Detroit and the Big Lie

Got a note from a friend with whom I once shared a conservative philosophy that is not currently feasible. It included a column by George Will who I have long thought to be one of the most intelligent men in the GOP column, but who lately has allowed his fine mind to be fogged by the latest right wing swill. Anyway, Will writes about Detroit and how, in his view, the greedy unions are responsible for the destruction of the city.

This is, of course, the super conservative line; the unions did it. Only they didn’t. Will’s POV is that the unions grabbed everything they could and their pension and welfare demands are what has left the city in ruins. What he fails to mention is that it’s the union’s job, to get as much from management as it can, just as it’s management’s job to hold the line. It seems that in the case of Detroit it’s the unions that did their job and it’s management, in this case, the city government, that failed.

It’s city management’s job to hold the line and keep the union demands at bay, only they didn’t. It was easier and less dangerous for city management to just fold, give in and let the unions have anything they wanted, just to avoid any threat of a strike and what the hell, the current negotiating government wouldn’t be around when the bill came due in ten or twenty years anyway.

That’s what happened. Management folded, That’s what happened with the industrial unions too. Everybody wants to blame the unions but don’t forget there wouldn’t be unions if we hadn’t had bad management to bring them about. Unions are the result of bad management and they know how to take advantage of it.

Detroit is the way it is today because lazy cowardly politicians and industrial managers just rolled over on their backs and said go ahead, have at us, to tough, sometimes overly greedy unions. But don’t forget the unions learned how to be greedy from management who were taking millions a year from industry in salary and bonuses while the working guy was being replaced by robots, and factories were moving to China and India.

Now the workers who didn’t save because they were looking forward to fat pensions are looking at a bleak future because the money to pay those pensions simply isn’t there and both the unions and management knew it wouldn’t be there when they negotiated these sweetheart contracts. What the hell did they care, as long as there were no business interruptions, no strikes and everybody looked like a hero to the shortsighted losers on both sides.

So George, next time you decide to write one of these ugly little pieces, make sure you have your facts right. You have been one of the last bastions of at least semi-truth in the Republican party for the last few years. I would hate to see you slide back into the Right’s swamp of lies and exaggerations. The country needs smart, honest journalists, even if their thinking is just a tad skewed.