CAW Myopic?

John Oakley: Don't blame GM, Buzz

Posted: June 05, 2008, 3:07 PM by John Turley-Ewart
Filed under: John Oakley

Sixty-five million years ago when a meteor wiped out all the dinosaurs, it could at least be said that there was no way they could have seen it coming. Today, the lumbering giant facing extinction is old manufacturing and its affiliated unions, which can’t use the same excuse.

That General Motors in Oshawa failed to adjust to a rapidly changing market is myopic, no question, but for the union to claim it’s been double-crossed by a company bait and switch, or let down by a feckless government that doesn’t have its back, is to miss the real point.

The CAW leadership owed it to the rank and file to sound the alarm and prepare them for the new reality. Don’t they have a handful of first-rate economists on retainer, or at least someone with as much insight into shifting global and consumer markets as your average mutual fund salesman? Mine was pushing green funds five years ago. You’d think the $70 barrel of oil might have been the canary in the coal mine. Call it irresponsible at best, negligence at worst, but whoever failed to lead their members into retraining and retooling their skills has to carry the can on this one.

At least that’s the buzz from here.