State of the Union September 9, 2010

Sept. 9, 2010 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

From President Dan Howell: The GimmeFIVE program is underway and we are working towards our goal of signing up 20% of our local union/retiree membership. GimmeFIVE, as UAW President Bob King explained, simply asks members to re-commit to the union by devoting five hours of volunteer time in the following areas: organizing, mobilizing, and political action. Members are also asked to recruit five members to do the same. Members who complete each segment will receive recognition buttons. You can sign up by going to www.gimmefiveuaw.org. It only takes a minute. The website also gives you information on how to log your hours.

Another issue highlighted this past Labor Day is the strike underway at a Mott’s applesauce/juice plant in Williamson, New York. On May 23rd, over 300 workers of UFCW Local 220 were forced out on strike when management imposed pay cuts of $1.50 an hour, a pension freeze, significant increases in health insurance premiums and other severe cuts. All this despite a profit of $555 million for parent company Dr. Pepper Snapple last year. To show support for these members you can choose alternatives to the following products: Motts applesauce, Fruitsations and Garden Cocktail; Hawaiian Punch, Mr. and Mrs. T products, Holland House mixers, Clamato, Margaritaville and Snapple cans.

From Wards Auto World: A bankruptcy court this week rejected a last-minute $3 million offer from a Belgian company to buy a former General Motors Co. transmission plant in eastern France, deciding a 1 euro ($1.27) buy-back offer from the auto maker is a better deal. Management reportedly is telling employees at the GM Strasbourg factory the sale could be final by the end of the month. Belgium’s Punch Corp. has 15 days to appeal the Sept. 7 decision on its offer with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Final part of the Rebuild America agenda:

Rebuild America by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

The dollar cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceeds $1 trillion; the cost in lives is incalculable. Just last month, the U.S. Senate approved an additional $60 billion in funding for war, after first stripping out $20 billion in domestic spending that would, among other things, have prevented teacher layoffs. The insidious effect of these two wars on our national priorities could not be clearer. It’s past time to end them.

Can we afford to rebuild America?

We can’t afford not to. More than three quarters of the increase in the federal budget deficit since the end of 2007 is a direct result of the recession. As employment increases, that gap will close. Even deficit hawks such as David Walker (CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation) agree that job creation must take precedence over balancing the budget in the short term.
In the longer term, we can begin to get our fiscal house in order by allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich to expire as scheduled at the end of this year and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that those two factors – on top of the economic downturn – account for virtually the entire projected federal deficit over the next ten years.
New revenue sources – including, for example, a tax on financial transactions – could also be tapped to fund needed investments without squeezing other domestic spending or increasing the long-term deficit. The U.K. has a small tax on stock trades, and it raises nearly 0.3 percent of GDP – the equivalent of $40 billion in the U.S. Extending the tax to options, futures, credit default swaps and other derivatives could easily double that amount, and would have the added virtue of slowing the breakneck pace of speculation. It’s only fitting that Wall Street, after causing so much destruction, should be asked to contribute to the cost of reconstruction.