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Joe K. @ Oct 10th 2007 11:20AM
Well it worked against GM...
lidave @ Oct 10th 2007 11:48AM
Why is their so much hate towards unions? I'm sorry that these guys don't want to work for 7 dollars an hour with no pension. I'm sorry that China and India use slave labor to make their products.
Why are we measuring our workers against slaves? Why is it bad to want health care, fair wages, and security? Why do so many of you hold this elitist attitude that only the college educated deserve good pay?
Their is a war going on against the middle class in this country and the unions are on the good side.
And if you are going to blame the unions for GM's problems, please just kill yourself, you having nothing to offer the world in terms of coherent thought.
The line workers don't design the cars. The workers did not ignore the changing trends in fuel efficiency and interior design. The line workers didn't decide to shelf the ev vehicle 10 years ago. Wake up.
Joe K. @ Oct 10th 2007 11:58AM
The hatred for unions is not because they deserve fair pay. Its the hatred that a conglomerate will dupe workers into believing that Ford, GM, and Chrysler are some creation more evil than Satan and Hitler's love child. They pontificate about the ill-will management has for the workers and how they want nothing but to create a sweatshop out of the line. Its all crap. Its rhetoric used to preserve the fees the union skim from its members so that it can remain in existence. So my hatred for the union is the greed of its upper-leadership that seek to pad their own pockets while thinking nothing about the fact that the piece of floss that holds them above the flames is slowly fraying and the more they cause these useless processions of time wasting grandeur the less interested Automobile Management is in the union's concerns.
So, in summary, I hate the unions because the unions care less for their members than the Automobile execs do... Power is the only thing the Union leaders are concerned with, preserve it over all else...
Johnny Rotten @ Oct 10th 2007 12:02PM
Why is there so much hatred? If you don't understand this, then you sir need to exit the conversation. Unions allow the same thing people hate when corporations try to do. Monopolies. Unions are no better than OPEC. A monopoly is a grossly inefficient way to run any industry, including labor. You bleeding-hearts have no idea how the most basic economic ideas work and you certainly know nothing of monopoly rents. Competition is the only way to ensure that a product, including labor, is supplied and consumed in the most efficient manner possible. When a union exists, laborers can extort huge wages for otherwise low paying, low skill jobs. Any idiot can build a car and I am sure there are lots of people who would love to have these jobs at 1/3 what these sharks get paid. If they were allowed to compete for these jobs, they most certainly would. But the unions don't allow it.
willem @ Oct 10th 2007 12:04PM
The enormous stupidity on the part of unskilled labor, er, union goons will ultimately cost them their collective livelihoods if Chrysler/Cerberus shuttered their doors forever. I'd say that's reason enough to hate organized terror.
Mr. Oak @ Oct 10th 2007 12:07PM
@ Gardiner Westbound: I almost fell off my chair laughing at your piece. It is quite accurate though. The funny part is that description also to the last letter, applies to the Republican Party.
The good of the party above the good of the Country/People yada yada....
Problem is the lame ass Democrats is not much of an option.
Sagracer @ Oct 10th 2007 12:07PM
liDave,
Please educate yourself on this subject before posting.
Nobody is talking about slave wages, or even REDUCING wages for that matter. We are, however, talking about:
-Eliminating the jobs bank
-401K's, not pensions
-Competitive health care to SALARIED workers (oh, the humanity!)
-No inefficeint work rules
-No mandatory overtime
-No free life insurance, dental, etc.
What is so unreasonable about this?
Like I said, keep the $27/hr, that is not the problem.
Why should UAW workers get 2 to 3 times their market rate compensation for the manufacturing sector?
You blame management, but I think management is doing a pretty good job (especially GM) considering they have $1500 - $2000 PER VEHICLE disadvantage.
Tell me. How do you expect to compete with this type of disadvantage?
Devin @ Oct 10th 2007 12:13PM
Um.. probably because they make about 5x as much money as those McDonalds employees, except the Union employees have an extremely low skilled job (like Mcdondalds) and have on average have almost no post-high school education. This, along with the fact that it is almost impossible for GM to fire any of these people because they are under contract, even if they decide to show up. I think mainly, its because a high school drop out is making 2-3x as much as the teachers in the high schools. Oh, and the fact they are greedy, and want even more of GM's money. Long live GM. Kill the Unions.
geo.stewart @ Oct 10th 2007 12:29PM
lidave,
they may not design the cars but when I look at the vast expanse of hard plastic in my HHR, I can only think of the higher quality materials that could have been used if not for the exorbitant costs of the UAW.
Matt @ Oct 10th 2007 2:21PM
lidave:
"Why is their so much hate towards unions? I'm sorry that these guys don't want to work for 7 dollars an hour with no pension. I'm sorry that China and India use slave labor to make their products."
Seven dollars an hour? Try THIRTY. Slave labor? Take a look around you... import manufacturers take roughly an $800 hit per vehicle to cover pension and healthcare... domestics under the guise of the UAW? Something like $3500, I want to say $3700.
The UAW is destroying not only the domestic auto makers, but THEMSELVES and a large portion of our economy, slowly, without even noticing.
They're too concerned with the short-term, and have seemed to invest zero care into the long-term.
elprogramer @ Oct 10th 2007 4:06PM
I've personally seen what you've just claimed does not exist. Several times.
A single McDonald's doesn't generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue in a single day. One assembly line does. Sometimes, depending on the product, it's per HOUR.
I agree, there is much fat to be trimmed, and as a recent hire for General Motors (of which, I thank the UAW), I've seen the elderly workers who hate to work. But what I've seen much more of is either managerial incompetence or management taking advantage of workers who don't know their rights (I'm talking legal rights, as established by state and federal labor laws).
I love General Motors, honestly. I love their products, I'm working on a degree to move up in the company. But I've seen the system firsthand, and I know that the only thing that matters to them is the bottom line. Not you, not your health, but how much product they can ship out.
Say what you want about the path the UAW has taken in negotiations over the past thirty years (I personally disagree with most of it, especially pricing themselves well beyond the market), but I know for damn sure that not a single benefit I have is from the good graces of management.