Here come the "Hit" Pieces...you knew it was only a matter...

[Jack Bone]

..of time.

TOM WALSH
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070924/COL06/70924060/1014/BUSINESS01
UAW strike has terrible implications for Michigan
September 24, 2007

The UAW striking General Motors Corp., especially if the walkout lasts more than a few hours, is a dangerous move with all sorts of awful implications for Michigan's economy, for GM and for the future of the UAW.

Michigan's economy labors under the dual burden of its reliance on the Detroit Three auto companies and their declining market share, exacerbated by the longstanding reputation of Detroit and Michigan as a stronghold of truculent, overpaid and inflexible labor unions. Forget about all gains in productivity and recent cooperative deals between labor and management to cut health care costs and simplify work rules. The old anti-business, pro-labor image is a hard one to shake. Any nationwide automotive strike, no matter how brief, sends the wrong message to growing companies looking for the best place to invest.

General Motors, while making good progress on its turnaround the past two years, is still losing money in North America and could still suffer enormous damage from a walkout of any length.

And what of the UAW itself, which has been touting its efforts to organize the nonunion U.S. plants of Toyota Motor Corp., other Asian automakers and growing suppliers such as Denso. By striking GM, the union provides fodder to the anti-union campaigns at all those companies, which play upon workers' fears that strike-happy U.S. labor unions will scare companies into closing U.S. plants and cutting jobs en masse.

[walldude]

1. Shame on those auto workers

those greedy bastards won't give up health and pension benefits without getting job security in return. Shame on them. Why won't the American worker just bend over and take it? Hell if corporations are allowed to dissolve the unions then we can have sweatshops just like in China. Fucking workers, always wanting to get paid a fair wage.

[Howardx]

2. terrible implications for Michigan

gm better settle then.

[Demit]

3. Anti-union campaigns don't need fodder. They want to bust unions no matter what unions do.

Disgusting column. "Truculent, overpaid and inflexible"? That last epithet, followed as it is by the note that labor has been cooperating with management, really takes the cake. Truculent column by an overpaid columnist, more like.