Despite Massive Industry Losses, United Auto Workers Union’s Real Estate Includes $33 Million Black Lake Golf Club with $6M Designer Golf Course

Photo: Fox News, Aerial View of Black Lakes Golf Course, Owned by UAW

While the Big Three automakers and UAW president Ron Gettelfinger were grovelling on Capitol Hill for bailout money, a little secret was about to be unveiled. It seems that the United Autoworkers Union has something many unions do not possess. A $33 million lakeside retreat, Black Lakes Club, in Michigan, complete with its own designer golf course worth $6.4 million. So as the industry is being rocked by massive losses, the UAW bigwigs, including Gettelfinger, continue to operate this retreat, which flies in the face of conventional wisdom and decency. This is a horrific waste of union dues.

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.

Auto Union’s Golf Course “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.

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. Source: Fox News

Apparently, the bigwigs threw the little people a bone, but it comes with a cost. 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. Funny, this is supposed to be an educational center, couldn’t they have rented office space in a building somewhere in Michigan? Why the pomposity of a retreat? This is a blatant example of the reckless expenditures of the auto industry. I guess this was one minor detail that President Bush and Hank Paulson overlooked when they decided to throw General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC the taxpayers’ money. Of course, this is also coming from the same people who gave the banks a blank check when they and the Congress gave them billions with no strings attached. Absolutely ridiculous.

Filed under: Big Three Auto Bailout, Black Lake Golf Club, Capitol Hill, Rees Jones, Ron Gettelfinger, United Auto Workers

Poverty, Crime & Education: Detroit’s Real Big 3 Bailout

The city of Detroit A.K.A. Motor City or Motown is famous for its auto industry which has been the headline in the news lately. The big topic of political conversation is concerning the economy and the auto industry is now the major concern. The big 3 automakers, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all call Detroit their home and many Americans want to see the auto industry saved from bankruptcy and failure.

It may not be so much for the industry itself and its history within America as much as it is probably for the workers, the economy and the city of Detroit itself. Many American’s have differing opinions on the auto bailout, but regardless of the company and CEO’s, the workers will be the ones that suffer the most.

The city of Detroit itself is already suffering and evidently that portion of the bailout is being completely overlooked. The city of Detroit has the same social ills of any major city in America. Crime, poverty, drugs, low education levels all plague our major cities. Since the city of Detroit is in the headlines seeking a bailout for the big 3 automakers, let’s take a look at 3 of Detroit’s major social problems that really need a bailout.

Detroit’s population is just under one million and with its declining middle class of both Blacks and Whites, the city is 85% black. Blacks began to migrate to Detroit and other northern cities from the South from 1910 to 1940. Blacks migrated to the North in large numbers seeking jobs and a better standard of living than in the South. After race riots in 1943 and again in 1967, Detroit’s middle class population began to move to the suburbs along with its jobs and tax base.

With the crack epidemic of the 1980’s, a continuing declining tax base and poor leadership, all have left the city of Detroit on the path of despair.

• Detroit has a murder rate of 21.7% with 400 murders in 2007
• a poverty rate of 1 in every 3 people living below the federal poverty level of $19,157 making it the poorest large city in America with 47.8% of its children living in poverty
• the nation’s second highest unemployment rate of 8.8%
• a dropout rate of 68% the country’s highest along with Indianapolis and Cleveland
• the state of Michigan has the highest incarceration rate than any other state
• a social service system that is stretched beyond its resources
• in 2007 Detroit was named by the FBI as the country’s most dangerous city

The social ills of Detroit can and will continue as long as Americans continue to ignore its poor and downtrodden. The big issues for many are the automakers of Detroit who abandoned Detroit and its citizens decades ago moving to the suburbs and taking its tax base with it. The true bailout of Detroit should be it citizens. Call the bailout something else without Detroit in the name. It is apparent that the big 3 automakers could care less about the city of Detroit. And to be exploited even more, community leaders pray and speak of a bailout like it will really make a difference to the citizens of the demoralized city.

Filed under: Big Three Auto Bailout, Chrysler LLC, Detroit, Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Poverty, southern migration

Rev. Charles Ellis of Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple Offers Up Prayers for Passage of Bailout With SUVs at the Altar

I am going to give this church the benefit of the doubt, but I have to ask, how different is what they did than Sarah “Pitbull with lipstick” when that nutjob Rev. Muthee prayed for her and her prayers about the pipeline. So, fast forward. Rev. Charles Ellis of Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple offered up prayers for Congress to bail out the struggling auto industry. Okay, so I have no problems with his prayers, but I think they went overboard with the sport-utility-vehicles at the altar.

“We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this week,” the Rev. Charles Ellis told several thousand congregants at a rousing service at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple. “This week, lives are hanging above an abyss of uncertainty as both houses of Congress decide whether to extend a helping hand.”

Local car dealerships donated three hybrid SUVs to be displayed during the service, one from each of the Big Three. A Ford Escape, Chevy Tahoe from GM and a Chrysler Aspen were parked just in front of the choir and behind the pulpit. Source: Reuters

Ellis said he and other Detroit ministers would pray and fast until Congress voted on a bailout for Detroit’s embattled automakers. He urged his congregation to do the same. Okay. I don’t have a problem with fasting and the idea he posed to his congregation either. The issue I have is the fact that the SUVs were on stage. Rev. Ellis, God gets the message. You didn’t have to use the vehicles as props to get media coverage or to get to God.

“Everybody can’t live on Wall Street. Everybody can’t live on Main Street. But all of us have lived on the side street, the working class,” Ellis said. “I call it the working class because everything tells me there is no more middle class.” Source: Reuters

As you know, key Democratic lawmakers and the Bush administration were locked in negotiations over the weekend aimed at offering at least $15 billion in short-term loans to keep General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC from immediate bankruptcy. I honestly did not want them to be bailed out. These companies have been riled with mismanagement for so long, they deserve to fail. But Main Street would be at the losing end. Too many people would lose their jobs. The auto industry cannot die a slow death. Their demise would affect too many people across too many areas–suppliers, dealers, workers and companies in related industries. There needs to be a radical reinvention of these companies. I would venture to say, Chrysler and General Motors Corp. should merge. We don’t need all three. A merger of two would be practical.

But back to Rev. Ellis. I know he meant well and his heart is in the right place, so I won’t criticize him as vehemently as I could.

Ellis said he started to organize the service last week after hearing from auto workers, retirees and their widows who were all fearful of even harder times. At one point, Ellis summoned up hundreds of auto workers and retirees in the congregation to come forward toward the vehicles on the altar to be anointed with oil.

“It’s all about hope. You can’t dictate how people will think, how they will respond, how they will vote,” Ellis said after the service. “But you can look to God. We believe he can change the minds and hearts of men and women in power, and that’s what we tried to do today.” Source: Reuters

We need divine intervention because President Bush has created a maelstrom of mismanagement. On a personal note, I believe prayer works and I have been faced with many challenges in my life and God worked it out for me. No matter what, I can aver that He is an on time God. As Dottie Peoples says in her song — He may not come when you want Him, but He’ll be here right on time. He’s an on time God, yes He is. So, to the people of Detroit, I will keep you in my prayers because this whole country is in a financial tailspin. But Rev. Ellis, lose the SUVs next time. Don’t sully an otherwise good message with questionable tactics. Clearly the onus is on Ford, Chrysler and General Motors to make better vehicles instead of the gas guzzlers clogging up our streets and contributing to poor air quality. Surely he could pray for the companies’ executive team to be terminated. Since they are guilty of years of mismanagement. Rev. Ellis showed that he still focuses on the material things–cars at the altar. Greater Grace Temple is one of Detroit’s largest churches. It was the site of the 2005 funeral for civil rights figure Rosa Parks.

Filed under: Big Three Auto Bailout, Chrysler LLC, Detroit, Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Prayer for Bailout, President George W. Bush, Rev. Charles Ellis, SUVs