Another reason to pass more “right-to-work” laws.

Autoworkers Union Keeps $6 Million Golf Course for Members at $33 Million Lakeside Retreat

Friday , December 26, 2008

The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn’t out of the bunker just yet.

Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it’s costing them millions each year.

• Click here to see photos of the UAW’s $33 million retreat.

The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on “1,000 heavily forested acres” on Michigan’s Black Lake, according to its Web site.

But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union’s biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union’s neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.

Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues.

“It’s their members’ money that they’re spending on this thing,” said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a union watchdog group. “The union has bigger issues at hand than managing a golf course.”

Managing the course may become a burden for the union. The UAW covers costs for the Reuther Center from the interest it earns on its strike fund, according to tax documents, but massive losses in the past five years have forced the union to make heavy loans to keep the center afloat. Critics call it a poor investment for a group with over $1.25 billion in assets.

“Unions certainly have had real estate investments in the past, but investments are supposed to make money, not bleed money,” said Wilson.

The UAW did not return calls from FOXNews.com, and a spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The Reuther Center is open 11 months of the year to offer courses on leadership, political action, civil rights and other topics; it hosts nearly 10,000 visitors annually. The UAW says it sends workers there to “learn, experience unionism (and) commit to labor’s cause,” according to their Web site.

The center was purchased in 1967 and underwent massive renovations in the ’90s under the careful watch of former UAW president Steve Yokich. “Today’s Black Lake might not exist if not for Steve Yokich,” said union member Bob Reidt, whom Yokich appointed as Black Lake’s director. “Yokich is responsible for rebuilding Black Lake.”

The UAW erected a monument to its longtime president Walter Reuther — the center’s namesake — which bears an inscription of his words: “There is no greater calling than to serve your brother. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well.”

But Reuther, who died in a plane crash en route to the center in 1970, never knew the satisfaction of Black Lake’s “well-groomed fairways,” a course that Michigan Golf Magazine called a “stunning visual marvel.”

Union members can play golf at discounted rates on one of the country’s top 100 courses, designed in 2000 by famed course architect Rees Jones at a cost of $6 million.

The center has a storied history. Reuther had his ashes scattered at the site, and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz honeymooned there in 1940, well before it was bought by the UAW.

“It’s funny that they call it an education center — it’s a resort,” said Wilson. “If I was a union member, I would prefer that they rented out a room at the Ramada Inn.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,472304,00.html

Senate Republicans Block Union Bill
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a bill that would allow labor unions to organize workplaces without a secret ballot election.
Democrats were unable to get the 60 votes needed to force consideration of the Employee Free Choice Act, ending organized labor’s chance to win its top legislative priority from Congress.
The final vote was 51-48.
…
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/6/26/123010.shtml?s=us

This should make things interesting with regard to the Democrat vote.

Unions Differ on Immigration Legislation

WASHINGTON (AP) - The revival of the Senate’s immigration legislation also resurrected a rare split inside organized labor.

The AFL-CIO formally came out against the bill Wednesday, reflecting the distaste among manufacturing unions and others whose members have been displaced by overseas competition and would have to compete with an influx of cheaper workers who don’t have labor rights.
…

An interesting perspective from a corporate executive on teacher’s unions and the quality of the public school system. on Friday “lambasting” teacher’s unions:

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”

In a rare joint appearance, Jobs shared the stage with competitor Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc. Both spoke to the gathering about the potential for bringing technological advances to classrooms.

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs said.

“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

A great post by Brain Terminal makes some good points about school vouchers:

That’s why you hear teachers’ unions oppose school choice on the grounds that it would hurt failing schools. But the point of public education is not to ensure the survival of schools, it’s to ensure the education of students. So what if failing schools are closed? They should close. And the only way that’ll ever happen is if less-advantaged families have an opportunity to vote with their feet and abandon the schools that are failing their children.

Jobs’ comparison of schools with a business reminds me of the “three-legged stool” concept. It goes like this:

In business you have three entities that must benefit from a product in order for that product to be successful–the customer, the company, and the sales rep or distributor. If any one of the three parties aren’t satisfied then the product is not successful, because either the company will stop producing it, the distributors will refuse to sell it, or the customer just won’t buy it. If either of the legs falls, the whole stool falls.

In the case of the private market, the person with really the most control is the customer. The company can produce the product well, and the distributor can sell the product well, but if the customer doesn’t buy it, then it’s not going to last long.

With public schools, the only person with virtually NO control is the customer–the student. The school boards have meetings and philosophize on how they can improve their product; the teachers unions do what they can to get the best contract they can as the distributor of the product.

But in some school districts, the customers (the kids) simply aren’t buying. And the kids (and their parents) have little say so; whatever district they’re in, that’s the product they get, unless they fork out tons of extra money for a quality product (private schools), while they’re still paying (from their tax dollars) for the inferior product.

It’s just confusing for me when I hear the “the schools are overcrowded” and “the teachers are overworked” and “not enough individual attention”, etc…and then almost in the same breath, “vouchers take resources away from public schools.”

And as Brain Terminal pointed out, it seems like a slight to the poor when the teachers unions tell them, “You have to deal with a mediocre product, so we can keep our jobs, even though we’re selling you a mediocre product, and if you sacrifice to go find a better school, then you still have to pay for this one, so we can continue to inadequately serve everyone else in the district who can’t afford private schools.”

It would be as if the local grocery store sold undeniably inferior produce, but in order to get good quality produce families had to buy it from that local store, throw it away, and then go to the next county and pay double for the good stuff.

Essentially, I’ve always been of the opinion that a teaching job is a sales job, and I’ve never heard of a union for salespeople (or perhaps I simply can’t imagine joining one). Teacher’s unions put too much power in the hands of the distributor (unheard of in the “real world”) and vouchers are really the only way to give the customer a choice in the matter, and as a result put upward pressure on public schools, the teachers, and the quality of their product.

Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions