“They know this company doesn’t care anything about them,” so says a UAW official, local Huntsville president, Terry Scruggs. And he’s talking about Delphi Corp, the employer of those neglected orphans that nobody cares about. Delphi, as the financially informed world knows, has crippling problems.
Amazing statement by Mr Scruggs. He expects “care” from Delphi. Not wages, in reciprocity for their services, but “care”. The world is infatuated with love. Caring and love are now remunerative elements like retirement contributions and health insurance. Incidentally, what provokes Scruggs’ wail is the fact that Delphi is talking about closing a bunch of plants and sheltering itself in bankruptcy; that means dissolving its labor contracts.
Delphi is not happy about this situation either, but it simply can’t make a profit for its shareholder/owners at the prevailing, contracted wage rate. They’d love to show their care for UAW Local 2195. And they CAN by maudlin speeches of affection for their Union - “Lovely union, swell bunch of workers, great guys - but we can’t pay you.” Happy, Mr. Scruggs? They CAN express their “care”, but they CAN’T stuff money in a pay envelope because they can’t compete and make the profit to fill up those pay envelopes.
Mr. Scruggs is not the only economic player who deals in sentimentality. My bank has a huge billboard that simply says, “We want to be your friend”. I’m not kidding and they must mean it because it’s a giant billboard (the bigger the sign, the more it costs) in big, black letters that shouts at passing motorists. Imagine, they want to be my friend. I want efficiency, low loan rates, high savings interest rates, and financial stability - that’s what I expect from a bank. For friendship, I’ll look elsewhere.
Surely, our mushy planet needs a short, simple lesson in capitalism.
