Censored Whig Letters

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/18/uaw-president-millions-will-be-devastated-unless-congress-passes-bridge-loan/

UAW President: Millions Will Be Devastated Unless Congress Passes Bridge Loan

by Mike Hall, Nov 18, 2008

Testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this afternoon, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger didn’t mince words about the auto industry’s need for Congress to approve a bridge loan. The situation, said Gettelfinger,

is critical. It is a crisis….If the Detroit–based auto companies are forced into liquidation, the consequences would be truly devastating, not only for UAW members, but also for millions of other workers and retirees across this nation, and for the entire economy of the United States.

Gettelfinger and the three top executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler called on the committee and Congress to approve a $25 billion emergency bridge loan to help automakers weather the current credit and economic crisis that has driven car and truck sales to the lowest level in 25 years.

The automakers have been forced to burn through their cash reserves, and news reports say GM could run out of money and be forced to shut down by the end of the year. As General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner told the committee:

Our industry…needs a bridge to span the financial chasm that has opened up before us.…We’ve moved aggressively in recent years to position GM for long-term success. And we were well on the road to turning our North American business around. What exposes us to failure now is the global financial crisis, which has severely restricted credit availability and reduced industry sales to the lowest per-capita level since World War II.

Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said if the automakers are forced into a bankruptcy,

the repercussions would be severe….If a major industry goes down, it could take huge swaths of the nation’s economy with it.

The $25 billion package would be carved out of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout Congress approved in October.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

Our government moved quickly to help Wall Street because of its impact on the entire economy. With the American auto industry teetering on the brink of disaster as a result of the global economic recession, it’s equally critical to help families on Main Street by approving immediate assistance to Chrysler, Ford and GM.

Several Republican members of the committee said the car and truck makers should be left to fall into bankruptcy, and that labor contracts be thrown out and renegotiated with lower wages and benefits.

But as Gettelfinger noted, contracts negotiated in 2005 and 2007 reduced wages for active workers and cut health care benefits for retirees in “unprecedented ways…to help the companies remain competitive.”

Those contracts, said Gettelfinger, mean the

labor cost gap between Detroit-based auto companies and the foreign transplants will be largely or completely eliminated by the end of the current contracts.

At Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher says the more vitriolic attacks on the auto industry recovery and workers’ wages and benefits have nothing to do with economic concerns, but rather with deeply held anti-union beliefs.

All this screaming about bankrupting GM has everything to do with a conservative philosophical imperative that the free market will set all these things right, that unions are bad and they are an affront to free enterprise. It should have been thoroughly discredited by this point, but alas, some continue to cling to it. The problems being suffered by the auto companies right now are nothing more than a shock doctrine opportunity to destroy the UAW to them. They either have not come to terms with the fact that one in every 12 jobs in this country have income that is tied to the Big Three, or they simply don’t care.

The auto industry emergency loan legislation was attached to legislation extending unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for the long-term jobless that passed the House in October. That bill provides seven additional weeks of unemployment insurance for workers who exhaust their benefits, and adds six more weeks for workers in high unemployment states.

The bill also includes $37.8 billion to reduce states’ share of Medicaid costs, as well as $13.5 billion for building and repairing highways, bridges, airports and mass transit, thereby creating 470,000 jobs. In addition, there is funding for more than $3.3 billion in loan guarantees for advanced battery manufacturing and a temporary increase in food stamp benefits.

The Senate is expected to vote tomorrow on the legislation, but a likely Republican filibuster will force a vote that requires a 60-vote majority before final passage. The current Senate has only a slim Democratic majority.

Overcoming the 60-vote filibuster threshold was a major goal of the union movement’s Labor 2008 political mobilization efforts, and working family candidates gained seven seats in the Senate for a 58-vote majority in the next Congress. Two other Senate races remain undecided.

Click here http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autojobs to tell you lawmakers to support the auto industry loan package.

Gettlefinger and the auto executives appear before the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20081109/OPINION03/811080968

By Robert H. Zieger
Special to The Sun

In 1948 when Harry Truman was asked to what he attributed his stunning upset victory over Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, he replied “Labor did it.”

He was referring to the unprecedented commitment of financial and manpower support to his candidacy contributed by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial organizations (CIO), at that time separate national labor bodies.

The endless TV, newspaper, and Internet discussions in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s remarkable victory brought Truman’s quip to mind. Pundits have highlighted a number of factors to account for Obama’s showing.

African-Americans turned out in massive numbers, awarding the Democratic candidate a remarkable 97 percent of their votes.

Obama, it appears, won the battle for the “hearts and minds” of Latino and Hispanic voters, seemingly by a two-to-one majority.

Fifty-five percent of women supported him, as apparently did a majority of voters earning over $200,000 in family income.

Virtually every expert has highlighted the vote of young people, noting both the massive turnout among those in the 18-to-29 year-old bracket and the 70 percent support they awarded Obama.

Neglected in most of these postmortems, however, is the role that organized labor played in the campaign. Indeed, in this election the AFL-CIO and its affiliated organizations conducted labor’s largest political mobilization ever.

Consider these facts:

* Union members and their families comprised about 21 percent of the voting public.

* Union voters backed the Obama-Biden ticket overwhelmingly. Sixty-nine percent supported the Democratic candidate. In key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio and Florida, Obama-Biden outpolled McCain-Palin by 41 points among union voters.

* More than 250,000 union volunteers walked the neighborhoods and distributed flyers. They made 70 million phone calls.

* The AFL-CIO’s My Vote, My Right program protected voters from harassment and petty challenges by placing 2,700 union volunteer poll monitors at key locations.

* While McCain captured a majority among those over 65 years old, retired union members supported Obama by a 46 point margin.

* McCain won among veterans, but union veterans went for Obama by a 25-point margin.

Labor activist are well aware that President Obama and the Democratic congressional majority will face difficult issues and will have to be responsive to a wide diversity of viewpoints.

At the same time, however, working people and their unions do expect that their efforts in the campaign entitle them to sympathetic consideration of their legislative and political goals. They are determined to promote health care reform, more equitable taxation, and changes in economic policy that will benefit low-wage and middle-income families.

They seek pro-worker appointments to regulatory bodies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Labor Relations Board.

High on their legislative agenda is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would facilitate the efforts of workers to gain union representation and to achieve the benefits of collective bargaining.

Despite organized labor’s role in Truman’s 1948 victory, few of its legislative goals were subsequently realized. Recognition of the unions’ efforts in the recent election may help to prevent history from repeating itself.

Robert H. Zieger is a distinguished professor of history emeritus at the University of Florida.

Help for U.S. Automakers Is a Good Deal for Everyone

by Donna Jablonski, Nov 14, 2008

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/14/help-for-us-automakers-is-a-good-deal-for-everyone/

The U.S. auto industry “cannot succeed in today’s unstable economic environment without immediate help from the federal government. And the costs of failure are unacceptable,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a Washington Post op-ed today.

If even one U.S. automaker fails, he warned, it would cost the entire country millions of lost jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in lost sales and revenue.

The auto industry crisis, exacerbated by stalled consumer spending and lack of credit, affects much more than the Big Three automakers and the 240,000 people who work for them, Gettelfinger said. It also endangers thousands of car dealerships, small and medium-size businesses that provide parts and services to the auto giants and more than a million retirees and dependents who receive pension and health care benefits from Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.

According to Gettelfinger:

If these companies are unable to meet their obligations, the human toll on retirees and their families will be devastating. It’s also possible that the failure of these companies could impose severe costs on the federal pension guaranty program and public health care programs.

Gettelfinger also took exception to “Detroit-bashing.”

It is not the actions of our members that have caused the crisis in today’s auto industry; the crisis is being driven by economic factors that have nothing to do with labor costs or factory performance. To the contrary, our contracts have put our employers in a position to compete. The reality of today’s auto industry is that union-made vehicles are winning quality awards and that union-represented factory workers are winning productivity awards.

Recent auto industry labor negotiations are reducing or eliminating cost differences between union and nonunion car makers, Gettelfinger said.

The various demands for cuts in the wages and benefits of active and retired autoworkers as a condition of federal assistance are curious—and extremely unbalanced. To my knowledge, no one has proposed cutting the compensation of everyday active or retired bankers, bond traders and office or building personnel who work at AIG, Bear Stearns or the numerous banks that have received billions in federal aid. Why is it only autoworkers who are singled out for this dubious honor?

Gettelfinger said bipartisan efforts under way in Congress to aid U.S. automakers are “a good deal for U.S. taxpayers—because the alternative is lost jobs, closed businesses and shattered communities, which would impose severe human and economic costs on all of us for many years to come.”

Toyota, BMW, Hyundai Workers’ Senators Oppose Rescue
by Alison Fitzgerald and Jonathan D. Salant

Article link

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — Senators from southern states with factories owned by Asian and European car manufacturers oppose a bailout of U.S. automakers, saying the industry can thrive without General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

Republican Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and James DeMint of South Carolina, are among lawmakers trying to derail Democratic plans, supported by President-elect Barack Obama, to provide at least $25 billion in loans to the three U.S. companies.

“We have a very large and vibrant automobile sector in Alabama,'’ Sessions told Bloomberg Television on Nov. 11. “I don’t feel like this is the end of the world.'’

Alabama has two assembly plants owned by Stuttgart, Germany- based Daimler AG, one operated by Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. and one by Seoul-based Hyundai Motor Co. Munich-based Bayerische Motoren Werke AG employs about 4,500 people at a Spartanburg, South Carolina, assembly plant.

The proposal to loan automakers $25 billion from October’s $700 billion financial rescue package will be debated during a post-election lame-duck session of Congress this week.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd plans to hold a hearing tomorrow on the legislation, which he supports. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who is drafting the legislation with Michigan Senator Carl Levin, plans a hearing the following day. GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner and Ford CEO Alan Mulally are scheduled to testify before the committees.

`Tough Sell’

The bill will likely be a tough sell with many Republicans who, in principle, oppose government intervention in the private sector.

“Companies fail every day and others take their place,'’ Shelby said on CBS’s “Face the Nation'’ yesterday.

Bush said he opposes using money from the $700 billion fund designed to ease a global credit crisis. Instead he called on Congress Nov. 14 to use money from a previously approved proposal for auto-industry loans originally intended to aid development of more fuel-efficient vehicles.

“Taxpayers should not have to subsidize private companies that are unwilling to show they can be viable,'’ White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said today in an e-mailed statement. “It is clear that U.S. automakers must restructure in order to be viable.'’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Nov. 15 that diverting money from the earlier plan to ease a current cash crisis would be “a step backward'’ in promoting long-term auto-industry competitiveness. Democratic leaders want to use some of the money from the $700 billion financial-rescue package to meet automakers’ emergency needs.

Senate Action

The outcome may depend on action by the Senate, where Democrats’ narrow 51-49 working majority gives Republican opponents a better opportunity to block a bailout. While the party will pick up at least a half-dozen seats as a result of Nov. 4’s elections, those changes won’t take effect until January.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Nov. 14 urged his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to allow a vote. McConnell made no such promise.

“Senator Reid has not yet provided us with the text of his proposed spending bill, or the cost to the taxpayer, or its impact on the deficit,'’ McConnell said. “So it would be a real challenge to promise any level of support or opposition sight unseen.'’ Kentucky has Ford, GM and Toyota Motor Corp. assembly plants, and a Toyota engine factory.

Sales Plummet

The U.S.-based automakers are seeking a cash infusion as industrywide sales have plummeted to a 17-year low as the economy slides into a recession. GM this month said it lost $4.2 billion in the third quarter, and almost $73 billion since the end of 2004. The largest U.S. automaker said it may not have enough cash to get through the year. Ford lost $2.98 billion in the third quarter as sales fell 22 percent

Job losses would total 2.5 million from an automaker failure in 2009, including 1.4 million people in industries not directly tied to manufacturing, according to a Nov. 4 study by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A collapse of General Motors would cost the government $200 billion in aid to states and extended unemployment benefits, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

While sales are also falling for Asian and European manufacturers, their financial conditions aren’t as bleak.

“We have a number of profitable automakers in America, and they shouldn’t be disadvantaged for making wise business decisions while failure is rewarded,'’ DeMint said. “If the Big Three can’t make it with their current structure, they can protect jobs by reorganizing under bankruptcy protection.'’

Cornyn Also Opposes

Wesley Denton, a DeMint spokesman, said the senator plans to offer amendments to any bailout legislation approved by the House, which could make it more difficult to quickly get a bill to Bush’s desk. Senator John Cornyn of Texas said Nov. 14 that he also opposes the plan. Texas is home to assembly plants for GM and Toyota.

“The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves in is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force,'’ Shelby said. The Big Three’s current crisis is “not a national problem, but their problem,'’ Shelby said.

That problem could spread beyond Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, where the U.S.-based companies and their suppliers are most heavily concentrated. U.S. automakers buy parts in many states: Ford, for example, spent $2 billion in Alabama last year and $3.5 billion with Kentucky suppliers, according to a Ford document. Companies that make parts for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler also often count Toyota, Honda and other overseas-based companies among their customers.

Slump Hits Everybody

“We’re worried. We’re concerned about it,'’ said Mike Goss, a spokesman for Toyota’s North American manufacturing unit in Erlanger, Kentucky. “The vehicles we build in North America use about 75 percent local content, and much of that is coming from the same companies that supply the Detroit Three.'’

Mike Michels, Toyota’s U.S. vice president of media relations, said the failure of one or more of the U.S. automakers would be “devastating'’ for the entire industry.

Failure to get a federal bailout won’t be for lack of Washington clout. The U.S. automakers’ lobbying and campaign giving dwarfs contributions from their Japanese competitors. GM, Ford and Chrysler spent $20.3 million on lobbying this year through Sept. 30, compared with $8.6 million for Nissan, Toyota and Honda.

Voinovich Backs Bailout

Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich is working with Michigan’s two Democratic senators on a letter to colleagues to make the aid “a reality'’ during the lame-duck session, his spokesman Chris Paulitz said.

“The senator believes helping the automakers remain viable is truly putting Main Street over Wall Street,'’ Paulitz said.

Ohio has seven automotive assembly plants: Chrysler, GM and Honda each have two facilities, and Ford owns one. There are at least 20 additional auto-related plants in Ohio, including engine factories and stamping plants, most owned by the Detroit carmakers, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

United Auto Workers union President Ron Gettelfinger said Nov. 15 on a conference call and again today on WJR radio in Detroit that all three U.S. automakers may fail without federal financial assistance.

“We’re on the cliff here; we have to make our case,'’ Gettelfinger told reporters Nov. 15. “Would you buy a car from a bankrupt automaker? We don’t see bankruptcy as a viable option.'’

To contact the reporters on this story: Alison Fitzgerald in Washington at afitzgerald2@bloomberg.net ; Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net

Dear Friends,

Democratic Talk Radio wants to thank everyone for their support of our mission. We have been devoted to bringing the Democratic message to America’s airwaves since I first bought airtime the night that the US Supreme Court imposed the Bush Presidency on our nation in December of 2000.

The show went on the air in January 2001 in Tennessee on a small AM station and soon moved to a more powerful FM station reaching a much larger audience in both northern Alabama and central Tennessee. I largely funded the effort out of personal resources. I invested over $35,000 keeping Democratic Talk Radio on the air in Tennessee.

Briefly, we broadcast nationally on the now defunct i.e. America Radio Network which was backed by the United Auto Workers union.

In the early Spring of 2008, we moved Democratic Talk Radio to the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania. Our show broadcasts Thursday mornings on WGPA SUNNY 1100AM in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Sponsors paid the majority of the costs although I did invest nearly another $4,000 personally.

I want to thank all our sponsors.

The Mailroom union print shop in Allentown has been hugely helpful and supportive. I am going to be working with them as a new addition to their sales team on a commission basis. I exclusively use them for all my printing needs. The prices, service and quality are just excellent. Please let me know if I can connect you with them to meet your printing needs. We all need to print union.

The labor movement in Pennsylvania has been our greatest base of support in sponsoring the show. Laborers’ Local 1174 helped us get started by sponsoring our first 4 shows. Carpenters Local 600 and Steelworkers Local 2599 were both significantly large sponsors. The Lehigh Valley Labor Council, Steelworkers Local 10-1, Steelworkers Local 1165 and IBEW Local 380 all helped sponsor shows.

The Bethlehem City Democratic Party sponsored one show.

Collectively, they covered about 60% of the airtime costs. I paid the rest and all the travel expenses mostly out of my income as public relations representative for American Income Life Insurance. Unfortunately, my ability to help finance the show has been exhausted at least in the near term.

The travel costs and airtime costs about $250 per show. We would like to stay on the air. Democratic Talk Radio needs your financial help in sponsoring the show.

If your union or organization can help by sponsoring a show, it will help keep a pro-labor, pro-Democratic, progressive message on the air in Pennsylvania. Our show streams live on the Internet for those outside the broadcast area. Checks in any amount will be appreciated. You can sponsor a whole show or buy ads. One minute ads are $30. A thirty second ad is only $20. Personal ads are welcome.

Checks can be sent to: Democratic Talk Radio, 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. For more details, I can be reached by phone at 443-907-2367 at almost any hour. My email address is demlabor@aol.com

If your union does not have cash, you still might be able to help by signing up in the American Income Life Insurance program with me personally. By doing so, you can get additional, new benefits for your members at no cost to them or your local. American Income is always a great program but signing with me personally helps give you additional advantages on the political action and public relations fronts.

By participating in the American Income program, you can show your support for the “buy union” idea while supporting my ability to bring you Democratic Talk Radio.

Currently, our funds are nearly exhausted. We will resume broadcasts as soon as sufficient funds arrive.

Today, we have just received a couple of checks from SEIU Local 668 and Teamsters Local 773. Together, they are almost enough to pay airtime costs for one more show. We have received pledges for the costs of a few more shows. With luck, we might not miss any broadcasts, or (more likely) only one.

Donors are always welcome as guests.

In time, we hope to expand our program into new markets and stations. The greater Philadelphia, Pennsylvania market is probably next followed by Delaware and Maryland or the Scranton area.

Sincerely,

Stephen Crockett

Host- Democratic Talk Radio

P.S.- I am always available as a free speaker to the membership or executive board of your union or organization. Besides business opportunities like the American Income Life Insurance program or union printing services from The Mailroom, I can speak on topics like “The Employee Free Choice Act”, “How Unions Can Work Better With The Media” or various other political topics.

Kratovil not ready to celebrate report of victor

By Sara Neufeld and Matthew Hay Brown
November 8, 2008

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.first08nov08,0,6329708.story

Democrat Frank M. Kratovil Jr. was “encouraged” by the Associated Press’ decision yesterday to call the closely fought 1st Congressional District race in his favor but said it was not yet time to celebrate.

“I am honored and humbled by the support I’ve received in this election and am clearly encouraged by where the numbers stand and the subsequent Associated Press announcement,” he said in a statement. “Right now, my top priority is making sure that every vote is counted and every voice is heard.”

A spokesman for Republican Andy Harris said the candidate was not ready to concede the race.

“With over 10,000 ballots outstanding, including many from military, regular absentee and provisionals, we were going to wait and look at the numbers,” Harris campaign manager Chris Meekins said.

With all the absentee ballots received so far now counted, Kratovil leads Harris by 2,003 votes.

On Monday, election judges are scheduled to begin counting about 4,800 provisional ballots. More absentee ballots, such as those from Marylanders living overseas, could still trickle in over the next week. They must have been postmarked by Election Day to be counted.

Associated Press editors called the race for Kratovil yesterday after local boards of elections in 12 counties tabulated results from more than 25,000 absentee ballots. While a second round of the mailed ballots will be counted Friday, the volume of that batch is expected to be much smaller.

Of the 4,826 provisional ballots, many are likely to be ruled invalid after a recent Maryland Court of Appeals decision that limited the conditions under which such votes may be recorded. And just 1,800 of the provisional ballots are from Baltimore, Anne Arundel or Harford counties, the only counties in which Harris outpolled Kratovil.

Baltimore Sun reporters David Nitkin and Laura Smitherman contributed to this article.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Dems take full control in 3 more states

By Daniel C. Vock, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Democrats emerged from Election Day gaining control over more state governments, and they now dominate both the legislature and governor’s office in 17 states, compared to just eight for Republicans.

The party, which swept into the White House and padded its majorities in Congress, also won complete control of Delaware, New York and Wisconsin state governments in Tuesday’s (Nov. 4) contests — results that could bring big policy changes in those states and others. The GOP, meanwhile, lost its grip on Missouri and Alaska and is within 25 votes of losing full control of Texas, too.

The Democrats now control 60 of the state’s 98 partisan legislative chambers, up from 57 before the election (Nebraska’s unicameral Legislature is officially non-partisan). Democrats have won legislative chambers every year since 2003.

This year, they picked up the Delaware House, New York Senate, Nevada Senate, Ohio House and Wisconsin Assembly and tied the Alaska Senate. They may have tied the previously Republican Montana House, although results are still incomplete. The Democrats also secured veto-proof majorities in both chambers of Connecticut and all but eliminated the remaining Republican opposition in the Hawaii, Massachusetts and Rhode Island legislatures.

“This cycle was very different for us,” said Matt Compton, a spokesman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “In many ways we were consolidating what we’ve already gained.”

Compton pointed to increased Democratic majorities in the closely divided Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Pennsylvania Houses.

The bright spots for Republicans on Election Day were Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Republicans took over the state senates — which had both been evenly divided — in Oklahoma and Tennessee. They took over the Montana Senate and Tennessee House, which had previously been in Democratic hands. All three states have Democratic governors.

Republicans also noted they cut into Democratic majorities in the North Carolina Senate and the New Hampshire House and fended off Democratic efforts to take over the chambers in Arizona, North Dakota and South Dakota……

(Click on link below to read the rest of the article.)

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=354086