Sorry for living the American Dream

I’ve been stewing about this auto bailout controversy for a while and Zack!
spurred me to comment. Yes, capitalism creates perverse incentives and when the players are left to their own devices, periodically there is a crisis. Of course, this is quite destructive. But, leftist theorists say, the underclass will organize and create a new economy in such times. Lately though, it seems as if the right wing seems to relish crises, for it presents them with an opportunity to create a new society that is even more fucked up than before. Take this auto industry crisis. There seems to be three different responses from the government. The Bush administration seems disinclined to get involved, suggesting that Detroit is not fit enough to survive, let’s move on. Just like their response to homeowners in the mortgage crisis. Democratic leaders are saying capitalism is mostly a force for good, but government should step in and help the victims from time to time. The most revolutionary response is actually coming from southern Republican senators like DeMint , who see an opportunity in someone else’s crisis: the destruction of the UAW and what it represents: the idea of organized labor. Apparently, this union is the cause of all of Detroit’s problems, with their (gasp!) bargaining power.

How does a politician, who makes a 6 figure salary at the expense of tax-payers, plus millions from all the business ties, who produces absolutely nothing for our country, get to throw union workers under the bus? Where’s his paycut, give back, productivity standard, increased co-pay, reduced “legacy cost”, pension cut? Let’s be straight: the executives at these companies are pricks, even now they continue to resist basic environmental standards, wanting to litigate states’ fuel efficiency standards, even though that is where the market is! Fine, let’s get rid of these fools. But these douche-bag Republicans are willing to destroy hundreds of communities and hundreds of thousands of families just to see one of the greatest successes of organized labor be made a scapegoat.

Auto workers used to make poverty wages, then by mid-century they were donating to local charities, volunteering, opening business, and were involved in local civic affairs. As of the 2007 UAW contract new hires will make $14 an hour. What? In places like Cleveland, and smaller communities around it like Lordstown, Lorain, Brookpark, autoworkers have created what we used to know as the middle class. Their wages were able to build these communities. It’s amazing. It was amazing.

A symbol of how important the automobile has been around here: The Guardians of Transportation in Cleveland straddle the Cuyahoga River. The Art Deco structure with Roman figures in relief suggest that it is heroic to protect our automobile future.

Guardians of Transportation on the Carnegie-Lorain Bridge, with Progressive Field in the background.

Close up.

These workers bargained for a piece of the pie, and our country was better for it. I’m not romanticizing it. I remember reading about an autoworker telling Studs Turkel in his book “Working” that he would never wish for his son to join the drudgery of the line, but the benefits and safety rules allowed him to create a meaningful life for his family so his son then had the option of doing whatever he wanted. That’s what the American Dream was supposed to be.

I’ve lived in the Rust Belt for a few years and lived in several cities that have “de-industrialized”: Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. Towns like Braddock, PA are in bad shape now thirty years after the collapse of the steel industry. Poverty is high, and so are the associated ills: poor schools, lack of infrastructure, fraying community ties, poorer health, and so on. But people still live there. They didn’t just up and go become IT consultants or biotech workers. They are working at movie theaters. Literally. At the site of the old Homestead Works, on the other side of the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh, where over a century ago steelworkers fought with the Pinkertons, there is a Loews and strip mall. A generation ago, people were doing dirty, dangerous, but skilled and appropriately well-paying work. There was pride in being a steelworker. Now, mothers with kids are competing with 16 year-olds for the few jobs around. Jobs and industries come and go, but people, their families, and their communities are not so flexible or mobile.

The right blamed the steelworkers union for the collapse of that industry, too. This is what gets me. The industrial union movement in this country, as opposed to, say, Britain, was a partner of capitalism. They rejected communists. John Lewis, the head of the Mineworkers in the 1930s and founder of the CIO, was a Republican, and skeptic of Roosevelt. While British unions advocated for more socialist policies, American unions decided to just ask for a small share of the profits, thank you very much. Legacy costs? The UAW and other industrial unions did not push for the type of nationalized health care plan that Britain developed after WWII, instead, partly out of mistrust of the government and the WWII wage freeze, they bargained for health care benefits in lieu of wage increases.
Well, the situation in Britain is not much better, by the way. A few years ago, I visited Liverpool, Newcastle, and Glasgow. The situation was the same as here: more Rust Belt towns. While I was there, the MG Rover car company went bankrupt. Thousands of people in a few communities were immediately unemployed. But even in communities that have long ago de-industrialized, these jobs meant something.

Nobody is happy at the thought of bailing out the auto companies. The executives need to feel some pain. Maybe they should have their fingers slammed in the car door a few times as a condition of getting help. Or they should have to live for a year with that woman who ate rabbits in Roger and Me. Wow, that was 20 years ago. I wonder where she is now.

The position of having to correct the perverse destructive tendencies of capitalism is bleak and uninspiring. But here we are. Thousands of lives will be affected, and so will the places where they live. It seems that the people with any imagination at this moment are those backwards-ass Republicans who would throw their mother under the SUV if she paid dues. Well, fuck you very much.

In retrospect, perhaps the UAW should have bargained for a worker’s council instead of Blue Cross Blue Shield.