General Motors CEO and chairman Rick Wagoner left his job at the Obama administration’s request on Friday.

If this sounds like a severe intervention of the federal government, don’t worry. It’s not.

No, a severe intervention of the federal government is billions of dollars in loans from the treasury department to car manufacturers that ran out of money.

The power to ask somebody to leave is nothing compared to the power to keep a job that you’re clearly terrible at.

But if President Obama is going to step in and interfere with management, he ought to shake down the lower rungs of the ladder, as well.

In 2006, a typical United Auto Workers assembly worker made $27.81 per hour. New workers will make $14 an hour, which makes twice as much sense.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, conservation scientists made only $27.51 per hour in May 2007.

Maybe they forgot, but they work on an assembly line. That’s not a career, that’s a job.

The $27.81 figure doesn’t include UAW benefits like health care, which is even provided for retirees.

Auto manufacturing worker may be a step up from Starbucks barista, but that doesn’t mean GM should give out health care to retired people who could have been replaced by machines.

High pay and benefits for assembly-line work eliminates the incentive to get educated. If someone can earn more building cars than researching ways to save the planet, why bother with college?

The UAW workers also took part in the most ludicrous pay system in existence called the jobs bank, which paid people near their full salary when they were laid off. According to The Wall Street Journal, these jobs banks cost U.S. auto manufacturers an estimated $1.4 billion to
$2 billion in 2006.

The program is meant to end when a worker takes a job at another plant.

When you lose your job, the reason you look for another one is because then you’re getting food stamps and welfare, not a normal alary. Where’s the incentive to go back to work when you can get money for nothing?

Anyone who ever received pay from that program should get a letter from the office of the president saying, in no uncertain terms, “You are bad for America.”

Powerful unions are usually well and good, but the UAW is a powerful union in weak companies.

Unions are best in occupations that people depend on, like utility companies, farming and trucking.

People need water and they need food. And they need to transport them. It’s hard to say that Americans need anything from GM.

The UAW wages and benefits were fine as long as the cars were selling and everyone was making money. But that’s the past and they have to stop living in it.

Obama has already become impatient with one side of the automotive industry. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before he loses the other.

Chris isn’t organizing The State Press to unionize. Convince him to at cogino@asu.edu.