Et tu, Levin?

One need not look to the cleaner air around Detroit these days to discover that the domestic automobile industry is in free fall. Unfortunately, that does appear to be the only place where most people are looking.

All eyes are on Detroit and its struggles. Some people have a valid excuse for this, others do not.

Amongst the fields and forests of Oscoda County, the least populated county in all of lower Michigan, the failing automobile industry has exacted an almost silent but very painful toll.

To the casual eye it might be hard to believe that the automobile industry ever had much of a presence in the small burgs across northern Michigan. These were never factories that employed thousands. One shop might have a dozen workers, another perhaps thirty. One small shop just down the road employs five. One hundred here, and twenty there.

The buildings stand, but why would they ever catch anyone's eye? There is no freeway winding past huge smokestacks. There is no dedicated traffic light installed to allow workers easier passage at shift change, and twenty employees' cars can be parked in a rather small lot. There is nothing to notice really, for these are not the huge industrial complexes seen in Saginaw, Lansing, Flint and Detroit.

Though certain people seem not to have noticed, the activity inside these small factories has also dwindled and, in many cases, ceased entirely.

When Wayne Wire Cloth consolidated operations and trimmed a few jobs in Hillman, very few people noticed. When Fabex closed its factory in Luzerne, it did not make headlines in any of the major dailies. When Cooper Standard shut the doors in Tawas City and moved its remaining production, did you hear about it?

And, how many of the right people know or care about Kneeland Industries?

In the grand scheme of things, Kneeland's closing is but a small blip on the screen. This would not be a big numeric disaster to cities and counties of Michigan where populations are measured in the hundreds of thousands. But, in a county of less than 10,000 people, this is a big deal.

Kneeland Industries is located in, as the name might suggest, Kneeland. There will be no huge cash prize rewarded for knowing where Kneeland is, but if you do know, you deserve one. As the crow flies....? Forget it, the crows don't know where it is either.

Kneeland is not on most maps. Kneeland does not have its own post office, the mail comes from Mio. Its own school district? Forget it. Children living in Kneeland go to Fairview Area. Telephone exchange? Nope, it is a Fairview number. Automobile industry? Why yes, thank you. Or, at least it did, up until a few weeks ago.

Sixty new people joined the unemployment line when Kneeland Industries announced it would be closing its doors, all victims of the domestic auto industry slump.

Fifteen dollars an hour in Oscoda County represents a good wage. Those that are not forced to move out of the area or out of state to find work will be very lucky to find a job that will pay two thirds of that amount. Benefits are going to be pretty iffy. Life, it seems, can be very difficult, even for the virtually unnoticed.

Some people really have no reason to care if others lose what are considered good paying jobs in northern Michigan. One of these people is Ron Gettelfinger and, in this case, I understand. These workers were never members of the UAW. These men and women were never paid $30 or $40 per hour. Their wages and benefits combined were never in the same zip code as the $70 per hour average total compensation that Gettelfinger's legions routinely command. These people were never Ron Gettelfinger's to worry about, and he is paid good money to worry about the people he is supposed to worry about. Sure, I think he is a horse's ass anyway, but I understand.

The Big 3 leadership has a lot to worry about these days. The corporations these three men represent own factories throughout the world, and these three companies are in turn owned by people that live in every state and on every continent. They have spent billions and billions of dollars in Michigan by building factories here, by doing research here, and by paying taxes here, but their loyalties must lie with a larger audience. These men have been well paid (at least up until that unfortunate $1 annual salary popped up,) to worry about the viability of their company and its value to the shareholders.

When threatened with a strike, and not just on a national scale but sometimes even in smaller, factory specific ones, the companies these men direct can lose millions of dollars every hour. I drink a cup of coffee, they lose a million bucks. So, while I think executives at the Big 3 made major errors when they succumbed to what have to be considered the unreasonable demands of the UAW, I understand why they did so. Sure, I still think they are horses' asses, but I do understand.

But, it is not my understanding of Ron Gettelfinger's motivations that is at issue here, nor is it my understanding of the motivations of the Big 3 that I'm really concerned about at this point. There is a third contributor to this calamity for whom there is no understanding, and that is the elected officials from our state and elsewhere that feel they are not obligated to represent lowly non-UAW workers.

Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow, and Jennifer Granholm are the three most powerful elected officials from the state of Michigan. All three are liberal Democrats, all three are lawyers without any visible understanding of economics, and all three depend mightily on the monolithic voting bloc of the UAW and big labor--a voting bloc that does not come without stings attached.

On issue after issue after issue, these three scholarly nincompoops, among other lesser nincompoops, have sided with the belligerant Ron Gettelfinger, helping to strengthen his organization's leverage against the Big 3. In the end it mattered little whether or not the union had been negotiating in good faith, if the Big 3 did not give in to demands, it possibly meant shuttering the doors, permanently. How is it that the labor pools were formed if not because of a playing field filled with land mines? How did legacy costs get so far out of kilter? How can the wages and benefits of an average worker reach $72 an hour if not at the point of a loaded gun?

The UAW demanded these things, understandably, because they could get away with it. The Big 3 gave these things, understandably, because they felt they had no other choice. But, all of this was made possible because elected officials such as Levin, Stabenow, and Granholm helped make up the rules to a no-win game that the people working at Kneeland Industries never even got invited to play. There is no understanding this.

The good news is that Ron, Alan, Rick, and Bob are in Washington again today begging for taxpayer money, some of which was, until just recently anyway, removed from the paychecks of Moms and Dads that used to work at Kneeland Industries. Ron says his tactics might change if the government antes up, and Alan, Rick, and Bob have pledged to update their business models if they can stay alive long enough.

The bad news is that the officials the unions have elected into office are not going to change the rules to this disastrous game. Levin has even been given another six years to play dungeon master.

Levin and company will never betray those to whom they feel they owe their election.

Who is even left to forsake the rest of us?