Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader On The Auto Bailout: Republican Senators Motive Is To Break Unions

The following is a statement from consumer advocate Ralph Nader and Robert Weissman, director of the advocacy group Essential Action:
In an effort to break the United Auto Workers -- a union that historically has been responsible for raising wages and benefits not just for unionized auto workers but for all working Americans -- Senate Republicans are apparently willing to permit the collapse of the U.S. auto industry.

Unionized auto workers have made steady concessions over the last quarter century, including in the 2007 contract, which will have many new workers start jobs at $14 an hour. These employees will be making about half of what their co-workers earn.

It is both an outrage and illogical for the Senate Republicans to suggest UAW worker wages and benefits should be driven down to the levels at non-unionized Japanese plants in the United States. It is an outrage because it disrespects the hard and dangerous work done by auto workers, explicitly aims to undermine the benefits of workers joining together to exercise their right to bargain collectively, and accelerates the United States' trajectory to ever-descending wages and benefits. It is illogical, too. Although the Japanese plants keep wages close to UAW rates as an anti-union strategy, they can always lower their wages further, on a unilateral basis, in a never-ending race-to-the-bottom.

The action by the Senate Republicans is extraordinarily reckless, challenging the most important institution for advancing working peoples' living standards -- unions -- and threatening to worsen drastically an already severe recession.

Even the Republicans' sense of political self-interest seems dimmed by their anti-union zealotry.

Senate Republicans may think they gain political points by standing against assistance to a major industry, but they will suffer political damage lasting generations if they permit the U.S. auto industry to collapse.