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... of Politics
Aug 19/2006: Willful ignorance or just a
lie? Or, why did a Washington Post
reporter so blatantly ignore the role on the UAW in the demise of the
domestic-owned auto manufacturing?
A front-page Washington Post article
on the growth of non-U.S.-owned domestic auto manufacture starts (and
simultaneous decline in U.S.-owned -- and half-German/half U.S. owned auto
manufacture...) reads:
Detroit Waves Flag That No Longer Flies
Congress Embraces Jobs, Growth Created by Foreign Carmakers
By Sholnn Freeman
Sen. Lamar Alexander has backed a measure to
outlaw burning of the American flag and supported a move to recognize English as
the national language. He also takes what he calls a pro-American stance on
issues related to the U.S. auto industry, but his view doesn't sit well in
Detroit. Alexander believes that for the sake of jobs and economic growth,
Detroit's automakers have no choice but to embrace the forces of globalization.
His view, echoed by many of his congressional colleagues, reflects a growing
acceptance of the swelling numbers of Japanese, German and Korean autos built
and sold in the United States.
Foreign-based automakers employ 101,000 people, according to the Association of
International Automobile Manufacturers, a District-based lobbying group for the
overseas automakers. In the next three years, these manufacturers will invest $9
billion in new factories, adding 9,000 more jobs. This growth helps explain why
scarcely a murmur of discontent has been raised -- outside of Michigan -- over a
potential alliance between General Motors Corp. and two foreign automakers,
Nissan Motor Co. of Japan and Renault SA of France. It also provides insight
into why Congress has resisted pleas from Detroit's Big Three to turn their high
labor and health-care costs into a national priority.
I read the tripe three times. In disbelief, I
went right to the web version of the article just to be sure: was there really a
major market, front page article on auto manufacture in the U.S. without serious
discussion of the role in it of unions and the UAW? Indeed! "UAW " appears
twice, and that from sources and not the subject of article, and "union" appears
thrice, and all without relevance to the core problem in the ongoing transition
from domestic to foreign-owned manufacture.
No irony here: the UAW itself brought on the domestic building of foreign cars.
In the late 1970s the union demanded import restrictions to halt the growth of
imports, which, the UAW knew, would force those imported makes to move to
domestic production. This was all well and good so long as there was a
Volkswagen to launch a factory in Pennsylvania fully and fully bound to the UAW.
What they didn't consider was that the Japanese, with American managers, weren't
the fools Walter Reuther had long toyed with in Detroit and Washington: the
Japanese and, later, Germans, went southward and found lovely homes in the
non-union South. Surprise, surprise, but those workers were more efficient than
those of the UAW, less contentious, and could make cars as well as any workers
anywhere. Now, as Detroit sinks to old UAW contracts, the Washington Post
publishes an article on auto building in America by non-U.S. makes, and makes it
without any consideration of the role of unions.
It's either willful ignorance or a lie. I'm really hoping for the former. Or
have the politics of the press gone that bad? There is no story about the growth
of foreign-owned domestic auto manufacture without a discussion of the UAW.
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