Wall Street Sharks Circle the UAW

[Truth2Tell]

From: Providence Journal

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_rick15_04-15-09_DJDVGHK_v17.3e650b1.html

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 15, 2009

JOHN R. MacARTHUR

NEW YORK

BARACK OBAMA’S commitment to helping labor has always been suspect, but handing over the American car business to the investment banker Steven Rattner might well turn the president into the last great union buster.

To be sure, we’re already long past the point where industrial unions have any real clout in our so-called service economy — this thanks to “free trade” (that is, guaranteed cheap labor in foreign locales and low import tariffs on foreign-made goods) and Bill Clinton’s alliance with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Franklin Roosevelt’s old party of labor is now almost entirely the party of Wall Street and only a severe depression might alter this political reality. When Obama sent economist Austen Goolsbee to reassure the Canadian government that the candidate’s criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the Ohio primary didn’t mean anything, he meant it.

But this isn’t to say there aren’t a few remaining pockets of working-class resistance to the money power that Wall Street and the DLC would like to crush. And right now, Rattner and the Treasury Department task force’s biggest target is not the overpaid executive staff at General Motors, but the United Auto Workers union, the country’s best and traditionally most honest mass labor organization.

Just wait a few weeks, and the demands for concessions from the allegedly overpaid and cosseted UAW members will rise to levels of shrillness far greater than the very brief — and ineffective — outcry over the AIG bonuses.

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_rick15_04-15-09_DJDVGHK_v17.3e650b1.html">Continued...

[onethatcares]

1. The clock is ticking on the UAW

many of its members were our fathers that fought in WW2 and knew of the depression. As they die, the sharks will make sure our children and grandchildren will only know of unions being fronts for the mafia.

Meanwhile, they'll try to erase all evidence of the robber barons, or the reason the Johnstown flood happened, or why they killed people that were trying to organize....

The end started with the shrillness on GM.

[amborin]

8. agree, that's their goal, like demolishing historic bldgs involved in the UAW sitdown strike,etc...

[bvar22]

16. The clock is ticking...

...for the American Working Class.

[madrchsod]

2. let`s party like it`s 1980!

take out the auto workers and reagan`s dream will be fullfilled...

[Truth2Tell]

4. Why not? We've eviscerated most of the rest

of our industrial jobs.

[natrat]

3. hail to the oligarchy, long live the oligarchy !

[leftstreet]

5. "...the end of the line for middle-class unionism."

Yep

[bbgrunt]

6. k n r!!

[Wednesdays]

7. K&R

:kick:

[amborin]

9. k & r

also---

i can say this: if Obama messes with those folks' pensions and health care benefits, he's going to lose labor support for 2012.....

ps: the system won't let me recommend....system error message

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Yup! And he's not going to be doing too well with the teacher's

either.

[Romulox]

10. Obama cannot win Michigan if he breaks the UAW. The UAW has the upper hand here.

Obama's position is the weak one here. It is simply not politically feasible for a Democrat to break the UAW; the Dems will lose Michigan and Ohio for a generation.

[pampango]

12. Agreed. He cannot win Ohio is he breaks the UAW. Statewide elections are usually close.

This would definitely tip the balance against Democrats.

President Obama is a very smart politician. Even if he were anti-union, which I don't believe he is, he would surely realize that giving up on Ohio and Michigan (and other states, as well) would be political suicide for him. My gut feeling is that it is his intention to save the auto industry (with significant changes) and the UAW, but his tactics for doing that involve political moves that seem inconsistent with that, but are a means to that end.

He may be politically astute enough to be three moves ahead of other players in the auto industry negotiations and fully intends to save the industry and the UAW. Or he thinks he has a great strategy and tactics, but will be defeated by forces opposing him. Or he really is a union buster and his political moves are telegraphing his end goal. I hope, and believe, that it is the former, but we shall see.

[Truth2Tell]

13. He may feel that he can't win if he crosses Wall Street either.

Puts him between a rock and a hard place. Doesn't make him "anti-union" but does make him a bit too focused on political calculation at the expense of principle for my tastes (If true).

[w4rma]

14. Wall Street is the problem, not the solution. (nt)

[Truth2Tell]

15. No question about it.

Somebody tell Obama.

[Blue_Tires]

17. kick for one of my fav. papers

[NNN0LHI]

18. Look at all the people who belong to unions right here bragging about their magic Toyota's

Seemingly intelligent people too. Thats what Obama is up against.

Don

[Hannah Bell]

22. "Thats what Obama is up against" - what a joke. you act like *he's* working for

unionization - he's busting the auto workers.

[sarcasmo]

19. Union goes bust, Wall Street goes up. The nation of Greed must STOP!

[girl gone mad]

20. Rattner's days are numbered.

Unless the administration wants to spend months defending this corruption:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992516941227309.html

Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A Securities and Exchange Commission complaint says a "senior executive" of Mr. Rattner's investment firm met in 2004 with a politically connected consultant about a finder's fee. Later, the complaint says, the firm received an investment from the state pension fund and paid $1.1 million in fees.

The "senior executive," not named in the complaint, is Mr. Rattner, according to the person familiar with the matter. He is co-founder of the investment firm, Quadrangle Group, which he left to join the Treasury Department to oversee the auto task force earlier this year. Neither Mr. Rattner nor Quadrangle has been accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Rattner did not return calls for comment.

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-payments-by-steve-rattner-under-investigation-in-new-york-kickback-scandal-2009-4

The Treasury's car czar, Steve Rattner, has been dragged into the New York State retirement fund kickback scandal that led to several arrests earlier this week.

Rattner's private equity firm, Quadrangle, paid a finder's fee to one of the defendants in the kickback scheme for a $100 million investment the state retirement fund made in one of Quadrangle's funds.

More troublingly, one of Quadrangle's affiliate companies also paid $88,000 to acquire the DVD distribution rights for a movie produced by the New York State official who made the investment decision and his brothers. Quadrangle made this DVD payment during the time the state was considering making the investment.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Steve Rattner is the Quadrangle executive described in the SEC complaint we've excerpted below. The complaint says Rattner was personally involved in both the payment of the finder's fee and the acquisition of the movie rights.

[Hannah Bell]

21. I think it's telling that the very survival of the auto unions & auto jobs is under seige, & the

leadership isn't doing jack shit.

Company unions since the 50s. Cooperated in sabotaging worker interests.