Michigan GM worker answers attack by New York Times columnist

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/kand-n27.shtml

By Jerry White
27 November 2008

On Tuesday, November 18, the New York Times published an article by one of its leading business columnists, Andrew Ross Sorkin, which places the blame for the downfall of General Motors on the supposedly “gold-plated” and “off-the-charts” wages and benefits of auto workers.

The article, entitled, “A Bridge Loan? This Company Needs to Go Chapter 11,” calls for a government-sponsored bankruptcy of GM to “do tough things they could never do in the normal course of business.” This would include forcing a merger with Chrysler, shutting down half of the combined companies’ 35 assembly plants and tearing up existing labor contracts in order to slash wages and benefits.

Sorkin complains that workers at GM and the other Detroit auto makers are paid “$10 to $20 an hour more than people who do the same job building cars in the United States for foreign makers like Toyota.” Even the massive concessions handed over by the United Auto Workers union in the 2007 contract—which cut new-hires’ wages by half and gutted employer paid medical and pension benefits—were “not nearly enough,” he says.

In the course of the article, Sorkin singles out the remarks of a GM worker in Michigan. “Part of the problem,” he complains, “is summed up by comments like this one in The Detroit Free Press, made by Kandy O’Neill, 39, an assembler at G.M.’s plant in Lake Orion, Mich., where she builds the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6. ‘I think we’ve given enough,’ she said about the cuts to her salary and pension plan.

“‘Everybody wants to come down hard on the workers,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows what we do inside there but the people who work there. It’s hard. It is not an easy job.’

“When you read a line like that you might sympathize with her,” Sorkin continues, “but then you realize that nothing can be accomplished without bankruptcy.”

FULL story and Kandy O’Neill speaks out at link.

[Hubert Flottz]

1. "slash wages and benefits"

Then slash the 40 hour week after that and then take the kids all out of school and put them to work in the coal mines for about 15 hours a day?

[NNN0LHI]

2. Sorkin is one just of the reasons I would never subscribe to or trust the NYT

They will never get a dime from me.

Don

[madrchsod]

3. i bet sorkins hands are as soft as a babys behind

i look at my hands and i know i`ve put in an honest days work for the money i was paid

[Hubert Flottz]

4. That's the award winning Andrew Ross Sorkin

http://rackjite.com/archives/2383-Olbermanns-Worst-Andrew-Ross-Sorkin-and-the-NYTimes.html

I'll bet this guy never done a real days work in his life.

[DiverDave]

5. The workers give up every time they are asked to

Wages, Benefits, sick days, and on and on...

What have the bosses given up?

NOTHING, and the MSM just glosses it over.
Obama needs to speak up about this, the unions supported him
and he needs to step up and support them.

Fuck the management assholes, they cover for one another.

[NNN0LHI]

6. About every other call I got on the lead up to the election came from the UAW or AFL-CIO

They worked their ass off to get him elected.

Don

[Hannah Bell]

7. I think we should outsource more news jobs. Indians write English rather well.

I bet you could get one to do this guy's job for 1/4 the cash & bennies. Damn, how does the NYT compete on the global market??

[dynasaw]

8. Sorkin's View is Common

even among some of the rank and file. I have this friend whose father was a Michigan auto WORKER, but who was anti-union because, are you ready for this bit of inanity, his fellow workers were lazy, incompetents about whom nothing could be done, ergo unions were no good.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water, not seeing the forest for the trees or whatever other metaphor. No use explaining to my friend that without unions his father could have been worked to death at whatever hours, gone uncompensated for injuries, fired at will, had no recourse to mistreatment, etc. etc.,

Granted, there are times those of us who have worked on grievance committees have silently groaned about having to represent some real jerks who probably had it coming to them, as well as those who had genuine grievances. However, it always amazes me when workers can't see the class warfare going in the willingness of companies to foist blame for losses on workers rather than on the gross miscalculations by company management.

[Locrian]

9. amazing

That is precisely why you need progressive taxation.

Poor little Sorkin sitting in his mansion with gold plated salary. Why doesnt anyone ask how "hard" he fucking works? (sarcasm)

There used to be "productive" and "unproductive" types of labor - when did the crooks rig it so that the people actually doing the work were the suckers and everyone else was "important"? Probably because they had the time to cook the laws to favor themselves while everyone else was actually doing real work.

What kind of society are we? We make it so that we value people that suck off the blood of society, and blame the workers for being lazy and too stupid.

[tinrobot]

10. Why don't we start the cuts with CEOs who make $20,000 per hour?

I think that would be a much more efficient way to cut costs.

[TankLV]

11. because that would be "class warfare"...!!!

you betcha...!

[Bjorn Against]

12. I think we should take a look at how much Sorkin gets paid...

Because if he makes as much or more than a GM worker then by his own standards he is making way too much and he needs to have his income slashed. I would like someone to ask one of these right-wing pundits who complains about the pay of ordinary Americans to justify why they should make so much more than the workers they say make too much.

[bvar22]

13. Ahhh, I think I see what her (Kandy O’Neill) problem is:

"I thought the Democrats were supposed to be for the working people."/i]

A common misconception these days.




The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.