Open letter to the UAW

The UAW, yechk……….

I grew up in the Detroit area and most of my family still lives there. I have a strong emotional attachment to what happens in the domestic auto industry and I strongly believe the UAW has contributed greatly to the pending downfall. Everything where I grew up was, and is still, tied to the big three. It doesn’t matter if it’s bars, bowling alleys, convenience stores, restaurants, etc, etc. If the big three are doing poorly then everyone suffers. I’ve heard the home foreclosures in the Detroit Metro area are at all time highs.

What does that have to do with the UAW you may ask, well it’s because somewhere along the journey you lost your balance for what is important. At inception the unions served a great and noble purpose. Unfortunately, that selfless cause became extremely selfish. It became about money and power and the short-term gains for members, but money and power before members. Be damned was the overall health of the industry (which is where the real benefit for members would have been). Bragging was the tone and everyone wanted to land a union job at one of the big three. The thought was security and great compensation. And that was the case. The other side of the coin however was there was this cancerous undercurrent of laziness – the union will get you something for nothing. Get your foot in the door and work hard, for your probation period. Beyond that, once you were “in”, then sit back and enjoy because no matter what you do the union will protect you. My adolescence was filled with people I knew, from family members to the parents of my friends, talking about how great the UAW jobs were. Not because it was fair compensation for hard work, but because if you were in the union you could get away with murder and not have to worry about losing your job. Bragging about other people punching them in and out when they weren’t there, 3-hour lunches at the bar, doing a ½ hour of work per day because of job classification, reading the paper, playing cards, AND GETTING PAID FOR IT ALL. The underlying message – the company can afford it.

Can it? Did it? Will it?

You reap what you sow.

Nice job for the children of your members and future generations. You perpetuated that deplorable work ethic and then when the imports starting becoming serious competition THEN you starting looking at productivity increases and what you could do to mitigate the bloodletting. Too little too late. That was the beginning of this sickening slide you led the industry into.

Enjoy your money and power while you can, because you’re on your way out. You’re an obsolete gluttonous beast. The sad thing is that you’ve told the workers that they were entitled to all these things you’ve done for / to them and there was an endless amount of money in the auto company’s pockets. But the reality is you gave them a few good years at their long-term expense. Unfortunately, when you go down you’ll have taken a lot of good people with you, as well as the industry. While the truth is you’ve benefited much more over the years than any members ever did.