Alabama governor defends state from UAW criticism

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D94IUFF80.htm

November 20, 2008, 5:37PM ET

Gov. Bob Riley fired back Thursday at the United Auto Workers, which cited Alabama's huge incentives to foreign automakers as an example of why the federal government should approve loans for troubled U.S. car companies.

Speaking in Detroit earlier in the day as he argued for Congress to provide loans to domestic car manufacturers, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Alabama had provided about $693 million in incentives to lure Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota to the state.

"It just seems odd to us that we can help the financial institutions in this country, that we can offer incentives to our competition ... but at the same time we are willing to walk away from an industry that is the backbone of our economy," he said. snip

"The real reason companies keep locating in Alabama is the quality of our work force and the exceptional products they make," Riley said in a statement. "With all due respect to Mr. Gettelfinger, great workers making great products is a proven recipe for success in Alabama, and it doesn't require a bailout."

Riley didn't mention another reason car companies like Alabama -- labor has yet to succeed in organizing workers at any of the state's auto plants.

[tularetom]

1. I saw somewhere where the companies were moving the factories from Alabama

to Canada because the workers were poorly educated and untrainable and it was no bargain for them even at the starvation wages thy were paying.

[Selatius]

3. It's anecdotal, but Nissan ran into similar problems next door in Mississippi.

Their new workforce included some illiterate people, and it was causing problems with training. They had to create a training manual with pictures and diagrams so that some of the workers could understand the material. It spoke more to the failed nature of Mississippi's decrepit public education infrastructure than anything about the workers.

[tularetom]

4. Perhaps I'm bum rapping Alabama but I think you make the point

It isn't the workers themselves, but the companies are finally learning that you get what you pay for and if you want to hire people who will perform difficult but repetitive tasks for 8 hours a day you're going to have to pay them considerably more than 10 or 12 bucks an hour. You haven't saved a dime if you have to assemble the same car four times to get it to pass inspection.

We have a similar problem here in Central CA where local governments have tried for years to get Silicon Valley type high tech firms to locate assembly facilities in our ag based, seasonal employment economy. Our school are likewise doing a poor job of educating a workforce capable of even the basic math skills needed to function in such an environment.

Maybe we've all finally realized a dollar spent on education is probably the best investment we can make with our public funds. Not giving them away to fat cat auto executives to locate a plant in our town.

[Selatius]

5. Yeah, I forgot to mention Nissan also had resulting quality control problems with the first cars.

They didn't pass inspection because of lack of competency, so retraining was required, and they had to repair the defective vehicles or junk them entirely, which just ran up Nissan's costs even more. I remember reading stories like that in Mississippi papers. Like Alabama, Mississippi gave huge subsidies to Nissan in the form of hundreds of millions worth of tax breaks and credits. This state knows how to pinch pennies, but it doesn't know too much about long-term investment. Otherwise, Jackson wouldn't have large swaths of blight that I've seen when I drove through there on Tuesday and Wednesday.

[Selatius]

2. Alabama is a right-to-work state. It simply means it's very difficult to unionize.

Simply because the right-to-work law mandates that non-unionized employees get the same benefits as employees who are in the union, who do pay the dues, and do put in the effort to better the workplace environment. It creates a massive freeloader problem.

[DBoon]

6. you can thank Taft-Hartley for that

It made the entire US South a union-free zone

passed over Truman's veto by a republican congress, BTW

[Selatius]

8. The sad fact is the Repubs never held enough seats to override the veto.

They managed to get a boatload of Democrats to switch sides and vote to get the two-thirds majority to override. These were days when rural conservatives were still in the Democratic Party.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

7. Right to Work = Right to Starve

If employers in those states get substandard workers, they're certainly getting what they (don't) pay for. As an added bonus, the R-t-W states also get an exploding immigrant population from their "conservatism." Then they have the nerve to complain about the immigrants they helped bring in.

"As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work." -Old Soviet Union proverb



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