Auto Union-Boss Bailout Not Improving With Age

Auto Union-Boss Bailout Not Improving With Age

White House Again Exhorts Taxpayers to Feel Good About Boondoggle (Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Autoworkers union President Bob King and other union bosses are the chief beneficiaries of the GM/Chrysler bailouts. Credit: www.motortrend.com In the summer of 2009, the Obama Administration handed over $49.5 billion in federal taxpayers' money to the Big Labor-controlled, money-hemorrhaging General Motors Corporation (GM). At the time, bankrupt GM was on the verge of being forced into liquidation. Its assets would then have been sold off. The White House publicly pitched this costly taxpayer-funded bailout as a bid to save American jobs. However, President Obama and his Administration actually knew full well that the number of Americans employed by GM would continue to shrink rapidly, even after the massive taxpayer bailout. Taypayer Bailout Hasn't Stopped Disappearance of Union Boss-Controlled Manufacturing Jobs In early 2009, GM had 47 production facilities in the U.S. By the end of this year, it will have just 34. The company's vehicle sales today, when the country's economy is recovering, albeit weakly, remain far below what they were in 2008, when the economy was in a recession. More than 80% of U.S. automotive manufacturing jobs are now in union-free firms, and these firms, not bailed-out GM and Chrysler, surely represent the future of domestic automotive manufacturing employment. Rather than workers, the single greatest beneficiary of the GM bailout was the United Autoworkers (UAW) union hierarchy. Along with sympathetic Obama agents, union officials were effectively left in charge of the company.