Aww, UAW Being A Sore Loser

In fine Democrat/Union fashion, if you don't get the result you want, the UAW wants to throw the results out and try again until it does.

The Detroit Free Press: UAW asks labor board for new vote at Volkswagen

The sole reason for the appeal lacks comes down to "Oh Noes, Republicans were against it - publicly!"

Citing public statements by Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and other Tennessee politicians, the UAW asked the National Labor Relations Board to set aside the results and conduct a new election.

. . .

“Senator Corker’s conduct was shameful and undertaken with utter disregard for the rights of the citizens of Tennessee and surrounding states that work at Volkswagen Chattanooga,” the union said in a 58-page document filed Friday. “It is a more than adequate basis for sustaining these objections.”

Wow, so a Republican says its a bad idea for the Union to get its claws into VW and points out there may be consequences and that's disregarding worker's rights? What the UAW thinks the VW workers are too dumb to evaluate the situation for themselves and vote in their own best interest?

Of course, President Obama coming out publicly in favor of the vote is not to be remarked upon as interference.

Man up UAW, you held a vote and lost, suck it up and maybe do a little introspection on how you've become less about the workers and more about self-aggrandizement and promotion for you and the Democrat party.

Apparently while there's no crying in baseball, there is when the UAW loses elections.

Obama Tends To Back The Losing Team

The Detroit News: Aide: Obama endorses UAW bid to organize VW plant

So Obama lets it out that he heavily backs unionizing VW in Tenessee to try and use his influence to push for unionization there, because the UAW has done such good things for the US auto industry, like turning one of the Big three into a Dutch corp or dragging another into bankruptcy. Perhaps and more likely it's just all the good things the UAW has done for the Democrats.

The result just now in the Detroit Free Press: VW workers in Tennessee stun UAW, reject union by 712-626 margin

Ah the famous Obama reverse-Midas touch in action yet again.

The UAW suffered a devastating defeat at Volkswagen’s plant here as workers rejected union representation by a 712-626 margin.

The defeat, which came despite Volkswagen’s neutrality, tarnishes UAW President Bob King’s legacy and could make it next to impossible for the union to extend its reach beyond domestic automakers.

. . .

Even President Barack Obama weighed in Friday, taking aim at Tennessee Republican leaders, including U.S. Sen. Bob Corker and Gov. Bill Haslam, who he said “are more concerned about German shareholders than American workers.”

You know, there's a fine and fitting German word for what I'm feeling at the moment. . . . . Schadenfreude. Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

Why Does GM Give The UAW Workers $5000 Each In Bonuses When Taxpayer Loans Are Outstanding?

Instapundit links to Mickey Kaus who cogently wonders why GM is giving UAW Union workers at General Motors $5,000 bonuses instead of using the profits to pay back the taxpayer bailouts.

Simple, the UAW is an Obama core constituency of course.

The average American taxpayer, not so much.....

UAW to the Obama(croco)dile - Tax Me Last

The Detroit News reports that the UAW is now supporting Obama and the "Cadillac tax" funnily enough the Detroit news neglects to explain why: Union leaders won't fight tax on 'Cadillac' insurance plans

In a major breakthrough, union leaders bowed Thursday to White House demands for a new tax on high-cost health plans as part of landmark health care legislation taking final shape in intensive negotiations.

"We are on the doorstep" of success, President Barack Obama said.

The tentative agreement on the tax, which included significant concessions by the administration, was disclosed as leading lawmakers set an informal timetable of today for a compromise on the health care bill that Obama made a top priority in taking office a year ago.

Notice how these "significant concessions" ar e not identified and reported on by the Detroit News?

Instead, you have to go to Megan McArdle's Blog to find out what the concessions are: Special Deal for Labor Unions in Health Care Bill

And so it looks like they may have reached a deal sooner than otherwise expected: unions get a special two-year exclusion from the tax.
...Early reports understated the deal, which now has the excise tax kicking in for labor unions in 2018.

In other words you will be subject to the 40% tax if you're not in a Union immediately, meanwhile the Union members' benefits aren't taxed until 2018, and expect an extension then, if not before then, if the Democrats can get away with it.

There's certainly no amount of special deals and outright bribes using taxpayer's money that this administration won't do to get this abominable health care "reform" bill passed.

Obama and the UAW butting heads over Health Care

Not only is this Health Care reform mess annoying your non-Obama fans who see a runaway train headed down the tracks on the way to damage the US economy even more, but it is aggravating some of his key constituents.

UAW chief to fight 'Cadillac tax'

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger told reporters he will be in meetings today and Thursday in Washington to fight the so-called "Cadillac tax" on more expensive employer-sponsored health care plans.

The Senate health care bill has a new tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies, which has been dubbed the "Cadillac tax." The measure wasn't in the House version of the bill. Now, the two chambers are trying to reach a compromise.

President Barack Obama supports the 40 percent annual tax on individual health plans worth more than $8,500, and above $23,000 for families. "Our people are researching it now," Gettelfinger told reporters on the sidelines of the North American International Auto Show.

The White House defended the president's support of the tax.

Obama "supported the Senate bill and that provision was in that bill for what it does in terms of changing the direction of health care costs," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday.

The White House said the tax would raise nearly $150 billion in revenue over 10 years to help pay for health care reform.

Still, Gettelfinger says he wants the tax eliminated -- or at the very least an increase in the minimum level that would be taxed.

When you lose the UAW on your prized piece of legislation to mess with 16% of the US economy supposedly to help your political base, you know you're doing it wrong. Not to mention further aggravating the UAW by calling it a Cadillac tax - again hammering the domestics. Obama should been more UAW-savvy and called it a Lexus tax.

Of course the UAW has fought for and received for its members benefits far beyond Cadillac health care plans for its members. The UAW's Cadillac is a big part of the reason why there's no more Pontiac.

Union Members don't think Ford first

The Detroit News: UAW won't renegotiate after Ford deal fails

The United Auto Workers said Monday it will not return to the bargaining table with Ford Motor Co. to renegotiate concessions that were soundly rejected by a majority of 41,000 Ford workers.

The official tally released Monday by the UAW: 70 percent of production workers and 75 percent of skilled trades workers voted against the proposed changes.

. . .

Ford issued a statement saying it was "disappointed."

"The additional modifications we sought recently were designed to honor pattern bargaining and provide Ford with similar additional efficiencies as those ratified this year for our domestic competitors," said the statement by Joe Hinrichs, group vice president of global manufacturing and labor affairs.

Now the UAW-owned (partially) GM and Chrysler have a tremendous competitive advantage over the non-beholden Ford. Each of the Big Three having the UAW as its workers but two with a set of friendly terms for the government aid recipients GM and Chrysler ,and a not-so-favorable deal to Ford.

Expect Ford to have to ship work to non-union plants and overseas to keep competitive as it can't afford to do otherwise. Not good in the end for Michigan or the union workers themselves, but shortsightedness is what we've come to expect from all parts of the Big Three from management to workers.

Ford's UAW workers start to wake up to what their no vote really means

The Detroit News: Sterling Heights Ford UAW local may ask for revote -
Workers fear 'no' vote will lose axle work for site

Ford Motor Co. could shift work promised to its Sterling Heights axle factory as part of a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers to a German supplier after the local union voted overwhelmingly against the deal, according to a union source.

Now, some workers there are organizing a petition urging UAW President Ron Gettelfinger to call for a revote.

Spurred on by union dissidents who say the time for concessions is over, rank-and-file members at plants across the country have cast their ballots against the proposed contract changes, which were negotiated by Ford and UAW leaders earlier this month. While the union has not released any numbers, people familiar with the situation said about 3,000 more workers have so far voted against ratification than have voted in favor of it.

Ooops,They just learned that when you vote to make yourself uncompetitive, you can't be surprised when management moves the work to where the company can be competitive.

As always, elections have consequences:

Under the terms of the agreement, Sterling Axle was supposed to get new rear-wheel drive work that would have added about 100 jobs. Now, union sources fear that work will be given to Getrag Corp., a German supplier with a nonunion factory in North Carolina. Local union leaders also were told Ford is considering outsourcing other components made at the plant, where 80 percent of workers voted against ratification.

Some workers are waking up to reality:

"I don't think people here really understood that the work we had been promised was contingent on ratification," said Sterling Axle UAW member Brian Pannebecker, who voted in favor of the agreement and is now helping to organize a petition in support of revote.

Hopefully the UAW Workers start to realize that shafting Ford with an uncompetitive agreement means a whole lot of drive-shafts will be built without them.

UAW set to kill the Blue Oval that laid the Golden Egg

Of course, it doesn't help matters that the UAW is now a major shareholder in Ford's two top American competitors - GM and Chrysler. So its no surprise they're not willing to give Ford the same breaks they gave themselves as co-owners.

The UAW seems to be arguing that since Ford isn't in as bad a shape as GM or Chrysler it shouldn't get the same deal they received from the UAW.

That the UAW is now having two sets of bargaining patterns, one with their co-owned, government run GM and Chrysler that is favorable to these automakers and now a separate deal with Ford that will put it at a disadvantage doesn't bode well -UAW, Ford deal is in jeopardy

If the proposed agreement is ratified, Ford workers -- like their counterparts at GM and Chrysler -- would not be able to take to the picket lines if they are unable to reach an agreement on any increase to wages and benefits during the next round of national contract talks in 2011.

As The Detroit News first reported Saturday, this was demanded by the Obama administration as a condition of its bailout of GM and Chrysler. The White House did not want to invest billions in taxpayer dollars to make those companies competitive only to see the gains reversed in the next round of negotiations.

If Ford does not receive a similar commitment from the UAW, it will be at a clear disadvantage once bargaining begins.

As ably noted in the Detroit News - UAW workers may derail Ford's success

Here, in the week before Ford Motor Co. hopes to maybe, sorta' report encouraging third-quarter earnings, a faction of its United Auto Workers membership is on course to torpedo a revised labor agreement -- proving, yet again, that bankruptcies and painful retrenchments aren't enough to shake some real-world sense into a deeply engrained sense of entitlement.

I mean, who'd have thought that the Blue Oval, still controlled by its founding family, had unwittingly become a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation masquerading as a struggling titan of Wall Street? Or that some in the UAW mistakenly believe they're "co-determined," in the German corporate sense, to steer Ford's corporate strategy?

Deep into voting on contract terms that include a qualified "no-strike" clause, it's not looking good for FoMoCo right about now. Nor is it looking good for UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and the head of his Ford Department, Bob King, both of whom have their fairly significant credibility strapped to a deal that could go down to defeat.

If it does, what it says about a chunk of the union's rank-and-file will extend far beyond what it means for their employer, now beset with the heaviest debt load and least competitive work rules of Detroit's three automakers. Let me repeat that: Ford, the darling of Motown, now is carrying more debt and less competitive work rules than its rivals.

Rejecting Ford's proposed deal would keep it that way for two more years -- at least. What that says is that too many around here still don't get how precarious Ford's comparatively promising future really is.

They don't get that you can't force unequal terms on competing entities -- in this case, breaking the "pattern" that has bound UAW members together since the days of Walter Reuther -- and expect Ford to compete fairly with rivals from General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC to Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co.
. . . .
And it bolsters the anti-Detroit argument, aired so effectively during last year's auto bailout hearings in Congress, that too many of this town's auto folks still operate in a parallel universe unhinged from the real world inhabited by the rest of us.

It is a very good editorial, so go forth and read the whole thing.

The UAW shortsightedly seems determined to kill the last surviving non-government owned American car manufacturer.