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Cheap Labor

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Gabriel Read

Published: December 24, 2008

Observation of the bickering and machination these past four weeks on the issue of "bailing out" the auto industry should cause grave concern about the future of this country. The outrageous attacks on the CEOs, unions and employees certainly verify the mean-spirited, hard-nosed and imperialistic image of the Republican Party. It is now crystal-clear that cheap labor and poverty wages are the core of "conservative" policy.

It is ironic that Senators Shelby and Corker blame the CEOs and UAW union for the current auto crisis, when it was their party that helped stall the effort to produce fuel efficient "green" cars these past 10 years. By the way, who decided GM could produce "green" cars in Europe, but not sell them in the U.S.? It is hypocritical, deceptive, even diabolical to delay this "greening" of autos while outsourcing any jobs that paid $15 an hour or more.

The auto industry is the last bastion of decent wages for working people. It has protected the wages and benefits earned over a period of 20-30-40 years. Senator Shelby, et. al., succeeded in eliminating pensions and benefits elsewhere, i.e. corporate raiders (Boeski and Mulligan) 1980; Enron, 2000; Congress itself 2003. If they can kill the UAW, that will be the end of unions in the private sector.

Cheap labor is the bane of American workers. They have lost 2 million good paying jobs with benefits in just the last year! The import of 20 million illegals in eight years has devastated skilled labor jobs, because illegals are allowed to work for less even though they don't possess the required skills. On-the-job training is current policy today. With 10 million American workers unemployed, President Bush wants to import even more foreigners to fill jobs; why? Cheap labor! Death of the middle class is the price. It was unions that helped create our middle class.

What will be the end result? The nation will revert to 1890, no middle class, no laws to protect working people, no laws to regulate CEO operations and poverty wages. Already, wage levels are decreasing to Third World levels. That is the goal of Senator Shelby, global poverty wages. The foreign auto plants in Southern states received billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies to establish plants with non-union workers. Thus, minimum wage is the national standard.

What is another consequence of this policy? One hundred million American workers have lost their jobs, pensions, benefits or combination of same since 1982. Part-time workers and temps make up at least 40 percent of the workforce.

Some conservatives accuse the auto industry of being an oligarchy. Ironically, they themselves are plutocrats, aristocrats, dictators or communists. How else can one segment of a democracy suppress the American dream for regular people (250 million of us?) They're the 21st century plantation owners, where they, a.k.a. Presidents Nixon and Bush II are the law, where they are above the Constitution (over $2 trillion to Wall Street and bankers, no questions asked; $15 billion to the auto industry with stiff demands.) Meanwhile, homeowners are still hanging, or gone.

Gabriel Read
Avon Park

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