End Priveleged Class, End Unions.

[bfdd]

Those businesses would have nothing if we stopped supporting them, through employment and our dollars. They can take their ball and go, I don't really give a fuck. I'll find a way to survive, as will you, as will anyone worth their salt. How can you look at the world today and think the American people, of all people, wouldn't figure out a way to make things work?

I consider myself a pessimist, but some of you guys have absolutely no faith in humanity.

 

[Phokus]

Those businesses would have nothing if we stopped supporting them, through employment and our dollars. They can take their ball and go, I don't really give a fuck. I'll find a way to survive, as will you, as will anyone worth their salt. How can you look at the world today and think the American people, of all people, wouldn't figure out a way to make things work?

I consider myself a pessimist, but some of you guys have absolutely no faith in humanity.

LMAO, those businesses DON'T NEED YOUR SUPPORT. Their international sales is making more and more of their total profits. That's the whole point.

No, you shouldn't have faith in humanity, you should get mad as fucking hell (and do something about), rather than letting Laissez-faire take it's natural course and ruin our economy.

 

[bfdd]

Dude. They can only make that money because SOMEONE WORKS FOR THEM. A body cannot move without the legs very easily and it sure as shit can't stand very well without feet. I don't see the fleet of robots that are going to come replace us tomorrow and allow for artificial movement. So where exactly do they hold any power? Because they have money? Please... it's fiat anyways, worth whatever the fuck we say it's worth.

We can do something about it and letting the hand which touched the fire burn is a good way to start. Your solution to the problem is more government intervention. I don't see that as any solution whatsoever, but a band-aid to slow the flow of blood. Not to mention they're half responsible for this whole mess in the first place. Like I said, you lift these who you view as your superiors to the level of gods, they are just men. Everything can be taken away from them, just as quickly as it can be taken away from you or me.

We're getting WAY off topic though, this thread is about unions. We can talk more in PM if you'd like.

 

[pcgeek11]

Why yes, the Republican radicals *passing laws removing the unions' legal rights to collective bargaining* is "pricing themselves out of the market".

Next up: PBS federal funding is eliminated by the Republican Congress because PBS "priced itself out of the market".

And then: You refuse to pay your parking ticket because the fine on the ticket "priced itself out of the market". You don't know what a market is.

Because there are so many idiots like you, people are going to see the income inequality grow more and more as you vote for the corrupt schemers for crap like this.

You don't understand the issue a bit of how income is determined, the powers involved.

In a way, I blame liberals and even unions especially for not doing a better job educating the public and allowing the right-wing propaganda to lie to people like you.

When Bush appoints *industry representatives* to oversee regulatory enforcement of those industries, people like you don't give a crap - it's all just 'government waste' to you.

And when unions are guttted, when the US is drug down and down while the most rich shift all the money 'saved' to their own ownership of every wealth-producing asset in the nation crippling opportunity and 'entrepeneurship' and setting records on the gap between the rich and everyone else, you clap like a seal. Yay, yay, yay the bad workers lose!

Like the Unions didn't Rape General Motors... etc ...

 

[jackace]

I hardly consider what my union does "siphoning" my paycheck for no reason. What they have secured for me and my family is head spinningly good. What i find amazing is not so many years ago people were living it up with wall street jobs and flipping mcmansions, embarrassed to be a civl servant. Now all i hear is let's balance the budgets on the backs of the workers, they have it too good. Jealousy is an ugly thing.

Very good post.

When things were good and the money was flowing like crazy to Wall St., banks and Corporate America no one complained about the civil servants or union labor. Now that Wall St., banks, and Corporate America has brought our economy to it's knees they want to now leave the bill and cost of fixing these problems with the civil servants and union labor. It's equivalent to theft IMO.

 

[sandorski]

Like the Unions didn't Rape General Motors... etc ...

They didn't.

 

[pcgeek11]

They didn't.

OK. GM asked for it with:

Insane wages.
Insane benefits.
Retirement plan from heaven.

... ... ...

 

[sandorski]

OK. GM asked for it with:

Insane wages.
Insane benefits.
Retirement plan from heaven.

... ... ...

Incorrect.

 

[werepossum]

Incorrect.

You might want to expound on that. Or at least choose a single word that doesn't make you look quite so foolish.

 

[sandorski]

You might want to expound on that. Or at least choose a single word that doesn't make you look quite so foolish.

That issue has been discussed to death. My one word post wasn't "foolish" in any way.

 

[Acanthus]

You might want to expound on that. Or at least choose a single word that doesn't make you look quite so foolish.

They put all of their eggs in one basket with SUVs.

They did piss poor market research.

They made shit cars.

They were up to their ears in debt before people stopped buying their shit SUVs.

If it were all the UAW then Ford wouldn't be doing so well.

 

[Pulsar]

They put all of their eggs in one basket with SUVs.

They did piss poor market research.

They made shit cars.

They were up to their ears in debt before people stopped buying their shit SUVs.

If it were all the UAW then Ford wouldn't be doing so well.

I work for Ford. I've worked as both a blue collar worker, and a white collar worker, as well as being in management. So I have a rather unique insight into the issues the big 3 have faced.

In addition, my father was white collar (30 years Ford), my mother blue collar - 30 years as a UAW head for a teachers union at a university, and so on.

All the things you have said are fairly true. The big 3 ignored quality. They ignored design. They went after the 'big money' in SUV's and ignored smalled cars.

They were also essentially forced to pay well beyond what they could afford for the Unions.

Let's be clear here. This wasn't one company caught with their pants down. This was the entire US auto industry coming damn close to going bankrupt all at the same time.

A lot of that had to do with the fact that talent moves between the big three interchangeably. You routinely see high-end management shuttling sideways between the companies, and all three adopted the same short-sighted profit-seeking.

However, as the pendulum swings, it also swung with unions, and it swung way too far. Unskilled union members were hiring in at a wage comparable to someone who had spent $50k or more getting a professional degree. That cannot be sustained, nor rationalized. Indeed, in many cases the rank and file union make more than management - that is still the case of non-leadership-level salaried workers. Those salaried workers do not get overtime, where the unionites get 1.5x pay for overtime, 2x for sunday and 3x for holiday.

Those wages being paid to the union workers are WELL beyond what a family needs for subsistence. That is why the Unions came to be. They created the middle class - but a middle class does not require 60 inch plasmas, travel trailers, campers, and super-duty pickups.

People in the United States have absolutely no idea what it means to be poor. Even a minimum wage McDonald's job will provide a level of living that many in other countries can only dream of.

The pendulum has begun to swing again. A backlash against Unions has begun, precisely because they have grown beyond ensuring employees aren't exploited and have moved toward maximizing an employee's pay regardless of proficiency or skill set.

They are corrupt in many ways, and the concessions companies make for them are incredible - allowing them to be paid while campaigning for their positions in the union. Allowing comittee-man level members to be paid while not actually performing a job for the company.

The simple truth is, Unions are needed. The other simple truth is, they've expanded far beyond simply protecting workers rights and have abused the power they once obtained through blood sweat and tears of their constituents.

I hope the pendulum stops swinging somewhere in the middle. The folks arguing in this thread about it who can't see the middle ground - well, in the end they'll hurt themselves more than help their cause.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

The demand for Government services keeps going up, yet we keep pretending we don't have a revenue problem.

Breaking Unions won't solve anything.

 

[Craig234]

All the things you have said are fairly true. The big 3 ignored quality. They ignored design. They went after the 'big money' in SUV's and ignored smalled cars...

Let's be clear here. This wasn't one company caught with their pants down. This was the entire US auto industry coming damn close to going bankrupt all at the same time.

This raises some interesting questions - ones that it's useless to ask the childish right about, when their attitude is that the one thing they are demanding is 'no government involvement', but their other position is some ideological 'let them all go out of business, that's fine' reckless position.

The country has an interest in a major industry like this doing well, and it's not an easy answer how.

It's easy to say 'let the market blah blah invisible hand blah blah'. There's no easy answer like 'the government should dictate solutions' either. Any of those can lead to disaster.

We should ask a question like, how do we prevent short-term pressures from leading management to bad decisions like you describe that can be so bad?

How do we protect the industry to serve the country from such things?

That requires better discussion, not simplistic ideological slogans (I'm not suggesting your very good post did that, talking about many people here.)

The simple truth is, Unions are needed. The other simple truth is, they've expanded far beyond simply protecting workers rights and have abused the power they once obtained through blood sweat and tears of their constituents.

I actually think that's fair. I've heard stories about union corruption and excess.

I think that's about right, that unions are very important for the middle class -but there are plenty of problems there, too.

What's going on right now has nothing to do with those problems - it's a Republican attack on the basic institution for the gain of crippling Democratic fundraising, and profits.

It's like saying, in 1942, do you worry more about the imperfections of the military, or the need for it to deal with the Germans and Japanese?

Unions are under attack for decades right now - reform is good, but the bigger threat is their shrinking membership and pubic support under the Republican attacks.

The middle class is under attack and unions are important to that. It seems like any dealing with 'union reform' is only really a try to kill them off more.

 

[pcgeek11]

Incorrect.

PSFFFT! Nonsense.

Why is GM Drowning: http://seekingalpha.com/article/140784-gm-has-been-bankrupt-for-years

First, the company is not capable of cutting expenses aggressively because of its union contract. According to the Detroit Free Press, the big three U.S. auto makers and the largest auto-parts supplier are paying about 10,000 hourly workers in the U.S. and Canada full wages and benefits not to work, despite falling U.S. market shares, shuttered plants and production cutbacks. These workers are essentially in a holding tank for hourly employees who are off work a long time, a system devised by the auto makers and the United Auto Workers union.

While most of the companies refused to say how much they are spending to pay these workers, a Free Press survey suggests it is likely well over $1 billion this year, given the number of workers and typical union wage-and-benefit packages. Auto supplier Delphi has told Wall Street that it will spend $300 million in 2005 to pay the salaries and benefits for about 2,300 union workers who currently don't have jobs, and it says that cost is "as high as it has ever been for us."

GM's 2004 10-K states that the average hourly wage for its employees is about $74/hour. I'm guessing few employees are actually getting paid that but once you add in the healthcare expense and "excess" workers, it's probably close.

Second, closer examination of the footnotes to the company's pension and other obligations, reveals that the company cannot survive with its current expense structure. The obligations due to current and former employees are a drain on the company's resources.

The real problem for General Motors comes in the form of the Other Post Retirement Employee Benefits lines. These amounts refer to the retirement benefits provided by a company to its employees other than those from its pension plan - for the most part "healthcare expense".

A look at the Other Post Retirement Employee Benefits from the table shows why this is the key issue for GM - the company's future obligations in this segment amount to $77 billion, while the company's plan to fund those obligations only contains $16 billion - leaving the company on the hook for about $61 billion in future healthcare expenses.

 

[sandorski]

PSFFFT! Nonsense.

Why is GM Drowning: http://seekingalpha.com/article/140784-gm-has-been-bankrupt-for-years

First, the company is not capable of cutting expenses aggressively because of its union contract. According to the Detroit Free Press, the big three U.S. auto makers and the largest auto-parts supplier are paying about 10,000 hourly workers in the U.S. and Canada full wages and benefits not to work, despite falling U.S. market shares, shuttered plants and production cutbacks. These workers are essentially in a holding tank for hourly employees who are off work a long time, a system devised by the auto makers and the United Auto Workers union.

While most of the companies refused to say how much they are spending to pay these workers, a Free Press survey suggests it is likely well over $1 billion this year, given the number of workers and typical union wage-and-benefit packages. Auto supplier Delphi has told Wall Street that it will spend $300 million in 2005 to pay the salaries and benefits for about 2,300 union workers who currently don't have jobs, and it says that cost is "as high as it has ever been for us."

GM's 2004 10-K states that the average hourly wage for its employees is about $74/hour. I'm guessing few employees are actually getting paid that but once you add in the healthcare expense and "excess" workers, it's probably close.

Second, closer examination of the footnotes to the company's pension and other obligations, reveals that the company cannot survive with its current expense structure. The obligations due to current and former employees are a drain on the company's resources.

The real problem for General Motors comes in the form of the Other Post Retirement Employee Benefits lines. These amounts refer to the retirement benefits provided by a company to its employees other than those from its pension plan - for the most part "healthcare expense".

A look at the Other Post Retirement Employee Benefits from the table shows why this is the key issue for GM - the company's future obligations in this segment amount to $77 billion, while the company's plan to fund those obligations only contains $16 billion - leaving the company on the hook for about $61 billion in future healthcare expenses.

Incorrect again.

 

[pcgeek11]

Incorrect again.

Stoopid again.

 

[pcgeek11]

The way I see it is:

The Dems/Progressives claim that the republicans sold out to " Big Business " for the money and support to get them elected over and over again. The payback is passing bills that support " big business ". Which has some truth to it.

But the same is true for the Dems and Progressives. They sold out to the Union (which is also a big business) for money and support to get them elected over and over. And in turn they pass bills that supports the unions.

Anyone that says GM did not get raped by the unions is a fool or doesn't know how to read.

Ford also got raped but they didn't commit as much as GM with their stupidity.

 

[sandorski]

The way I see it is:

The Dems/Progressives claim that the republicans sold out to " Big Business " for the money and support to get them elected over and over again. The payback is passing bills that support " big business ". Which has some truth to it.

But the same is true for the Dems and Progressives. They sold out to the Union (which is also a big business) for money and support to get them elected over and over. And in turn they pass bills that supports the unions.

Anyone that says GM did not get raped by the unions is a fool or doesn't know how to read.

Ford also got raped but they didn't commit as much as GM with their stupidity.

Negative. Keep wallowing.

 

[pcgeek11]

Negative. Keep wallowing.

Keep posting crap.

It is obvious you have nothing of value to say.

Are you related to Craig?

 

[Siddhartha]

OK. GM asked for it with:

Insane wages.
Insane benefits.
Retirement plan from heaven.

... ... ...

GM did not build the cars people wanted. That is and was a management decision.

 

[Atreus21]

GM did not build the cars people wanted. That is and was a management decision.

If that's true, they should've been allowed to go out of business.

 

[Phokus]

If that's true, they should've been allowed to go out of business.

Unfortunately, that would have taken out a ton of periphery businesses that supply GM and also indirect businesses that serve the workers in their communities. If the Asian countries hadn't constantly bailed out/subsidized their automotive companies, they wouldn't be selling cars today. At least with the automotive bailouts, they were protecting middle class jobs, unlike the wall street bailouts.

Maybe GM woke up to producing gas efficient cars since they invested so heavily in the chevy volt. It took decades and lots of government subsidies/trade restrictions for Toyota to stop producing crap nobody wanted.

 

[child of wonder]

snip..

Thank you for sharing your insight.

I agree with you. The problem isn't just unions or just bad corporate decision making. Multiple factors came into play here and there is plenty of blame to share.

However, people need to stop using the situation to further knee jerk agendas such as "OMG KILL ALL UNIONS!"

Union reform is very badly needed as is the need to hold the individuals at executive levels accountable for their poor decisions. GM still doesn't seem to "get it" and makes commercials lying about paying back their bailout, their cars are still sub par compared to the competition, etc.

 

[Atreus21]

Unfortunately, that would have taken out a ton of periphery businesses that supply GM and also indirect businesses that serve the workers in their communities. If the Asian countries hadn't constantly bailed out/subsidized their automotive companies, they wouldn't be selling cars today. At least with the automotive bailouts, they were protecting middle class jobs, unlike the wall street bailouts.

Maybe GM woke up to producing gas efficient cars since they invested so heavily in the chevy volt. It took decades and lots of government subsidies/trade restrictions for Toyota to stop producing crap nobody wanted.

So be it. At least we would've painfully rooted out the bullet, rather than negligently (and very expensively) applying a bandaid to only the wound which would continue to fester and bleed. Understand I fault Bush more than Obama for this.

If all countries engage in subsidizing and bailout out their car companies, then it's no wonder car prices continue to rise.