|
Candace
Talmadge
Read Candace's bio and previous columns
November 24, 2008
Auto Bailout for
Workers, Not for Short-Sighted CEOs
Congress last week
curtly told U.S. automakers to come up with a business plan if they want
to be considered for a taxpayer funded bailout.
The politicians
certainly sang a different tune during the Wall Street meltdown debate.
No sum of money was too great, no payment timetable too hasty, to throw
at that crisis.
The difference? Wall
Street’s tax lifeline was designed to aid only those at the top and do
little if anything for those who suffer the most as a result of greed
and fraud. The so-called safeguards supposedly written into that law
were and remain a complete sham.
Consider it President
George W. Bush’s last round of largesse to his base, the “have mores.”
Happily,
President-elect Barack Obama has stated that some sort of taxpayer help
for the automakers is critical, and he’s spot on in this assessment.
Once he takes office, the bailout will be back.
Please note that this
rescue isn’t for the privileged, pampered braintrust that drove Detroit
straight over a cliff. It is for the workers who had no say in the
companies’ policies, and for an economy on life-support that simply will
not survive the millions of body-blows from the direct and indirect jobs
to be lost if Motown goes belly up.
Even better, Obama has
also said that tax dollars for automakers must come with a few strings
attached. It’s about damn time. In that spirit, here are a half-dozen
suggested strings that should be wrapped good and tight around any Big
Three aid.
First: Top managers are
toast. History. Ditto for their enablers, otherwise known as the board
of directors. Gone. (Don’t let the screen door hit you on your way out.)
Second: No golden
parachute for any erstwhile executive or director. Not even a brass
bungee cord.
Third: Major salary
restructuring. No C-suite honcho at any bailed-out company may legally
earn more than 50 times the annual salary of any assembly line worker or
parts supplier employee based anywhere in the world. Same goes
for benefits. If the rank-and-file don’t get the goodies, neither do
their bosses.
Fourth: Ironclad
mandates for improved average fuel economy on a reasonable timetable.
Say at least a 35 mpg average by 2015 for all cars, light trucks,
sport-utility vehicles and minivans.
Fifth: Additional
ironclad mandates for reducing levels of all polluting vehicle
emissions, not just carbon dioxide.
Sixth: Taxpayer
profit-sharing. Once the automakers start making money again, the U.S.
Treasury gets dividends proportionate to the amount of public dollars
invested, just like other shareholders. These shares are to remain held
by the public as a reminder to new management.
Seventh: Mandatory
annual minimums strictly for investment in research on fuel-saving
technologies and cost-cutting approaches to vehicle design and
construction. No more penny-wise, pound-foolish skimping on R&D just to
fatten up the bottom line.
Such conditions may
seem harsh or unrealistic. That’s only because since the 1970s, we have
moved wildly to the right in setting the nation’s economic priorities.
We haven’t always fawned over top managers and showered them with lavish
(frequently undeserved) pay and perks, treating them like monarchs of
corporate fiefdoms while marginalizing their serfs – er, employees.
What will it take
before this fundamental understanding finally sticks in our
consciousness? Trickle-down economic, fiscal and monetary policies are
unsustainable over the long term. America ran smack into this hard truth
in the form of the 20th Century’s Great Depression, and we
are reliving it once again because we ignored it in favor of a chosen
few.
© 2008
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback
about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
This is Column #CT129.
Request permission to publish here. |
