I spent 8 years as a Union Shop Steward and it always amazed me when contract time came around. FOrsome reason I always expected more out of the company. I know our side was totally unprepaired for a strike or that we had any sort of backing, but the company negotiators were clueless. They said one thing, but did another. One time they said it would cost the company five million dollars to do what we wanted. They spend ten million fighting it and ended up giving us what we wanted anyway. We would ask for the moon, expect nothing and end up with almost everything we wanted. Each time it happened, we'd joke about it and have less respect for them. It's sad. That company has now been bought out by another one, but from what I've heard, they are just as bad with negotiating as before.
GM has been very public about their complaints against the expenses of the unions and their retirment packages. They are also the ones who negotiated those packages and agreed to the terms. Hard to feel sorry for a company that runs themselves into the ground and wont fix the problem. Management gets bonuses and raises for doing a poor job, but blames the workers for their problems.
I know a guy who works at the GM plant in Fremont, CA. He makes $30 an hour and jokes about how little he does. It's a game with some to see what they can get away with because the unions will protect them. Management wont do anything about it because it's not worth the headache to fight them, so it just gets worse.
From what I've heard, Toyota pays their employees similiar money, but without the unions. Their people are extremly productive. Here in their US facilities, they are making huge profits, while GM and Ford are losing billions of dollars. I don't think there's any one company that makes that much better of a vehicle than the other, but the cost to build one at GM versus the compition is pricing them out of business.
It's so bad now that the government will probably have to come in and give them a bunch of money that they will just waste, but it will postpone the problem. Look at United Airlines and there problems. United wants to cut salleries to emoployees and give raises to managment. That was huge news and all over the headlines. How are you gonna turn a company around like that?
I think GM will last awhile longer, but it's gonna cost all of us if the government gets involved. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Eddie