Original article, subheaded Gregg Shotwell, a retired GM/Delphi worker and founder of the Soldiers of Solidarity network, answers the myth that it was the UAW--and its demands for fair compensation for autoworkers--that led to the industry's decline, via socialistworker.org:
IF YOU believe the Motley Fool and other "stock advisors" in the business press, 90 percent of GM's losses can be attributed to the United Auto Workers (UAW), which accounts for 10 percent of a vehicle's cost.
It's a joke, of course. But, let's face it, blame has to be assigned. And it can't be assigned at the corporate level because corporations can do no wrong. We haven't learned a thing from the bankster frauds, have we?
The math may seem a bit obtuse but the politics is clear as fizz. The UAW's disproportionate responsibility for the automakers' unprofitability is based on the same sort of accounting whiz that led GM to claim they lost $39 billion in November 2007 due to "deferred tax credits."
That doesn't sound like something a worker on the assembly line does. It sounds like corporate speak for an accounting gimmick. Which is exactly what it is.
Thanks to corporate welfare, GM accumulated more tax deductions than they could take in a year. So they deferred the tax deductions and booked them as an asset until the asset got so fat it attracted the attention of auditors who asked--"quote unquote"--What the f##k is this?
$39 billion. That's a large amount of tax deductions. It makes you wonder how much in taxes GM actually pays. It also points toward GM actually making lots of money.
Rick Wagoner was quick to assure the fools not to puzzle their pretty heads. The $39 billion wasn't actually a loss of cash, he said, since it never had a tangible, marketable existence. It was merely an accounting gimmick--a fancy--like paper wings.
So $39 billion in losses were paper losses, not actual losses. Think about that for a second. And then consider that the workers are being blamed for said paper losses. Something's not right here.
The fools refer to compensation like pension and health care as "welfare," despite the fact that unlike "deferred tax credits," the compensation was earned by productive labor. It's no wonder the fools are having trouble figuring out what part of GM is losing what, and how much, and why. They ignore the obvious and thumb their noses at analysis. For example:
-- GM sold 4.4 million vehicles in the U.S. in 1992 and employed 265,000 UAW members.
-- GM sold 4.5 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2007 and employed 73,000 UAW members.
Once again, something seems amiss.
I'll let you read the rest of the article. Shotwell lays out the attack upon workers, and he makes the point that it's not just GM workers. The attack upon GM workers is a domino, which once tipped will bring down wages for most workers in the country. He also points out that GM is still gung ho in it's international expansion, despite perhaps going into bankruptcy here in the US. Perhaps it's time for Obama to sick the Justice Department on GM to see just how crooked they are, and perhaps it's time that all workers show solidarity with the autoworkers over the attack upon their jobs.