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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

UAW's Gettelfinger Praised for Hypocrisy

Monday's 7/16/07, Detroit Free Press has a front page article titled "Square Dealer Drives UAW." The subtitle is "Talks shape up as stiff test of flexibility." I know editors like to show off their ability to formulate a play on words but what is a stiff test of flexibility? Can there be a flexible test of flexibility? Oh well, rather than stress my brain on that one I went into the story. The first three paragraphs say:
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger had tarred private-equity firms as "strip and flip" artists, more interested in dismantling companies than in helping them grow.

But when parts supplier Dana Corp. struggled in bankruptcy this year and threatened to cancel its UAW contracts, Gettelfinger didn't hesitate. He recruited Centerbridge Partners, a private-equity fund based in New York, to rescue Dana in a deal that would preserve workers' jobs and health care coverage.

Dana announced the deal earlier this month.

The Free Press has learned that Gettelfinger and the UAW, not the company, invited the private-equity investors to the table. Dana confirmed the details.
So how did Freep business writer John Gallagher interpret this obvious two-faced positioning by the union leader?
That Gettelfinger could pivot from bashing private-equity firms to initiating a major deal with one illustrates the shrewd, tough, practical approach to saving automotive jobs and benefits that has marked Gettelfinger's five-year tenure as president of the union.
So bashing someone as evil and destructive of jobs then relying on them to save jobs is "shrewd", "practical" and the sign of a "square dealer." Ayn Rand was right, the American public has no intellectual leadership whatsoever.

To me this lengthy article is a puff piece designed to sell Mr. Gettelfinger as a heroic figure to the workers, especially since negotiations with the big 3 start on the 20th. This is done to help the UAW deliver the labor vote to the Democratic party, and to do that, it is absolutely essential the anti-capitalist, anti-business hatred be maintained. As long as the intellectuals team up to convince workers that businessmen are their enemy, they will be able to persuade workers it is in their interest to pay protection money to the unions of the world.

I'm not saying unions can't be of value. They can but that would be a topic for another post. The bottom line is that fostering a hatred of capitalism is not in the interest of any worker, and a true "square dealer" would know and admit this.

(For an example of the kind of intellectual leadership the masses are getting, Andrew Dalton at Witch Doctor Repellent has a good fisking of a British witch doctor wannabe.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

UAW VEBA is retiree sell out!

Check out these important links.


http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/08/11/interview-with-whitey-hale/

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=10043&t=UAW+betrays+autoworkers

Michael Neibel said...

Anon:
Thanks for the links. I didn't know about Moore or about VEBA.But it figures though. Back in the 70s I knew the labor structure was unsustainable. The days of giant labor unions providing an entire industry with a captive labor force, then using that captive force as a lever to pry benefits-concessions- out of corporations, is over. The Gettelfingers of the world will try to hang on a while longer, and with support like that of the Free Press, they'll succeed. But more and more workers are learning that they are-and always have been-on their own and that the powerful union structure is no longer in their interest.