Mika Brzezinski

Mika Brzezinski is a co-host of Morning Joe and an MSNBC anchor. Brzezinski also reports on NBC's Nightly News and is an alternating news anchor for Weekend Today. Prior to joining MSNBC, Brzezinski was an anchor of the CBS Evening News Weekend Edition and a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes.

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Co-host of Morning Joe and an MSNBC anchor

CNSNews.com's Pete Winn reports that the average Big Three automaker union worker's compensation is $73/hour―two and a half times the average for the taxpayer being asked to bail them out. Compare that to the union autoworker for a foreign transplant building cars here is $44/hour. The numbers are a snapshot of the current contract with the UAW. They are EXACTLY why they are in the current crisis. Apparently, changes are coming. According to our research at NBC news, by 2010 compensation for US autoworkers will be roughly in line with foreign autoworkers and the UAW will cover health care costs. This is why the Big Three are looking for a bailout to bridge them to 2010. I want all of us to question: Should we trust THIS bailout will be different? Should the government be imposing what innovations are necessary? Do we bridge them again or should Chapter 11 do its job? Should the basics of capitalism, success and failure, apply to the Big Three too?

3:14 pm, Dec 9, 2008

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Union, Automaker, Pete Winn, Mika Brzezinski, Big Three, Chapter 11, Cars, Chrysler, Ford, Gm

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Giannie

Oh Mika! How sad that you seem to go out of your way to show why we shouldn't trust the MSM.
How about doing the kind of homework we'd expect a grade-schooler to do?
Maybe your "research at NBC news" didn't mention that to you that Pete Winn's article noted that the $73 figure includes not only "compensation" for current workers, as you claim, but also benefits paid to current retirees. CNS quoted Perry, (who has used the $73 figure to argue against an auto industry bailout), noting that the figure "includ[es] legacy costs -- retirement costs, pensions, and so on -- so it's looking at the total labor costs per hour worked for workers," not just the average union worker's hourly compensation.
According to General Motors, the $73 figure includes not only current workers' hourly wages and benefits, including health and retirement, but also retirement and health benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for current retirees.
"I want all of us to question" how come you felt you could use half-truths to slam hard-working Americans?

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7:28 pm, Mar 28, 2009

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