I lost my loyalty to American vehicles years ago. I grew up in Chamblee, a small town n. side of Atlanta. Just 3 miles from my high school was the giant GM plant, GM Assembly Plant Doraville. Half the guys at Chamblee had an uncle, or father who worked there. Huge plant probably 5,000 employees. Probably more than that.

I graduated in June of '68 and my buddy Jeff and I got jobs working as brick mason's helpers. We worked ourselves to death in the hot Georgia sun, 10 hours a day hauling brick and mortar. $2.25 an hour and that was great pay!

In July we ran into our buddy from the football team, Ricky H. Ricky's uncle worked at the GM plant and got him a job. He worked night shift, pulling parts for $5.45 an hour plus benefits. Construction workers got no benefits. Plus we didn't work if it was raining. Ricky was earning a pay to support a family. And Ricky was laughing about how easy it was.

Jeff and I ran into Ricky in August and he said he had gotten in trouble at the plant. And I said, "Well no wonder you said you were goofing off."
And Ricky said, "No, I got in trouble for working too hard! The union guy told me, no matter how much pull my uncle had I was going to be out the door if I didn't take it easy. He told me to get up on the second floor about 2 am where the pallets were stored, and take a nap from 2 am until 4 am or my ass was grass."

I knew then, something was rotten in Denmark.
In 1983, I was at a party in central Georgia, one of the guests was a guy from Atlanta named Jeff. He was working as a computer guy at GM Assembly Plant Doraville.
And he told, me the union workers all went out into the parking lot at noon for lunch and drank booze. He said management got fed up with having to pick up all the Budweiser and Jack Daniels bottles in the parking lot, so they put two 55 gallon drums at the entrance, so when the guys came back from lunch drunk they could throw their bottles in the trash. I told Jeff "Bulls***!! No Way that is happening."

Yet Jeff swore it was true. Met Jeff at a party a year later and he told the same story. I came to believe it was true, the union was so strong, it protected drunk workers at lunch.

Fifteen years ago, GM Assembly Plant Doraville closed down. And it got bulldozed. And I believe it was because of this fantastic corruption because of the unions.

So, I lost all affection for American built vehicles and their screwed up corrupt unions. I prefer to buy non union vehicles and I like it that Nissan is a non union shop in Tennessee. Profits go to Japan? Oh well the world is not perfect. Lots of American workers at the Nissan plants in Tennessee are making real good money.
I don't want to support the corrupt and rotten UAW.