To bailout or not to bailout the Auto Industry?

A few words are in order regarding the idea of a rescue of the Auto Industry. On the face of it I am opposed to it because it seems we are rewarding an Industry which never really got it this past 20 years and allowed companies like Toyota to capture market share by building cars Americans really wanted which were more energy efficient. Having said that, when I pull the onion layers back a bit, I realize that this problem is not the workers fault, but its leaderships. They build the cars they are told to build. But if we let the likes of GM fail, we will hurt all the auto workers, and they would add to the unemployment lines, as well as increasing Home Foreclosures, just when we are trying to stabilize markets. So it could create an even worse scenario. So what to do is the real question?

I have a solution that many may find appealing. What if the government did agree to bail out the company but as a condition of the agreement, the company had to file for bankruptcy but were required to have all the workers own the business. Non employee shareholders would lose their equity under the new restructuring but the employees would be given some % of the shares of the new company and their elected Union representatives would be on the Board with an equal vote on where the business was going and had to approve of the plans. What this industry needs is accountability across Labor and Management. They must bury their past grievances and agree to a true partnership. Their Benefits would need to be trimmed significantly in a cost cutting measure, and they would need to equally share the pain. The government would act as the Arbitrator of last resort if issues remained and would have final say over ultimate decisions, as a condition for the billion of dollars given in the bailout.

I am open to ideas about this as I am no expert on how to do this effectively. But I do like to see some accountability by everyone and for shareholders to not be bailed out. Share your views and let's begin a discussion. Thanks. And if you like the idea let's pass it around and get it to our Representatives, Senators and especially Obama. We all need to help and think about this as if we were all auto workers. I invite auto workers to add in the comments and please identify the fact in your comment that you are an auto worker.

And by the way, I have just sent this idea to Barack Obama via his web site for the Transition period. We all need to help solve Americas problems and be individually accountable for doing something to make things a little better.