The first of these is that the automotive workers in Detroit are not responsible for the war with Fundamentalist Moslem Extremists or the crooked real estate and financial transactions which precipitated the current economic crisis.  Nor were these workers responsible for the subsequent unraveling of several major financial giants, including several banks operating, as it turns out, using illegal, fraudulent and downright foolish business practices and procedures that have savaged and ruined the lives of people all over the entire world.

  So, if the world is to change, let it be remembered that all of the evil done to it was not, by far, visited upon it solely by the excesses of the unions and the hourly workers.

  It is thought by many now that the day of the unions are over and that labor, defeated, will finally fade away as a force in politics and the American way of Life.  As it happens, however, there is no institution or movement that is not filled by all manner of people both good and not so good; and if labor has had its share of bad ones so has business and management.  In fact, the bad ones in the ranks of the latter have existed, and continue to exist, in such numbers as to render the idea that they could continue to operate unopposed to be appalling and impossible to contemplate.

  If ever there was a time when ordinary people believed that they could count on big business and big government to protect their lives and interests that should be gone now.  Perhaps it is not.  Maybe it will take a few years of severe economic hardship or the inability to ever retire to bring the point home to some, but the point had ought to have been made, indelibly, by now.  Not only did the legal arms of our government fail, utterly, to prevent what were obviously fraudulent and illegal practices by many of the biggest players in the financial and business communities, the government itself was, through its creation and continued support of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, a key player in causing the overvaluation of real estate and its ultimate melt down.

  Above all else let us remember to judge people not by what they say, but by what they do: You shall know them by their fruits.

  For all their talk about liberty, justice and free enterprise about half the corporate businessmen in this country would be the very first to eliminate all of those things for short term profit or as a chance to stuff their own pockets full of money if they got the chance.  And, unfortunately, that is what we are talking about here, approximately half of them.  Some day in the future it hopefully will be far less than that, but right now it is about half of them.

  Such people as this are held in check only by the law, and none too effectively at that in recent times.  Given the opportunity they would quickly cut the one thread which supports all.  Like a fire which consumes all the coal, they would begin immediately to consume that which is required for their own sustenance which is, believe it or not, the hourly workers.  The idea that such so called businessmen as this can be allowed to exist and operate unopposed is absurd.

  The American labor movement is not just about getting wages and benefits for the workers; above all others it has benefited most those who tried hardest to destroy it and this country will not long endure as a world power, or at all, without it.

   The second thing which needs to be kept in mind at this time has to do with the $70 to $75 and hour an hour it has been widely reported the automotive workers were being paid.

  It should be understood by all that this number is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.  What workers are being paid, and what the costs to their employers is are two entirely different things and they have been treated as if they were the same.

  The average wage being paid to Automotive workers prior to the economic meltdown was, according to the unions, about $29 per hour.  What this is costing the employers depends on who you talk to and exactly what you mean by that.

  There are a number of costs associated with employing someone.  This includes not only paying the wages themselves but the accounting charges associated with doing the payroll, the taxes, some of which are paid by the employer, and the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance or retirement packages which must also factor in how long these people are expected to live.

  For most business these numbers typically fall in the range of 1.3 to 1.5 times the workers salary which, in the case of the automotive workers, starting with $29 dollars an hour should place the total cost at about $43.50 which is a far cry from the $75 which was widely reported to be their wage.  Between those two numbers is a discrepancy of something like of $31.50 an hour leaving something in excess of  $1200 a week, free to pay for insurance and retirement benefits of the hourly workers.  No legitimate business pays any such of an amount as this, or anything resembling it, and certainly not to its hourly employees.

  It turns out that this $75 an hour wage is based upon some so called think tank figures which assumed what the cost of health insurance would be for the retirees and their survivors at some dim time in the future presuming those costs continued to rise.  Actually, no one knows what these costs will be.  Also these numbers also assumed that the executives of these businesses ever intended to actually pay these benefits, which is also questionable, very questionable.

  In short, this $75 was, like the number of lives saved by the Brady Bill, a made up number, tossed out for political reasons and repeated again and again by a press which does not take the least amount of effort to verify its facts and is quite willing to pillory anyone to get a story and present their chosen point of view.

  There are many among us who want to see the automotive workers suffer for a lot of different reasons but the question they should be asking themselves now is: How much they are willing to pay for it?  How much is it worth to them to side with those who care naught for what happens to any of us?

  Suffer those workers may, but in the end, they will not suffer alone.  Whatever happens to them will, in one way or another, effect us all for good or ill and it is in the interest of all to see to it that they are treated fairly.

  It should be a small thing to expect that anyone should be treated fairly.

  As for this matter of health insurance, it is something which concerns each and everyone of us and, in the end, it must be dealt with in a way which is not only fair and practical for the automotive workers, but which serves the common good of everyone. 

  Perhaps, at last, the very condition of this industry will force congress to address the health care and retirement issues they should have taken care of many decades ago.

  Every single industrialized country in this world has universal health care, every one of them.  The people from over 40 of them live substantially longer than we do and they pay far less for it than we do by any possible measure or standard.  This includes countries like Canada, France and England which have substantially smaller populations than we do along with substantially lower standards of living.  Canada, for example, has a population somewhat smaller than the state of California, a substantially lower standard of living than that state and yet it is still able to provide universal health care across a huge geographic area.

  As it happens, the time has come when this issue has to be addressed here.  Not just because the fate of the automobile industry hangs upon it but because the same issue is about to surface everywhere else.

  Every single state and local government in this country is about to find itself in exactly the same position as the big three automobile makers. All of these governments have given their workers retirement and health insurance benefits which are going to bankrupt them and taxpayers no longer able to afford the same benefits for themselves.

  A moment of reckoning is at hand.  Of course, the first thought of all our legislatures will be to curl up with insurance and health lobbies and exempt themselves and their cronies from the unpleasantness of having no health insurance.

  That is not likely that work this time, at least not for very long.  Too many people are being affected by this now.  The issues which have confronted the automobile industry and the automobile workers now confront us all and the issues must be approached with that fact in mind.