Marines driven out of UAW lot

The union says Marines in foreign cars, displaying Bush stickers unwelcome.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/13/C01-115531.htm
By Eric Mayne / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers says Marine reservists should show a little more semper fi if they want to use the union's parking lot.

The Marine Corps motto means "always faithful," but the union says some reservists working out of a base on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit have been decidedly unfaithful to their fellow Americans by driving import cars and trucks.

So the UAW International will no longer allow members of the 1st Battalion 24th Marines to park at Solidarity House if they are driving foreign cars or displaying pro-President Bush bumper stickers

"While reservists certainly have the right to drive nonunion made vehicles and display bumper stickers touting the most anti-worker, anti-union president since the 1920s, that doesn't mean they have the right to park in a lot owned by the members of the UAW," the union said in a statement released Friday.

Shocked and disappointed, the Marines are pulling out.

"You either support the Marines or you don't," said Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge, commanding officer of the battalion's active duty instructors. "I'm telling my Marines that they're no longer parking there."

At a time when U.S. armed forces are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, quibbling over parking privileges is "silly," Rutledge said.

The UAW has a long history of barring foreign-made cars from its parking lots. The subject is touchier than ever as Detroit's Big Three loses market share, driving down union membership.

The pro-Bush bumper stickers are another sore spot after last year's election.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger opposed President Bush, accusing him of ignoring calls for labor law reform and failing to combat unfair business practices in China -- a growing threat to U.S. manufacturers.

The dispute arises as the UAW, using laid-off workers for labor, is building a $300,000 home for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The home in Eaton Rapids will operate a residential program for children of veterans who don't have parents, or whose parents can't care for them.

"We do not think it is unreasonable to expect our guests to practice the simple principle of not insulting their host," the UAW statement said.

Rutledge is unmoved.

"I don't see it as a snub against them," he said, adding no conditions were set when the union first began allowing the Marines to park in the lot several years ago. "We're appreciative of what they've done, but you don't come into my office and say, 'OK, we're not going to support some of your Marines.' I don't know what a foreign car is today anyway. BMWs are made in South Carolina now."

Sent to the UAW:

Hello,
I am a fellow union brother with the AFL-CIO (National Association of Letter Carriers).

I am writing this letter to you because this is one of the only UAW e-mails I could find in a Google search.

What your organization is doing to the Marines is a disgrace. See:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/13/C01-115531.htm

As you are certainly aware of, union membership and influence is waning. Though the union universe is united in their dislike of Bush etc., it is a minority view. By picking a fight with the UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS, people who are fighting tooth and nail in Iraq for your freedoms, the UAW risks further tainting to the greater majority of Americans the legitimacy and mission of U.S. labor unions.

Furthermore, in this global economy, it is absurd to boycott certain people for purchasing certain products. It would be virtually impossible to discern where all of our products are coming from. All of your union members have clothes from China and electronics from Japan, for example.

I believe the UAW's foreign auto restriction is an end-around to get back at the Marines for their overwhelming support of Bush, and this policy is a disgrace to the UAW and an affront to Marines.

Tom Wakefield
Owner
MilitarySpot.com
PostalMag.com

NALC Branch 132 Dallas, TX

I read about this at the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” Friday.

So some union boss who made $200K last year is going to begrudge a reservist Lance Corporal for buying a Toyota Corolla and voting for President Bush? That’s sure to sit well with the rank and file.

Toyotas are better than American cars, they want us to buy Fords or Chevy’s, they should start earning their money. They’re not losing market share because of some misplaced loyalty on the part of the American citizen, they make inferior products, period. Make a better car and we’ll buy it.

The Democrats are anti-military and anti-national defense; that’s why they lost.

The Republicans are anti-union (thank God!).

Okay everybody, pick sides.

I’m going with the Marines and national defense.

I’d love to dive into the history of unionized labor and show their dirty underbelly but it would take to long and rub up against personal politics too much.

Bottom line is this; forget personal prejudices and politics and all of that. Organized labor is by definition a form of socialism. The unions in America, up until the first half of the century were connected at the hip with American Communism and socialism in general. (Look up Sidney Hillman and the CIO of today’s AFL/CIO, he created the CIO-PAC which overlapped management with the American Communist Party.)

Labor leaders aren’t necessarily card carrying communists anymore but the same mentality of “us first, the nation second” is still the prevalent state of mind. In light of Getttelfinger’s actions, this is inarguable.

UAW backs down, but Marines snub olive branch
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/15/A01-117640.htm

quote:

UAW backs down, but Marines snub olive branch

Amen.

This topic has been big on Talk Radio. A lot of callers are saying they will never buy an American car again because of the UAW. But what is an American car nowadays? Many "foreign" cars are made in America by Americans, and many "American" cars have foreign parts made in foreign countries. Volvo is owned by Ford for example, I think.

American cars, as much as they can be called that are junk.

The problem is however, American managment, not the worker or anything else. How do I know this?

Mitsubishi made in Mississippi, Toyota trucks in Evansville, IN, BMW in S.Carolina, Volvo is owned by Ford, Saab by GM, Chrysler's actually owned by DaimlerBenz(Mercedes) and so on.

And German and Japanese cars are still better, much better.

Sorry assed bastards

quote:

Originally posted by Airwinger:
American cars, as much as they can be called that are junk.

The problem is however, American managment, not the worker or anything else.

Isn't American management mostly Republicans?

I've made wheels at Kelsey-Hayes, trunks and hoods at Chrysler, Chassis at Ford, and drove a forklift at GM. Anybody who says you don't need a union has never worked in one of those plants where management considers production more important than the safety and welfare of the worker.

Foriegn auto-makers settled in the south because they knew the south was anti-union (right to work) and that by giving the worker a little they could gain a lot.

BTW the UAW has never allowed anybody to park a foriegn badge in their parking lot. It was stupid of them not to give the Marines a pass, though.

Management is usually politically neutral. They pretty much concerned with running their company and will support whatever local politican will grease their skids for them.

Example; they're all against taxes and zoning restrictions unless it will keep out competition. Then they're in favor of all kinds of taxes and competition crushing legislation.

Buying into the hyperbole that republicans are rich, cigar chomping blue bloods that want only to oppress the working man is pretty outdated stuff.

Unions really are a relic of socialism, and in America in particular, the Communist Party of America. It's a reality, not an opinion.

Unions in general are not sustainable in a free economy and they are not and never have been needed. Again, not an opinion but a recognized fact.

It doesn't have so much to do with politics but its just simple economics.

Union labor makes for an inflexible economic environment where the company cannot react quickly enough to the vagaries of a competitive market place. Unions, despite their best efforts, promote seniority over competence, driving the most talented away and diminishing both the quality of the product and the efficiency of everything that is accomplished. They also create extremely high hurdles for people to even enter a heavily unionized industry.

Where unions are strongest, unemployment is higher and the standard of living is lower. Right to work states have lower average pay in a given industry but they have more overall jobs. Couple that with the fact that all but the lowest tiers of the work force (the dullard and the lazy) statistically speaking, always move up the wage ladder over time, and right to work states are providing more people with more jobs and an overall higher standard of living.

Good reads on this in general are Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose" and on the web, one can go to Free The World.com Also, "FDR's Folly" by Jim Powell.

quote:

Foriegn auto-makers settled in the south because they knew the south was anti-union (right to work) and that by giving the worker a little they could gain a lot.

And that is the poignant quote of the week.

Those yokels in the south have jobs; the laid off union members up north do not. Period.

There was a Whirlpool factory in my hometown that made mostly refrigerators. In 1992, in a town of about 150K people, a guy could make $7.50 an hour with full benefits doing nothing but shooting small sheet metal screws into the door handles. Factoring in inflation and the lower cost of living in Evansville, IN, that would be about the equivalent of $12 an hour in a larger city (you could afford a decent apartment and a cheap car and a little beer money).

The union kept pushing for more money for that job but the skill simply wasn't worth it. Fact of economic life. May not seem fair but the world roles on. Long story bearable, that plant now employs maybe a few dozen people, a shadow of its former industrial might.

The unions cost people their jobs in the long run. History bears this out, regardless of one's political opinions or economic education.

“The[Detroit] News received hundreds of e-mails Sunday and Monday about the controversy, the majority criticizing the UAW's decision.

‘I have never belonged to the unions, but I've always bought (domestic) brand cars," Jenny Pulcerm 74, of Harrison Township. ‘Right now, I'm driving a Chrysler. But the next car will definitely not be union-made.’"

Gettlefinger could not have made such a decision if he did not think of himself, the unions, as being on equal footing with the American military in the eyes of America.

Ironically, I learned that Gettlefinger is an ex-Marine reservist. (And yes, I know the proper terms of “ex” and former.)

More on this. . .

“While the strikers back home were holding up production for more money, and those defense workers who weren’t striking were getting double time, the Black Sheep were at 21,000 feet over Rabaul – just happy to be alive.”

“Once They Were Eagles” Frank E. Walton

Walton, the intelligence officer for the famed VMF-214 Black Sheep wrote a short history of their near 3 months of heroism and outstanding accomplishments along with some personal interviews with the survivors. This small paragraph quoted above jumped out at me in light of the UAW spat; it seems the unions have always been selfish and greedy to the detriment of our country.