Our state is facing a situation that has the potential to destroy Alabama jobs, Alabama companies and Alabama communities. The UAW is selling snake oil to hardworking Alabamians employed at auto manufacturing plants in an attempt to fleece money from the pockets of good people.
None of this is new to me. I was raised by a single mother who supported my sister and me by doing shift work at a factory. I know how hard that work is. I also know that when the unions come in, they make promises of getting a lot for nothing. They weave a great story to convince workers that they can get them a better deal. They promise them a better life with more money, less work and a host of other things. But this is what they aren’t telling Alabamians when they come with their union cards:
They don’t tell them that they will be forced to pay a portion of every paycheck they receive to support the extravagant lifestyle of Shawn Fain, the President of the UAW, who rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
They don’t tell them that multiple members of UAW leadership have been convicted of financial crimes against UAW members and have gone to prison in the last five years.
They don’t tell them that Detroit, MI, the stronghold of the UAW, has an unemployment rate of more than 8% as compared to Hope Hull, Vance and Lincoln, Alabama which are all more than half of that.
They don’t tell them that less than five years ago, union leadership voted to close the Gadsden Goodyear plant, leaving hundreds of Etowah County workers without jobs.
The people of Etowah County know what’s it like to see their neighbors go from thriving to struggling as lifelong Goodyear workers were cut loose by the union they paid their hard earned money to for years.
In Rainbow City and Attalla, they remember what it was like to watch as proud, hardworking men and women were forced onto the unemployment line when the union voted to close down their workplace and then left town and left them behind.
Those union leaders drove away and left hundreds of Alabama families and in the rear-view mirror of the luxury SUVs they paid for on the backs of the men and women they left in their wake.
The truth is that unions are the biggest multi-level marketing scams in the country. Those at the bottom of the pyramid are told grand stories of the possibilities of easy riches and better lives if they will just pay a little bit of money out of each paycheck to the management level above them. Then you are encouraged to recruit more members and build your downline. The problem is, just like any other multi-level marketing scam, only a few at the top get rich on the backs of the people at the bottom of the pyramid who are just trying to achieve the American Dream.
It’s time to let Alabama’s auto workers know what the people of Gadsden know. Unions are a get rich scheme – but not for Alabama’s workers. Alabama workers will pay for the lavish vacations, luxury cars and fancy dinners of UAW President Shawn Fain and his buddies. They will take the money that our state’s auto workers will be forced to give them and laugh their way to the bank just like they laugh at the working men and women of Detroit, and of Gadsden, Alabama.
Then, when they are finished laughing, they will do what they did to the unionized plant in Gadsden. They will vote to close their Alabama locations and leave their members without jobs while they move on to the next state to sell their empty promises to a new set of targets.
Scott Stadthagen serves as the Majority Leader of the 75-member Alabama House Republican Caucus and is the state representative for Alabama House District 9.
