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.
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.
It is truly a Mad Mad world.
Un. Frakking. Real.
Truly reliable source – from the Right, that is:
http://tinyurl.com/oaczm
You know whats fun about these types of situations is to go back to the original proposal/plan and read the sources and uses of revenue. 99% of the time, the founding documents reveal the project as the CEO’s ego stroke with the Board remaining unengaged. Any staff member gets fired for speaking the obvious truth and outside experts are only there to reap their fees.
I think its called capitalism, the best economic system in the world.
for the record, i do work for GM….Honestly, this place has been a bone of contention for years inside the UAW. No one could understand why the union was using union funds to buy a golf resort. But also remember this: the union uses funds that are collected in monthly dues from the membership to fund crazy things like this. This isnt the only thing that would make your hair stand up but I’m not in the position to go any further on other things. The story is kinda misleading also, because it says that AFTER the bailout we own it. We actually owned it BEFORE the LOAN also. It’s just that we are hemmoraging money and can’t maintain it too well. But the golf course is also used for seminars and conferences for union members and their families. And I know, it’s a federal crime for any blue collar worker to have any perk that a white collar worker should also enjoy….But before you all go off ranting about anti union, remember this is one issue. The union does not take corporate funds to fund this place. That’s the fact….
The unions, like so many useless things, needs to just go away.
[Duplicate comment deleted. Please don’t double post! – ed.]
#5–madtruck==could you state what you mean to say in one sentence?
You seem to miss the opposition to the Auto Bailout==it was an “anti-union” move by Repuglicans. Hard to develop grassroots sympathy for the Auto Union when they waste money in the same manner that the Auto Execs do–ie, iow, let them lie in the bed they created.
The Union was slow to participate in auto profits on the way up and likewise are slow to reform demands on the way down. Perhaps a necessary evil, but evil nonetheless.
I see – what is good for the goose is good for the gander management/ peons mentality.
The author George Orwell of 1984 totalitarian state in the future book fame wrote another book. “Animal Farm” , which to the left wing at the time was a horror in being a parody of mother Soviet Russia.
The mistreated farm animals take over the farm from farmer Smith with the slogan “All animals are equal”. In the end the pigs are in control , walk on stilts and dress in human clothes , and have the slogan “All animals are equal , but some animals are more equal than others”.
It was the American consumer who was being taken advantage of by one big game – whether it was by management or the management of the auto unions of the American auto industries.
#7-could i state what i mean in one sentence?? umm..no. One of the reasons i like dvorak.org/blog is that i can come and explain auto issues from my personal perspective, sometimes in much longer form than this. The issues that go into this golf course and the LOAN are not just one sentence answers. This is not digg.com (thankfully). The points you make are valid, but even your pot-shots at the auto execs and unions took more than a sentence….
oh, and in case any of you wanna golf there, here’s the website….
http://blacklakegolf.com/
#9–madtruck. It was a test. Brevity being the soul of wit. Boiling an idea down to one sentence is an EXERCISE that helps reveal the inconsistencies a paragraph may contain.
My own multiple sentences exist because I addressed more than one idea. But here you go:
The Auto Union maintaining a money losing golf course is an argument against a bail out for the Auto Industry even though there is no direct financial link. ((You posted otherwise.))
Change we can believe in.
A lot of “problems” are buried in them fairways. Don’t go digging. Know what I’m saying, capiche?
No wonder they’re losing money, that place is out in the middle of friggin nowhere. Michigan is full of beautiful golf resorts, but most are closer to where people live and can easily travel.
For all the bitching that Dvorak does about misleading news titles you’d expect he’d have higher standards for his own website. The UAW has had that golf course since the 60’s, it’s just recently that they’ve lost money on it. And what exactly have the UAW not done in this brief period “after the bailout” that they should have?
As a former CWA member who frequently was around regional leadership, I have seen just as much if not more waste and political maneuvering than I ever have in the years working in corporate management.
Just my opinion, but union leadership is just a different calling for those inclined to power grabs and influence.
Sounds more like the UAW made an investment, and it simply tanked in this volatile economic climate. Now they can’t unload it, because who buys golf courses when the stock market takes a 50% dump?
President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry,
No. He approved a bailout of the UAW.
Only the UNION plants are getting the bail-out.
#21 said: “Which wise group think got the country in the current pickle?”
That’s easy, the politicians, both in congress (democrats) and in the white house (republican). The auto industry has no power of its own to use force to take money from individuals and spend them on a dying company, only the government can do that.
But the Dems wanted to protect their union friends from their own bad decisions, and the white house, well they never met a spending program they didn’t like.
Of course, this is just the beginning. Soon every large industry will be coming to the government with its hand out. They will all use the same argument that “they are too large to fail”. And the government, will gladly seize more of our property and give it over to these industries that should be allowed to fall into chapter 11.