The United Auto Workers is the labor union wing of the Democratic Party. The attempt to bail out the United Auto Worker via loans to Detroit automakers is an attempt to bail out an unprofitable wing of the Democratic Party at the expense of the American taxpayer
Of course this does not mean that the United Auto Workers and its allies agree completely with the broader liberal movement. Union men ten to be less educated than liberals as a whole, and its fair to say that comments like this (taken from a featured post at Daily Kos) are perhaps more typical of the UAW than Democrats or liberals as a whole:
All gone, our shared national automotive legacy and collective memories stretching back a century, and millions of jobs, all looted by ultra-conservatives eager to punish generations of American workers for the sin of not voting for the GOP in acceptable numbers. Gone forever. In their place will be rice burning Nissons and Toyotas, maybe the occasional German model. Models that legions of newly unemployed Americans, standing on the precipe of Bush’s Depression, will never be able to afford
Empowering the UAW empowers an uneducated, nativist, protectionist, and frankly violent strain in American politics that has no place in our society. Detroit is a union town, GM is a union company, with a union view of globalization
“It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work,” witnesses later remembered Ebens yelling at Chin.
Chin struck Ebens, and an altercation ensued. Ebens’ stepson, Michael Nitz – who had been recently laid off from his job at an autoplant – jumped in. But it was soon broken up by a parking attendant. Chin and his friends left the bar and went their separate ways. Twenty minutes later, Ebens and Nitz caught up with Chin in front of a fast-food restaurant. Ebens grabbed a baseball bat and delivered a blow to Chin’s leg. Nitz held the wounded Chin, while Ebens struck his head with the bat, bashing his skull in.
Before he slipped into a coma, Chin murmured to a friend, “It’s not fair.” Four days later – and five days before his wedding – Chin died as a result of the injuries he sustained during the beating.
and union opinions of police protection and justice
Ronald Ebens was arrested and taken into custody at the scene of the murder by two off-duty police officers who had witnessed the beating.[5] Ebens and Nitz were convicted in a county court for manslaughter by Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman, after a plea bargain brought the charges down from second-degree murder. They served no jail time, were given three years probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. In a response letter to protests from American Citizens for Justice, Kaufman said, “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail… You don’t make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal.
There are people ready to make serious contributions to the American auto industry, if they are supported. From Silicon Valley startups to crowding-in spending, from a geogreen stimulus to a rebated gas tax, many auto-related causes deserve our support.
But not the union men.
