On the bitter pill to autoworkers and Detroit bankruptcy...

It's quite sad, looking at the Detroit automakers descending into bankruptcy, starting with Chrysler, and now GM. With bankruptcy, of course, it'll mean the end of an era, when signing on as an autoworker means a ticket to the middle class and American Dream, particularly for those with little education.

The UAW and other unions in their respective industries all serve a purpose, in leveling the collective bargaining playing field with the corporate. I remember one time, I visited a closed coal mine in Wales (UK) and its museum, with the history for the mine itself, coal mining in England, and the evolution of the miners' union. I remember reading about the horrendous working conditions for the coal miners, including children and animals, since they were often small enough to go into small shafts to dig. It wasn't the miners banded together to form unions and demand better pay and working conditions, that things started to change for the better. But of course, economic times change too, the mine could no longer stay profitable and was eventually shut down. I remember putting on a miner's hat, and going down the shaft with my friends and the tour guide, it's pitch dark down there, with no way out. I thought to myself, this is a horrible situation to work.

Back with the UAW, it has become so political and victim of its own success, that it thinks it can wring as much from Detroit, until Detroit is bled to death. How else can one possibly foresee a company like GM that supports more than benefits for 650,000+ retirees, with 70,750 current employees and a ever shrinking market share and sliding sales? During economic boom times, the high tides mask and effectively delay the inevitable, that these automakers really should not have survived in the long term, given its current shape and form.

Now, the autoworkers have to swallow the bitter pill, that the middle class ticket is no longer a sustainable option, and that no one is going to pay them (near) full pay forever after being laid off. I'm sure it's very tough for those families, to have come to expect very decent pay and benefits, only to find that it's going to disappear very soon. But it's a reality for most of the others in the nation, and indeed the rest of the world. For better or for worse, that has been a reality for most everyone, thanks to globalization, higher population and less resources to go around. Perhaps, these autoworkers should have been thankful that they had been afforded with such job security and comforts for this long, when others have been on the rope to fend for themselves.

I don't say this out of envy or bitterness about UAW or bitterness. Quite far from it, I can appreciate the kind of uncertainty that these autoworkers are facing. But as we all learn and know now, times change, and we have to adapt to it. It's nice to have constancy and security, but it's a luxury for us in our times.

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I remember when I was young, my dad used to say to me, get a good job, keep your head down, work as hard as you can, and rewards will come to you. My dad is an old-school type, and he's very hardworking. For the longest time, he'd work upward of 18 hours a day, as a driver of his own minibus, to provide for the family. I never heard him complain.

It's providence that he never felt ill all these times. I remember one time (when I was maybe 8 or 9), he passed on and felt on the kitchen floor. Mom was terrified. She brought out all sorts of over-the-counter medicinal ointment and rubbed on them on his temples and chest. Me and my siblings were too young to appreciate the graveness of the situation. (Mom was a homemaker, and there was no health or life insurance coverage whatsoever.) Miraculously, he came to about 5 minutes later, got on his feet, and he's off to his work again. He didn't even utter a word about it thereafter.

To this day, I have always wondered what the cause of passing out. Was it exhaustion? Or, some other medical condition? We do not know. When we're going up, our family never visited any doctors, unless we're sick. It saved money...

Our family and my siblings have pulled through quite well, with everyone graduating from universities, and almost everyone in the family has a higher degree too. I have much appreciation and little doubt that, out there in the world, there are still many more families struggling like we did. My family had actually been doing quite well, and steadily improving financially, thanks to my dad's hard work and my mom's shrewdness. But there are many, many more families and children (like those in Africa, for example) who would never, ever have the chances that we had, no matter how hard they try.

I have always wondered what I can do, as an individual to improve the quality of life for the lesser fortunate ones. My siblings and I used to sponsor children via World Vision. We were particularly distraught when World Vision advised us it had lost touch with the young African girl that my sister sponsored due to civil war in the region.

I always though, there must be some other way I can contribute better and more...