Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin is the harshest, most unremitting journalistic critic of the federal involvement/aid to various sectors of the economy (like so many, indiscriminately calling them all “bailouts”), and the UAW is one of her many targets. For all the many good points she makes about UAW golf courses, spending and corruption today in her syndicated column, “The UAW’s money-squandering corruptocracy,” we’d also like to hightlight this one:

Curious about how the UAW will be spending my money and yours, I sifted through the union’s most recent annual report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor (which you can find at unionreports.gov). Who knew hitting the links was so central to the business of making cars?

Malkin was able to write an informative and damning column because of reports made available through the Department of Labor. She and other journalists, the public, and union members have all benefited from Labor’s concerted efforts to improve union transparency, most carried out through the Office of Labor Management Standards and including such sites as unionreports.gov.  With all major players in the U.S. economy under increased scrutiny and unions hoping to create a more static, less responsive labor market through the Employee Free Choice Act, maintaining oversight and transparency are critical.

Yet there are many indications that the Department of Labor in the next Administration will head in the other direction, the wrong direction. As the Wall Street Journal reported in a recent editorial, “Quantum of Solis“:

From day one of the Obama era, union leaders want the lights dimmed on how they spend their mandatory member dues. The AFL-CIO’s representative on the Obama transition team for Labor is Deborah Greenfield, and we’re told her first inspection stop was the Office of Labor-Management Standards, or OLMS, which monitors union compliance with federal law.

Ms. Greenfield declined to comment, citing Obama transition rules, but her mission is clear enough. The AFL-CIO’s formal “recommendations” to the Obama team call for the realignment of “the allocation of budgetary resources” from OLMS to other Labor agencies. The Secretary should “temporarily stay all financial reporting regulations that have not gone into effect,” and “revise or rescind the onerous and unreasonable new requirements,” such as the LM-2 and T-1 reporting forms. The explicit goal is to “restore the Department of Labor to its mission and role of advocating for, protecting and advancing the interests of workers.” In other words, while transparency is fine for business, unions are demanding a pass for themselves.

Along similar lines, Mark Tapscott of The Examiner asks if the (very vocal) liberal advocates of transparency and open government will speak up on behalf of the OLMS and Labor’s transparency initiatives.

Organized labor’s leaders sure hold idiosyncratic views about secrecy, don’t they? With the Employee Free Choice Act, they would destroy secret-ballot elections so organizers can force unwilling workers into unions. But in attacking Department of Labor union transparency rules, labor bosses would restore and extend secrecy into union operations so they can spend members’ dues however they want.

Both issues — the Employee Free Choice Act and union transparency — are early tests of an Obama Administration and its views on accountability, transparency and the importance of a dynamic market economy. We certainly hope the decisionmaking is carried out in a transparent way.

From Mickey Kaus, Kausfiles:

Fifteen years ago, at the start of the last Democratic president’s administration. incoming Labor Secretary Robert Reich famously said “The jury is still out on whether the traditional union is necessary for the new workplace.” Tactfully put. This fall, if not earlier, the jury came back.

Famously put? Well, it was new to us. As was this comment from the same New York Times article, August 8, 1993, “Union Leaders Fight for a Place in the President’s Workplace of the Future“:

“Unions are O.K. where they are,” said Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. “And where they are not, it is not clear yet what sort of organization should represent workers.”

The Employee Free Choice Act would make it abundantly clear what sort of organization would represent workers: traditional labor unions, which unwilling employees would be forced into via elimination of secret ballot elections. Secretary Brown died in the Balkan plane crash, of course, so we can’t ask his views of the bill. Robert Reich is still alive, though, and he seems to realize the weakness of the arguments for card check.

Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times wrote the original piece. A good foundation for another report, eh?

More…

Trauma nurse Sherwood Cox, who worked to defeat two California Nurses Assn. drives at Western Medical Center Santa Ana, said that under the proposed law, he would be unable to keep the union out.

“When it’s actually gone to vote, we’ve gone into the ballot booth and we’ve voted no,” Cox said. “Both times, the union was totally shocked that they lost.”

Under the card-check system, an employer could be surprised to learn that the workplace has gone union overnight.

Two items, one linked to but now sufficiently highlighted yesterday, the Detroit Free Press editorial, “Hey, America: Detroit’s automakers are asking for a loan“:

Can we get something straight between Detroit and the rest of America?

What the auto industry is seeking in Washington is a loan, L-O-A-N, as in something you borrow and then pay back — with interest.

This is not a gift, a grant or a handout. It’s a loan, the kind of thing financial institutions used to do before they all had to scurry to Washington for their own bailouts, which have been far bigger and subjected to considerably less scrutiny than this loan that the auto industry desperately needs to keep operating — and keep millions of people employed.

And an interesting suggestion from Hugh Hewitt, law professor, radio host, Republican, blogger, “Should the GOP Bargain On The Bailout?”

If the GOP’s leadership in the Senate calculates that it must go along with the bailout of the Big Three because of the overall weakness in the economy, I hope they at least bargain for some concession such as a giant tax restructuring for Michigan and Ohio, a demonstration project on the economic effects of tax reform.  If the UAW and industry supporters are going to succeed in opening a fiscal lifeline to Detroit, couldn’t the GOP at least demand that all of Michigan and Ohio provide a demonstration of what a lower corporate tax rate can mean for an economy.  Call them Irish Zones, after the tax policy of the Republic of Ireland, and declare that companies headquartered in Michigan or Ohio will pay 12.5% corporate tax, as all corporations do in Ireland.

Related story: The New York Times runs a post-mortem on the Saturn experiment at GM.

The Detroit News takes a slight breather today in its coverage of the Detroit auto industry, with a mere score of articles, while expanding its sights overseas:

Michigan needs to act like the Big 3

Daniel Howes: Conventional wisdom holds that Michigan is entering Year Seven of its one-state recession because Detroit’s automakers are tanking — and poised to drive off a cliff.

• UAW to suspend maligned jobs bank
• On Capitol Hill, Big 3 put on hard sell

 Toyota to cut domestic output amid slowing demand

TOKYO — Toyota is starting to feel the pinch of the global slowdown at home. 7:04 am

Honda to cut jobs in Britain, Japan amid global slump

Britain new car sales down 37 percent in November

Some place their hopes in nostalgia.

A ’60s classic back in Motown

Schlitz’s Classic 1960s beer is back on shelves after nearly three decades, prompted by demands from aficionados hankering for the maltier, full-bodied lager.

Coming up this morning, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs holds a hearing… 

US Senator Christopher J. Dodd Chairman US Senator Richard Shelby Ranking Member

Committee:

Title: The State of the Domestic Automobile Industry: Part II

Date: 12/4/08

Time: 10:00 AM

Place: 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Publication: Printable Hearing not available at this time

Witnesses

Panel 1   Mr. Gene L. Dodaro , Acting Comptroller General, United States Government Accountability Office Panel 2   Mr. Ron Gettelfinger , President, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America   Mr. Alan Mulally , President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company   Mr. Robert Nardelli , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chrysler LLC   Mr. G. Richard Wagoner , Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, General Motors   Mr. Keith Wandell , President, Johnson Controls, Inc.   Mr. James Fleming , President, Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association   Dr. Mark Zandi , Chief Economist and Cofounder, Moody’s Economy.com

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You watch the hearing online here.

A look around at the coverage:

Reuters, “U.S. automakers rush to finish plans for Congress“:

DETROIT/WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – U.S. automakers rushed to submit restructuring plans demanded by Congress before lawmakers reopen debate on a $25 billion bailout the industry says it needs to survive.

Under fire for fighting fuel standards for years, the Detroit-based automakers are expected to present plans that call for them to build more fuel-efficient cars, ax unpopular brands, cap executive compensation and restructure their agreements with the United Auto Workers union.

Associated Press, “Auto Workers to hold emergency meeting on bailout“:

NEW YORK (Associated Press) – Local United Auto Workers leaders from across the country will hold an emergency meeting in Detroit on Wednesday to discuss concessions the union could make to help auto companies get government loans.

UAW leaders called the meeting Monday night in an e-mail, obtained by The Associated Press, to local union presidents and bargaining chairmen.

Among the subjects to be discussed at the meeting will be the possibility of restructuring the union-administered health care fund so that the automakers can delay payments to the multibillion-dollar fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The union leaders will also discuss potentially eliminating the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay.

• Marketwatch, “Auto execs prepare for second run at Washington“
• Bloomberg, “Canadian Autoworkers’ Jobs Would ‘Take a Hit’ in US Bailout“
• BusinessWeek, “Auto Workers to hold emergency meeting on bailout“ 

Finally,  Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne pounds the class warfare drums in his op-ed today, “Crunch Time for the Big 3,” making the comment, “A hideous class bigotry has disfigured this debate.”

You can’t have bigotry without bigots, and to Dionne those bigots are the people who have criticized the UAW and organized labor for exorbitant contracts.

Look, there’s enough blame to go around here, but you sure shouldn’t exempt organized labor from criticism, and criticism does not equal bigotry. Consider the UAW e-mail cited above: “The union leaders will also discuss potentially eliminating the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay.” Job banks?

Dionne’s comment is even more distasteful when you look at the sentence that immediately precedes it: “If saving our auto industry means moving GM workers ever closer to Wal-Mart wages, the bailout isn’t worth doing.”

Implicitly demeaning Wal-Mart workers as so unworthy that just moving “ever closer” to their wages — what, 1 percent, 2 percent closer? — justifies shuttering the Detroit automakers is as good of an example of “hideous class bigotry” you’ll find in this debate.

The Senate Banking Committee has not yet posted the prepared statements from yesterday’s hearing, “Examining the State of the Domestic Automobile Industry,” but the testimony  was available elsewhere:

• Rick Wagoner, General Motors, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
• Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (full prepared testimony here).
• Robert Nardelli, Chrysler, Chairman & CEO, Chrysler LLC
• Ron Gettelfinger, President, United Auto Workers

Don’t immediately see the statements from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and University of Maryland economist Peter Morici.

The three auto executives and UAW’s Gettelfinger are also slated to testify before the House Committee on Financial Services at 10 a.m. today, the hearing entitled, “Stabilizing the Financial Condition of the American Automobile Industry.”

The other panel should have its moments of interest:

• Mrs. Annette Sykora, Chairman, National Automobile Dealers Association
• Mr. James S. McElya, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cooper-Standard Automotive, Inc.
• Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University
• Dr. Matthew J. Slaughter, Professor of International Economics, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing today at 3 p.m., “Examining the State of the Domestic Automobile Industry.” Following a statement by Senate Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the second panel witnesses are:

• Mr. Ron Gettelfinger , President, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America
• Mr. Alan Mulally , President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company
• Mr. Robert Nardelli , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chrysler LLC
• Mr. G. Richard Wagoner , Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, General Motors
• Dr. Peter Morici , Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland

 And the latest news…

• Auto executives take case for bailout to Congress Reuters
• Automakers head to Capitol Hill to plead case  MarketWatch
• Democrats propose $25 billion in loans for carmakers Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, the Detroit News leads with this story, “Gettelfinger: No wage or benefits cuts,” based on the union leader’s prepared testimony from the hearing. Gettelfinger:

We do not believe there is any justification for conditioning assistance to the Detroit-based auto companies on further deep cuts in wages and benefits for active and retired workers. We would also note that in the cases where the Treasury Department has acted to rescue financial institutions, it has only imposed restrictions on executive compensation. It has never mandated cuts in wages or benefits for rank-and-file workers and retirees. Thus, there is no basis for singling out the auto industry for different treatment.

Gettelfinger also rebuts arguments for a bankruptcy as the appropriate approach. Again, from his prepared testimony:

Consumers will not purchase vehicles from a company that has filed for bankruptcy. And bankrupt auto companies would not be able to obtain ‘debtor-in-possession’ financing to enable them to continue operations. Thus, the stark reality is that these companies would be forced into a Chapter 7 liquidation, with their operations ceasing entirely and their assets sold for pennies on dollar.