Please tell me where the UAW, or any other group you are referring to, got anything outside of their normal negotiation process?

Everyone is focusing on where we are today. What me must remember is that where we are today, at this point in time is the result of a constant give-and-take process over the years. I'm sorry, but of you want to challenge that it's challenging one of the basic fundamentals of the American Free Economic Principals......NEGOTIATION.

I would put forward that what we have today are companies that have taken the easy way out for so many years (we all remember the "cliff-hanger" negotiations periods with last second saving settlements) coming back to haunt the people who agreed to the decisions.

Let's not take out the issues of the auto industry on the people who "built it" to what it was in our "shining hour' as a country and world power - the 50's through the 70's. Those are the people whose pensions, and other negotiated rights we are talking about.

In the earl 70's, America was sent a message by OPEC that we were too dependent on OIL as a future for our continued economic development or transportation underpinning. We heard the message and started to make changes.

But then the price of OIL went down and, as true AMERICANS, we responded to prices, rather than values (long term), and we began the era of the SUV and the HUMMER.

Perhaps I should further explain where I am coming from:

I have a degree in Industrial Relations, and was constantly arguing with my Professors about the value of unions. I had, been in a "union shop" environment in a company in high-school. My advancement at that company was, because of lack of seniority, most often opposed by the unions.

As a pre-college graduate, I was involved in a couple of situations where the companies I worked for went through union mobilization campagnes. In one the vote was 35 to 1 pro, with me being the 1.

I had argued in college for the management to have the necessity of saying NO to union demands. That was not received well by the professors who kept insisting that the business must go on...even if it could/was shown not to be sustainable into the future.

Well, as with the credit issues around housing, AMERICA is finding out that the future is NOW.

I don't, as a long-time anti-unionist (although I can/have seen appropriate places for their required existence), see why the current crisis is on the backs of the union members who negotiated positions for concessions, and are now being asked by outsiders to those negoatiatons to "give back" without the companies doing the same up front.

I also have a couple of other problems with your position.

You don't seeme be holding the top management of GM with their responsibility in
killing the electric car industry as it started in the early/mid 70"s. Where would they be today if they had supported and forwarded that effort?

You also don't deal with the issue that Chrysler was bought by "venture capitalists" who were saying by putting their money down, that they could "fix it"....Are we do now bail out their gamble?


America faces severe challenges today. I think it's time for us to really deal with the issues at hand honestly, fully holding those who got us here accountably.

There will be no simple answers.

I can almost certainly say that I don't think that Americas problems are the results of the people on the bottom rungs of the economic/industrial ladder.

As a 40+ yr experienced person involved in the staffing function, I think Management must look in the mirror and AMERICA is looking to them to lead us out of this situation.

We do not have the time to play scapegoats now. We need new ideas on how to go forward, un-encombered with the ideas or ways of the past.

A. Leo Mc Kiernan