida

2008-11-03T07:30:00.001-05:00

This is crazy!

Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a
man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee
ballots and deliver them to the elections office.
The voters, all supporters
of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their
ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez
campaign said he doesn't work for them.

Here we go again in Florida! The mess continues:

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other
voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who
also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters
traces back to a consultant working for Martinez's rival, Republican congressman
Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

You really have to read the rest of this story it gets really slimy! Check it out.

Hockey Mom 0-2

2008-10-26T08:57:00.002-05:00

The "Worlds Best Dressed Hockey Mom” Sarah Palin, resplendent in her $150,000 wardrobe, jinxed yet another NHL team Saturday night by dropping a ceremonial first puck. The latest victim being the St. Louis Blues who lost to the L.A. Kings 4-0. Adding insult to injury, quite literally, was the loss of goalie Manny Lagace who slipped and fell on the carpet provided for Palin. He strained a hip and attempted to play but had to leave the game after the first period.

Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Flyers also lost to the New York Rangers after she dropped the ceremonial first puck.

Firing up the troops

2008-10-13T23:03:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked to "fire up the troops" at my local union, here is the text of the speech I gave -

Brothers and sisters we need to talk about our country. Our financial sysytem in ruins, fighting two seemingly neverending wars, our friends and neighbors losing their homes and jobs are leaving the country by the hundreds of thousands. This is hardly the picture our founding fathers envisioned. In fact the founding fathers in 1782 created a symbol called the great seal of the united states of america. Its on the back of every dollar bill so feel free to take a look at it if you have a dollar bill handy. At the top of the left circle is the phrase “Annuit Coeptis” that is Latin for “he favors this undertaking”. The founding fathers believed that God himself favored the founding of America. With that phrase the founding fathers also wished to convey the ideas and responsibility with which they believed that their new venture had come. The great seal also pictures an unfinished pyramid to stress the importance that our undertaking would NEVER be finished. The eye pictured above the pyramid is always watching; the fore fathers believed that god was watching their actions and that they would be judged accordingly. Knowing that future generations would hold these responsibilities and be tested to ensure their worthiness, the founding fathers left us many sources to use to guide our legacy. The constitution, the bill of rights, the declaration of independence each written by these men for future generations to have.

“We the people”, “commonwealth”, “a more perfect union”, “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” and even the name of our type of government, democracy, means rule of the people; all classic examples of a single idea that is embedded in this country and can never be removed from it; the idea that this country, that this state, that our communities and even this local union functions best when we give a damn about each other.

A tall skinny kid with a funny name from Illinois who was belittled by his opponents as being inexperianced after serving only one term in congress once said ““we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.” Thank you for that wisdom president Lincoln.

The forces that wish to divide us do so for individualistic, self serving and greedy ends. Their greatest weapon is not their immense wealth, their ownership of massive corporate interests or their high priced lawyers. Their greatest weapon is division. These people will use everything from fear to outright lies to continue their agenda. Brothers and sisters it is time. It is time to not let this great blessing which has been given us be abused any longer. It is time that we take on the responsibilities that the founding fathers left us in charge of. It is time that we do as the generations before us have done; to care enough for our country that we will not be distracted by such silliness as lapel pins, lipstick on pigs, winks from beauty queens or middle names. We must not be bullied into believing that someone is so different from us that we couldn’t possibly vote for him.

There are two clear choices in this election. You will either vote in the belief that the country is going in the right direction or you will choose a new path. We will vote with the insecurities of fear or we will choose to believe in our ability to overcome our fears. One candidate will cater to our lowest common denominator and one candidate will call to our greatest potential.

Over the last eight years we have been told to be afraid, we have come to lower our expectations and this great nation has not been the shining example it once was. I will not stand before you and tell you that Barack Obama is the answer to all of our great countries problems. I will tell you that I believe that Barack Obama is what is usually the most difficult step in any journey… the first step.

Brothers and sisters, we must not let fear rule the day; we must not let our country be attacked from within while we sit idly by. Given this glorious blessing that is America it is our responsibility to defend her and lead the world with our example. You know what must be done; phone banks, door to door and getting out the vote are all under way and most importantly on November 4th vote to let this country shine as the beacon of hope and freedom that it was intended to be.

A Lot of Gas

2008-10-11T17:58:00.004-05:00

A lot of hot air is more like it. As I was filling my UAW made car up today for 3.23 per gallon, a smile came across my face. Not because gas is cheaper now, although that is welcome, but because the price went down by almost $1.00 per gallon and it went down without more drilling. More drilling didn't cause the price of gas to go down by nearly $1.00 per gallon. What did?

Well, it obviously wasn't the political hoax launched by Republican members of Congress saying that more drilling in ANWR and offshore is the way to lower gas prices because that hasn't happened. So, what made prices fall so much so fast?

Oil is a commodity that is traded by brokers on the stock exchange. As we have clearly seen, the stock market isn't the above board place that so many in Congress and on Wall Street say it is. In short, big investors can drive the price of oil up or down. They also don't have to pay for the whole amount to buy oil on the market. This is called speculation.

Democrats in Congress knew that the only way to lower gas prices for us was to cut down on the rampant speculation that was driving prices up for people. This is complex economic stuff and when people hear a bunch of blow hards screaming "we need to drill more..blah blah, it's the way to lower gas prices now", people are misled. And way too easily in this case.

Another contributing factor to the decline in gas prices is that more people are taking public transportation and conserving energy.

I mentioned a blow hard above. Mike Rogers is a more familiar blow hard. In his press release
Rogers claims that if we allow drilling for oil offshore and in ANWR, by 2015, the U.S. would not have to buy a drop of oil from anyone. Here's the simple math on this one. The U.S. (with ANWR and Offshore included) controls 3% of the worlds oil. The U.S. uses 25% of the worlds oil. If any math teachers are reading this, please help Mike.

Summary- When you hear something from a Republican member of Congress, you should verify it. If you hear the same thing from a bunch of Republican members of Congress, believe the opposite of what they say.

John McCain- Not the Honorable "Maverick" he claims

2008-10-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

John McCain is trying to convince Americans that he is the most above board person running for president. The interview here should help people decide if he is indeed talking straight with us. The link to the video is also included below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-kOIs-W6E

McCain Pulling out of MI=Our Effort Increases

2008-10-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

No doubt about it. McCain pulling the plug on his MI operation is fantastic news. But, we also must remember that this is a marathon and there is always time for a final sprint. The facts are in and the general public, not only in MI, but nationwide, overwhelmingly trusts Obama to handle the economic problems we all face. With family economies rightly being the number one issue on peoples minds (as it should be every election) people have spoken and have chosen the real agent of change in this election. However, this doesn't mean that this thing is over.

Elections swing like monkeys in trees. The last month before election day is the absolute worst time to declare victory. Victory is declared only after the votes are counted. That hasn't happened yet.

I, for one, am truly baffled at this move by the McCain Pales-in-comparison ticket. McCain and company have promised that the last month of the campaign is going to be completely negative. That's all they have left because their ideas have been shot down by Americans. This means that it's even more critical that we reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible to make sure that before they see the lies by McCain is willing to tell in order to get elected, we have given them the real information by phone, knocking on doors and union member to union member contact.

If you thought Bush and Rove used dirty tactics to steal elections, you ain't sen nothing yet. With an oil industry on the verge of losing Cheney and Bush, well-funded drug companies facing real health care reform and Wall Street greed heads staring down an Obama Biden presidency that won't tolerate them policing themselves anymore, rest assured that they will spend hundreds of millions telling us that Obama Biden will raise taxes, take away our guns, make girls have abortions and make sure that government runs everything in our lives. These are of course untrue, but when these statements are made using slick ads, people will believe them if we don't take the time to educate them.

Michigan is still a battleground state, don't let anybody convince you otherwise. If we do the work by spreading the truth- we will win. We haven't won yet.

Score One for Team Schauer!

2008-10-01T18:07:00.000-05:00

What a big score for Sen. Mark Schauer! Former congressman Joe Schwarz endorses him and the increases the momentum for the Schauer campaign.
As recent posts outlined the UAW local 602 phone bank is rolling and most of my efforts are being concentrated there. We are currently covering Eaton County and the support for Schauer there is GREAT! We ran out Schauer yard signs twice already and I was very pleased with the ease which I was able to get re-stocked from the campaign (are you listening Obama campaign?)
Mark Schauer is Pro-Labor, Pro-Veterans, Pro-Environment, Pro-FAIR trade and as one blogger put it; “Mark Schauer gets it.”

Flying Bowling Balls

2008-09-27T19:53:00.002-05:00

As I watched the debate last night, I couldn't get two things out of my mind. The first was the fact that John McCain couldn't look Jim Lehrer, the moderator, or Obama in the face. To me, this says that he doesn't even believe the lies coming out of his mouth. To Obama's credit (though I thought he should have come out much tougher on McCain) he diffused the constant lies and mischaracterizations coming out of McCains mouth.

The second thing that I couldn't get out of my head was the fact that the impression that John Stewart does of Dick Cheney is even more right on for McCain.

I hope that for the next debate, the election commission ties some bowling balls to the ceiling and let's them fly at the candidates heads to make sure that they look the American people in the face when they speak. My bet is that McCain ends up with a head trauma within the first 90 seconds of the debate. Perhaps it will also knock some sense into the man.

I was also talking with a 23 year old guy who I was working with today to register union members to vote in this important election. This was his first time volunteering for these critical efforts where labor union members contact fellow union members about political campaigns. He made an interesting point about the debate.

McCain said last night that he would freeze spending on everything except defense and veterans affairs. This means that he would cut money for education. This means that schools may not have enough money to bus students to and from school anymore given the higher gas prices. People would have to spend more money to get their kids to school, so, in a sense, this is either a tax increase on working people or a user fee.

McCain would freeze spending on the Department of Health, so, if you have a loved one with a disease like cancer, HIV, Alzheimer's or other terrible diseases where the Department of Health is investing money to find a cure, it will be less likely that a cure is found.

McCain would take all that money to continue funding the chase after nobody in Iraq instead of going after the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan as Obama pointed out. What really makes no sense is that McCain said that he and Joe Lieberman supported the 911 commission findings and put them into law. I can tell you for a fact that this is not true. The 911 commission recommended that commercial airline crews receive security training and they are not receiving the type of training the 911 commission suggested.

The debate showed us that McCain is running the nastiest and ugliest campaign since Bush. Figures, he uses most of the same people Bush did. In Obama's effort to take the high road, he missed an opportunity to confront McCain on his dirty campaign tactics.

I would have liked to have seen Obama ask John McCain why his campaign and the Republican party is going to contest the vote of every person in Michigan who has had their home foreclosed, has received a foreclosure letter from the bank or is in the process of foreclosure. Talk about kicking a Michigander while he or she is down. You lost your house and your vote buddy. Here's a story on this ugly matter. I assume that McCain is doing the same thing in Louisiana and Mississippi regarding Katrina refugees.

I would also liked to have seen Obama confront McCain on the issue that the McCain campaign is sending false absentee ballots to people who have voted early encouraging them to vote again. This is illegal and will result in those votes being tossed out.

The next debate should be even more interesting as many feel Obama does understand what he needs to do to convince Americans that he will lead the country in the right direction. Stay tuned.

Stupid S*%# from Planet McBush pt. 6

2008-09-25T23:07:00.001-05:00

It’s been a while since this series has appeared since the amount of crap coming from the Republicans has the force of a fire hose. This installment will have several quick hits. Enjoy!

The National Enquirer continues its election coverage.

The big news of the week: operation photo-op.

The McCain campaign is keeping the shroud of secrecy around Gov. Palin.

CNN’s Campbell Brown threw in her two cents regarding the protective safety net around Palin.

McCain was caught in a lie yet again regarding his thirteen cars.

The McCain campaign was busted about not having any lobbyists on board. It turns out Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, was getting $15,000 a month for lobbying for Freddie Mac up until they had to be bailed out by John and Jane taxpayer.

More news on “Troopergate”.

The pile keeps getting higher so more will follow.

Phone Bank is Rolling!

2008-09-23T11:37:00.001-05:00

All systems are go!

The UAW local 602 phone banks are rolling! Finally, we have started our push to contact all UAW members of region 1-C. the hours are from 9 a.m. to between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. depending on the numbers that are here. Friday the phone bank will likely close a little earlier (6’ish).

The public is welcome and you can get a hold of the phone bank at (517)484-1156. The address of UAW local 602 is 2510 W. Michigan Ave. Lansing, MI. 48917. PLEASE stop by and help if you can.