03 May 2009
Whipped butter is a strange thing. Doesnt really have enough consistency to be absorbed into the toast in the correct manner and therefore makes for a disappointing breakfast experience. But that is not the issue. It was, however, over breakfast that I was reading in the Toronto Globe and Mail that Chryslers bankruptcy protection plan will leave the United Auto Workers Union as the majority shareholder (the union has purchased 55% of companies shares). The union however doesnt see this as a good thing and analyists predict that it will sell the shares once the government loans have been repaid.Im interested in this. I would have thought that a stake in the companys future would be a good thing for a work force. As long as it stays profitable of course and part of that could be down to the unions behaviour itself- welcome to the wonderful world of self employment. Or is worker ownership too socialist an idea for North Americans to stomach? Or is it an indication the even the car workers union recognize the age of the big gas guzzler (which was Chryslers forte) is over, or even that we at the end of the petro-chemical age, and they are desperate not to own part of what is going to be a big money loser, in which case why bother using/wasting union funds prolonging the inevitable?