Dec. 24, 2008 (www.mountainsentinel.com) -- After much bickering and sensational threats, the
auto industry got their bailout. Of course this bailout is limited in scope and
there is still a chance the big three might fold. But for now the auto execs
can go on with business as usual, while promising to pare down union pay and
benefits until they match nonunion pay. And the UAW is actually going along
with this. The auto workers deserve a real union.
The auto unions should be fighting hard to unionize nonunion
plants in the United States
and around the world. If Barack Obama would stand behind his word to support
strong unions, he would fight the Republicans in Congress to help make this
happen. But he will not, and the unions will timidly accept the cuts for the
greater good of keeping the auto industries open and keeping their workers
employed.
This signals the death knell of the working middle class.
Nor will it help to solve the problems of the auto industry or the economy in
general. The auto execs will go on with business as usual, even though it was
business as usual that brought them to this point. What do they care, so long
as their ivory towers remain unassailable a little while longer? Meanwhile, it
is the hardworking employees who will suffer, along with the rest of us.
It doesn't have to be this way. We could have an auto
bailout that would build healthy transportation companies, support the working
middle class, boost the economy and help this country to prepare for the end of
the oil age. The solution is really quite simple.
First, instead of cutting worker pay and benefits, we should
be targeting the fat leeches at the top. The auto execs are the ones
responsible for this mess, through their lack of foresight and their inability
to comprehend what is going on. They are the ones who should pay for their
mistakes. Get rid of the auto execs and make the big three employee-owned-and-operated.
I am not suggesting that we allow the UAW to run the big
three. Far from it, in this scenario the UAW would get the boot along with the
auto execs. They are, after all, kissing cousins.
I won't try to explain how to transform the big three in
this short essay. There are many good models for worker owned and operated
businesses. It would not be too difficult to ramp these up to the scale of the
auto industry. And it is a good bet that with the workers in control, the
industry would focus on vehicles that are economical to operate, cost less to
purchase, and can be worked on by the average person with a minimum amount of
tools.
But the future of the auto industry does not lie in
individual automobiles. No matter how much they try to promote hybrids, electric
cars, or various other alternatives, it is time to realize the car culture is
doomed. Many of the problems we now face are epitomized by the auto industry
and the one car per person mentality.
Our auto culture is the height of conspicuous consumption.
It results in the rapid exhaustion of resources, sprawling junkyards, global climate
change, pollution, environmental destruction, and it promotes social inequality
and consume r d ebt. In the end, it will leave
us totally unprepared for the approaching end of the oil age.
Because it is so desperately important for us to change
direction now, we should not give these loans to the auto industry simply to
allow them to go on with business as usual. As the industry is reorganized to
be worker operated, it should be given the task of rebuilding the mass transit
systems it helped to tear down. The bailout
should be made as a payment for building a new mass transit infrastructure that
will serve us well as oil production goes into decline.
Here is the plan that would take the auto industry and the United
States into the future. I challenge Barack
Obama to make this initiative.
And we can take this a step further. The housing industry -- indeed
the entire construction industry -- is on the ropes. Yet the Bush administration
is focused only on bailing out the sharks who fed on this bloated carcass.
Currently, our communities are built for a car culture. They
are sprawled out all over the place, making it difficult to get around unless
you have a car. To make mass transportation viable, our communities need to be
redesigned so that people live within walking distance of their immediate
needs.
Instead of paying out $700 billion of taxpayer money (plus
all the previous bailouts and Federal Reserve payoffs) to financial sharks, we
should be using this money to restructure our communities. That would boost the
construction industry and provide jobs.
And perhaps then our children wouldn't have to join the
military as the only option to working at a fast food joint or a Wal-mart.
If Obama wants to help this country, then he must consider a
plan such as this. Otherwise, if he wants to show support for unions, then he
better think about unionizing the military, because that will soon be the
largest employer in the country, at the rate we are going.
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