UAW

Back during the days of General Motors' bankruptcy proceedings, media reports cited the many "sacrifices" made by the politically favored UAW. I have long wondered what these many sacrifices were, as UAW members seem to be doing pretty well since the GM bankruptcy. One such "sacrifice" was a supposed agreement that the UAW could not go on strike at GM until after 2015, as mentioned in this Bloomberg piece, and accepted as fact by all media sources. I questioned this assertion in a piece I wrote in December of 2010, but as has been the case with much of the coverage of GM, the potential GM deception was left unchallenged by auto journalists and the mainstream media. Recent reports of a strike authorized by GM UAW workers in Kansas now raise the question of if my suspicions were correct that there are no binding agreements to prevent strikes at GM plants.

Last week the Detroit News reported that NHTSA claimed that the White House had nothing to do with the agency's delay in disclosing its Chevy Volt fires to the public. Supposedly, NHTSA contacted the White House three months after the Volt fires and waited another two months before releasing the information to the public. Whether or not the Obama Administration is being honest about its involvement in NHTSA's Chevy Volt investigation, it is clear that we are in an unprecedented situation with the President of the US having his reelection chances largely tied to the success of General Motors, which was once an icon of American industry but now epitomizes taxpayer bailouts, crony capitalism and political theater.

Over five months ago, a Chevy Volt that had been crash tested weeks earlier and was sitting in a government storage facility burst into flames. The story was just recently reported by news outlets like the New York Times, a source that certainly can not be accused of being on a right wing witch hunt to discredit electric cars. The Chevy Volt has been very controversial with questions raised regarding the rush to electrify America's auto fleet at the expense of taxpayers, particularly when the main player in the field is an entry of Government Motors. The latest question that has yet to be asked is, "why did NHTSA delay reporting the spontaneously combusting Volt?"

Back in April of this year I wrote about the covert bailout that was buried in the Obamacare bill which gives $5 billion of taxpayer money to unions, states (for public employees) and corporations for health care coverage for retirees aged between 55 and 64. The program is called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program or ERRP. The UAW is the largest single beneficiary, receiving over 200 million dollars. General Motors also gets a piece of the pork with about a 20 million dollar cut. A recent report by the Washington Examiner identifies early retirees (many of whom are being paid over $100,000 a year in pension payments) of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) as the other top recipient of about 200 million dollars.