UAW President: 'We wondered if we were just being set up' by GOP David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday December 12, 2008





Print This Email This Following the scuttling by Senate Republicans of a bipartisan bailout agreement for the troubled American automakers, United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger appeared at a press briefing in Detroit to describe the last-minute negotiations in which he had been engaged and to condemn what he feels is bad faith on the part of the Republicans.



"Unfortunately the Senate Republicans, led by Senator McConnell, rejected the bipartisan legislation and restructuring process that had been agreed to by the White House," Gettlefinger began.



Gettelfinger explained that despite having questions about whether "we were just being set up," the UAW had agreed on Thursday to negotiate directly with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) on modifications to the bill and had reached an apparent consensus, "but the Senate Caucus rejected that agreement."



According to Gettelfinger, the discussions with Corker largely involved bond-holders and retiree health care, which "would have made an enormous difference in the balance sheets of the companies and largely solved their financial problems."



"Senator Corker admitted to our people ... that the other discussions over wages were largely about politics within the GOP caucus," Gettlefinger stated, charging that using the wage issue as an excuse to reject the bill was simply a "subterfuge on the part of the minority in the Republican Party who wanted to tear down agreement that we came up with."



The Senate GOP caucus made demands which would have "treated workers differently from every other stakeholder, instead of leaving it to the auto czar to work out the timetable and the mechanism for implementing sacrifices by all of the stakeholders," said Gettlefinger "The GOP caucus was insisting that the restructuring had to be done on the backs of workers and retirees rather than having all stakeholders come to the table."



Citing previous concessions by the union going back to 2003, Gettelfinger asserted, "We're on third base, and the other stakeholders are not even in the ball park. ... We were prepared to make further sacrifices, but we could not accept the effort by the Senate GOP to single out workers and retirees for different treatment and to make them shoulder the entire burden."



Republicans have continued to insist that the wage issue was genuine and not a "subtefuge" as Gettelfinger charges. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told CNN, "The one issue that stopped this thing -- and I can tell you the Republicans wanted to get this through -- was a competitive wage over time."



Following his initial statement, Gettelfinger was asked if he believes there is a deliberate effort going on to break the union. In response, he quoted from an email he had been provided in which Republicans were urged to support the message that the bailout "is the Democrats' first opportunity to pay off organized labor after the election. .. Republicans should stand firm and take their shot against organized labor."



"We're a union," Gettelfinger concluded. "The right wing in this country have basically painted the word 'union' to be a very negative word. ... At the end of the day, who was the minority in the Senate representing? They thought perhaps they could have a two-fer here, maybe. You know, pierce the heart of organized labor while representing the foreign brands."





This video is from CNN.com, broadcast Dec. 12, 2008.









Download video via RawReplay.com







