I’m going to get in trouble here, but I’ll pipe up anyways.
I totally understand where the UAW is coming from. A number of these same Congressmen were the ones that stated that the Wall Street bailout should not have any caps on executive compensation. Last week, the head of Merrill Lynch wanted a $10 million dollar bonus. So, in essence, on Wall Street, whether the market is going up or down, executives are “worthy” of their compensation.
Even assuming that the free market is rationale (which seems inherently false since non-rationale human beings participate and run the market–watch a number of PhD theses come out on this over the next few years), then one should accept the assumption that banding together as an economic force to better your position is also an inherently rationale position.
So why is it that workers and retirees are the ones getting trashed by the GOP while those executives that put together these crappy mortgage derivatives are getting off scot-free (and retaining their fraudulent bonuses of the past 3 years).
If I was the UAW, I’d be ticked off seeing these requests be made of folks making under 75k a year while those traders and bankers making in excess of 500k a year who started this credit crisis not be asked to sacrifice anything.
Just the other perspective. As a lawyer, we try to look at both sides (right??).
Also, the fact that these same GOP Senators happen to all represent states with foreign automaker plants with no unions is irrelevant…… Yeah, not quite sure about that.
