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which is nothing new with this group of creeps.
The GOP is using the UAW as their excuse for derailing the auto manufacturer bailout. the UAW wouldn't take a pay-cut down to the level that workers make at Toyota and others. The fact is that Toyota and the rest of the foreign workers should be making what our Big 3 is making. But, that's for another time.
The failed negotiations in the Senate over the Detroit bailout bill provide Americans with a preview of the political class warfare that will break out in the next Congress. The attempt by the Senate to pass a Bush White House-Democratic bill failed. It was scuttled by a group of conservative Republican Senators led by Tennessee's Bob Corker. They pushed to revise the bailout in a deal-breaking way that would allow them to blame unionized auto workers for its demise.
Corker's group framed the issue as one of protecting taxpayers from greedy, overpaid, unionized workers who had contributed to the American auto industry's demise. By so doing it sought to harness American outrage over bailouts to an anti-union political agenda. Both efforts were highly cynical and hypocritical examples of the politics of class warfare at its worst.
Corker entered the negotiations by demanding that the automakers reduce the wages and benefits of unionized workers to the level of Honda and Toyota's American factory workers. By imposing a demand on the union that was not required for any of the other parties--lenders, suppliers, dealers, or executives--Corker and his group were able to set up the auto workers union, the UAW, so that it would take the heat from the public if the bailout failed, or so that it would be weakened internally if it made the demanded wage concession.
It would seem that this tactic has worked for them so far. Most Americans are buying into the " it's the unions fault " story from the Republicans. What a shame that we have to go through this sorry affair in the first place.
