Autoplant employees epitomize the American working class. Why don't conservatives want to bail them out?

Cherry

When has a conservative care about anyone other then themselves for the pasted 25 years.

Coke

It has nothing to do about the wage rate or the work done but all about the dealings of company and union in expecting future earnings of both to pay for what they promised to give retired workers or to maintain the present standard of living each figured would go on forever.

The auto workers and a company made contracts to protect their workers and their company. Like any business this is a contract between the people involved not everyone else in the Nation.
If the business fails or becomes bankrupt, it is up to the courts to remedy everything involved .
What has happened in this case is the company and Union have not only given benefits to the workers but also to the families of former , retired, and others for life.
The benefits were to be paid from wages not taken as cash but deferred into non taxable programs. What happened is what is considered a ponzi scheme where the payments were used for other things with future workers and profits expected to always cover the costs of benefits. As the labor force shrunk and profits dropped the Health and Welfare funds of the union and company ran short, and now the taxpayer or customer is expected to make up for poor management and greed.

Been There

It's about true economics and free market principles. For some reason people seem to have a hard time understanding that it isn't "government's" money, it's our money. To use taxpayer money to bail out a failing industry that has been led into the toilet is to make an investment in a company whose products the taxpayers aren't willing to buy. That's like me forcibly taking money out of your wallet and giving it to a bum on the street in hopes that he'll get a job someday and pay you back.

Conservatives aren't minimizing the impact that the failure of this industry will have on workers in America for the short term, but artificially propping up GM and Chrysler will not save them either. The companies need to go bankrupt. Don't be sold the lie that is being told to you that bankruptcy means disintegration. These companies have some viable products that are of value to investors, and other companies will want to buy those rights. GM and Chrysler won't go away, they will get bought up, in pieces or in whole, by people like Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Fiat, Daimler, and others. For the president to come out and tell Chrysler to make a deal with Fiat right now, regardless of the terms, is to tell Fiat to wait a couple weeks and you can buy Chrysler in whole at discount prices. Keep in mind the cost of a startup in this industry, those facilities and that workforce have incredible value to automakers looking to expand into US markets or increase production for export to other nations.

Government intervention and legislative puppetry of this industry is a large part of what led it here. I did some research at Delphi in Ohio before they shut down a couple chassis plants in 2006. What I saw was two men doing the exact same job across the line from each other, one making $18/hour and the other making $42/hour. Do you think this salary structure exists because that particular function is worth $85,000 a year? No, it was a spot welding station that is worth $35 - 40,000 a year. As a result of government supported union bartering agreements, the tenure of a spot welder determined their pay, not the value of the task. This flies in the face of economic theory.

Union contracts aren't the only issue here, these companies have suffered from ostrich-style planning (head in the sand) and myopic market positioning for decades. Why is it that liberals are so quick to support evolution and Darwinianism for nature, but not for business? In the wild the American auto industry would be the wounded zebra at the back of the pack who gets eaten by the lions. GM and Chrysler need to fail so that something better can be built from their ashes. The endless taxpayer investment in those companies will only cost us money we'll never get back.

piegowdealer

Because conservatives love corporations and hate people.
Corporations hate losing just the tiniest portion of their power to labor.

They would rather suffer a long lingering depression than see their enemies survive.

Actually they would rather pay higher taxes than to see another 65,000,000 unionized workers through the passage of the employees right to privacy bill.

J P

Auto workers make more than their labor is worth in the market. I'm sure they're nice people, but the sad truth is that US auto makers will never be able to be competitive in a market where other people can produce better cars at a lower price. You can stand around and call them the salt of the earth all day long and it won't change those facts.

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