On Politics 6/6/09: Selling Out Brothers & Sisters

In the wake of the agreement reached yesterday with Governor Awful and two large NY public workers' unions to modify retirement qualifications and coverage, I'm reminded of recent similar actions conducted by the UAW with domestic automakers.

As part of those decisions, the UAW decided to acquiesce to corporate demands for reducing the amount of health care coverage for retirees. Simply put, the people who were the backbone of the companies, and more pertinently, the foundation of the unions working for those companies, who are now in their 60s,70s, and 80s, lost contributions from the former Big 3 carmakers towards retiree health care costs.

As I write this on the 6th of June, when we celebrate, remember, and honor the sacrifices of those who served to save the world from the very real threat of totalitarianism 65 years ago, I wonder what the reaction of Americans would be should we decide to no longer fully support healthcare coverage for those who fought on our collective behalf. Granted, it's obviously true that to serve your country is a higher calling than working to put cars together, but I think it speaks to a common thread in our country.

In my opinion, Americans are among the worst of all populations in caring for the elderly. As we saw up close managing Vince's care the last few years, and, as related to us by his healthcare providers, our fellow citizens seem most content to dump their fathers, mothers, uncles, and aunts into assisted care or other such facilities, even if their are no overriding medical issues afflicting those relatives. In addition, our country, and our corporations, do not properly utilize the experience and wisdom of our elders as we should, whereas other cultures, especially those of Far Eastern societies, honor and revere the knowledge of the old.

I think this is personified in the UAW example. Those making the decisions for that leadership today decided that the group they could screw were the same people who provided the impetus for everything they now enjoy. Instead of taking the losses on their collective shoulders, they determined that it was proper to downgrade the one group who could least afford any type of change. Those retirees, who walked out with a contract at retirement that they had earned and fought for with their sweat, lost it because the next generation that followed them sold them out for their own betterment.

That doesn't sound like honorable treatment to me.