Friday, March 19, 2021

so we're back to outsourcing

One major way in which Donald Trump showed his 90s-era liberal-Democrat colors was in his constant push to bring jobs back to America.  This occurred under the larger umbrella of a grand America-first policy (the same policy that led Trump to renegotiate various FTAs and to abandon arrangements like the Paris Climate Accords because they specifically disadvantaged America), but the idea was simple:  consider American workers first.  Now, with Joe Biden in office, we're back to old-school GOP-style outsourcing of labor.  Here's what's happening on Biden's watch:

Ford plans to move new project from Avon Lake plant to Mexico

The United Auto Workers informed workers about the plan in a letter, saying it rejects the move and it will fight to keep the project here.

The United Auto Workers union has informed workers at the Avon Lake Ford plant that it plans to move a major project slated for 2023 from Northeast Ohio to its plant in Mexico.

The letter, dated Friday, March 12, stated that Ford is going back on its agreement to build a "next-generation vehicle" at the Avon Lake plant in 2023. 

In 2019, the UAW says Ford promised to invest $900 million in a new project at the Avon Lake plant, that was set to begin production in 2023. The agreement also included a "complete revitalization" of the facility.

"Ford employs more hourly workers in the U.S. than any other automaker, assembles more vehicles in the U.S. than any other automaker, and Ford chooses to invest in America more than any other automaker.

"We remain committed to investing $6 billion in our U.S. plants and creating and retaining 8,500 jobs in America during this four-year UAW contract. We are invested in Ohio Assembly Plant and our dedicated workforce there," the statement says. "Since 2019, we have invested more than $185 million and created and retained more than 100 jobs at Ohio Assembly Plant, including actions planned for this year. This includes increasing our capacity to build additional Super Duty trucks at Ohio Assembly Plant to meet strong consumer demand."

On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown called on Ford to honor its agreement.

Despite Trump's pro-labor stance, labor unions have stupidly continued to buy into the left-Dem narrative that Republicans are anti-worker.  Trump understood the value of the American worker and did what he could to improve the worker's lot while both bringing jobs back from overseas and creating millions of new jobs domestically.  All of these efforts fell on deaf ears:  the Trump-derangement narrative is stronger than the truth, especially among those who head up the unions and blindly vote Democrat.  And what's the result?  Joe Biden has fucked labor unions in the ass, starting with Ford.  A serious question, then, is whether labor unions will wake up and learn a lesson from this.  I don't think so.  The stupidity is congenital, deep-rooted, and widespread.  

Personally, I've never been a fan of labor unions.  They might have played a historically important role long ago, giving us the forty-hour, five-day, eight-hour work week, but since that era, they have been nothing but a stultifying force with gangster-like tendencies:  pay our dues and vote the way we want you to, or else.  Both of my parents were union members; both were shafted by their unions.  Repeatedly.  Calls for higher pay and better conditions resulted in nothing for my father and only the smallest of concessions for my mother.  In my mother's case, she was a member of a tiny union called OPEIU, which worked inside a much larger union:  NALC, the gargantuan, 300,000-member union for American postal workers ("National Association of Letter Carriers").  NALC's newsletter during last year's election showed that its administration firmly (and unsurprisingly) backed Joe Biden.  NALC, though, despite its outwardly cheerful boosterism, has long acted as a surly bully toward OPEIU, causing OPEIU members to demonstrate in protest against NALC's unfair policies.  Mom walked a picket line on several occasions; this was union-versus-union nonsense.  Aren't unions supposed to be about solidarity?  Apparently not.  My point is that unions suck, and they've sucked for a very long time.  Even a basic value like worker solidarity has been lost.

So I suppose my sympathy for the United Auto Workers' union is limited.  They sided with Joe Biden, and Biden bent them over a barrel, sending potential new jobs down to Mexico.  I'd like for the UAW to learn an important lesson from this, but as I said, I don't think they're capable of learning:  they're too fucking hypnotized.  This is what a zombie apocalypse looks like, folks.  And in the meantime, it's amusing to think that Trump the ostensible Republican was pro-labor, while Biden the ostensible Democrat is fuck-labor-in-the-ass.

credit: Instapundit



2 comments:

John Mac said...

Not to mention the pipeline jobs, fracking jobs, coal mining jobs, and the jobs that will be lost to illegal immigrants under Biden policies. He's no friend to workers, but as you noted, neither are the unions.

Perhaps a good compromise for Ford would be to keep the plant in Ohio but man it with the recently arrived "refugees". Win-win, right?

I don't know if you've seen this article, but it really exposes the true nature of the elite lefties and their motivations for exercising power in a way that is detrimental to working-class Americans.

https://www.newsweek.com/true-compassion-requires-secure-borders-stopping-illegal-immigration-opinion-1576943

Kevin Kim said...

John, we gotta get you to add clickable links and not just URLs. Clicking a link is much more convenient for the reader. I'll slap up a tutorial.