As the Ford “restructuring” announcement was unfolding this week, I read the Associated Press stories on the Internet, digested the New York Times’ substantial package, viewed PBS’ long discussion on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and listened dutifully to National Public Radio’s programming, including bits of On Point, Tom Ashbrook’s always-remarkable morning program.
Sure, there were big headlines. But I was distressed by the lack of outrage — and even alarm — about what was going on, continuing the blasé, matter-of-fact discussion that went on when GM announced huge cutbacks several months ago.
Nobody’s really mad, it seems, just resigned. But Ford, like GM, is betraying America and workers of all kinds. First of all, Ford should be denounced for throwing 30,000 people and their families on the junk heap of the American economy. And questions — deep questions — need to asked about why it can’t design cars that people want and that are good for ecology and the economy.
Instead, there was a continuing sneering tone of criticism toward the American autoworker. The subliminal message with all this seems to be: it’s the workers’ fault. They are too highly paid; their pensions and health-care bills too high; they are too old. The overall implication is that they are slackers getting their just desserts.
Nowhere is there any sense of national tragedy.
Where is a note of concern — that these jobs have defined the American way of life? Where is any note of respect for what unionized autoworkers have represented as a standard to be honored and emulated? Instead, what respect they’re accorded is put in sort of a museum-like context, describing autoworkers as being like some Indian tribe that had it good on the prairie long ago, but times change and so what?
What I wanted to hear from somebody, somewhere — from a factory worker, an academic, even a Wall Street analyst — is that this is an emergency, both for the economy and the American soul.
Instead, there was preposterous babble, including some analyst’s observation that there is nothing wrong, in fact, with auto-building in America: The jobs lost by the Big Three are being absorbed by the Toyota, Honda, and other foreign produces — which are expanding their American factories. And if you are an investor looking for a good stock market buy in the industry, log onto the Internet or call your broker and buy shares of those companies; who cares where they have their corporate headquarters? There are no losers.
This is simply crap.
It matters deeply whether the US is home to robust, innovative, and jobs-producing companies that turn out profitable, desirable products, and pay a fair wage to the workers who make them. Our economy depends on these things, and so does our national character.
