UAW Bums Should Not Be So Smug
Posted by: Not The Only One in Media, History, Labor, EconomicsIn this day and age where news commentary often dwarfs actual news reporting, it’s hard to not see union spokespeople on television grinning ear to ear as Toyota launches a massive worldwide recall of over four million Camrys and Corollas. United Auto Workers reps have been more than happy to appear on all major networks and news channels to suggest that Toyota’s failure to catch their defective parts before the cars left the factories because the company’s nonunion workers were “not committed to the product” because the company was “not committed to them”.
These union flunkies are capitalizing on the collective short-term memory of the American public. Say what you want about Toyota, but they never received a bailout from Congress because for the last 30 years they have been manufacturing automobiles that Americans actually want to drive. While car makers around the world have seen a loss in sales in the last few years, it was the Big Three that have been hemorrhaging red ink since the 70s.
So the UAW believes product recalls occur because nonunion workers are less committed than union workers are to the products they make? I can think of a few vehicle recalls involving unionized automakers:
- 1959 - GM recalls its Cadillacs due to a faulty steering mechanism.
- 1998 - GM recalls its Chevrolet Malibu after people died from defective parts.
- 2000 - Ford recalls the tires on its Ford Explorer SUV.
- 2005 - Ford recalls its Super Duty, Excursion and Econoline models due to a faulty engine.
- 2007 -Ford recalls its Super Duty models due to exploding tailpipes.
I don’t get it. The UAW says union workers are more committed to the products they make than nonunion workers. But the five aforementioned recalls would mean that UAW workers were somehow not committed to these recalled car models. And in all fairness, while Ford and GM have had multiple recalls, this is the first for Toyota, a Japanese company that has been manufacturing automobiles almost as long its American counterparts.
I snickered when a UAW rep on Fox News suggested that unionization could be the key in ensuring that future Toyota models come off the factory floor defect-free. I laughed out loud when the union crony suggested that a unionized Toyota would not mean more expensive Toyota products in the future.
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