Posted on 10/17/2005 9:26:26 AM PDT by WmCraven_Wk
12,000 paid not to work
Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.
By Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News
WAYNE -- Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.
"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."
Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.
As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program.
With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner.
"It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook."
*snip*
source: http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/17/A01-351179.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at detnews.com ...
and Unions cry because their jobs have been sent to Mexico and China?
Is someone implying that a union member might be getting paid for not working? This is simply appalling and unheard-of.
We should look into whether we can pay their folks less to be idle. They could probably also complete the crossword a lot faster as well.
The "executives" that allowed this piece of crap in the contract should be hung from the nearest tree.
Unions had a place in our society many years ago to deal with obscene corporate greed. But they have been corrupted by socialists and ciminals and now simply destroy every industry they "organize".
"Is someone implying that a union member might be getting paid for not working?"
Implying!?!
The aricle maintains that the worker 'pool' is written into the UAW contract.
Unions are like Welfare: they create people stuck on lazy and stupid.
My brother works for the People's Republic of Rhode Island.He can tell ya stories that would send your blood pressure through the roof!
Inflation = People paid for no work
And the businesses send more jobs overseas where there are no unions to cause a situation like this.
"The "executives" that allowed this piece of crap in the contract should be hung from the nearest tree.
"
Amen!
What kind of a person would accept that for years on end? I'm as lazy as the next guy, but the sloth and lack of any accomplishment would drive me crazy!
I remember after a particularly tough college/work year, I decided to take a month off. I slept in, sat around the house, etc., in a most dedicated fashion. At the two-week point I was about to pull my hair out -- I started working for a non-profit until school started up again.
The proper word is hanged. Sorry one of my pet peeves.
Unions have made their own bed, now it's time for them to sleep...............
.....then they blame it on Bush, though unions have been actively destroying US industry since the 1970's when they succeeded in destroying the US steel industry and nearly bankrupted the US automotive industry.
It is quite obvious why they tend to always support the liberal/democratic candidates.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.