Mar. 31, 2006 - 19:57 MST

WISE WORDS

Cokie and Steven V. Roberts aren't the see all and be all of our country -- that is a given. But it seems to me that they, if read with attention and thought, enable us (or at least me) to take a second look at things that surround us with confusion and fear.

So their article today brings a bit of fresh thought to me. In full then from their column in the Rocky Mountain News today:

U.S. WORKERS UNDERSTAND WHAT FRENCH REFUSE TO

"In Paris this week, the streets were filled with protesters denouncing a new law making it easier for French companies to hire and fire younger workers."

"French union leaders refused even to meet with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin until the law was shelved."

"In Detroit (founded in 1701 by the French explorer Antoine de Cadillac), leaders of the United Auto Workers negotiated a painful but sensible plan offering generous buyouts to 113,000 union members working for General Motors and another 13,000 employees of Delphi, GM's main supplier. The deal avoided a possible strike that could have spun the struggling automaker into bankruptcy."

"Across the industrialized world, aging work forces and global competition are demanding fresh thinking from corporations, governments and unions, and the reactions in Paris and Detroit represent two very different responses to this challenge. French labor leaders badly failed the test, ignoring a new economic reality that is smacking them right between their tightly closed eyes."

"In France, the issue is younger workers just starting their careers."

"In America, the issue is older workers approaching retirement. But the core problem remains the same."

"Governments (in France and other Western European countries) and corporations (like all Big Three U.S. automakers) have made extremely generous promises to workers that they cannot keep. AND NOW THE BILLS ARE COMING DUE."

"The national jobless rate in France approaches 10 percent, but for the young people it's more than 22 percent. One reason: suffocating laws, enforced by union power, which make it almost impossible to fire a French worker. As a result, companies won't hire people they can never dismiss. This led to Villepin to offer an innovative idea: create a two year trial period, so employers would be willing to take a chance on unproven job seekers."

"The reaction was ferocious."

"The French like to boast to benighted Americans about their humane system of short workweeks, long vacations and rich social services, but the laws of economics have not been repealed. As French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy bluntly told his countrymen: "There is only one way to reduce unemployment in France. You have to explain to the French people they HAVE TO WORK HARDER."

"GM employees work hard, but their company has gone from owning almost half the U.S. auto market 25 years ago to about a fourth today, and that downsizing has many causes."

"Assembly plants in Mexico or China pay a fraction of U.S. wages. Americans who build Toyotas and Hyundais in Tennessee and Alabama earn the same as GM workers, but their companies are not saddled with huge payouts to generations of retirees. And besides foreign competitors simply make better cars. Bottom line: GM's REVENUE IS SHRINKING JUST AT A TIME WHEN ITS OBLIGATIONS ARE GROWING.But the UAW is not closing down the country in protest."

"There are no easy answers here. But labor and management have to work on the solutions together."

"American unions understand that. The French don't."

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I guess if the mature (if any of us are) population (business, corporations, city, state and country goverment administrations as well as the union folk would stand in a huge "BLAME" circle and each of us point the finger at the person or group on the right, and then do a 180 turn and point at the one on the left we might get the idea of the fix we got ourselves into.

Many of us who have been strong union folks have for years, each time a contract was up and a new one due to be negotiated, loudly stated that the absolute main endeavor should be toward policing what we had, working conditions and things like that. We already had it good and the effort should have been to keep it that way, not going after the bucks.

The companies and corporations ? Well they have been headhunters for ages, offering new prospective employees the moon to come to work for them. Promises on promises. Giving into union pressure for more wages and paying them for fear that people wouldn't work for them.

City, state and federal governments? Enacting restrictive and punitive laws that did no one any good except gum up the works for us all.

Wanting more money for doing less and working less hours has never been and never will be commonsense to my way of looking at it.

There was a lot of fighting and blood loss in order to get a fair work day and fair work hours and fair and safe working conditions.

So, we are in a state where we have done with and to ourselves too many things that might just be insolvable. What has been discussed here, and the mess that is being fought in Congress now. Foolishly our government and corporate entitys turned a blind eye on infiltration from the south. They liked it and G. Bush still does. He keeps mouthing about "work that Americans won't do," but fails to mention that Americans would work for a fair wage. And families have been started in our borders - - the children are automatically citizens by birth -- so what are we going to do with their parents ? Send them back to Mexico ? ? ? ?

So, it looks as if all of us are in for a siege of realistic belt tightening.

To me Cokie and Steven line it out for us all to see, and give us WISE WORDS . . . . . . . . . .

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