Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
only blaming unions is in itself capitalist labor exploitation propoganda at its finest. while the unions are partly to blame, that rant is just a major piece of propaganda that just more bullshit.
Lemme guess, that's just more "union busting" company talk, eh? Heard that only about one thousand times when growing up, usually in response to statements like "I don't see the harm in using more modern technology" or "I hate to say it, but those Japanese are building a decent car" or "Why is the UAW striking...again?" (you know, questioning things, asking the UAW to justify its position, or acknowledging reality = union busting). And having been subjected to this creepy cult-like atmosphere of mindless pro-labor and anti-corporate conformity (or else) for years and years, I bought it until I went out in the real world and was forced to confront how reality seemed to conflict with so much that I had been lead to believe (or else).
I'm from Flint, Michigan (a.k.a. "Birthplace of the UAW"). My father worked at General Motors (Chevrolet) for 37 years, several of my aunts and uncles, two of my neighbors, my ex-girlfriend's father, half of my friend's fathers (or mothers...uncles...aunts) worked in Flint's auto factories. I know what went on in those plants, from first-hand accounts of all the union members I heard for 20+ years musing and crowing about how they:
- were routinely under the influence of drugs or alcohol at work
- took turns slipping off to the bar or lake at lunch break and didn't return while a buddy covered for them
- manipulated and exploited the laughable progressive discipline policy to amass multiple violations then sign a pledge to be a 'good boy', whereas their record was expunged after six months of good behavior and the progressive discipline process started over
- sabotaged equipment to cause a work stoppage or slow down so they could either get 'extra' paid breaks (while the equipment was fixed) or get sent home a couple hours early while getting a full shift's pay
- were secure in knowing their job would be waiting for them after they were released from jail or prison for offenses ranging from misdemeanor drug possession or drunk driving up to lower-class felonies; meanwhile, the worker who was hired to replace the incarcerated worker has now become a fully vested union member (I have many friends and family in 'low places')
- were able to freely smuggle tools, parts, and supplies off the property, because the unionized security guards were sympathetic to the UAW
- were able to get anything they wanted through the bustling black market that existed among the factory workers; drugs, prostitutes, weapons, you name it
One of the largest multi-agency undercover narcotics operations encompassing the entire United States east of the Mississippi River along the I-75 corridor, a
major drug route from Southern Florida to Ontario, Canada (through Detroit and Flint), included undercover agents operating INSIDE Flint and Detroit auto plants, resulting in dozens of auto workers arrested as part of an extensive cocaine trafficking and distribution network.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the UAW's "strategy" to "help" the Big Three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) compete with foreign companies manufacturing cars in state-of-art factories that spared no automation or technology, included:
- threaten to strike or go on strike to block company efforts to get rid of obsolete labor and modernize plants
- lobby for punitive or onerous tariffs on imports
- voted successfully to prohibit UAW member credit unions from giving loans on all imported vehicles including Japanese motorcycles (reversed only about five years ago after 20+ years)
- harass, indimidate, or threaten people who drove imports, including slashing tires and smashing windows
- ban and sometimes physically block foreign cars from the property of unions halls, UAW credit unions, and union offices
- campaigns to boycott and attack the patriotism of auto dealers who sold imports
- attack the patriotism of Americans who purchased imports
- deride the Japanese work ethic and its culture (often bordering on racism)
- spend hundreds of millions (in conjunction with the Big Three) on various 'buy American' campaigns; television commercials, magazine ads, jackets, shirts, caps, bumper stickers, signs, pens, buttons, mugs, flags, sponsoring local events, even got some big Hollywood types to write the UAW's propaganda into a few scripts or plots (always blaming the Japanese or corporate greed, never its own insatiable and intransigent self-interest)
e.g. the 1986 Ron Howard movie "Gung Ho" starring Michael Keaton, which portrayed the Japanese as soul-less drones obsessed with success and worklife, who could learn a lot about culture and community from us Americans, who are portrayed not as lazy, overindulgent, and culturally bankrupt, but as striking a better balance between work, family, and leisure. lol!
Now think about that. The Japanese, with virtually no poverty or violent crime, longer life expectancies, better measures of health, world-leading rates of personal savings and low debt levels, leading academic measures among school children, and cohesive national identity have no culture, who could learn a thing or two about 'enjoying life' from gun toting, pot-bellied, cholesterol and tobacco loving, credit abusing, materialistic, lazy American auto workers, an obscene percentage of whom couldn't find Europe on an atlas with two hands and a flashlight, and view a 6,500lb Ford Valdez SUV or the Harley Davidson motorcycle as a shining symbol of American engineering and manufacturing prowess vis-a-vis the high-tech Japanese.
The manifold layers of irony are going to make my head explode.
In the UAW's unwavering belief, the true reason why American companies couldn't compete with the Japanese was not because we were still building cars as though it were 1950 with virtually 100% utilization of manual labor. Building cars in 1985 with 1950 labor and technology standards was all good and right to the UAW. It was the Japanese who were 'bad' for not doing the same, and US auto companies were just being their greedy union-busting selves for trying to modernize manufacturing at least to the standard used by the Japanese in 1975 (still 10 ~ 15 years behind).
The UAW wasn't willing to "lose" any ground or take a hit for the team (the future of US auto companies and their ability to compete globally) by agreeing to desperately needed concessions such as elimination of obsolete and duplicate labor, but it had no problem expecting Americans to take a hit for the team (keeping the US auto industry on artificial life support by paying more for inferior cars out of patriotism or concern for thy neighbor).
i.e. we want everyone else to take a hit to their pockets so that we don't have to, and anyone who doesn't is a selfish un'Merican union-busting traitor
A high ranking US auto executive was once quoted in the press saying of the Japanese, "Let them come here and try to build cars, then we'll see how they do."
So they did and the Big Three still can't compete in their own back yard. Why? Wages, benefits, pensions, and working conditions are not only highly comparable but when corrected for the lower cost of living in the Southern states where foreign manufacturers were wise enough to build their factories, US workers in non-unionized foreign factories actually make MORE than their unionized Northern counterparts.
And the UAW is positively livid about it all because it conclusively proves the company was right about everything and the union was not merely wrong but acted negligently, often with unconscionable prejudice and disregard, towards any interest other than its fatally myopic own, directly resulting in every US auto manufacturer flirting with financial ruin with no light at the end of the tunnel.
The UAW has been feverishly trying to get its agitators and operatives into these shiny new non-union plants to organize the workers. Having witnessed what the UAW did to US auto manufacturing in the North, the workers are having nothing of it. Every time it has gone to a vote the union lost by huge insurmountable margins. It was no accident that foreign companies selected locations in the southern US to build their factories...and it wasn't because they can bake-up a mean rhubarb pie down there.
Any way you slice it, it boils down to the intransigent self-interest of the UAW, its unending obstructionism and ideological hostility towards the company, cooperating only to the extent the company agrees to "buy" its cooperation (what's in it for us...
besides the future health and competitiveness of the company), which ends-up costing many times more than the value of the concessions. And I take no satisfaction in the knowledge that I benefitted from this as the child of an auto worker.