Posted on 10/15/2017 7:40:23 AM PDT by Theoria
The man from Mexico followed a manager through the factory floor, past whirring exhaust fans, beeping forklifts, and drilling machines that whined against steel. Workers in safety glasses looked up and stared. Others looked away. Shannon Mulcahy felt her stomach lurch.
It was December 2016. The Rexnord Corporation’s factory still churned out bearings as it always had. Trucks still dropped off steel pipes at the loading dock. Bill Stinnett, a die-hard Indiana Pacers fan, still cut them into pieces. The pieces still went to the “turning” department, where they were honed into rings as small as a bracelet or as big as a basketball. Then to “heat treat,” where Shannon — who loves heavy metal music and abandoned dogs — hardened them with fire. Then to “grinding,” where Shannon’s cousin Lorry Mannix smoothed out any imperfections. And then to “assembly,” where Mark Elliott, a former Marine, joined two rings together, one inside the other, with a wheel of spinning rollers in between. The whole contraption was encased in a cast-iron housing machined by John Feltner, a father of three who’d just recovered from bankruptcy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
NAFTA.
And only one presidential candidate spoke openly of fixing it.
Steel workers union...... that should be a clue
I wonder what happened to the Flashdance girl’s job at the steel mill in Pittsburgh?
They did so much for the guys down at Bethlehem...
There are 28 R-T-W states in the USA for factories to move to. We need a tariff and we need it now.
The few union women I know are socialist, conniving thieves. They use government to steal what they they can’t get rob on their own.
Union labor participation rates are way down which is a good thing. It averages < 10% in the manufacturing industry. The USA is basically non union except for a few high profile industries. Like steel and autos, and even those are not 100% union. Not even close.
And the SEIU
Union people tend to be more socially conservative.
If we can take the blue collars from the Democrats, they will never win another National Election.
The SEIU has nothing to do with manufacturing.
Actually unions could be beneficial if applied to the right group. Engineers and IT professionals should have union to combat politically against H-1b and other wage suppression schemes.
> And only one presidential candidate spoke openly of fixing it (NAFTA). <
Actually two, if you count Bernie Sanders. And therein is a missed opportunity. There is common ground between Trump and the Bernie Bro’s on this one issue. (Yes, I know that the Bernie Bro’s are mostly socialist dreamers).
Anyway, I wish Trump would exploit this commonality. Don’t call Bernie crazy, as Trump has done. Instead frequently praise Bernie for his skepticism about NAFTA. End result: Some Bernie Bro’s take a second look at Trump. And the Democratic Party loses support. MAGA!
Right to Work is not the right to bargain. It's not enough. Tariffs are just a wealth transfer from the working poor to the politically connected unions.
> Union people tend to be more socially conservative. <
That’s true, especially in the manufacturing and construction industries. The union leadership, however, is not so conservative. So how did those leaders get elected in the first place? Rigged and biased elections, so biased it would make the DNC blush.
> If we can take the blue collars from the Democrats, they will never win another National Election. <
Also true. Reagan saw that, and so did Trump.
And the Democrats are scared s-less about that.
I thought you were talking about overall labor union participation rates
I see some union women and other tokens at construction sites now; there is a line of them waving traffic flags while men do the actual work. In the past this position would be rotated between guys taking a break from the real work...
If you want socialism then keep closing factories and decimating red state America.
Believe me I get it. Corporations want to sell products in the first world market at first world prices, duty free no less, that are produced in the 3rd world but at the same time don't want to pay for first world labor rates. They are greedy Free Traitors™. Ok fine. They need to be helped into doing the right thing by slapping a huge import tariff on imports.
The private sector union participation rate is around 6%.
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