The Daily Finance had an interesting article today regarding the UAW’s new King (as in Bob King) and his “mission”…
Bob King has an image problem on his hands. Not his own, but that of the union he now leads. Elected president of the United Auto Workers union on June 16, King must reintroduce the union to the American public, the majority of whom have an outdated perception of unionized labor.
The public’s lack of understanding is largely the fault of the UAW, which has done very little to help consumers understand the union, says Dave Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. “The UAW is not loved by the general public, because they don’t know them,” Cole says. “Consequently, the UAW is really being defined by people outside the organization in many cases” — and frequently unfavorably.
The problem for both King (and, apparently, this writer) is the fact that the UAW’s image problem is almost entirely of its own making. The majority of the American public does not have an “outdated perception” of the UAW or unions. And, for the “expert” in the article to suggest that ‘to know the UAW would be to love the UAW’ is beyond absurd. You can know gangrene, but you don’t need to like it…and you certainly wouldn’t love it.
The American public sees the UAW as a leech who just sucked about $100 billion off the American taxpayer to fund auto companies that the UAW was wholly complicit in helping to bring down; and unions, in general, have garnered the perception due to their thug-like tactics and their propensity for socialism.
No. The American public’s perception is not the problem, today’s unions are.
As the saying goes: You can put icing on a turd and call it a cupcake, but it’s still a turd. [No amount of PR is going to change that.]
__________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.
