Posted on 09/24/2007 8:33:39 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Edited on 09/24/2007 8:57:31 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
DETROIT -- United Auto Workers union members walked out of General Motors Corp. factories in the U.S. Monday morning after bargaining over a new national labor agreement failed to produce a deal by an 11 a.m. deadline. It's the first time in more than 20 years that the UAW has staged a mass walkout in connection with company wide contract talks. But in a sign of the complex forces at work in the Detroit auto industry, GM shares were trading higher Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, as investors cheered signs that GM management might be willing to resist ...
If it weren't for the union it would be worse. You know, people falling into vats of paint stripper, working in unbreathable air, no vacations, no breaks...there are places like that in Michigan and 1000s of them in China and Mexico. I know people who've worked in them. I'm sure there are those types of "sweat shops" in other states.
How skilled are miners, how skilled were the garment manufacturers, how skilled are the truckers... it isn't so much that the workers aren't skilled, it's a niche skill and they put up with discomfort. It's too bad the unions had to take the protection three steps further and kill the jobs and the hands that fed them. Companies try to get away with whatever they can, that's why the need for unions.
I agree on the R & D. It is a problem and GM was just getting enough money together in order to keep up with the foreign companies.
Who makes $40 an hour? When was the last time you drove a GM car? I swear the biggest problem people have with the unions is that they are jealous of auto workers and their pay, but they wouldn't do the jobs.
Oh it’s been awhile since I was union. And that was only til I could find a different job with my employer that was non union. I think that I could opt out of the union but was still required to pay the portion that the union used to negotiate wages. The big bummer is, you don’t join the union you never get the seniority to move up the list during vacation call, no union absolutely no seniority. My guess would be that if you weren’t union you’d also be the first forced to do mandatory overtime since you’d be at the bottom of the seniority list. So I paid the dues when in jobs that require it and so does my daughter.
Yes, Ohio is a right to work state.
If there are still places like that in Michigan, I doubt they're staffed by folks who are in this country legally. People - including myself - complain about the blankety blank plaintiffs' attorneys, but I will give them credit where credit is due. Any manufacturer who runs that type of plant in the US today will be put out of business by lawsuits. If you really did see someone fall into a vat of toxic paint, they (or their survivors) are likely millionaires. If not, they needed a better attorney or a green card.
I agree an employer is in business to make money, and I think the unions have done a lot of good over the years, however, I question whether the good they still occassionally do is outweighed by the negative. Also, truly, can't plaintiffs attorneys fill the holes for any good a union may do today.
I spent most of that strike driving to all the desert central offices from midnight to noon. My colleague covered the noon to midnight shift. I worked the open orders and trouble tickets to stave off boredom. The company paid me 4 hours of overtime, my lodging and food for the duration of the strike. It was nice as I normally worked more than 12 hours per day and didn't get paid for more than 8.
OSHA has done more for workplace safety than the unions have in the last 50 years. I don’t buy your arguments about unsafe workplaces there.
I’m having trouble believing that such a place existed without someone siccing OSHA on them...
Between them and OSHA, yup. I worked at UPS for a while, was a Teamster, and none of my safety complaints to my union rep did anything. I called OSHA, and the problem was solved within a week.
You just don't know the people I know, that's all.OSHA inspections are a joke. They give advance warning, a company cleans up, OSHA leaves, and everything is back to the status quo.
Then you have much corruption up there in union-controlled country. Down here, they have *teeth* - and they do surprise inspections.
And if the company cleans up the problem, that’s the whole object of the exercise anyway.
The question is, why isn’t this union forcing the company to clean up, hm? Aren’t they supposed to be “for the worker?”
There is probably so much back-pocket payments and sneakiness going on we'd never know the half of it. There are thugs and crooks on both sides--trust no one.
A great quote from CNN:
“David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s, agreed that the impact on the overall economy will be somewhat limited, especially for a strike of only a week or two.
“Wyss estimated that a month long strike at GM could whack a quarter percentage point of growth in the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity. That cost would double if the strike went into a second month. But he and other economists aren’t expecting a long-term strike.
“”It’s not like the 1950’s, when a strike at one of the automakers would put a real crimp in the economy,” he said. “The long-term damage, I’m less worried about. This is more of a short term issue.””
A quarter point is pretty much insignificant.
In other words - “Dear UAW; nobody cares about you any more. Please die. Thanks, the American People.”
I think we were part of the UAW at the time. They had managed to capture a couple of publishers, along with the Museum of Modern Art. LOL
Michiganders do not get unemployment when strike pay runs out...so there would be no point in registering.
Keep on walking.....
There are ways around that too. Cities pass laws saying you have to have a license to do a certain job. Then the licensing board becomes union thugs. They decide who gets a license and who doesn’t.
I agree that cities and states have many ways to restrain trade and competition. Politicians are easily moved with campaign contributions and single issue interest groups. The list is so long: autos, health insurance, movers, taxis, bond underwriting, ...
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