GM’s stock may be hovering near its IPO price of $3/share, but the UAW doesn’t need much more growth to cash out with every penny it wanted from GM. The UAW’s VEBA account has banked $3.4b in stock sales so far, and Forbes reports
The VEBA will break even on its investment if it can sell the remaining 206 million shares at an average price of $36.96.
Taxpayers, meanwhile, need GM’s stock to top at least $52/share in order to break even on the bailout that it funded. Because it’s just not a bailout unless the least deserving benefit the most. Meanwhile, with its accounts once again flush with cash, the UAW is turning South in hopes of accomplishing what it has never accomplished before: unionizing at ransplant auto factory in a right-to-work, Southern state.
UAW boss Bob King tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press that
“We want workers there, and not just Chattanooga but all nonunion assembly facilities… We want workers to have a choice to come into the UAW.”
The UAW is “committed to the success of the employers that we represent, Ford, GM, Chrysler,” King said, and the union supports a “winning formula” for overseas transplants “whether it be Volkswagen, Toyota or Honda.”
Of course the bailout proved that, when push comes to shove, the UAW not only prioritizes itself first, but it also has the political clout to get the government to prioritize it over taxpayers as well. Which is probably why Senator Bob Corker advised bosses at the new VW plant in Tennessee to keep the union away.
I certainly shared with [VW] I couldn’t see how there was any possibility it could be a benefit to them to enter into a contract with UAW,” said Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor.
He stressed he is not “anti-union” and said he often employed union craftsmen when he ran a construction company.
But the UAW “breeds an ‘us versus they’ relationship, and I just don’t think it’s healthy for a company to be set up in that regard,”
To which King responded that
There is a difference between “this 20th century perception of UAW” and “the 21st century reality where we’re proactive on all these issues of quality and productivity.”
But again, the bailout speaks to the most current reality in Solidarity Hall. And VW is taking care to avoid confrontation with the UAW, preferring to let workers boot the union of their own accord, just as Tennessee workers already rejected two attempts to unionize the Nissan plant in Smyrna. According to management at the new plant
At Volkswagen Chattanooga, the employees will decide for themselves about their representation
And VW’s hands-off approach (not to mention, it’s history of “labor relations”) aside, you have to assume the UAW will have its hands full trying to organize Southern transplant shops. Especially without the help of a certain popular, caffeinated beverage.
The UAW has the right to ask, and the new VW workers have the right to say no.
If the UAW’s record at other southern auto plants is what we’re going by, then this is better stated as “The UAW has the right to ask, the VW workers have the right to say no, then the UAW has the right to lobby Congress to slant the rules in the favor of the UAW and harass the VW workers again and again in a vain attempt to scare and strong arm them into organizing”
The UAW is like a date rapist. Someone needs to tell the UAW “No!” means “No!”.
@ Silvy_nonsense
+1
To paraphrase Barrett-Jackson…
NAILED IT!
NAILED IT!
NAILED IT!
+2!
Could Mr. King be talking of a….Perception Gap, perhaps?
The VEBA funds you speak of? The UAW accounts “flush” with cash? Are you say that the UAW is using VEBA monies to finance the VW recruitment?
BTW… gslippy is right.
UAW making Vdubs? Oh well, guess that the other German manufacturers won’t have to worry about any quality from their competition. And I can save time by never going to a VW dealer for my next purchase.
You mentioned “quality”,and German manufacturers in the same sentence. What? like BMW Or Mercs.
Wow! king is really just a pathetic little parasitic psychopath…His Mama must be proud!
Depending upon the fate of the (in)famous “card check” legislation, the VW workers will have to say yes or no in public or private.
Import car makers won’t let the UAW sink their company like the Union did to Chrysler and Gm. They’ll simply pull up and move, costing Americans precious jobs if the workers are ever stupid enough to sign on.
The Big 3 do everything they can to manufacture OUTSIDE the US so they won’t have to deal with the UAW.
I think Paul missed these while editing the article ;)
‘$3/share’ = ‘$33/share’
‘at ransplant’ = ‘a transplant’
‘it’s history of’ = ‘its history of’
VW was stupid enough to let its New Stanton, PA, be a UAW shop.
VW eventually closed the plant 1988, after 10 short years. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer plant!
One wonders whether VW will repeat its previous stupidity.
History lesson time:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n6_v35/ai_13246858
in particular page 4.
@pleiter….You simply cannot let facts, or logic interfere with UAW bashing.
Does part of the UAW’s recruiting methods include a tutorial on how to land on the “winning side” of a two-tier wage model similar to the one the UAW has supported at GM’s Orion Assembly Plant? It would be helpful for prospective members to be well versed on these subtleties, so they don’t naively believe that every member of the union will be treated equally.
Twenty years ago, this may have been a close call. But the UAW’s recent history (and the new media that won’t ignore it) will kill their chances in any open vote.
The UAW is a badly evolved parasite in that it usually kills its host.