DETROIT — When the leaders of the three Detroit auto companies and the United Automobile Workers union travel to Washington to make their case for a federal bailout, they will be flying into stiff headwinds of public opinion.þþThus far, much of the commentary in Washington, in the pages of major newspapers and on the Web, has been against providing financial support for the companies, which they will say they desperately need in hearings beginning on Tuesday. þþThe waves of criticism have been so strong that Susan Tompor, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, was moved to write on Sunday’s front page: “I never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”þþIt is a remarkable shift for an industry that has long wielded considerable clout in Washington. þþBut that support has dwindled for many reasons, leaving backers of a bailout, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, having a tough time making their case that Detroit should be saved.þþSo how did the famous 1953 quotation from the former General Motors president Charles E. Wilson — that what was good for our country was good for G.M., and vice versa — become a dated notion to so many people?þþAnalysts and longtime observers of the industry say several strategic missteps have hurt Detroit’s standing.þþThe carmakers, for example, fought hard in recent years against two Congressional efforts to raise fuel economy standards, at a time when Americans were struggling with more expensive gasoline and had become more environmentally conscious.þþThey won the 2005 fight, when 67 senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, sided with Detroit’s argument that it did not have the technology to meet a modest increase.þþBut Detroit lost last year’s effort to block an increase to 35 miles a gallon by 2020. Some senators criticized the industry’s failure to sell cars like the Toyota Prius, which was built only as a hybrid — a vehicle that G.M.’s vice chairman, Robert A. Lutz, dismissed early on as a public relations move.þþSome Congressional support has also dwindled because the automakers closed plants in other states, like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Delaware, and consolidated their operations closer to home. þþMeanwhile, foreign auto companies have built plants across the South, picking up lawmakers like Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who now are more allied with the foreign car companies.þþMichael Useem, professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the lack of leadership from within the Detroit companies had hurt their effort as well. He pointed to Lee A. Iacocca, former chief of Chrysler, whose public profile soared after his company was given federal loan guarantees in 1980, turning him into a 1980s equivalent of the popular businessman Warren E. Buffett.þþWhile many Americans might know Rick Wagoner’s name, “they couldn’t tell you anything about him, except that he’s been there a while and his company has gone from bad to worse,” Professor Useem said of the General Motors chief executive. And one of the U.A.W.’s most prized accomplishments — winning income security for its laid-off members — is not helping the union as it argues for money to help protect its workers at a time when employees across other industries are facing layoffs.þþThe U.A.W. program, called the Jobs Bank at G.M., provided nearly full pay for laid off workers while they waited for new jobs. A new version of it is less generous, but has left an impression in the public imagination of a place where workers sit around getting paid for doing nothing.þþ“In good times, the public can tolerate the Jobs Bank,” said Gary N. Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “But in bad times, the public has very little patience for that.”þþThe Bush administration has steadfastly opposed giving automakers a chunk of the $700 billion banking bailout. While President-elect Barack Obama has said the auto industry should get assistance, “I think that it can’t be a blank check,” he said Sunday on “60 Minutes.”þþMichigan’s Congressional delegation, led by Democrats Senator Carl Levin and Representative John D. Dingell, the industry’s longtime champion, have been left to plead hardest for federal help. G.M. and Ford are among the heaviest spenders on lobbying, according to OpenSecrets.org, a Web site that tracks political contributions.þþSo far this year, G.M. has spent $10 million on lobbying, out of $95 million in the past 10 years, placing it at No. 16 on the site’s “top spenders” list. Ford, which ranks No. 19 on the list, has spent $5.7 million this year, out of $80.6 million the last decade.þþIn arguing for a bailout, Detroit’s automakers and the union have found themselves without much help from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group that was an important player in last year’s fuel economy debate.þþThe group, whose 11 members include Toyota, BMW and Volkswagen, blocked efforts to impose even higher fuel economy standards. Its members support letting carmakers tap $25 billion approved by Congress last year to retool aging auto plants, but the alliance has not lobbied for any additional money, a spokesman said on Monday.þþThat has left the Detroit executives and the union to go it alone. þþMr. Wagoner and Ron Gettelfinger, head of the U.A.W., appeared on local TV in Detroit this week, but no Detroit representatives landed spots on the Sunday morning talk shows out of Washington. Senator Levin was their primary spokesman on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation” on CBS.þþMeanwhile, Senator Shelby of Alabama, whose home state has Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and Hyundai plants, has kept up his pressure. Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he called Detroit “a dinosaur, in a sense.”þþ“There’s not a bank in this country that would lend a dollar to these companies,” he added.þþThere have not been many comforting words in newspapers, either. “Just Say No to Detroit,” said a headline over an article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal by David Yermack, a business professor at the Stern School at New York University. þþIt all feels excessive to some in Detroit. “I didn’t know that some really, really hate us,” said Ms. Tompor of The Free Press.þþAn earlier version of this article misstated the miles per gallon requirement for fuel economy standards by 2020. It was 35 m.p.g., not 40.þþ
Source: NY Times
