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By RightMichigan.com Posted in Breaking News | John McCain | Michigan | Ron Gettelfinger | UAW | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

He was here just over a month ago, touring a Ford plant back on February 21st.  And now he's coming back.  Who?  I'll give you a few hints... he's a guy.  He's running for President.  He's actually invested in Michigan this campaign season with staff, mail, radio, TV and all sorts of assorted political chum purchased from local vendors.  He talks about Michigan issues and has taken an active interest in the domestic auto industry.  If you do the math on February 21st it's only been sixty-nine days since he last visited even though our election was held long ago... and he didn't even win it!

OK, OK, the hint game gets tired.  My bad.  John McCain is coming to town!  The Associated Press reports:

The Arizona senator plans to hold a Tuesday evening fundraiser at the West Bloomfield home of Peter and Danialle Karmanos.

McCain also plans to hold a town hall meeting with supporters Wednesday morning at Shotwell-Gustafson Pavilion at Oakland University in Rochester.

Good deal, right?  And maybe more news worthy than it'd look on the surface.

The Karmanos name is a big deal.  Bigger than you might think.  Mr. Karmanos is often associated with Compuware (he's the CEO), the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, which bears the name of his late first wife or the Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL.  What a lot of folks don't realize is that he's been known to dabble in Michigan politics as well.

During the gubernatorial race in 2006 Karmanos was a major power player for one of the candidates here in Michigan.  Might surprise you, after reading the AP article, to learn that it wasn't with the DeVos campaign.  He was a Granholm guy.  Not just a donor or an inner-circle guy... her biggest (and just about only) gun in the business world and a top-level fundraiser and advisor.

That he's left the Granholm fold and joined up with Senator McCain is significant.  But why the move?  Has he finally seen the light regarding lefty economic policy in Michigan?  Does he just plain dislike Hillary Clinton?  Did Barack Obama refuse to drop the puck at a Hurricanes hockey game?  Not sure.  But it happened.  

Suppose it could have something to do with McCain's relative moderation in the face of Michigan's economic plight, too.  While Clinton and Obama battle it out over who can propose larger CAFE spikes that'll kill more domestic auto jobs McCain's been touring their plants.  Which is good.  All three of them should get those visits in while they can (though that might require Hill-Rod and The baRock to come to Michigan, if you smell what I'm cookin') since those plants are becoming fewer and farther between.  

The Detroit News reports this morning that GM is posting a $3,000,000,000 loss.  For the first quarter.  That's a billion dollars a month.

About 3,500 hourly workers in the United States and Canada will be laid off starting this summer when GM carries out a massive production cut announced earlier this week.

The automaker will build 140,000 fewer trucks and SUVs in the second half of the year than initially planned -- a cut that's needed even though GM built 100,000 fewer vehicles in the first quarter because of the American Axle strike. The company said it will cut shifts but not close factories.

"This latest move marks another step by GM to trim its higher-cost union work force and even raises the prospects of increasing buyout opportunities from fearful employees," CSM Worldwide analysts Joe Langley and Mike Jackson wrote in a research note.

Then there's the ongoing strike at American Axle which might be thawing, though the result doesn't look particularly pretty.  We've gone round and round here on this site talking about potential deals and competitive wage structures.  Simply reducing compensation rates across the board to bring workers in line with their domestic (US) competition doesn't look like an option anymore, though.  According to the Ivory Tower:

A settlement potentially would shed American Axle's national UAW contract, replacing it with individual agreements for the surviving plants, said people briefed on the talks...

Forging plants in Detroit and Tonawanda, N.Y., near Buffalo are negotiating deals that would close those factories, according to people familiar with the talks. It is unclear what would be offered to those workers in the event of a closure.

Worth noting that there's no talk of American Axle shifting those jobs out of the Country.  They're just going to disappear.  So sure, Hillary Clinton's NAFTA and CAFTA may give some folks the SHAFTA but not these folks.  

News of the potential closings wasn't exactly expected, either.  Union negotiators have been keeping their members apprised during talks these last couple of months and it looks like this news blindsided them.  Meaning it may not have been officially a part of any preliminary offer from American Axle, and they've laid several on the table.

Browsing through the comments section after that Tower article paints a picture of a union membership that's been blindsided and looks plenty unhappy with their union "leadership."  Then again, this could have been in the cards all along with UAW shepherds simply keeping it from their flock.  But they wouldn't do that, would they?