Today, I’m going to be talking about labor and the president-elect with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, who, for non-New Yorkers, has one of the most interesting radio talk shows in the city. It’s at 11:25 am Eastern time. Those people fortunate enough to live in NYC (okay, let’s not start a war over that…) can listen to Lehrer on 93.9 FM and AM 820 or, if you live somewhere else, the live stream is here. You can consider this an open thread to comment on the topic…

   UPDATE: Here is the link from this morning.

   On the topic of the worsening situation in the auto industry, I have a short reaction on NPR’s Marketplace this morning. It’s pretty remarkable what’s happening here: the auto industry is collapsing due to both poor management and the general cratering of the economy which is driving down auto sales. From The Wall Street Journal:

Detroit’s Big Three auto makers presented turnaround plans to Congress on Tuesday that indicate both General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC could collapse by the end of the month unless they get billions of dollars in emergency government loans.

As part of a renewed bid for a bailout, GM said it needs an immediate injection of $4 billion to stay afloat until the end of the year, a fact it hadn’t before disclosed. In total, the company said it needs $18 billion in loans — $6 billion more than it said it would need just two weeks ago.

   The workers have already taken many hits, despite the constant erroneous depictions in the media about the "gold-plated" life-style that UAW members "enjoy". But, at the very least, if the UAW ends up having to give up even more, there has to be something in return–at a minimum, more control over corporate decisions via some serious number of seats on the boards of directors.