The Underground Conservative

Buried in the proposed ObamaCare ChappaquiddiCare legislation is a $10 billion payout from the taxpayers to the UAW retirees’ health care plan.

Now why should taxpayers be forced to shell out $10 billion dollars to fund a retirees’ health care plan that helped push the auto industry to bankruptcy and now — with the exception of Ford — placed it under government and UAW ownership and control?

This question seriously needs to be answered, especially in light of the revelation that emerged during the bailout talks, namely the plush gold course and resort that the UAW owns and uses for its members, but primarily union fatcats.

That’s right. The icon of the working man owns something usually associate with the rich and affluent folks they spend so much time and energy bashing.

Black Lake Golf Club is located near Onaway, Mich., and is part of the badly misnamed Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center. That so-called Family Education Center is a resort.

From the Black Lake Golf Club’s website:

Black Lake Golf Club is the newest addition to the UAW’s Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center, situated on 1,000 heavily forested acres along the southeast side of Black Lake, one of Michigan’s largest inland lakes near Onaway, Michigan.

Black Lake Golf Club complements the Center’s recreational facilities, which now include a beautiful gym with two full-sized basketball courts, an Olympic-size indoor pool, and exercise and weight room, table-tennis and pool tables, a sauna, beaches, walking and bike trails, softball and soccer fields and a boat launch ramp.

The UAW selected one of golf’s most acclaimed course architects, Rees Jones, to design an environmentally responsible, championship caliber course. It was a challenge eagerly embraced by Jones, Golf World Magazine’s “Architect of the Year” in 1995.

“The holes were here, we just had to find them,” Jones said. “We strive for holes blending with the natural terrain. There is nothing artificial or contrived at Black Lake.”

Translated: it’s a resort. With a luxurious golf course and a 9-hole pitch-and-putt course as expensive side cars.

Here’s the 14th hole, a 235-yard, par-3:

The description from the website:

Rees Jones “found” the Sahara hole in a natural sandpit. It stretches 185 yards along the right side, but in keeping with Jones’ goal of designing a challenging course and yet one also enjoyable for the average golfer, there are nine tees, from 145 yards to 235 yards. And, left and short of the green, a mowed “ramp” leads to the putting surface. No matter which tee you choose, take a look from the back right markers.

This is chutzpah. Remember when this story broke last year?  From Fox News’ coverage:

The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn’t out of the bunker just yet.

Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it’s costing them millions each year.

The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on “1,000 heavily forested acres” on Michigan’s Black Lake, according to its Web site.

But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union’s biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union’s neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.

Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues.

It is a waste of money. While the UAW was negotiating contract after contract including Rolls Royce benefits for both its workers and retirees which eventually toppled the U.S. auto industry, the union was taking its members’ dues and who knows how much money from who knows what sources to buy something that is a status symbol of people that the UAW and other unions bash endlessly.

The Truth About Cars reports:

The Detroit Free Press‘ Tim Higgins describes the golfing part of the 1000 acre for-profit (in theory) center. “UAW members and retirees get a 20% and 30% discount, respectively, on greens fees, according to the course’s Web site. Golf with a cart on a summer weekend costs $85 for 18 holes. The course offers five tees on nearly every hole to reflect a golfer’s skill. The par 72 course can play from 5,058 yards to 7,030 yards.” Now that it’s been revealed that the entire facility has lost $23m of members’ money over the last five years– not including the $6m up-front cost for the golf course– union officials are busy talking-up the education side of the endeavor. “The UAW family education center is an integral part of our union. It provides very important training and education activities for our members,” UAW spinmesiter Roger Kerson told the Freep, who added that “he declined to talk about specific operation numbers or plans for the future.”

The UAW has lost $23 million on this operation but is now expecting taxpayers to fork over $10 billion to prop up retiree benefits that are probably more than generous, all the while supporting those very same taxpayers being forced onto a government-run program.

At the time, Michelle Malkin called Black Lake a “gold-plated golf course” and added:

If the auto CEOs have to give up their jets, what about the UAW brass and their posh resort?

Here’s another beautiful shot of Black Lake via The American Thinker:

And Thomas Lifson at AT observes:

[I]t does look a little bad to be asking taxpayers to bail out the union members, so they can keep their lavish health benefits and retirement/job banks perks (far better than what the average American enjoys), when the union owns a facility like this, allowing union members preferential access to tee time reservations.

Those of us unable to afford the no co-payment sort of health insurance UAW members enjoy, who do not have access to preferred reservations at fancy golf courses, and who do not have retirement benefits for life and a job that pays us whether we work or not, prefer not to subsidize the continued high life for people who killed their own golden goose.

And now, Rick Moran, writing at AT, tells us that the UAW is looking for a bailout from taxpayers for its golf course.

Bailing out a union golf course by giving the bosses tax relief is evidence of what a brave new world it truly is. They are not even pretending anymore. The unions and their partners in government will milk this economy, enriching themselves and their cronies in the process.

From the Detroit News (available at the AT link above, the article is no longer available in their public archive):

The Detroit News reports the UAW has appealed to the state tax tribunal to dispute $3 million in property taxes the town assessed on the union’s nearby Black Lake golf resort. Yes, golf resort. Now led by UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger, the union has long owned 1,000 acres of forested land in western Michigan for an “education center,” and in 2000 used union funds to add a luxury golf course, along with amenities such as a fitness club. What’s more, the property, valued at $33 million, has been losing money ever since, some $23 million just in the last five years.

A couple questions naturally come up: If the UAW can’t run a golf club, how can it run Chrysler, of which it is now majority owner? Also: The club is part of $1.2 billion in union-owned assets built up from member dues mostly to support a “strike fund.” Why does a much-shrunken UAW need a strike fund by now sufficient to finance a multi-week, catastrophic strike that would throw the entire U.S.-born auto industry into bankruptcy once more?

Moran answers the question posed by the Wall Street Journal, namely why the UAW doesn’t use that strike fund to finance the health and pension fund:

The answer is self evident – the union wants to keep that fund as a club to threaten both the government and Chrysler. 

Point is, the gravy train to the UAW and the rest of Big Labor has to stop.

We’re broke.

Problem is, it won’t. Not with Our Lord and Savior residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.