You can find the latest financial data for unions on the Department of
Labor website. Look for the LM2, which is the financial data that unions
report to DOL each year.
UAW for 2008 -- $1.2 billion in assets, $5.8 million in liabilities,
$315 million in total receipts, $310 million in disbursements, and a
membership of 431,037.
Rudy
[email protected] wrote:
In a message dated 5/3/2009 2:18:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
More on the UAW, its murky finances, and its self-screwing:
http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/uaw-revisited/
>> A word on the UAW itself: this is not a poor union. As of 2006,
it had assets of almost $1.3 billion, and annual receipts of $304
million. (I wish I could provide a link to the UAW’s own financial
statements, but if they’re on their website, I can’t find them. I
had to go to the anti-union site, UnionFacts.com
<http://unionfacts.com/unions/unionFinances.cfm?id=149&year=2006>,
to find this basic financial info. And I learned that there
<http://server1.laborpains.org/?p=2157> that the AFL-CIO had
successfully lobbied
<http://otrans.3cdn.net/2607359fc5c7820a44_p3m6btw14.pdf> the
Obama administration to loosen financial disclosure requirements
for unions.) It could have easily financed serious research into a
better strategic direction for the auto industry than the idiot
management has been able to—cleaner cars, better modes of work
organization. Its PAC
<http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00002840> spent
$13 million on campaign contributions during the 2008 election
cycle; it could have spent a few mil of that on campaigning for
national health insurance.
But they didn’t. And now they’re pretty well screwed. <<
Comment
Yea, today is worse than 1979 when Chrysler went belly up.
The UAW is better understood if looked at from the standpoint of a
"business model." The UAW is all of its members, that to one
degree or another elect its leaders. The uppermost leaders of the
union are elected on the basis of something akin to an electoral
college. That is to say, President Gettlefinger and heads of
Chrysler, Ford and General Motors divisions are not directly
elected by the membership. The UAW President is elected at the
Constitutional Convention. Gettlefinger is akin to a CEO.
The reason the union has not made national health care a national
social cause of the working class, which includes UAW members is
its business model and lack of foresight. Bill Gates success in
the market was bound up with IBM's lack of foresight. Cisco
systems success in the market is its foresight and anticipation of
new markets. The UAW's uppermost leaders lack foresight and
without an abrupt change in its business model have
roughly 48 - 96 months of life left in it as a significant union
in the life of America.
The unions lack of foresight is not reducible to a personal
problem. Gettlefinger is the person that manifest the social
problem of change within the union. To the degree that General
Motors could not and did not change its business model to keep
pace with a changing market is the same degree to which the UAW is
stuck in the old business model of industrial unionism. On the
other hand the UAW could not exceed the boundary that is the
understanding and striving of the working class as a whole. The
working class as a whole is being swung around to the need for a
single - government, payer health system. Huge sections of the
working class are in the process of rejecting anti-communism and
anti-socialism.
The slow and growing rejection of anti-communism in America is
very important. The fact of the matter is that no one . . . and I
mean no one . . . other than the communists and socialists of all
stripes and character, have the passion, imagination and fire in
their belly to inspire and push our working class. This has been
the case since 1890. The era of an anti-communist democratic left
in America is over.
The union has to be pushed from within and especially from without
to change and such change will involved splitting and
restructuring of the union. The odds are such that the UAW will be
destroyed - as it exists, in the marketplace along the same lines
that General Motors is being destroyed in the domestic market.
The United Automobile Workers - UAW, needs to become "Unite All
Workers" regardless of industry or economic status. And the union
needs to fund a party of labor that can champion issues like
national health care.
Today is a great time for such a party with the Republican Party
in absolute decay.
WL.
.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps!
<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222376998x1201454298/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=May5309AvgfooterNO62>*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
--
Rudy Fichtenbaum
Professor of Economics & Chief Negotiator AAUP-WSU
Department of Economics
Wright State University
Dayton, OH 45435
Phone: 937-775-3085
Fax: 937-775-2441
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
