Saturday, July 21, 2007

Re-mapping the road course - With one-third the membership of thirty years ago, the United Auto Workers is trying to figure out how to survive and, according to this story, the UAW may assume retiree health benefits. If you've ever read anything I've written about skyrocketing federal entitlement spending, you'll recognize this as a huge concession on the part of the union.

1 comment:

JorgXMcKie said...

I live in Michigan now, in the Detroit Metro area. Even my UAW retiree neighbors are beginning to talk like the realize the gravy train is over.

They still whine about being *promised* all the health care they could forever for free (or something like that), but there isn't much fire in their voices any more.

Hell, some of them may have to sell their second boat or their third house (the second vacation home -- the one in the woods, not the one on the lake).

Now, if only we could get the teachers union (and I belong to an affiliate of the rotten SOBs) to admit that they don't really need or deserve a health benefit that costs pretty much 30% more than any other health benefit in the state ($12,500 per year per union member, as opposed to less than $10,000/year for other unions and $8800/yr for state universities) maybe I'll believe reality has set in.