Fiddling While Dearborn Burns

Welcome, comrade, to another day at the glorious UAW manufacturing facility. Put on your orange jumpsuit and proceed with your brothers to the people's central courtyard for a program of mandatory exercise and information dissemination.

If you work at Ford, you better drive a Ford. Beginning next Wednesday, only vehicles manufactured by Ford or one of its subsidiaries can be parked on the plant site. "It was something this plant manager took upon himself. It's not a companywide policy," said Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari, adding that Ford supported the decision, which was made in consultation with local union leaders.

In recent years, the UAW has put handbills on non-Ford vehicles -- and even on some vehicles made by Ford's Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar units (them's ain't no 'Murican cars!) that were parked at the company's world headquarters in Dearborn. Land Rover, Volvo and other foreign vehicles also have been vandalized while parked at the automaker's Dearborn operations.

"They can't tell you how to spend your money," said one veteran skilled tradesman who did not wish to be identified out of fear of retaliation. "It's still a free country." He drives vehicles manufactured by DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group because he can get a better deal on them. "I gotta go where I can get the most bang for my buck," the worker said.

You'd better get your head right, pal. You are no longer in the USA, you are in the UAW. I'm sure that it'll be this head-in-the-sand mentality that will put Ford back on top of the world.