Posted on 07/30/2004 2:21:33 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
General Electric Co. plans to lay off about 525 employees at its refrigerator plant in Bloomington, Ind., and move work to a plant in Celaya, Mexico, the company announced Friday.
The plant is part of the company's Louisville-based GE Consumer & Industrial unit, which manufactures appliances, lighting and various other products for the worldwide conglomerate.
The union that represents workers at the plant had said last week that about 600 layoffs were expected. The workers, who make one of GE's higher-end, side-by-side models of refrigerator, are expected to be laid off by March.
"After the elimination of these jobs, GE will continue to employ more than 1,100 workers at its Bloomington facility," Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan said in a news release. "We are hopeful that we can continue to work with GE to address their business needs in order to give Indiana a fighting chance at protecting their workers' livelihoods and ensure the company's future presence in Bloomington."
GE also cut about 1,400 jobs in 1999 when it moved work to a plant in Mexico.
The Invisible Hand never sleeps...
yes, unscrupulous. You found the word.
Its sad, in the end, for the short term gains Free Trade will get the investor class, the end result will be higher taxes and fewer freedoms than ever before. Why no one thinks of the long term, I do not know. It gets depressing.
My guess is many are either in a fantasy world thinking the WSJ op ed pages are the truth or just do not care.
About 15% of the American workforce is unionized but over 70% of Mexico's is --- so it can't really be unions per se --- Mexicans love their unions a lot more than we love ours.
Many around here have no clue.
Less than 10% of the private sector workforce is unionized.
hummm....you dare to say this on a Willie Green thread? Optimisim is not an option.
With five auto plants within 150 miles of Louisville, General Electric's Appliance Park campus and dozens of steel-processing companies in the area,
It disingenuous of you to do that.
Okay, I'll have to believe you on those figures. I don't know. But do the unions in Mexico function (or should I say malfunction) like they do here? It would be interesting to know. I cannot believe could possibly be as demanding as they are here.
Oh I do not doscount the power of God, and God is allways at work, but do you not recall 7 years of feast being followed by 7 years of famine?
ping
As for how I feel about the US, the Consumerist society dominated by lust for money rather than a Love for God, here is a Psalm I feel fitys todays times. It is Psalm 42 from the Douay-Rheims bible
1 Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
2 For thou art God my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me?
3 Sent forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.
4 And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth.
5 To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?
6 Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.
We do agree on this.
Although, I know from experience that unions have been demanding in those areas as well. Its not toally the government. As SunnySide mentioned it is a mess. Likely because politics, money, greed all play into it.
I'm not familiar with this version. ??
Yes,we do live in a "society dominated by lust for money rather than a Love for God". We agree.
Okay okay --- I must have been using old figures. I know union membership rates in the USA are quite low.
Oh yes they malfunction --- take a good look at Mexico and you can see the evidence --- the labor unions are exactly where our labor unions would like to be --- they have great power and control the government, they can shut down the entire country. Of course they don't really care about the little people any more than ours do --- which is why things are so bad in Mexico. Here's a good source of info:
http://www.ejournal.unam.mx/momento_economico/no124/MOE12404.pdf
Anyhow --- I was too high on the USA union membership maybe --- but I can and did provide a source on the 70% union membership in Mexico --- actually that link has a lot of very interesting information --- and it's interesting that our businesses seem to like Communist China and unionist Mexico for their labor sources. Maybe Communism and powerful unions lead to a very well-controlled and cheap labor force.
Sarcasm was right --- USA union membership is quite a bit lower than what I had posted --- it's been in steady decline for many years now ---20% back in the early 80's, it was 15% back in 1995 and has been dropping further.
So it's not really feasible to blame loss of jobs in this country to union membership when the corporations move to a country that pretty much has 100% union membership in industry --- total union membership in Mexico is 70% --- about the only workers who aren't unionized are their farm workers and campesinos --- they are like serfs and victims of a communal "ejido" system.
Especially when the steel poundage in a fridge ain't much compared with a car.
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