This just in from United Auto Workers...

United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger said in a statement today regarding Ford's pending cuts "Certainly, today's announcement will only make the 2007 negotiations all the more difficult and all the more important." Translation: "We feel the ship sinking and we're going to make sure we get ours before it goes down." You have to wonder if 60 or 70 years of union contracts and pensions had anything to do with the current state of affairs. The retort to this is that foreign manufacturers can pay labor at less cost to keep their margins. Well of course they can, they aren't handcuffed by union rules and regs. This is exactly the reason the hottest job market is technology; the tech startups (now behemuths) of the 80's weren't constricted by union rates and bloated pension payouts and could afford to grow at a measured pace and have reserves for when the industry niche hit a tough patch. This doesn't bode well for Milwaukee that is still one of the most union dominated cities in America. Do I respect worker's rights? Yes, but I equally respect the right of a business to determine who they will hire and at what rate.