Re: [Marxism] Rescue of auto bosses pushes workers further under water

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 20, 2008, at 3:21 AM, Fred Feldman wrote:
> UAW's Sacrifices Look to Some Like Surrender
> By Peter Whoriskey
> Washington Post Staff Writer
>
> ...The $17.4 billion federal loan agreement does keep the domestic  
> auto
> industry alive. But the terms of that loan also insist that the  
> wages and
> benefits for union workers be lowered to "equal" the average of  
> nonunion
> workers...
>
> ....At a news conference in Chicago yesterday, President-elect  
> Barack Obama said
> that workers should not be the ones "taking all the hits" and that all
> stakeholders "are going to have to play a part in this process."...

So! Obama tells the workers that they must take "hits!"  In admitting  
his intention to "hit" workers Obama is at least being honest--unlike  
his lie that by glorifying Warren he is not hitting Gays and Women!
>
> Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the committee overseeing  
> much of
> the government financial rescue efforts, was far tougher.
>
> "The president has added an unfair assault on working men and women,  
> which
> could require them to accept a disproportionately large reduction in  
> what is
> currently legally owed to them," he said in a statement. "I am  
> particularly
> opposed to the notion . . . that could give foreign auto companies  
> in effect
> the ability to dictate wages for all American auto workers."
>
> Frank said that because those requirements were "unilaterally  
> inserted" by
> Bush, the Obama administration "should take whatever steps are  
> necessary to
> remove them."


Frank, a liberal, was by far the best qualified Obama supporter to be  
Treasury Secretary.  And what does Obama think of Frank?  One-word  
answer:  WARREN.

The UAW Left must place no hopes on Frank's ability to influence Obama  
to hit the workers only "proportionately."  There is a three-month  
space to  
organize 
:                                                                 --- 
an all-out fight against any more  
"concessions 
;"                                                                              
             --mobilization 
  of the workers to occupy all Big-Three factories the moment any of  
the Big-Three are forced into bankruptcy;
--a national political campaign for the nationalization of the Big  
Three under a public board including worker-elected representatives  
(stockholders compensated at the cheapest NYSE price prior to the  
bailout) and with the new company's top management recruited only from  
the best-qualified automotive engineers.

Any Left political group unable to participate effectively in such  
organizing has no justification for existence.  It should simply  
dissolve.

Shane Mage

> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos

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