For those of you still following what is going on with the Big Three, be it in the States or in Canada, here is a very interesting post by a fellow WordPress blogger that is showing parts of both sides of the story. Take a look, and do let us know what you think.
Indecent Proposal: A $1 Salary and some Good Old-Fashioned Union Busting
The big three automakers have been telling a rather convoluted sob story for the past few weeks, spending an unknown amount of money on a campaign to convince the people and policymakers of the U.S. that they desperately need money or they will collapse, bringing down the economy and creating a ripple effect destroying the livelihood of countless people. Now that the UAW and Republicans in Congress have successfully broken the deal, perhaps their money would have been better spent elsewhere.
At the same time, they’ve been trying to convince their shareholders that they will bounce back, with or without the federal bailout, and that they’re going to return to profitability and that they are a sound investment.
Note that GM CEO Rick Wagoner says he’s looking forward to reading all comments to this YouTube video. Comments, however, are disabled.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally said that Ford did not currently have a liquidity crisis, and that even without the bailout they will be able to survive the economic crisis and bounce back. So what are you doing in Washington? Why aren’t you working on your financial strategy? Why are you trying to get emergency federal funding designed for industries with liquidity issues when you don’t have an immediate liquidity problem? Why don’t you try to solve your own financial problems and come ask for bailouts only when it’s absolutely necessary?
These CEOs were in Washington because the handouts are happening now, and they don’t want to miss out on the action. There is no way to justify this behavior, and if your representative in Congress’s response was anything other than “get out of my office”, you should be sending them an angry letter and you should start organizing on a local level right now to replace them with a third party candidate in the next election.
It shouldn’t be that hard, nobody votes in midterms anyway.
When things started looking bad for the big three giveaway, and a few representatives in Congress showed the surprising insubordination of asking why they came in private jets, Mulally came up with the idea of accepting a $1 salary for a year of work. What was the point of this? Are we supposed to think you’re some kind of humble, hard-working man, so dedicated to your company that you’d make such a sacrifice as to work for $1 for one year? How stupid do you really think the American people are? I mean, I know we’ve made some bad decisions in the past and we have been rather complacent and perhaps even complicent at times as the corporations have taken over the government and begun to systematically dismantle any protection of workers’ rights, but this is one you’re not going to get away with. This is completely outrageous.
Read the rest of the article and watch the videos here.