If you were outraged when President Bush gave GM and Chrysler $17 billion of your hard earned money, then this is guaranteed to send you over the edge. The United Auto Workers, the union that refuses to make concessions even if it causes the company to fold, has a $33 million retreat, complete with a $6.4 million golf course.
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.
So the union shakes the employer down for higher wages, then take the union dues and buys a “retreat” that loses millions of dollars, blames the Republicans for the bailout failure and keeps the golf course after the President bails them out.
Think about that when you are working overtime this weekend.
