President of UAW: The union will not make concessions to seal a deal for governmental aid. -- OK boss, but are you the one calling the shots here?
From The Wall Street Journal:
[UAW president Ron Gettelfinger told The Wall Street Journal Saturday that t]he union will not make concessions in order to seal a deal for governmental aid . . . .
Many analysts believe the concessions will eliminate the labor cost advantage foreign auto makers have had in their non-union plants in the U.S.
_______________
From David Yermack, a professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, writing in The Wall Street Journal:
If the government wants to spend $25 billion to protect auto workers, it would do better to transfer the money to them directly (perhaps by cutting each worker a check for $10,000) rather than by keeping their unproductive employer in business.
[I]t is suggested that the failures of the U.S. financial industry, which have cost us something like $700 billion, justify bailouts of other sectors of the economy. This makes no sense. If the government diverts our national savings into businesses that have long track records of destroying investment capital, eventually we'll end up with an economy like France's -- or Zimbabwe's.
Other arguments are on the table as well. Some see the troubles at GM and Ford as opportunities to retool the auto industry to produce environmentally friendly cars. Given their long track records of lobbying against fuel economy standards and producing oversized gas guzzlers, this suggestion seems ridiculous, sort of like asking cigarette companies to help with cancer research.
[UAW president Ron Gettelfinger told The Wall Street Journal Saturday that t]he union will not make concessions in order to seal a deal for governmental aid . . . .
Many analysts believe the concessions will eliminate the labor cost advantage foreign auto makers have had in their non-union plants in the U.S.
_______________
From David Yermack, a professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, writing in The Wall Street Journal:
If the government wants to spend $25 billion to protect auto workers, it would do better to transfer the money to them directly (perhaps by cutting each worker a check for $10,000) rather than by keeping their unproductive employer in business.
[I]t is suggested that the failures of the U.S. financial industry, which have cost us something like $700 billion, justify bailouts of other sectors of the economy. This makes no sense. If the government diverts our national savings into businesses that have long track records of destroying investment capital, eventually we'll end up with an economy like France's -- or Zimbabwe's.
Other arguments are on the table as well. Some see the troubles at GM and Ford as opportunities to retool the auto industry to produce environmentally friendly cars. Given their long track records of lobbying against fuel economy standards and producing oversized gas guzzlers, this suggestion seems ridiculous, sort of like asking cigarette companies to help with cancer research.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home