by Mark Luedtke

Created on: January 04, 2009

A video floating around the internet shows a state of the art Brazilian auto plant capable of producing 5 different models of cars so production could instantly be switched to respond to dynamic market conditions. Assembly lines for suppliers integrated into the plant seamlessly insert sub-assemblies into the main assembly line. The highly automated plant has its own port next door for easy shipping. You won't be surprised that the Big Three auto makers have nothing this advanced in the US.

But you might be surprised that the plant is a Ford plant. Contrary to what the mainstream media has led us to believe, the management of the Big Three auto makers have foresight and ingenuity, but the auto workers union won't let them build plants like that here.

Flush with power from crowning Obama with a propaganda campaign rarely seen since Pravda at the height of the Soviet Union, the mainstream media continues to push its leftist agenda. The current narrative is that management of US auto makers are dinosaurs and unlike foreign auto makers, they were unprepared for the changing market. But as the video shows, the dinosaur is the auto workers union, not management. If they could build plants like that in the US, the Big Three wouldn't be asking for a bailout.

The narrative also misinforms that bankruptcy for the Big Three would mean the end of the Detroit auto makers. Southwest Ohioans know better. We watched Delta enter bankruptcy in 2005, and after reorganizing, Delta is profitable and growing today. Bankrupt companies don't disappear. Bankruptcy gives the company leverage to reorganize its commitments so it can return to profitability.

But the biggest commitment that the auto makers would renegotiate is labor contracts, and that conflicts with the leftist agenda. If the auto manufacturers declared bankruptcy, the auto workers union would have to accept lower wages and concessions on pensions. That's why the media and Democrats and press are pushing for a bailout, and that's why the United Auto Workers are begging for a bailout.

But we shouldn't bail out the auto workers union for the same reason we shouldn't bail out anybody else Americans can't be free to succeed beyond our wildest dreams unless we are also free to fail. Auto makers unions are making their employers uncompetitive, and they should be allowed to fail. If they fail, workers will replace the union management with management that makes them more competitive.

And we know that non-union American workers can

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