Connor Coyne

Save Auto Jobs: ‘Mathematically and intellectually dishonest’.

Anecdotal Conclusions:
Obviously my family didn’t enjoy this sort of income growing up; we were always comfortable and the fair income did provide me with some opportunities that nonunion employees wouldn’t have had, such as music and theater lessons and the opportunity to attend a prestigious (and expensive) private college.
1) $30-40/hour (benefits and pension included) is a very decent wage, but it isn’t the $70/hour legacy burden that is so often shoved off on autoworkers.
2) An observation that is (finally) being made is that legacy costs are more than a drop in the bucket, but are an incidental concern when the Big Three aren’t making vehicles that people want to buy.
3) New workers aren’t making these wages; their wages are in line with foreign competitors. This is, in fact, more of a liability for the UAW than it may sound on the surface, since pay tiers by date-of-hire impose a wage wedge that can push unions apart. Many corporations have exploited situations like this to sow discord in unions.
4) God Forbid blue-collar workers would earn as much as their betied brethren!

Detroit Free Press: Senate Seat for Sale.

Some quotes:

“They’ve been throwing taxpayer dollars at Toyota for years in Alabama and no one raises a stink about that” Hayes said. In fact, as Olbermann noted, Alabama alone has given more in tax subsides per job to foreign automakers than Detroit was asking for in the bailout plan to save jobs at American companies.

The Big Three haven’t been competing against Toyota and Honda and Nissan; they’ve been competing against Japan. Unlike America, that nation actually has an industrial policy. While our government talked about the virtues of free trade, the Japanese government worked hand in glove with their automakers to help make them the world leaders.

Japan is aggressively trying to do with autos what they did with consumer electronics – undercut American manufacturers, drive them out of business and capture the American market. Japan heavily subsidizes their automakers, they fund their research, they manipulate their currency, and they erect trade barriers that make it virtually impossible for American automakers to export to their country. Think the fact that Pacific Rim nations buy up 80-percent of our government debt has something to do with keeping our government from enacting policies to level the playing field? The bank that holds your mortgage doesn’t dance to your tune, you dance to the tune of the bank that holds your mortgage.

I don’t care what you’re manufacturing or if your CEO is Albert Einstein, if you are competing against a country that actually has universal health care, while you’re forced to add $1,200 to $1,500 to the cost to every unit you manufacture to cover your employees’ health care, you’re not going to be competitive. If your country doesn’t rebate the value added tax when you export your product while your competitor’s country does, not only will you be priced out of their market, your foreign competitor’s government subsidy will put them at a tremendous price advantage on your home turf.

Of course, now I’ve quoted almost the entire column.

My dad sent me this, from 17 years ago.

Car Talk, April 1992.

When I push (hard) for a loan to the Big Three, I’m not favoring a blank check; I’ve no desire to repeat the Wall Street bailout. Hopefully the White House attaches strict requirements to any aid it gives.

And this is from Hallie.

New York Times: When the Cars Go Away.

The interesting thing is, deindustrialization effectively shielded cities like Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw from the investment excitement of the eighties and the prosperity of the nineties. I had a stable family life, a healthy material life, and a good education, which was why I could bear witness to all this and then write about it today. Because I do feel that people from my part of the country have been treated to a rare sneak peek of what the rest of the country (or even the First World?) may be experiencing soon:

FLINT, MICHIGAN
COMING SOON TO A CITY NEAR YOU

Salon.com: Senate GOP to the UAW: Drop Dead.

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“Somewhere, someone must know the ending?”