GM to American Workers: Pay for Your Own Execution
Written by Leo Gerard, USW President
Friday, 22 May 2009
The proposition General Motors has presented to the United Auto Workers and American taxpayers in its latest restructuring plan is simple: You must pay for your own execution.
GM, which already took $15.4 billion in bailout money, wants another $11.6 billion and is offering in return this deal: It will close 16 of its American manufacturing plants, terminate 21,000 of its factory workers and double the cars it builds in low-wage Mexico, China and South Korea and ships back to the U.S. to sell.
There it is: GM is demanding that Americans pay to send their own jobs overseas.
In the world where corporate executives live, the one in which boards of directors grant CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses even after companies tank, maybe that’s not a perverse proposition.
But in the world where real Americans live, we’ve had enough of this crap.
The ‘boss of Labor Day’ receives the 2009 W.C. Young Award
Written by Berry Craig
Saturday, 02 May 2009
Frances Willey seldom misses a chance to recruit volunteer workers for Paducah’s Labor Day program.
“We need your help,” she told the crowd that came to see her receive the 2009 W.C. Young Award. “We’re not getting any younger.”
At age 85, Willey, who lives in Lone Oak, a Paducah suburb, is one of the oldest recipients of the Young Award, the Western Kentucky Area Council’s highest honor. It is named for the late W.C. Young, a national labor and civil rights leader from Paducah, an historic city where the Ohio and Tennessee rivers converge.
“’Miss Frances’ is the boss of Labor Day,” said Steelworker Jeff Wiggins, council president. “I just have the title.”
