Detroit feels the lack of love

NY Times:

When the leaders of the three Detroit auto companies and the United Automobile Workers union travel to Washington to make their case for a federal bailout, they will be flying into stiff headwinds of public opinion.

Thus far, much of the commentary in Washington, in the pages of major newspapers and on the Web, has been against providing financial support for the companies, which they will say they desperately need in hearings beginning on Tuesday.

The waves of criticism have been so strong that Susan Tompor, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, was moved to write on Sunday’s front page: “I never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”

It is a remarkable shift for an industry that has long wielded considerable clout in Washington.

But that support has dwindled for many reasons, leaving backers of a bailout, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, having a tough time making their case that Detroit should be saved.

...

Some Congressional support has also dwindled because the automakers closed plants in other states, like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Delaware, and consolidated their operations closer to home.

Meanwhile, foreign auto companies have built plants across the South, picking up lawmakers like Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who now are more allied with the foreign car companies.

...

While many Americans might know Rick Wagoner’s name, “they couldn’t tell you anything about him, except that he’s been there a while and his company has gone from bad to worse,” Professor Useem said of the General Motors chief executive. And one of the U.A.W.’s most prized accomplishments — winning income security for its laid-off members — is not helping the union as it argues for money to help protect its workers at a time when employees across other industries are facing layoffs.

The U.A.W. program, called the Jobs Bank at G.M., provided nearly full pay for laid off workers while they waited for new jobs. A new version of it is less generous, but has left an impression in the public imagination of a place where workers sit around getting paid for doing nothing.

“In good times, the public can tolerate the Jobs Bank,” said Gary N. Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “But in bad times, the public has very little patience for that.”

...

Mr. Wagoner and Ron Gettelfinger, head of the U.A.W., appeared on local TV in Detroit this week, but no Detroit representatives landed spots on the Sunday morning talk shows out of Washington. Senator Levin was their primary spokesman on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation” on CBS.

Meanwhile, Senator Shelby of Alabama, whose home state has Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and Hyundai plants, has kept up his pressure. Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he called Detroit “a dinosaur, in a sense.”

“There’s not a bank in this country that would lend a dollar to these companies,” he added.

There have not been many comforting words in newspapers, either. “Just Say No to Detroit,” said a headline over an article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal by David Yermack, a business professor at the Stern School at New York University.

It all feels excessive to some in Detroit. “I didn’t know that some really, really hate us,” said Ms. Tompor of The Free Press.

We don't hate Detroit.

We just don't love you anymore.

Detroit and Michigan have had incompetent leaders in charge of government and the auto industry for years. The city of Detroit is worse than Baghdad in its decay and violence. The companies gave away too much to the UAW and now they want the taxpayers to give away money to them and the UAW for producing goods we don't want to buy.

There is a reasons why foreign automakers are not building cars in Michigan. Taxes and the UAW are probably at the top of the list. Toyota would rather build a new plant in Texas where there is no state income tax and there is a right to work law.

There are also practical reasons to oppose bailing out the UAW. Experience. When a British Prime Minister of a Labor government says its a fools errand he is worth paying attention to. The Brits threw money down a bailout sink hole for years to try to save Leyland and ultimately gave up.

When the NY Times lead story and sidebars are about the lack of interest in a bailout, that bailout is in serious trouble. To save these companies they need to go through bankruptcy and get rid of the contracts that make no sense and the one at the top of my list is with the UAW.