Unions: Expired Twinkies

I hate smug people; I hate smug things even more. Toyotas are smug vehicles. They have average-looking bodies with middle-of-the-road drivetrains and they cater to nose-in-the-air people who just want to be part of the cool crowd. If attitude is any indication, Toyota is the Apple of automobiles. These cars probably won't be classics, not in the sense of a '57 Chevy or a '32 Ford, but they will do just fine for driving the kids to school or going on road trips. As someone who knows a few things about the auto, I never understood why Toyota seemed so smug or why the people who owned one were smug too. Needless to say, I grew to dislike Toyota quite a bit.

When the government acquired GM by rights of a generous and ill-conceived bailout, my lifelong love of cars was tested. I had always been a GM girl. Fords were 'Found On the Road Dead' and Chrysler, can anyone say K-car? My family had Chevys, Buicks, and Cadillacs. The later was my all-time favorite. I had entertained dreams as a child of working in Cadillac's promotional department, cranking out advertisements that featured their powerful, elegant coaches. Those dreams were shattered by the reality that GM would probably never be truly great again. My deepening understanding of business practices and my growing distaste with the government led me to think more broadly about automobiles and the industry as a whole. I realized what had been holding American car companies back for so long, what had led them to their demise like sheep to the slaughter: unions.

Unions came to be the way a lot of things do: they were needed. Workers were being abused. They were overworked and underpaid. Long since, regulations and laws have been set in place to stop employee abuse, but at the time, the only way to ensure the rights of the workers was to organize and turn the tables on the employer. This method was successful, but was not without its dark side. As the years went on and unions continued to gain power, corruption crept in. Backroom deals were made, the overwhelming sense of entitlement soared, and quality of labor suffered. When people were allowed to believe the most minimal amount of work was enough for payment, they stopped trying. No one made an effort to excel. The workforce that had once dreamed of advancing to management, became complacent to stay working class, as long as the union secured their jobs.

GM, Chrysler, and Ford, the American 'big three,' all had union workforces. When times were tough, management tried different ways of making things better. It seemed, no matter what they tried, the unions opposed. For whatever grounds they cited, they never once admitted that they may actually be the problem. They demanded astronomical pay for small amounts of work. They made it impossible for people to shift their position by restricting who could do what job and how long they could do it. All jobs were specialized, compartmentalized, and subsequently doomed if the employees weren't there to do them. There was no way to replace someone unless management begged the union. And as for taking pay cuts? Never. If anything, they wanted more. These people, some of which had only meager high-school educations, were bound and determined to get their way, even if it meant their source of employment would go belly-up in a few years. Unions are short-sighted at best.

And all the while, as the big three struggled, Toyota and its other foreign counterparts were doing just fine. Their sales were up and consistent, their companies growing. I could never figure out why. Their cars weren't anything special. But then it clicked: Toyota does not employ union labor. They employ people the old-fashioned way. You do the job, you do it well, you keep the job and get paid. If you don't do your job, you're gone. There's no boss to push the company around. No strikes to threaten. No one is going to step in and claim the job is your right as a bipedal humanoid and nothing else. The skill and drive is what they pay you for. I had never looked kindly on Toyota, but knowing this made me see them in a different way.

Though I had this new-found respect, I couldn't help but smile when I learned the news of the Toyota recalls. Something about their haughty infallibility being tested made me happy. But I knew recalls were normal things. They happened all the time to all kinds of companies. Most didn't even make the news. My joy was shallow, I know, and it was short-lived. I cringed as the transportation secretary suggested people stop driving the cars involved in the recall, something that sent Toyota into a frantic tailspin. Confidence began to fall and the government was to blame. Something clicked in my head, sparked by months of news about union deals with the government. Ray LaHood's statement wasn't an accident, quite the contrary. Under-the-table money was in play here. The unions were going to have their revenge on Toyota and those like them. The government is behaving a lot like the leadership in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" They are teaming with the ultimate army of wealth spreaders to try and take down a capitalist giant.

These are truly the times that try men's souls. We will be given a choice, a choice far more difficult than what car to buy. The automobile, this symbol of ingenuity and prosperity, is now a shining star of evidence, a spotlight on things to come. We must have the courage and strength to choose the right future. Toyota may not have the style of a '67 Shelby GT, the rumble of a Willys hot rod, or the glide of Auburn boattail, but it is a vision of how that stellar past can come to be again. An industry without the threatening and greedy underbelly of union labor is the only kind that will prosper now. Unions must be abolished, shown for what they truly are; an expired product for a different time. Believe it or not, some things thought to never expire really do eventually. Given the years, even a smug Twinkie will become inedible. And we all know what happens when we eat something that's gone bad.