A Valid Question

While everyone's casting stones at the Big-Three for their profligate ways, the UAW's Ron Gettelfinger wonders why state and local governments are funding foreign automakers in direct competition with their American counterparts:

Since 1992, states where we have transplants have located have put in over $3 billion dollars in incentives and I would point out that is the money that the state settled for and I want to go specifically to Alabama if I could for a minute. We have Hyundai Motor Company that got $252 million in incentives. Toyota there got $29 million in incentives. Honda, $158 million and Mercedes $253 million in incentives. It just seems odd to us that we can help the financial institutions in this country and that we can offer incentives to our competitors to come here and compete against us but at the same time, we are willing to walk away from an industry that is the backbone of our economy. [emphasis added.]

And while I read these figures to you, which are the actual figures that we have been able to dig up. I want to go to one particular story and that is the plant in Mercedes, the Mercedes plant in Alabama.

As it turned out, as I said Alabama offered $253 million but the state offered to train the workers, clear and improve the sites, upgrade the utilities, buy 2,500 vehicles and it is estimated that that incentive package totaled somewhere around $175,000/per employee to create those jobs there. And on top of this, that state gave this automaker a large parcel of land-around $250-$300 million dollars. That was the same price or cost to them of building a facility.

So we can support our competition but we can’t support an industry that is in need? And this need was not brought about because of what the industry has done.

Hardly seems fair.