Fire the real culprit in the Detroit debacle, the UAW

President Barack Obama’s ousting of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner raises an important question: Why pick on Wagoner and not Ron Gettelfinger? Gettelfinger is the president of UAW, the powerful union that presided over the downfall of the Big Three.

The reason for GM’s failure is no mystery. But here’s a clue anyway: It’s not uncommon for a UAW contract to exceed a thousand pages...

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Taxpayers may bail out fat UAW benefits

Bankruptcy is normally capitalism's most effective engine of creative destruction, a necessary cleansing mechanism to free up capital and labor for more productive application. But with Obama administration intervention to package a Chapter 11 filing for Chrysler (and maybe GM soon enough), money from taxpayers who enjoy nothing comparable to the lifetime health care benefits, layoff protection, and retirement pay of the UAW, will be funneled to the UAW's labor aristocrats.

It is precisely these lavish benefits which drove the American Big Three into the corner they find themselves in. Simple justice requires that they reap the whirlwind their never-ending demands generated. Asking people who pay for their own health care and must fund their own retirements to bailout people who enjoyed superior income and benefits is morally wrong, and will continue to hamstring the companies.

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UAW Said to Get 55% Chrysler Ownership, Board Seats

The United Auto Workers union’s retiree health-care fund will own 55 percent of Chrysler LLC in exchange for cutting in half the automaker’s $10.6 billion cash obligation to the trust, people familiar with the matter said.

Under the terms of the contract, the trust would get representation on the company’s board of directors, said two people briefed on the deal, who asked not to be named because the matter is 'private'...

[The UAW was the no. 1 reason the company couldn't compete - and now it wins. And tell me again how Ford, struggling to fix itself without taxpayer money, is now supposed to compete with a government backed competitor?]

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image toon - mny sclm auto = Pit boss Oby = turn left...