Vitter faulted for derailing auto bailout
by Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune
Friday December 12, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local representing General Motors workers in Shreveport, said Friday that Sen. David Vitter's role in blocking an auto bailout indicates "he's chosen to play Russian roulette" with Louisiana jobs and the national economy.
"I don't know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we've done, it's time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him, " said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."
Johnson's comments are a reference to the revelation last year that Vitter's name appeared in the phone records of a Washington prostitution ring. At the time, Vitter responded that "several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling."
Vitter, R-La., has gotten out in front of opposition to the bailout of the auto industry, joining a handful of other Southern Republicans, led by Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.
This band of opponents prevailed Thursday in blocking action in the Senate on a bailout package passed Wednesday by the House and backed by the White House.
"We killed the really bad bailout that passed the House, " Vitter said after the filibuster prevailed Thursday night. "Negotiations on a real restructuring plan failed for one reason only: The union and the Democratic leadership wouldn't agree to any wage concessions by a date certain. None. It's just a shame."
Vitter said if the industry and the union can avoid making big concessions until President Barack Obama and a more Democratic Congress take office next year, they might figure they won't have to make concessions at all.
"That's what I'm afraid of, " said Vitter, who has argued that absent painful concessions, the U.S. automakers will never become profitable and won't survive in the long run.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Vitter said: "I'm not trying to block this package in spite of job losses that would occur if these companies went down. I'm trying to block this because . . . this package doesn't demand the fundamental core restructuring that is absolutely necessary for these companies to survive."
Vitter and other Republicans supported an alternative package crafted by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., that would have required auto workers to accept concessions sometime next year to bring their pay into line with that of workers at the nonunion plants building cars for foreign automakers in the United States. But UAW officials, who had already accepted cuts in their current contract, wanted to postpone the deeper concessions into 2011.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, who voted to bring the package to a vote, said the House bill needed "significant work -- particularly in ensuring that manufacturers make the reforms necessary to remain solvent and not waste taxpayers' money, " but that "I was prepared to stay in Washington through the holidays if needed to hammer out a responsible, bipartisan compromise."
Landrieu also expressed concern for Shreveport's workers in light of GM's announcement that it is extending the holiday shutdown of the plant from just before Christmas through Feb. 15. Originally, work would have resumed the third and fourth week of January.
Johnson said GM has made an enormous investment in the Shreveport facility.
"I'm here to tell you the GM complex here is a true Louisiana treasure, " Johnson said. "We're what's right with Louisiana."
But, he said, in the past 18 months, the Shreveport plant has gone from employing about 3,000 union workers to a little better than 800 as GM idled lines because of the souring economy.
Johnson, whose wife also works at the plant but is facing a layoff, said the image of U.S. auto workers as fat and happy is wrong. He said most workers at the Shreveport plant earn about $50,000 to $60,000 a year making Hummers and the small Chevrolet trucks.
"I can tell you as an absolute fact, our folks work very hard, and they're tired at the end of the day, " he said.
