Earlier this week autoworkers went to the office of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) to speak with him about the auto rescue package. (Big ups to Union Girl for the find.) Shelby wasn’t in the office, so the group of autoworkers instead met with Bill Duhnke and Mark Oesterle of the Republican staff on the Banking Committee.
Watch this video of a UAW worker and employee of American Axle speak the truth straight to the GOP banking staff.
None of the accounts I could find identified the worker but I have an inquiry into the video’s original producer I’m told by Public D that the person speaking in this video is UAW Local 235 President Bill Alford, who led the strike at American Axle (see below). But the autoworker does a great job telling Shelby’s staff exactly why we need the auto rescue package: a pending "massive failure of government."
The autoworker immediately shatters the $73/hour lie, saying he makes a little more than half that, with benefits – all to pay for a car, house, children, and $300 a week in groceries. What he doesn’t note is that his combined salary and benefits ($47/hour) is the exact same as Toyota workers, some of whom work in Senator Shelby’s state. And yet Shelby complains about autoworker pay anyway.
Of note: the worker speaking is an employee of American Axle, a "tier 1" supply company for GM in Detroit. Workers at American Axle were on strike for 88 days earlier this year to protest an unacceptable contract proposed by management. As Union Girl notes, it’s pretty incredible the staff dealing with the auto bailout had never heard of the strike that ended up shutting down 32 GM factories just several months ago.
The autoworker speaks from his experience on that strike, making just $200 a week from the union strike fund. He watched coworkers lose cars and homes and watch families go hungry during the strike so that other workers could feed their families in the future.
He predicts that if the auto rescue package is not passed, the next bailout proposal will be for mortgages lost by jobless autoworkers, and then for bailouts of all the other industries potentially affected by a shutdown of the American auto industry.
If that’s the case, says the autoworker…
It will be a massive failure of government. And who will be in charge will be the people sitting on the other side of this table when this happens. And that’s who I will be blame.
Disclosure: I work for a union but this post is neither known of nor approved by my employer and is the product of only myself.
8 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About The Seminal
Advanced search
Michael, thank you very much.
digg
thanks boo. this is such an important story to tell.
As I have said before, strikes turn nasty very fast, if Shelby, Sessions. Corker, et al shut down GM and Chrysler it is just like a strike and when you take away the peoples right to earn a living and feed their children, get ready for some really nasty stuff. I am thinking that the foreign cars will not sell so well next year, we are finally going to see some protectionism and maybe a more level playing field.
That’s part of the problem as well. The foreign automakers aren’t doing any better in this economy than Detroit, and if Detroit goes down, all the suppliers do too since Detroit makes up about 80% of their business. Shuttering Detroit will in effect shutter Toyota, Honda, and most of the rest of them as well.
This speaks to how little these idiots (Corker et al) know about the actual size and impact of the auto industry. Toyota and Honda have already received bail-outs in Europe and in Japan – and their relative small size (compared to Detroit) is the only thing that is helping them in some respects here. Plus all the subsidies they have received from the wonderful tax-guzzling states they are located in.
Got news though – GM announced 21 plant shut-downs and over half of them are in these same southern states. Hahahahahaha!
Thanks for linking to the piece. I found the video through DKos, and while I watched it, I just was so outraged by the ignorance of these staffers.
I mean, seriously, how do you miss an 11 week strike that crippled GM, that GM had to step into and negotiate with Dick Dauch just to get him to do anything right? And I have to ask again, why are these people, who know clearly nothing about the industry, the concessions made by folks at American Axle (GM and Chyrsler) and even offer up anything to the conversation? And no one is calling them on their blatant ignorance.
I just don’t get how anyone talking to autoworkers (and thanks for the info on Bill alford, he rocked) about a bridge loan to the auto industry couldn’t have, didn’t or wouldn’t have known about the 11 week strike at American Axle (88 days is closer to 12 weeks, but I think the extra days are due to the time between reaching an agreement and actually getting back on the job).
I wonder how the folks in Van Wert Ohio who were locked out of Kongsberg Automotive have been viewing all of this. They’ve been locked out since April 1. Scabs are shipped in to take their Steelworker jobs, while Kongsberg (a Norwegian company) has been moving their operations out of Sweden and Norway and into Poland (for Tax advantages) and during this lock out, have announced plans to move operations of some of their plants into Brazil. Do you think those Republican staffers know a damn thing about this company and the impact it’s had on Van Wert Ohio?
Morons, they’re utter morons.
Isn’t this an example of the results of people voting against their best interests?
I think that if there are Senators with US manufacturing units in their States that continue to block this…then the Unions should call for the units in those States to shut down PREFERENTIALLY…and also call on a boycott of foreign vehicles, particularly those manufactured in States like Tennessee and Kentucky. This is war!