Where do the profits go?

I retired from General Motors last April with 30 years of seniority. Mind you, I’m no rocket scientist (not even close). But why doesn’t the UAW or GM mention that even though the foreign car companies like Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen build some of their cars here in the United States, they never mention where all of their profit goes.

Sure, they pay workers a couple of thousand dollars to build a car, but the rest of the vehicle price goes back to Japan and Germany.

Bill Hoelscher
UAW Local 549 retiree
Lucas,Ohio

There’s no stopping progress

This letter is in response to the letter (Solidarity March-April) regarding using self-checkout lanes. Job losses occur all the time due to new technology.

Think back 30-, 40-, 50-plus years ago and how we got things done then as opposed to how we accomplish them now. Remember home delivery of dairy products by the milkman? How about way, way, way back when the iceman would deliver blocks of ice for your grandmother’s “ice box”? More recently there were automation and robots on assembly lines.

Do you use a cell phone or computer? Upload pictures from your camera? Send e-mail, either personal or business? Do online banking? Book your own vacations, hotels and flights online? Buy or download books, videos or music?

If you do any of these tasks, you’re just as guilty for causing job loss as the person who uses the self-checkout lane.

If you review everything we now do for ourselves with the help of new technology, you’ll realize that while it is very unfortunate jobs are lost, you can’t stop progress.

Vicki Kremm
UAW Local 155 retiree
Rochester Hills, Mich.

Driving a hard bargain

I agree with the reader who wrote that we should stop using the self-checkout at stores because using it costs jobs. But let’s take it a step further.

When we as UAW members are hiring work at our homes and requesting an estimate for that work and the salesperson wanting to sell us that work drives up in a foreign car, let’s tell them to get an estimate from a person in the country that built the car they’re driving.

Ronald Kangas
UAW Local 140
Harper Woods, Mich.

Good health care for all

When is Congress going to pass a health care reform bill that’s good for everyone?

They’re elected to represent us, not to pass laws good for us and different for them. They should have the same insurance as us, and they should have to live on the same level as us.

I think it’s time to change the Congress and put people in office that remember the people they work for instead of big business.

Thomas H. Borcherding
UAW Local 699 retiree
Vassar, Mich.

Look at the whole enchilada

In my 43 years as a dues-paying union member, I’ve seen many good things the union has done for its membership. However, endorsing government-controlled health care is not one of them.

Please look carefully at both sides of the coin before you endorse it. Too many times anything or anybody with a “D” after their name gets an automatic “attaboy” without researching the whole enchilada.

Bill Kendall
UAW Local 371 retiree
Seymour, Ind.

Inspire and save lives

I want to thank you for publishing the article “Organ Donation is Life” in the March-April magazine. My husband Stephen Hanna (UAW Local 686) was on the transplant list at Strong Memorial in Rochester, N.Y., for nearly two years waiting for a liver transplant.

Sadly, he passed away Aug. 23, 2009, before a liver became available.

I hope your story will inspire more people to become organ donors, and perhaps more lives will be saved.

Mary Hanna
Lockport, N.Y.

Know who built it

I just wanted to express my appreciation for the first-rate information on the UAW website (uaw.org) and the hard-hitting truth contained in Solidarity.

Only American cars are allowed in my driveway. To me that has always meant GM, Ford or Chrysler names. I was a union member for 27 years (IAMAW), and I understand what it’s like to be blamed for failures of shortsighted and corrupt corporate leadership.

But I’ll never understand how so many union brothers and sisters have turned to foreign-built cars to save a few dollars, while complaining about the outsourcing of their own jobs.

Your 2010 list of union-built vehicles made in the United States and Canada surprised me. I didn’t know Toyota was on that list. It’s important that all buyers have access to knowledge of who built the vehicles, in what country, and whether they received a living wage and progressive benefits.

There are some of us who still care about that. Even during these darkest days, the UAW stands as an example of the strength, intelligence and integrity of American workers.
If we are smart, it will stand as our future.

Tom Litchard
IAM District 141
Winston-Salem, N.C.

(Editor’s note: Brother Litchard’s right: What you drive, drives America. And when it comes to supporting U.S. jobs and rebuilding our economy, the choice is clear: Public support for the domestic auto industry makes sense, and it also makes sense to buy quality, union-made vehicles. Unfortunately, the Toyota Corolla and Tacoma pickup are no longer produced in a UAW-represented facility. On April 1 Toyota closed its NUMMI plant in Fremont, Calif., leaving 4,500 UAW Local 2244 members out of jobs. Toyota recently announced a joint venture with Tesla in the closed NUMMI plant. The UAW is fighting to get our NUMMI workers hired by seniority at Toyota Tesla and to get the company to recognize the union and commit to substantial product for the plant.)