Top union leader: Biden's Keystone plan wrong, will cost U.S. jobs

[halfulglas]

14. The shorted-sighted cycle never ends.

How many remember the short-sighted of the American auto makers in the 70's. Yes, they made some beautiful cars in the 60's and 70's, but while Washington was trying to mandate improving fuel standards. The companies fought the tooth and nail with not only lobbyists but got the unions to back them. "We can't afford to make the design changes. It costs too much money. We will have to retool the assembly lines." The unions told the government, "You can't do this. It's going to cost us jobs." They kept delaying the dates mandating of the fuel standards to take effect.

Well what happened of course is that Detroit kept taking their sales money but continuing to design the same gas hogs every year thinking the world wanted cars as big as boats at big prices. The car execs of course got their huge salaries.

What was happening was that the world was buying smaller cars, more gas efficient. Americans who couldn't afford the big Detroit gas hogs and were also buying fuel efficient German and Japanese cars, then even Korean cars. Americans were being called not patriotic for buying foreign cars they could afford. It was fashionable in Detroit to make fun of Japanese cars as not safe and pieces of tin but American car makers were starting to take on some foreign "partners" who didn't want to pay union wages and built their own cars in states other than Michigan. Car makers started blaming their financial troubles on the high wages they paid their union workers and the funding of their pension plans.

Of course, the point I'm making is that yes, the Detroit auto makers were short sighted in not thinking ahead, but they might have been forced to if the unions didn't join them. If the union execs would have looked in the driveways of their own members, they might have realized that even in Detroit, foreign cars were being driven and there was a reason for it.