GM forced to close 4 truck plants

[CumminsLuke]

CUMMINSLAKE; sounds to me like your customer was plant services (janitor) I'm sure he did other area's in the plant, you just saw him doing that part of his job. P.S. Arn't you glad he made $70,000 a year.
GEMINI; I agree with what you are saying.

Call it what ever you want, but he was in the UAW. I asked him if he did anything other than take care of that room and he said no. And as far as being happy he made 70G's a year, I am mixed on that point. Sure I am happy for anyone who makes a big wage and comes to spend some of it with me, but at the same time I am not so one sided that I can see how paying a guy to clean one room 70G's a year doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

[Builder]

CUMMINSLAKE; sounds to me like your customer was plant services (janitor) I'm sure he did other area's in the plant, you just saw him doing that part of his job. P.S. Arn't you glad he made $70,000 a year.
GEMINI; I agree with what you are saying.

70K per year with benefits is more than my wife makes teaching kids with 2 masters degrees an 14 years experience on the job.

So who should make more?

A union janitor at a manufacturing plant sweeping floors & straightening the magazine pile, or a union teacher of our children with the highest education level possible except for a PhD ?

 

[tlbuser]

I will agree to an extent with number 2 insurance companies are a huge part of the problem but I dont believe most doctors I have seen are indigent.
Livable wage to me is someone that is making enough money to own their home. drive decent vehicles and have enough money to enjoy life somewhat that varies by local to local.

Perceived wealth and money in the bank can be two very different things.

Nice little double talk going on there. Standards of living may be out of kilter also. Twenty years ago, how many 16-17 yr. old kids had their very own car with a gas credit card and a cellphone? Now, we're bidding a job to expand one of the high school parking lots because they lack 250 spaces of adequate parking. 1500-2000 sq.ft. of housing used to be more than acceptable. Now, most homes in this area start at 2750 sq.ft., then a full basement plus at least a 20x24 garage. Then add a perceived housing shortage to help inflate prices and you get "starter homes" for 300+. The real estate developers and sales agents did little to help offset that. Now, we have an excess of housing which is driving some prices down and the real estate agents are squealing about poverty and well below "record" sales. So, the "skilled trades" that moved into the area for the housing boom are now packing up and heading for the next boom market. Meanwhile, the "skilled union mechanic" has been layed off and is now looking for work because he doesn't want to move the wife and kiddies again. How much money is the union giving that person to help them stay on their feet so they won't need government assistance?

 

[dgl24087]

Strike update. Axle strike could hurt 20 GM factories; talks planned | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

 

[dgl24087]

And on a side note:GM restores, raises executives' pay | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

 

[AKfish]

Businesses go out of business for a myriad number of reasons --- but it's not the cost of unionized labor that has driven most companies in this country into bankruptcy.

Union workers in the U.S. and Canada were approximately 30.4% and 32.3% of the workforce in 1960. By 1999, those percentages shifted to 13.5% and 32.6% in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. Have you read many headlines about the catastrophic bankruptcy failures of Canadian businesses as a result of their "Union workers"? No....

The percentage of Union workers in the major economies of Europe has not; repeat NOT; declined in the same dramatic fashion as what has occurred in the U.S. during the past 30 years. Anyone know what the Euro is trading today compared to the dollar....?

Please note this reference: Unionization and Wage Inequality: A Comparitive Study of the U.S., the U. K. and Canada. David Card, Thomas Lemieux, and W. Craig Riddell. (National Bureau of Economic Research No. 9473 Jan. 2003)

However, tax policies and the incentives for business (major owners of the companies stock) often provide a financially beneficial avenue for them to "scuttle" a company and sell off it's major assests for incredible profit.

There are a number of "corporate raiders" who have made fortunes buying up blocks of a companies stock and then steering the company into the ditch -- just to enrich themselves and other like-minded "investors".

The name Kirk Kerkovian mean anything to you....?

When tax policies allow this kind of "business activity" to occur; without significant financial drawbacks -- companies and the workers and the retired employees, etc. etc all suffer. And of course, the country as a whole, suffers the repercussions that go along with the human tragedy.

As well, the tax policies that are currently in effect in this country make it a money-making strategy for multinational corporations to shift their "corporate headquarters" to the Virgin Islands or the Bahamas, etc. It has been estimated that this particular tax-loophole costs the American economy $50 Billion dollars a year.

Please note reference: "Multinational Firm Tax Avoidance and U.S. Government Revenue". Kimberly A. Clausing Wellesley COllege, Wellesley, MA. 2007)

There are many things that need a "course correction" or a change in direction in this country -- killing off the Unions is not one of them; IMO.

Watch the pea --- guys --- not the shells.

AKfish

 

[AlanB]

Reading with interest, and funny, I think I sit on a different side of the table then folks I often do on this one.

My union experiences. My uncle, ran some kind of paper plate machine (about 83 or 84) and had for many years before that. The company (the dreaded "they" decided to take that machine out of the equation, left my uncle without a machine to watch (his words) for his 8 hour shift. So they sent him too the machine shop, still at full time in service, full pay etc. so in 84 he was making well over $20 an hour sweeping the machine shop floor, and yes, that was his job, he swept the floor.

The dreaded "company" then tried to "force" him to do something he just did not want to do, darn them nasty folks, they would send him to the local machinest school to become a certified / qualified machinest for two years, pay his regular salary etc, pay all class fee's, books etc, pay additional travel and food money to drive back and forth (I think it was about 20min drive) and give him a job as a machinest (making substantially more money, still with all his union seniority etc.) but he had too agree to stay with them one or two years after that............ Those darn corporate scoundrels were not going to force that junk on him.. They needed to bring back that machine so he could watch it.........

Then the next year when I visited they were on strike against this dastardly company who were trying to "get over" on them and were treating them so horrible (they still had not brought his machine back and he was still making over $20 an hour yes, still sweeping the machine shop floor)

They finally fired him last year, well, check that, they never were able to fire him, he got belligerant with them and told them "he quit" (then my bet he sobered up that night) and when he went back the union could not help him because he had done it fully too himself in front of too many folks.

Oh, and yes, I was with this uncle at this point, but don't get the assumption that it was "him". Running around with many workers from that plant, he was far from being unusual.

Ok, here is another of my great union experiences. They tried to bring the union in here were I worked. Lets see, 20 Pro union guys come into my shop (I am outspoken anti union) and tell me I better "straighten up" or "something may happen to me at work" lets see, then they called my wife and told her I was sleeping with a female co-worker, and on and on.

Yeah, my 2 cents, unions, EPA and OSHA are going to drive business right out of the US. And I would say they would all sit around and sing kumbayaa at the campfire, but they would have to use an imported chainsaw, and hire a TCN to run it, the OSHA guy would require us all to be 100' from that dangerous open flame and then again the EPA will be trying to ban us from polluting with that burning wood.......................

Never mind,

Nomex undies on

If I was king, send those striking union workers home.

Hire in replacements. (see how the Union folks act then) I would venture to say there are plenty of folks ready to work at what that company is offering on the table right now, and that is how that should be settled.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Reading with interest, and funny, I think I sit on a different side of the table then folks I often do on this one.

My union experiences. My uncle, ran some kind of paper plate machine (about 83 or 84) and had for many years before that. The company (the dreaded "they" decided to take that machine out of the equation, left my uncle without a machine to watch (his words) for his 8 hour shift. So they sent him too the machine shop, still at full time in service, full pay etc. so in 84 he was making well over $20 an hour sweeping the machine shop floor, and yes, that was his job, he swept the floor.

The dreaded "company" then tried to "force" him to do something he just did not want to do, darn them nasty folks, they would send him to the local machinest school to become a certified / qualified machinest for two years, pay his regular salary etc, pay all class fee's, books etc, pay additional travel and food money to drive back and forth (I think it was about 20min drive) and give him a job as a machinest (making substantially more money, still with all his union seniority etc.) but he had too agree to stay with them one or two years after that............ Those darn corporate scoundrels were not going to force that junk on him.. They needed to bring back that machine so he could watch it.........

Then the next year when I visited they were on strike against this dastardly company who were trying to "get over" on them and were treating them so horrible (they still had not brought his machine back and he was still making over $20 an hour yes, still sweeping the machine shop floor)

They finally fired him last year, well, check that, they never were able to fire him, he got belligerant with them and told them "he quit" (then my bet he sobered up that night) and when he went back the union could not help him because he had done it fully too himself in front of too many folks.

Oh, and yes, I was with this uncle at this point, but don't get the assumption that it was "him". Running around with many workers from that plant, he was far from being unusual.

Ok, here is another of my great union experiences. They tried to bring the union in here were I worked. Lets see, 20 Pro union guys come into my shop (I am outspoken anti union) and tell me I better "straighten up" or "something may happen to me at work" lets see, then they called my wife and told her I was sleeping with a female co-worker, and on and on.

Yeah, my 2 cents, unions, EPA and OSHA are going to drive business right out of the US. And I would say they would all sit around and sing kumbayaa at the campfire, but they would have to use an imported chainsaw, and hire a TCN to run it, the OSHA guy would require us all to be 100' from that dangerous open flame and then again the EPA will be trying to ban us from polluting with that burning wood.......................

Never mind,

Nomex undies on

If I was king, send those striking union workers home.

Hire in replacements. (see how the Union folks act then) I would venture to say there are plenty of folks ready to work at what that company is offering on the table right now, and that is how that should be settled.

I am not a fan of unions either as they generally give the employees too much power over the company. I mean I shouldn't care as these owners should be honored to give the workers a job and salary and the owners of these places should kiss the feet of every employee as they walk in the door to work every day. But I do care about this. I know and understand the business side of this as well as the worker side of this. The local machine shop has fought off the union for a long time and currently the shop is still a non-union shop. They pay the workers a decent wage, keep as many of them working even when they do not have any work (they have them paint floors and do other jobs around the plant to keep them busy and working while waiting for a new contract they have bid to come thru). Only in dire situations do they fire someone or lay anyone off. They give their workers a ton of freedom (which is dangerous, one guy was too busy reading his paper to realize his machine had caught on fire. Another worker saw the fire and had to come to the machine and physically warn the guy as his radio was blasting behind him while he read the paper. But if they try to take their radios away ). The last owner use to take the employees and their family out in small groups on his sail boat over the summer on Lake Erie for a day of fun, they had numerous company picnics and parties over the year and treat all of their employees with a ton of respect. Yet every now and then the Pro-Union movement comes in and people end up getting fired and I don't lose any sleep over it. You can give some people a million dollars for no reason and they will complain they want more

As for American Axle, as soon as the workers started talking about striking I was hoping the owners would fire every single one of them. I am not sure about the other two plants but up here in Buffalo there will be plenty of people standing in line for their jobs as almost all of the other manufacturing jobs have already left Western New York. But hopefully these workers will be happy when American Axle gives up trying to stay here and moves its plants elsewhere.

 

[Builder]

That was done to my roofer. He was roofing apartments for my father who was also a builder. Union got info about this. While our roofer was away from his home, they went over shot his doberman and broke all the windows in the front of his house.


Nice guys, huh?

 

[gemini5362]

Maybe this is how they did it:


Records: Southwest Airlines flew 'unsafe' planes - CNN.com

You know, my family probably flew on those planes. Shame on them for doing that. Inexcuseable.

maybe it is the interesting thing is that I have not seen is that they found cracks in the plane. I am out of town and have not been watching the news. I have been busy for the last couple of days trying to save the job of one of those high paid union people you are talking about. I have a good chance to do it since management lied about the circumstances surrounding his fireing. I am sure that the employees having triple bypass surgery shortly before they found a reason to fire him is purely coincidental.

By the way I am still waiting for someone to show me some of those 70.00 per hour jobs that all the union folks are getting cause I am not seeing those.


People in china and india can work for pennies because they dont have to pay the high price of housing like some of us in the US do. Hey builder why dont you start selling your properties for 20.00 a square foot. That would allow people to work for pennies an hour and you can single handedly start reversing the trend of jobs leaving the US