The Auto industry is so important to the North American economy that governments in Canada and the US are willing to invest billions of tax-payers dollars to save the struggling auto companies.
Each auto job has seven and a half related jobs tied to it in the economy. Each auto job distributes wealth into the communities that auto-workers live in. Every auto job greatly adds to the tax base of each country and is essential to the financial well being of the communities that auto-workers live and work in.
Matter of fact it is the belief of experts and economists that if the auto companies fail, with their attendant job loss, it would deepen an already dangerous recession.
This is the sole reason why a right-wing government like the Conservatives in Canada is even willing to consider a loan or a bailout. In the US the newly elected Democratic President Barack Obama has come out in support of saving auto jobs.
Conversely it is the two political parties who are the mouthpieces of the moneyed class in both countries, the defeated Republicans(rightwing) and Canadas ruling Conservatives(rightwing) who advocate that in order to recieve financial assistance from government, autoworkers ought to take concessions.
Republicans have gone one step further in advocating the autoworkers make the same amount of money as workers in Japanese auto companies located in the deep south of the US.
This is such a ludicrous argument that it deserves an article all its own, but its effect is to place both the CAW and the UAW in the unenviable position of being forced to negotiate concessions. The Unions have no choice. Either bargain concessions or the corporate media will blame the demise of the companies on the Unions.
Obviously these two rightwing parties have it wrong. What they are advocating and have always advocated is that profits be the sole domain of the private sector
(privatized).
Why this is so ludicrous is because ordinary autoworkers themselves did not cause the loss of market share in the domestic market. Through the years autoworkers have been downsized, rightsized,leaned and meaned and even kaizened and still the industry lost market share. Autoworkers have made concessions over the years, in ways the general auto-buying public is not even aware of, yet more is being demanded. With so many jobs lost through the use of technology, autoworkers have seen their jobs get busier, production lines speeded up, such demands placed on them that there is an attrition rate that is not generally talked about. Not everyone can be an autoworker. The injury rate probably deserves attention. It takes a lot to be tied to the line and the only reward is a somewhat more generous compensation package than the average.
It is solely the decisions of AutoExecutives and major shareholders who caused this turn of events.
Robbing autoworkers of their hard earned wages and benefits will not solve any problems, because it leaves in place the very same bad management who contributed to the loss of markets share...Yes, yes...the same ones who arrived in Washington in private jets to lobby Congress for bailouts!!
Nor will autoworker concessions help with the banking sector, which is the culprit for the financial meltdown globally.
No-one can argue that these are unprecedented times, which calls for unprecedented solutions.
The old rightwing mantra of "Let the markets decide" needs to be discarded, because when the markets decided to get greedy and melted down, corporations and banks turned to governments for help.
Heres what both the Canadian and US governments need to do. Use the billions of taxpayer dollars to take control of the auto corporations, run them the way profitable Crown Corporations such as the LCBO are run and nationalize the profits.
This gives bang for the bailout/bridge loans/loan guarantee bucks.
The new Crown Corporations can produce models the citizens want, that meet national environmental standards. It would be a source of national pride to buy and drive domestic products, because consumers would see the benefits of having profits stay in each country. It could become a newer, updated model of an Auto-Pact!!
We can bring Brother Buzz Hargrove out of retirement to negotiate for Canada.
Modify the Republicans' advice and get rid of the top Executives of all three auto companies, with their billions in bonuses for running those companies into the ground and replace them with Japanese and other successful auto companys management. The North American Execs should be made to return all bonuses, because who in their right minds gives bonuses for failure?
Executive compensation would be the same as the Japanese and other auto companies give their executives.
Injecting diversity into the corporate class will make Canada and the US major global players, because the auto companies have holdings and partnerships globally.
As for the major shareholders, well they took a chance on the stock market and if their handpicked executives made those shares worthless thats not and should not become the taxpayers' problem. The only people who should be the taxpayers problems are those whose pension funds were invested in the stock market, but this can be easily resolved with both countries providing a national pension plan for all citizens with some of the newly nationalized profits of the vitally important auto industry.
Remember, the moneyed class wanted profits to remain privatized. Why then should their losses become nationalized?
What can we do?
We can activate our UPC committees and activists, lobby Parliamentarians here and Congress people in the US to privatize losses and nationalize profits, through the new Auto-Pact.
With retirees re-entering the workforce in the US, because their 401K, stock market driven, retirement savings plans having lost value, to work in McJobs for minimum wage, the idea of a national pension plan will have traction.
Everybody wins in this scenario.
Citizens from both countries (Retirees included) will enjoy the social benefits of having their tax dollars making profits for them.
Newly unemployed auto-execs win because now they'll have time to enjoy the massive compensation they awarded to themselves in the days of yore.
Even auto critics win, because now people like Dennis Desrosiers will have an existing and vibrant, profitable auto industry to continue whining about.
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