Not for us though. We’ve had the luxury of several pre-bailout months of foreknowledge of this particular $33m white elephant. The kids at Fox News, on the other hand, seem to have only just found out about the UAW’s Reuther Family Education Center, and they’re downright apoplectic. The $33m resort, nestled on “1,000 heavily forested acres” has lost $23m over the past five years, despite charging as much as $85 in green fees. Besides improving the UAW’s collective handicap, the Family Education Center provides accomodations for retreats and conferences which give members “a deeper understanding of the UAW and the union movement away from the routine of their daily lives,” according to the Center’s website. All of which has Fox reaching for the “union-basher” volume of its rolodex.
According to Justin Wilson of the Center For Union Facts, the UAW covers costs for the Reuther Center from the interest it earns on its strike fund, according to tax documents, but massive losses in the past five years have forced the union to make heavy loans to keep the center afloat. “Unions certainly have had real estate investments in the past, but investments are supposed to make money, not bleed money,” says Wilson. “It’s funny that they call it an education center — it’s a resort,” said Wilson. “If I was a union member, I would prefer that they rented out a room at the Ramada Inn.” According to the UAW, some 10k visitors stay at the Reuther Center each year in order to “learn, experience unionism (and) commit to labor’s cause.” Needless to say, it’s much easier to convince someone to “commit to labor’s cause” on a stunnning, $6m Rees Jones course than at a Ramada Inn. But with private jets and executive compensation being given up by Detroit’s management for bailout bucks, the UAW golf retreat kind of takes a little of the je ne c’est pas from the union’s proletariat credibility.
It hardly takes a “Fox News” world view to be disgusted by this.
The UAW is a shameful embarrassment to a number of good unions that actually exist.
We helped destroy the domestic auto industry, and we also built a money losing golf course for the UAW heads to hang out at.
Time for a “Proud to not be driving UAW” bumper sticker.
The UAW is as diseased with greed as anyone in RenCen. This resort is absurd and any defense of it would be all the more ridiculous in a collapsing economy. Unfortunately, it looks like things will get so bad that many of these problems will take care of themselves through failure.
And is this FOX News talking head suggesting that highly paid Americans are the most productive Americans? What exactly do members of the country’s executive class produce? They are not the engineers, the chemists, the line workers. They produce little more than hot air, and in many cases, failed policies that defy the realities of capitalism and common sense.
When I did my Shop Steward training for my union local, it was in a spartan office conferance room, NOT a resort.
It would seem that the hubris displayed in the auto injustry isn’t exclusive to the executives.
And is this FOX News talking head suggesting that highly paid Americans are the most productive Americans? What exactly do members of the country’s executive class produce? They are not the engineers, the chemists, the line workers.
To that list you can add entrepreneurs who supply the capaital or start the businesses themselves. The guy who opens a restaurant and employs 20 people while serving good food to the public is a heck of a lot more productive than Ron Goldfinger or Rick Wagoneer.
To quote the muse that is Pink Floyd: “With, without. And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting is all about?”
So the folks who inhabit the Capitol, the RenCen and the Union HQ are greedy, amoral, hypocritical bastards. This is news?
In defense of executives, saying they do nothing is about as accurate as claiming that auto line workers aren’t skilled workers, and that any old high school dropout could do their job after a week of on the job training.
A good executive produces a business that can pay for all those engineers, chemists, and line workers to do their thing profitably. That isn’t an easy feat.
“A good executive produces a business that can pay for all those engineers, chemists, and line workers to do their thing profitably. That isn’t an easy feat.”
By that definition, there are very few good executives in the Fortune 500.
I wonder if the resort employees are unionized? They couldn’t be UAW members since, that’s the employer and in that case there would effectively be no union. I’d guess that they’d be SEIU members. What do these employees get paid – do they have the same benefits as the members?
Here in Canada, the CAW also have a very nice Resort on the shores of Georgian Bay(Lake Huron), it doubles as a training School for all Labour groups in Canada, I have spent a few good weeks there when I was being trained by my Union(not a CAW one either) , these schools and training places existed because the CAW had very good contracts over the years and it just not the Auto Industry either that supports the CAW here, they exist within the Airline and Hospital Industry too.
said Wilson. “If I was a union member, I would prefer that they rented out a room at the Ramada Inn.”
Wilson, who works for Rick Berman, a millionaire lobbyist, is probably used to something a bit more upscale than the Ramada. If Wilson was a union member, he’d probably never be hired by Berman.