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

I'm feeling a lot less sympathetic about the UAW's plight after reading this FoxNews.com story (thanks to all of the readers who sent it in). Not because UAW leadership built a lavish $33 million lakeside retreat that is now burning a hole in union pockets. No, because they spent that on and got this (see photo, left).

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.