In today’s Amerika, it seems that our national policy is fast becoming one that rewards failure with the fruits of others’ labor while demonizing business and punishing producers with the guilt of their success. That is what the electorate has chosen and that is what our nation is receiving. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?
The clearest example of this phenomena is what has recently transpired and is still unfolding in Detroit.
Over the past 70 years, the American car industry has been held hostage by a labor union—the United Auto Workers (aka the Union of Ailing Workplaces). Throughout its history, to advance their vision of a workers’ paradise, the UAW successfully extorted ever higher wages and benefits, as well as restrictive work rules from the Big Three to the point of strangling the car companies into near-oblivion.
Tales abound of UAW bosses abusing time clocks, of laid-off UAW members getting paid 95% of their salaries to sit on their collective arses, of retirees promised a lifetime’s worth of pensions and free health care, of workers clamoring for their entitlement to the profits of their respective companies which, if they did not receive, would be extorted by further UAW strikes.
In years past, prior to every contract renewal, the UAW bosses would march forward in their black satin jackets before the media and declare which of the Big Three it would take down first. The UAW’s pattern-barganing strategy was simple: We shall make an example of one and, like obedient serfs, the others will fall into line.
To be sure, the UAW was not alone in its complicity as the Big Three “bosses” would all too often cave in to the UAW’s demands at the bargaining table in fear that they would lose more money if the UAW struck than the union give-aways would cost. However, it is at the UAW’s feet that the demise of Detroit lies.
It was labor extortion at its finest—the house guests cleaning out the host’s refrigerator, pantry, and plate, in addtion to the savings and checking accounts.
The UAW’s plan seemed to work well for decades, except that no one was bothering to check the balance of the bank accounts for the eventuality that the American car industry’s accounts would be overdrawn.
The UAW’s plan of mutually assured destruction (M.A.D. for short) worked well for a generation. The UAW demanded and the Big Three caved to the union’s demands.
However, to everyone else but the Morons in Michigan, one thing was seemingly certain: There would come a time when UAW’s M.A.D. strategy would cause the ruination of both, the Big Three and the UAW.
That beginning of the Big Three’s ruination began in the 1980s, when the UAW was still reveling in its M.A.D. strategy and the reality of competition rolled onto America’s shores. As soon as the UAW and the Big Three faced foreign competition from car companies like Honda, Toyota and Datsun (now Nissan), companies that were unhampered by the UAW’s extortionate tactics, the party was over, the UAW and the Big Three’s fates were sealed.
Even recently, in the face of competition, the seemingly still-oblivious UAW (which has lost two-thirds of its members over the last three decades) insisted that its M.A.D. strategy would work—if only it could unionize the foreign automakers.
Unfortunately for the UAW, however, the workers at the foreign automakers apparently do not feel like being the cannon fodder to UAW’s destruction and, to date, have rejected the Union of Ailing Workplaces.
Last year, as oil prices rose and the consequences of the UAW’s failed extortionate strategy could no longer be ignored, two of the UAW’s Big Three victims were forced to accept taxpayer dollars in order to survive.
For its part, the UAW quietly transformed itself from parasite to power broker, seeking help from the UAW-backed and newly-elected President of the United States.
Last week, in a five-year plan that would make Josef Stalin proud, the UAW’s $5 million worth of political largesse prevailed when President Obama rewarded the Union of Ailing Workplaces with 55% of Chrysler’s stock and a yet-to-be-finalized 39% of General Motors’ stock. This government-imposed “deal” came at the expense of Chrysler’s bondholders, many of whom were bullied into accepting pennies on the dollars owed to them.
In fact, according to press reports, the UAW’s Protector-in-Chief allegedly went so far as to have his administration threaten one creditor with “the full force of the White House Press Corps [that]would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.” [No word on whether the media agreed to being used as an enforcer for the federal government, or not.]
So, after all these decades of slowly bleeding the Big Three auto makers to death, all it took was the political purchase of a union-friendly and popular politburo in order to make the UAW’s utopian vision of Twentieth Century Motor Company come to life at taxpayer expense.
“Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six – for your neighbor’s supper – for his wife’s operation – for his child’s measles – for his mother’s wheel chair – for his uncle’s shirt – for his nephew’s schooling – for the baby next door – for the baby to be born – for anyone anywhere around you – it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures – and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need …”
Yet, even before the epilogue to this sad tale has been written, the UAW announced that it would be selling its stock in Krysler to use the proceeds to continue funding its utopian vision.
And, what if no one wants to buy? Perhaps the UAW’s Protector-in-Chief will do more arm twisting. Or, perhaps, Amerika’s taxpayers will end up owning all of the Amerikan auto industry.
After all, as Newsweek recently declared: We are all socialists now.
