"...I have said, repeatedly, that UNSKILLED labor has little economic value, and should be paid accordingly..."
".....My harping has always been on simply lug nut tighteners and floorsweepers thinking they are worth $35/hour because of the "skill" involved in what they do...is it honest work???...you bet, and I never said otherwise...but is floorsweeping a "skill?"...I would be hard pressed to see it that way..."
First comment. I can't argue that the pay should reflect the skill level, however, I would imagine that there should be some "value added" aspects of the pay, such as the area you live in, (should a maid at a hotel in NYC be paid the same as the maid at Motel 6 in Podunk, Middle America) danger factor,(a welder repairing a girder in a building vs. a bridge tower 250 feet in the air), 3rd shift (supply and demand more than likely here).
Also, I think some of it may be human nature, as well. A cashier may very well be a minimum wage job, but after several weeks (or months) of ringing up several thousand dollars of merchandise per shift, and seeing "only" $60 before taxes on an 8 hr shift may very well be discouraging. Again, notice I'm talking about a high volume cashier (like at a WalMart or CVS or a Grocery store chain), not a M&P. The same may go for the assemblers on the assembly line. Putting together a $125 gourmet coffee maker is one thing, but a $25,35, or 45,000 car, quite another.
Now, you were at the factories, not me, so one question. The "floorsweepers" you speak of, were they just that, or did they have other duties such as maintaining or repairing the building and it's systems, such as the HVAC or heating (not including the assembly machines and such).
I would add to that: plumber, car mechanic, welder on big construction site, carpenter, HVAC technician - all are non-college jobs, but surely involve skills, sometimes very high skills acquired over some time. Depending on circumstances, location, demand, all those blue-collar professions can be quite valuable, more than say some college educated Joe Shmo.
On the other hand, assembly line and later automation were invented specifically to allow people without skills to perform array of simple supervised tasks to efficiently manufacture something very complicated. Watching robots painting doesn't make one a painter, or machine inventor. Screwing bumpers on the car doesn't make one safety technician.
I think a good technician or craftsman deserves wages placing them squarely in middle class, whatever that really means (say within one std. deviation of median income for the area?). Guy who knows five or even ten tasks on assebly line - sorry, that is still unskilled labor in my book - even with ten year seniority. X years of one-year experience doesn't make it X-year experience.
I would imagine that there should be some "value added" aspects of the pay, such as the area you live in, (should a maid at a hotel in NYC be paid the same as the maid at Motel 6 in Podunk, Middle America
Each state sets minimum wage within the Federal guidelines. The maid in NYC has the right to move to Podunk if she can do better there.
I met my sister's neighbor in Casa Grande, AZ the other day. He works for Walmart and is buying a brand new 1900 sq ft home in a great new subdivision with a beautiful water park. I found out he has worked 3 years in the WM distribution Center. He works 3 days per week 13 hours per day and makes $19 per hour. He loves the job and gets 4 days per week off to be with his daughter and work in his yard. His wife works part time for WM on the 3 days he is off. So they save on day care. They have two new cars in the garage and a flat screen the size of Kansas. His health care is paid which debunks some of the rhetoric of WM employees being a burden on the Welfare system. His yard was something you would see in Home & Garden magazine.
If a person cannot get by where they are they should research the country and find a place they can do OK. The wise UAW workers that are laid off should be packing up and moving before the welfare runs out of money in Michigan. Pinal county AZ is the fastest growing county in the USA. And you can still buy a new home there for $119k. Most likely with nothing down and payments under the price of rent. And no snow to shovel.
".....The issue, should the government mandate anything more than a minimum wage. Let the market work. If they get no maids in NYC, they will have to pay more. By the same measure. If someone is compelled to live in NYC and the pay is not enough to support them, it is not my problem or the Federal Governments."
"..... I made more than $13 per hour in the 1970s. Those days are long gone. The few craftsmen that have high paying jobs should be very thankful right about now."
On the first point, we agree. As to the second comment, why are those days "long gone"??? If that was a fair wage 35 years ago, shouldn't double that be a fair wage for the same type of work today?
fezo...yeah, before the raise, we weren't worth a plugged nickel, now we're at least a dime a dozen... :P
cooter: pay will simply depend on local conditions...if the work is worth more to the employer, then they will pay more to get someone to weld up 250 feet...but is the job INTRINSICALLY worth more???...well, if all the welders are unemployed, and an employer pays $10/hour for welding at 250 feet up, and you want to feed your family by doing welding, then, yes, the job is worth $10/hour...not because Bob says so, I am a nobody, but the market says so...now, if all the welders are employed locally, on the ground, and the employers want someone to go up 250 feet, and they don't offer more, then the job does not get done...in that case, the employer will offer $15/hour and will probably have applicants, but it is the free market working...when everyone is on gov't welfare, the incentive to work at all is destroyed...
"The "floorsweepers" you speak of, were they just that, or did they have other duties such as maintaining or repairing the building and it's systems,"...you seem to be unaware of the UAW job restrictions, or almost ANY union job restriction...floorsweepers (janitors), by contract, would be restricted to just that job, so that another union job would be "created out of thin air" (with more payroll and benefits) for someone to move the trash to the dumpster...that is why UAW featherbedding helped destroy GM & C...Honda does with 2000 employees what GM needed 6000 employees in plants with the same vehicle production volumes...that is why a broken electrical wall switch needed an electrician and an electrician's helper to replace a switch that you or I could do with a screwdriver in 5 minutes...that is why unions, esp the UAW, are now the greatest destructive economic force one can think of...
dino: "I would add to that: plumber, car mechanic, welder on big construction site, carpenter, HVAC technician - all are non-college jobs, but surely involve skills, sometimes very high skills acquired over some time. Depending on circumstances, location, demand, all those blue-collar professions can be quite valuable, more than say some college educated Joe Shmo."...that is always my point...someone who develops skills over time will be worth more, and that always included blue collar jobs in my thinking...but someone who tightens lug nuts on the assembly line for 10 years does NOT have 10 years work experience, they have one month of work experience and that have repeated it 120 times...that is why no one will EVER hire a displaced UAW worker because:
1. they are truly unskilled, 2. overpaid compared to ANY other industry for their skill level, 3. they have this entitlement attitude that demands $35/hour to sweep a floor, 4. they have this militant attitude that they will strike like spoiled children if they don't get their $35/hour 5. they have ZERO work ethic, 6. their rotten, entitlement attitude is projected about 2 miles in front of them, so when they walk into a Honda plant seeking a job, one can detect their attitude as they drive into the parking lot, they don't stand a chance 7. Name me ANY employer who might hire a laid-off UAW worker knowing how they think (what, you don't have a Jobs Bank for me to sit for months and do nothing, yet collect a full paycheck while eating donuts?), their total lack of work ethic, their total lack of work SKILL, their "strike in a minute" attitude, and this is embedded into their DNA and their children's DNA...
If I knew that someone's great grandfather worked for the UAW, I would never hire them for ANYTHING in ANY company that I might own, because that worthless work attitude is transmitted at the family dinner table for generations...maybe by the year 2100, that "UAW stink" will be washed out of the family DNA, maybe five generations from now will do it, no less than that. though...
If that was a fair wage 35 years ago, shouldn't double that be a fair wage for the same type of work today?
A few reasons that it is not the same today. One is the work is not the same today as it was 35 years ago in most cases. Technology and innovation has made many jobs easier to learn. When I worked in the Central Office in the 1960 it took 6 months of schooling to be proficient on the mechanical switching equipment. Today the job is swapping cards for the most part. Same goes for PBX repair. Granted climbing a pole has not changed much. The time to learn the job is also about the same. Plus the test equipment is so much more robust than it was 40 years ago.
And maybe the biggest reason is there are more people looking for work than 40 years ago. Even then It took me 6 months of going to Pacific Telephone every Monday morning and enquiring if they had any openings. I always figured they gave me the job in the mailroom to get rid of me. How many out of work people drive 20 miles every week to try getting a particular job for 6 months? I was mowing lawns to live on and keep gas in my car.
I will say if a young person can get into an apprenticeship program in a Union like the IBEW they can do pretty well. Same goes for plumbers, pipefitters and welders. The Carpenters Union is a dead end street like the UAW.
Please, please, PLEASE use "Reply" when you're responding to a post. Otherwise, it's harder for us readers to figure out what you're replying to - particularly if we've been away for a couple of days.
Don't start a new thread unless you intend to bring up a new subject.
You, too, iluvmysephia. The "Reply" icon is your friend.
That is exactly right. Almost every Union worker took a big pay cut at the end of the pipeline construction stage. If they were still employed. Most went back to TX, OK and LA. Then AK had a mini boom in 1981 which only lasted until 1985 when many contracts were cut again. The roller coaster that AK workers go through is not for the weak. And there were NO JOBS BANK. Unemployment in Alaska was only $248 per week until the first of this year. Now it is $370, still well below CA and other places.
I get really upset when I think about the UAW. They have lived high on the Hog for over 50 years. Now that their industry is in a down turn they want the rest of US to maintain their opulent lifestyle. And the flakes in Washington DC are doing just that. What about the MASSIVE downturn in the construction industry? I don't see Barry doing much to bolster that segment of the economy. In my 5600 miles around the USA I saw a LOT of road work signs along the highways. I saw very little actual work being done. We were going across US 212 and it became a gravel road for about 30 miles. When we got to Watertown SD, I asked the lady at the motel about that road. She said it has been that way for over 2 years. It was paved 30 years ago when I last made that trek.
But I have a problem with your request...if I am responding to three different folks, quoting merely one line of their post, do I hit "reply" 3 times???...I simply don't get it...
Usually, I am responding to someone in the last 10 posts ot so, so that my response is almost diretcly beneath theirs, sort of...plus copying their short quote does give the context in which I am posting...
Sorry, I simply do not understand the problem...I can leave the topic if my form of responding gives you ulcers...I can join rocky, wherever he is...
There are many who have been trained by the politicians to expect handouts of OPM and the UAW looks like a group of church mice compared to the "entitled" group now. That is true. As the UAW workers when employed were doing something productive even if it was not that efficient with all the work rules involved. Every big city in the USA is filled with welfare voters with their hands out to our government. The problem is we are going broke supporting those millions of non productive leeches. And I do not mean the disabled. Though most disabled people I know are productive members of society.
jim: for the last 3-4 months, I HAVE been using (often, not always) the reply button when I respond to one person...I will try to be better, but this post ain't one of those attempts...
cooter: "At some point, something must give. If the welders want $15, and the contractors are only offering $10, then I would assume some compromise must be made."...yes, absolutely, a compromise will be made...or, the 250 foot welding won't get done...or, the welders, if unemployed, will remain unemployed...but let the MARKET determine what happens...don't let some gov't group go in an mandate what should happen...if the contractor needing the 250 foot welder doesn't raise the offer, then he is penalized for breaking the deadline, but let market forces do their job, that is all I want...
The UAW-Big 3 problem was that mgmt always capitulated to the strike...now that IS the free market at work, altho I wish mgmt had done otherwise, but then, the system worked like it should...overhead became too much, cars weren't selling enough, and GM & C had to go Ch 11...that, too, is the market at work, until Hussein Obama stuck his nose in it and took away the free market aspect...I still think that GM & C will be gone within 2 years, someone else will buy up the assets and make the Cadillacs & Chevys, and the UAW will have to suck up and be re-trained, altho the prospect of someone hiring them is going to be a challenge, because I would bet that many employers think like I do about former UAW workers, and it ain't pretty...
I am just too gentle and kind when I express my mildly negative opinions about the UAW...maybe we need someone here who will state what they really feel, instead of beating around the bush like I do...
After all, the bridge contractor is probably under a deadline to complete the project by a certain date, or they get fined; a fine that probably would cost them more than the $2-3/hr they are trying to save.
Surely, but the welders have a mortgage and bills to pay. So it all boils down to how many welders are for how many positions.
People accept that it is normal to pay for a DVD player $300-500 at one point and $25 at another. They accept merchandise gets cheaper as they it gets more common, more generic and its value goes to zero when itmes become obsolete or unwanted. The same dynamic rules employment, because it is a merchandise sold on a market. The value of an item is derived mostly from its desirability, not cost or difficulty. Sure, it is brutal and heartless - but we wouldn't buy a 80286-based PC for $2000 today, even if it would actually cost that much to make.
The only rational decision in changing market is to adapt - if job is unsatisfactory, you drop it and learn new more marketable skills, whether through education, or apprenticeship. Intel puts a new chip line every few years and makes chip improvements every few months. Workers should do the same - figuratively of course.
The problem with unions is not all that dissimilar to that posed by entrenched management: Once they win comfortable contracts, they often become impediments to the kind of innovation and flexibility essential to success in today's economy. So in the name of "job security," they undermine a company's -- or a nation's -- competitiveness. The result, over time, is less job security for everyone, especially the union workforce. There's no better example of this than GM, where the UAW now represents about 74,000 hourly workers, compared to 246,000 in 1994.
Luckily Unions are on the decline so we can get back to work to rebuild the country the correct way.
Most Americans take it as fact that manufacturing jobs have decreased over the past 30 years. However, that is not fully accurate. Unionized manufacturing jobs fell by 75 percent between 1977 and 2008. Non-union manufacturing employment increased by 6 percent over that time. In the aggregate, only unionized manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the economy. As a result, collective bargaining coverage fell from 38 percent of manufacturing workers to 12 percent over those years.
Manufacturing jobs have fallen in both sectors since 2000, but non-union workers have fared much better: 38 percent of unionized manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2000, compared to 18 percent of non-union jobs
At some point, something must give. If the welders want $15, and the contractors are only offering $10, then I would assume some compromise must be made.
Why would they. Unless like you say they cannot get any welders for $10 per hour. Then they may have to offer $15 per hour. That is supply and demand very simply. The contractor takes the risk that the welder is capable of doing a good job. So it would be to his benefit to hire and keep good welders. If it costs him $30 per hour, that would be a fair wage. If he can get all the newly minted illegal aliens given amnesty for minimum wage that is a fair wage. It is really not the place of the Federal government to decide what a given job should pay. They have at times done it. I think it ended up costing jobs not helping labor or creating jobs.
Finally, a company with some guts...I still cannot understand the ignorance, sheer, unadulterated ignorance, of the workers, but, as you might suspect, they were, of course UAW people ...
Assuming that student instruments were being made by Chinese, the workers had to face the truth...someone was going to undercut their price, maybe with workmanship almost as good as theirs...for students, "almost as good" may be good enough...Back still had the market for top end instruments, but probably did not sell enough of them to matter for the majority of workers...
It makes my heart swell to see a union de-certified, esp the UAW...it means that the workers may actually have a brain after all...
They could have moved the whole shop down here, taken the time to train us "redneck toothless hillbillies" (right, rocky???), and hopefully made a decent product...like all UAW people, they think what they do is indispensable, when they appear to be quite replaceable (kinda like lawyers) as they hired new folks willing to cross the picket line...
Maybe Elkhart will learn, but I wouldn't bet on it...I wonder how many RV assemblers are sitting in the Jobs Bank, demanding they be paid while eating donuts...
Dump Hussein Obama, dump the UAW, and this country may just right itself again...
I know anybody that is breathing can be trained to replace a UAW worker, but who is credible to replace Obama??? (not that obama himself is credible, but the other side must put up somebody who stands for something, and McCain was not it)...
>A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world in Elkhart, Indiana
Amazing story. The skill of the workers prestrike will never be present in that factory again. We bought our son one of the last pre-strike higher-priced Stradivarius C-trumpets as the strike had begun. The quality is/was there; I could pick out his horn from 12 or so in the wind ensemble performances. The Chinese entered the cheaper end of the market for student level horns and took over. Why was that allowed by our government? It's just like Chinese tires being taxed and they have been if I understand right.
The quality of the workers prestrike is famous. I was lectured by a repairman at the music store for our son's using the trumpet in marching band rather than just in the elite indoor wind ensemble at school. The repairman, with credentials to have the knowledge to lecture me, explained it was too good an instrument to risk damage in the competition marching band.
So the deterioration of the quality of post strike instruments has occurred, and some will be happy because another union of entitlement has been 'busted.' Those workers who shaped the leadpipe mouthpiece ends and the bells that helped make the trumpets professional in quality can be replaced by those who'll do it for less money.
The Chinese entered the cheaper end of the market for student level horns and took over. Why was that allowed by our government?
Are you suggesting that government should protect us from cheap Chinese trumpets? You might want to fill another building in Washington with bureaucrats who'll keep Asian horns out of our schools, but I sure don't. That's one more step down the slippery road to socialism, & I'm not up for paying for it.
The last time I read the Constitution (remember that piece of paper?), I saw nothing that convinced me that "protecting" American workers from foreign competition is a legitimate role of government.
That really was a sad article. Here were a group of workers that because of their skill set, erroneously thought they had a lock on the job market. While their skills could very well have made them the only ones possible to make the "Stradivarius Model C" and like instruments, they and their company could not survive making those high end instruments alone. They needed a much broader base of cheaper instruments to support the company's infrastructure and wage base. It was there, as in so many other industries, that they lost the cost war.
But, outsourcing to China is not always the panacea to high labor costs as it's made out to be. A recent article in EDN (a trade journal for electrical engineers) highlighted the fact that because of 1) increasing labor costs in China, 2) high transportation costs, and 3) lax enforcement of IP laws, Mexico is becoming more attractive than China as a place to manufacture many products. While manufacturing in Mexico is not the same as manufacturing in Elkhart, IN, at least it's in North America.
As I understand it, the Stradivarius instruments are were essentially handmade. The company wanted to mechanize the manufacture of same to reduce costs. The reputation of the Bach Strads is superb. If we'd had time, we'd gone to Elkart and son could have tried out different trumpets and picked the one he liked best.
I suspect if they cheapen the lower grade instruments, the beginner instruments, they'll lose some of the following from all the band instructors.
The key here is the union needed to take a paycut for those making the beginner horns. The quality craftsmen deserve what they get.
The owners were attempting to be greedy rather than easing into a different cost basis. That's the problem with the Wall Street gang that led mortgage synthetic trading items since 2006 and with all their other shenanigans.
The change in cost structure should have been applied to UAW. But they had the individual manufacturers in a stranglehold since the manufacturers couldn't have collectively fought them without facing some kind of charge for illegally joining together.
It seems with the current administration's protection of the UAW we're still stuck with the few that are left at overpaid wages and the two car companies (three) trying to crawl out from under the oppressive salaries.
Meanwhile other folk are working for dimes by comparison.
While their skills could very well have made them the only ones possible to make the "Stradivarius Model C" and like instruments
There's a Elkhart Selmer sax from the early 50's in the family. The skilled guys probably could find enough repair work to keep them going, although they may have to move and spread around some. One school district can keep an instrument repair shop going.
I've seen similar articles like your EDN one the last year or so - a good oil shortage would drive more jobs back to North America than the other factors I think.
In strange bedfellows news, "Auto tycoon Frank Stronach, who resisted unions for years, turned to the Canadian Auto Workers for a financial lifeline to save teetering Magna International in late 1990, retired CAW leader Buzz Hargrove reveals in a new book.
"His (Stronach's) quick reversal from an anti-union capitalist to the working man's friend was impressive and proved that many business principles go out the window when enough money is involved," Hargrove continues."
The union didn't have enough money in their strike fund to help, if they had wanted to. They would have gained a lot of bargaining power if they had loaned the company money. The CAW did grant other significant concessions to Magna in '07, and may be getting their foot in the door more.
"The people coming across the border are just as capable of non skilled or skilled work as any union or non union worker, that includes Philadelphia or any other place in the USA"...
I would almost gave the nod to the illegal immigrant (despite the fact that I would deport every one if I could) in terms if skill level, esp compared to the UAW, simply because of attitude...the immigrants WANT to work, willingly, an 8 hour day...considering the "welfare entitlement" attitude of the UAW, added to their arrogant militancy, then added to rocky's "toothless redneck hillbillies" making the cars, it is obvious that training them would take less than a week (being generous here) (hey, they taught the hillbillies, and look what we have now), and I would place much more reliance on the immigrant (let the legal ones come in slowly) than the current UAW worker...
Sum it up...the current UAW worker has NOTHING to offer, except a lousy work ethic, poor quality workmanship, a militant entitlement attitude that cannot be removed except by a frontal lobotomy...they can be replaced in a heartbeat by people who would be grateful to have the job at half the pay...
Is there any upside to the current UAW worker???...my bet is a resounding "NO!!!"
That sound like a pretty good deal (2-4% raises each year plus several bonuses), given today's economic climate. Though if inflation kicks in as some are predicting, that 2-4% may not seem like much.
I wonder what kind of contract Boeing has with the defense department for the Chinook and the V-22? If it's a cost-plus contract, then Boeing really hasn't given anything away as the added labor costs just go into the cost of the contract, and the government - sorry - taxpayers pay (at least within reason).
The Conn-Selmer employees that held out to the end were fed Koolaid by the UAW. They somehow had them believing they were indispensable. I think we all have felt that way in our career field at one time or another. The truth is NO ONE is indispensable. I thought this statement sums up the ignorance of the average UAW member.
Traces from the picket line still remain, like shelters and signs. "It's depressing," said Rick Ashcroft. "The jobs are bad, the economy is bad." People like Coody said there's no looking back. "It was a good time," he said. "I enjoyed it while it lasted."
What kind of nut case enjoys walking a picket line instead of working? Or was he referring to his days working at Conn-Selmer? 40 months on a picket line has to really show the level of incompentence in the UAW management. You have to wonder if any of the UAW officers took a cut in pay during that strike.
I do understand that. My point was being Union does not mean you are the only workers capable of doing a good safe job. The imminent plan is to legalize all those illegal aliens currently in the country. Which will put further pressure on our workforce. And especially the Union workers that up till this time had a good run.
Gary's new schtick is to blame unions for everything.
That is absolutely false. I was a member of 3 different Unions and a retired Union member. My complaints are with the UAW that helped destroy the US auto industry. And as 37 year Teamster Shop Steward & Board member, we NEVER went on strike to get a contract signed. We never asked for more than the company could afford to pay. That cannot be said of the UAW.
My bridge comments were in response to a post stating that illegals would provide sub standard labor to union labor. Which is just not true.
PS There are hundreds if not thousands of old Bridges built by the WPA still in use from the late 1930s.
I never said it could, did I? However, in a perfect world, it should.
It's never going to be a perfect world. Perhaps we should get more practical in our potential solutions. Such as the UAW realizing that their work rules are killing their jobs and allowing automated Ford plants to be built in Brazil, not the US.
"Perhaps we should get more practical in our potential solutions. Such as the UAW realizing that their work rules are killing their jobs and allowing automated Ford plants to be built in Brazil, not the US."
tlong: you are really stretching things to use the words "practical" and "UAW" in the same sentence...you simply seem unwilling ( ) to believe that the UAW is as dumb, stupid and ignorant as we say they are...yet, they struck the Elkhart musical instrument plant for years, they struck the Malibu plant when it was the best (only) selling model that GM made, and they caused enough grief to Ford that a brand new auto plant was built in Brazil, SOLELY so they could avoid using UAW workers...and, to this day, THEY STILL DON'T GET IT!!!...they still believe in their fantasy of floorsweepers making $35/hour (OK, $25/hour) plus health insurance (no out of pocket cost) and a fully paid pension, and they still have the gall to look in the mirror and tell us how "skilled" they are, when (to be repetitive) according to one famous "source", their workers are "toothless, redneck, ignorant hillbillies" but somehow they become skilled because they learn to tighten lug nuts in less than a week of training...
The UAW is simply incapable of being reasonable, and will thus never "get it" because they cannot see themselves for what they are...if mgmt had stood up to them in the 80s, and taken a 1 year strike, they could have broken the UAW into more pieces than grains of sand in Saudi Arabia, and we could have beaten Honda & Toy in a heartbeat...but they just cruised on, and we have what we now have because of stupid mgmt (the few) and unskilled militant workers (the many) who think they have a skill, but that no one with an IQ over 60 will touch them with a 10 foot pole...
I will bet my one dollar that NOT ONE applicant at Honda or Toy or Nissan is given a 2nd glance when their work history says "Big 3" or UAW under the category "Work Experience"...they will escort them to the door like a pushing a snake outside...they won't stand a chance...heck, would YOU hire an ex-UAW member for ANYTHING???
But are the jobs really being moved for that reason, or to ensure irresponsible executives continue to collect undeserved riches and appease shortsighted self-destructive "investors" at the same time?
But are the jobs really being moved for that reason, or to ensure irresponsible executives continue to collect undeserved riches and appease shortsighted self-destructive "investors" at the same time?
No disagreement about a lot of irresponsible executives.
However, I disagree with a conspiracy here. Corporations are designed to be beholden to shareholders. Shareholders (including you and I if we hold stock) want more profits. Corporations seek to maximize profit. With the advent of communications and transportation, national boundaries are less important. If a corporation can increase profits by offshoring jobs, many choose to do so. In fact, many of those corporate leaders might be found incompetent if they DIDN'T work to maximize profits if such opportunity existed.
Add to that situation a Union in your home country that makes the cost of manufacture ever more prohibitive and you have a natural and perfect situation to send the manufacturing overseas. Regardless of the execs being overpaid, most of the money is not in their salaries, it is in the cost of labor for the whole corporation. And when 10's of thousands of employees get gold-plated packages of salaries and benefits, it's practically an invitation -- a completely rational decision -- to send the jobs to less expensive place. Which the US auto maker have done even while the foreign makes are manufacturing more in the US.
Bob, thanks for the reply. I think my greater point in general was that there is sometimes a value added to more difficult or dangerous work. The welder on the ground may make $10, but because of the nature of doing the work at 250 feet, it may require an added skill up there or just the nuts to go that high in the first place that would require the extra 20% in wages. In either case that IS the free market at work.
(shameless union tie in :P ) Where the union would play a more important role than just wages would be to ensure that the guy who BELONGS 250' in the air is there, and the guy who belongs ON THE GROUND is there. That is what may keep someone from getting killed (nice fall??) just because a supervisor wants to "teach this kid a lesson")
( I know that the most senior guy may end up there, and could just as well find himself swimming with the fishies as their chum, but he had a choice to stay planted.)
I think my greater point in general was that there is sometimes a value added to more difficult or dangerous work.
I have no problem with that. Our contract paid time and a half for tower work above 35 feet. I usually let the younger guys have the extra money. I hated climbing towers. Especially at 30 below zero to adjust a MW dish.
"Bob, thanks for the reply. I think my greater point in general was that there is sometimes a value added to more difficult or dangerous work. The welder on the ground may make $10, but because of the nature of doing the work at 250 feet, it may require an added skill up there or just the nuts to go that high in the first place that would require the extra 20% in wages. In either case that IS the free market at work."
I think we are agreeing on this...I have no problem that the guy at 250 ft is probably worth more, as I doubt the ground welder will do the 250 ft work for the same rate...but even tho we feel that intuitively, the market should decide that...maybe the employer can get it done for, say, time and a half instead of double time...the free flowing market can decide who will work for how much...I fail to see how a union such as the UAW can assist in that process...
"...I fail to see how a union such as the UAW can assist in that process..."
Well, ideally if the government did it's job (w/o special interests getting in the way) there would be no need for a union. But, because they don't unions SHOULD be there to help protect the delicate balance of "power" between the employees and a workforce. Where this goes wrong is when one side gets "absolute power" and can run roughshod over the other.
While I see it as shameless that companies like Honda and Toyota will fight to keep the UAW (or any union) out of their shop, it is also shameless to see how the UAW manipulates the system against the Big 3. They can say what they want, but in the end cooler heads should prevail.
Where the whole system goes berzerk, IMO, is when the Big 3 allow the UAW to name the company it will negotiate with, and then expect the others to follow suit, regardless of their financial condition. I am happy that Ford got concessions from the UAW. it shows some rational thinking.
American corporations seek to maximize quarterly profit, almost never actually looking past the next two quarters. There's the secret ingredient to the malaise of so much American business. Many corporations seem to have sacrificed themselves to groups of shareholders (and what percentage of these investments are held by the bottom 90% anyway?) who feel entitled to an impossible ROI. More and more corners need to be cut to keep the few happy....it can't last forever. When the UAW is gone, then what gets cut?
What percentage of UAW-automaker pricing or expenses is in bloated benefits? Is it all about that, or is it about finding an extra profit margin, no matter the cost? The best example being all of the frankly sickening offshoring to China.
It took Harmony guitars which used to be a nice affordable instrument and turning them into imported trash.
Isn't that how many companies evolved? We are watching the auto industry do the same thing. The consumers are the ultimate judges. Speaking of guitars. I have owned many over the last 50+ years. There was junk made in the 1950s and great guitars from Martin and Gibson. Martin started down hill in about 1968 when Brazil cut off their supply of Brazilian rosewood. Probably the finest wood for backs and sides. Same goes for rifles. Find a pre 64 Model 70 and you will pay a lot more than one built after that year. So maybe the UAW workers at Conn were still building the finest Trumpets known to man up until the strike. I know nothing about trumpets. They still went on strike instead of working with the company to solve their issues. Many of the craftsmen crossed the picket lines to continue feeding their families. They decided a smaller paycheck was preferable to food stamps and losing everything. It is the UAW mentality that destroyed those jobs and ultimately led to the Union being decertified. Change is always going on no matter what the industry. Evolve with it or die.
Martin still makes a mighty nice guitar but you are of course correct about Brazilian rosewood. One of things like genuine tortoise shell - you can't get them anymore. There are leftover supplies of each that get rationed out like diamonds.
I once had a real tortoise shell pick. It was fabulous. HOwever one should never spend $10 on an item so easily lost...
I still think the outfit that bought up the Conn folks is one of these ones that buy up known entities and shake all the money out. It's been happening to the Simmons matress people for several years and they are just about dead now.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
cooter: "While I see it as shameless that companies like Honda and Toyota will fight to keep the UAW (or any union) out of their shop, it is also shameless to see how the UAW manipulates the system against the Big 3. They can say what they want, but in the end cooler heads should prevail."...
Maybe this is where we part company, but Honda and Toy should be given awards for fighting to keep unions out...between stupid work restrictions that ONLY serve to union featherbed "creating" jobs (i.e. increasng payroll overhead for no reason other than to reduce work efficiency), Jobs Bank programs (the thought that such an idiotic concept could even EXIST simply galls me), and the "gimme gimme" welfare mentality that the UAW had (and still has), I fail to see how the UAW helped the Big 3 in ANY way possible over the last 50 years...
Long before we had "union haters", like back in the 60s and 70s, we still had the old saw about not buying a car made on Friday (workers were drunk on payday) or Monday (workers were hung over from a drunk weekend)...that was the beginning, I would say...no one was "out to destroy the UAW" (like I am today), but the "UAW union mentality" was beginning to draw our criticisms back then...it has only gotten worse over the years...does mgmt have blame???...you bet...but much of mgmt's blame was in NOT standing up to the UAW's ridiculous demands like stupid work restrictions and floorsweepers making $35/hour...
If you look over the last 50 years, I place most blame on the "perceived quality" of UAW Big 3 cars going down the crapper on those who made the car, and that is the assembly workers, the UAW worker, period...
Most mgmt errors were simply in trying to avoid the UAW, and then capitulating...Saturn started out as a non-UAW concept in Roger Smith's mind, but then he capitulated to a UAW shop, so Saturn started out in the negative...none of the CEO's had the guts to take a strike over a few months, where they could have broken the back of the UAW...as fintail said, they were so worried about quarterly results when they should have looked at the long-term health of the company...breaking the UAW could have meant easier firing of worthless emplyees in one day instead of 2 years with UAW grievance procedures (which also should have been fought by mgmt)...
Simply, the UAW had NOTHING to offer to make any car better, and I applaud Honda and Toy for fighting to keep them out...if I ran either company, I would set up a 100 mile radius forcefield (like Star Trek's "shields up") that was programmed to beam away anyone with UAW DNA that even THOUGHT of driving inside that 100 mile imaginary ring...
That union destroyed American industry, along with every other union that demanded "highly skilled" wages for unskilled work...
Everyone has the right to try and make what they can, but to be able to squeeze an employer with collective bargaining, and then be able to force the employer to deal with a union, well, you see the result...the work and the jobs are sent out of the country, because no one can look at the situation and simply speak the truth: the workers are not worth anything close to what they are paid, because the skill level simply does not command that kind of pay...whether UAW workers, garment workers, or whatever, it comes down to the fact that unskilled workers are paid far in excess of what their job is worth, so any employer worth their salt finds cheaper labor elsewhere...folding shirts, tightening lug nuts, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, manually unloading trucks, while all honest work, takes no skill whatsoever...period...to think that work demands anything over minimum wage is beyond ridiculous...just because someone is feeding a family of five does NOT change to value of the work itself...just because someone wants to buy a 3000 sq ft home on the lake does NOT change the value of the work...and if it wasn't for the minimum wage, that work would barely be worth maybe $5.00/hour, because anyone, yes ANYONE, can do it with about 10 minutes of training...stocking shelves does imply that someone stayed in school long enough to read the alphabet, but reading is NOT considered a skill, any more than brushing your teeth and bathing...
Unions like UAW and garment workers have brainwashed and spoiled their members into believing that they are skilled workers who command top pay...I compliment them on their ability to brainwash so thoroughly, but they have lied to their workers like LBJ about the Gulf of Tonkin...they have NO skills and do not command anything over minimum pay...now they have no jobs because they still have this fairy tale brain about how skilled they are about folding shirts or sweeping floors...take pride in their work, yes, but highly skilled???...give me a break...
That union destroyed American industry, along with every other union that demanded "highly skilled" wages for unskilled work...
They may not have killed it. They did have a hand in pushing much of it South into Mexico and to the Pacific Rim.
Unions like UAW and garment workers have brainwashed and spoiled their members into believing that they are skilled workers who command top pay..
That is the biggest disservice the Union leaders have done to the Union Workforce. I sometimes wonder if the UAW member ever thinks about the coercive rhetoric used by the leaders in the Union to get them emotionally fired up. Many are like TV evangelists. And do they realize how much these leaders are enriching their own lifestyle? Have you ever seen a Union leader quit taking pay during a strike? Living off the pittance from the strike fund? Anyone care to bet what that UAW leaders made while those Conn-Selmer strikers were getting $200 per week along with coffee and donuts. It is hard for me to shed tears for those that do not think for themselves.
American corporations seek to maximize quarterly profit, almost never actually looking past the next two quarters.
True.
More and more corners need to be cut to keep the few happy....it can't last forever.
If it is unsustainable, then the corporation is making poor strategic decisions. While many do this, some don't.
You can easily argue that the cheap decontenting of interiors by GM and C were an example of short term decisions that were unsustainable in the long term. And the market has killed them for it. But the high costs of labor and benefits caused management to make poor strategic decisions (to decontent, stretch out refresh/remodel cycles, etc.) that worked for a while, but ultimately caused the US nameplate vehicles to be largely uncompetitive.
So looking back, if you were GM or C and you had to avoid stretched cycles and decontenting of vehicles, what would you do? I would have stood up to the union more quickly, and if necessary outsourced more manufacturing to Mexico, Brazil, etc. My competitors (Toyota, Honda, BMW, Hyundai, etc.) had a large competitive advantage by employing non-union U.S. labor, while I was stuck with the union labor and associated high costs and inflexible work rules.
What percentage of UAW-automaker pricing or expenses is in bloated benefits? Is it all about that, or is it about finding an extra profit margin, no matter the cost?
Well, give that GM and C were abysmal failures and Ford is barely getting by, I'd say it was NOT for excess profits, it was for survival. And the UAW is a big part of that (not to remove massive blame from management as well).
The best example being all of the frankly sickening offshoring to China.
Well as of right now there are no Chinese cars being sold in the US. There are probably lots of Chinese parts in current cars. But the only manufacturer that I know of that has sold entire Chinese-sourced engines is GM - not C, F, Hon, or Toy.
I sometimes wonder if the UAW member ever thinks about the coercive rhetoric used by the leaders in the Union to get them emotionally fired up. Many are like TV evangelists.
"* Ford made a number of production commitments to the UAW intended to preserve union jobs. These included a renewed commitment by Ford to bring new products to assembly plants in Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky and Illinois."
From where will those jobs come to the Midwest? Mexico?
* Ford agreed to build its Transit Connect commercial van at a UAW-represented U.S. factory if it decides to build the vehicle in North America and factory capacity is available. The van is currently exported from a Ford factory in Turkey.
I would say most of the return to NA would ride on increased US auto sales. I would not count on that happening with the current economic climate that is still deteriorating. I looked at those cool little Transit Connect vehicles they are getting from Turkey. They are not cheap. So how much more to build them here?
Comments
".....My harping has always been on simply lug nut tighteners and floorsweepers thinking they are worth $35/hour because of the "skill" involved in what they do...is it honest work???...you bet, and I never said otherwise...but is floorsweeping a "skill?"...I would be hard pressed to see it that way..."
First comment. I can't argue that the pay should reflect the skill level, however, I would imagine that there should be some "value added" aspects of the pay, such as the area you live in, (should a maid at a hotel in NYC be paid the same as the maid at Motel 6 in Podunk, Middle America) danger factor,(a welder repairing a girder in a building vs. a bridge tower 250 feet in the air), 3rd shift (supply and demand more than likely here).
Also, I think some of it may be human nature, as well. A cashier may very well be a minimum wage job, but after several weeks (or months) of ringing up several thousand dollars of merchandise per shift, and seeing "only" $60 before taxes on an 8 hr shift may very well be discouraging. Again, notice I'm talking about a high volume cashier (like at a WalMart or CVS or a Grocery store chain), not a M&P. The same may go for the assemblers on the assembly line. Putting together a $125 gourmet coffee maker is one thing, but a $25,35, or 45,000 car, quite another.
Now, you were at the factories, not me, so one question. The "floorsweepers" you speak of, were they just that, or did they have other duties such as maintaining or repairing the building and it's systems, such as the HVAC or heating (not including the assembly machines and such).
On the other hand, assembly line and later automation were invented specifically to allow people without skills to perform array of simple supervised tasks to efficiently manufacture something very complicated. Watching robots painting doesn't make one a painter, or machine inventor. Screwing bumpers on the car doesn't make one safety technician.
I think a good technician or craftsman deserves wages placing them squarely in middle class, whatever that really means (say within one std. deviation of median income for the area?). Guy who knows five or even ten tasks on assebly line - sorry, that is still unskilled labor in my book - even with ten year seniority. X years of one-year experience doesn't make it X-year experience.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Each state sets minimum wage within the Federal guidelines. The maid in NYC has the right to move to Podunk if she can do better there.
I met my sister's neighbor in Casa Grande, AZ the other day. He works for Walmart and is buying a brand new 1900 sq ft home in a great new subdivision with a beautiful water park. I found out he has worked 3 years in the WM distribution Center. He works 3 days per week 13 hours per day and makes $19 per hour. He loves the job and gets 4 days per week off to be with his daughter and work in his yard. His wife works part time for WM on the 3 days he is off. So they save on day care. They have two new cars in the garage and a flat screen the size of Kansas. His health care is paid which debunks some of the rhetoric of WM employees being a burden on the Welfare system. His yard was something you would see in Home & Garden magazine.
If a person cannot get by where they are they should research the country and find a place they can do OK. The wise UAW workers that are laid off should be packing up and moving before the welfare runs out of money in Michigan. Pinal county AZ is the fastest growing county in the USA. And you can still buy a new home there for $119k. Most likely with nothing down and payments under the price of rent. And no snow to shovel.
"..... I made more than $13 per hour in the 1970s. Those days are long gone. The few craftsmen that have high paying jobs should be very thankful right about now."
On the first point, we agree. As to the second comment, why are those days "long gone"??? If that was a fair wage 35 years ago, shouldn't double that be a fair wage for the same type of work today?
cooter: pay will simply depend on local conditions...if the work is worth more to the employer, then they will pay more to get someone to weld up 250 feet...but is the job INTRINSICALLY worth more???...well, if all the welders are unemployed, and an employer pays $10/hour for welding at 250 feet up, and you want to feed your family by doing welding, then, yes, the job is worth $10/hour...not because Bob says so, I am a nobody, but the market says so...now, if all the welders are employed locally, on the ground, and the employers want someone to go up 250 feet, and they don't offer more, then the job does not get done...in that case, the employer will offer $15/hour and will probably have applicants, but it is the free market working...when everyone is on gov't welfare, the incentive to work at all is destroyed...
"The "floorsweepers" you speak of, were they just that, or did they have other duties such as maintaining or repairing the building and it's systems,"...you seem to be unaware of the UAW job restrictions, or almost ANY union job restriction...floorsweepers (janitors), by contract, would be restricted to just that job, so that another union job would be "created out of thin air" (with more payroll and benefits) for someone to move the trash to the dumpster...that is why UAW featherbedding helped destroy GM & C...Honda does with 2000 employees what GM needed 6000 employees in plants with the same vehicle production volumes...that is why a broken electrical wall switch needed an electrician and an electrician's helper to replace a switch that you or I could do with a screwdriver in 5 minutes...that is why unions, esp the UAW, are now the greatest destructive economic force one can think of...
dino: "I would add to that: plumber, car mechanic, welder on big construction site, carpenter, HVAC technician - all are non-college jobs, but surely involve skills, sometimes very high skills acquired over some time. Depending on circumstances, location, demand, all those blue-collar professions can be quite valuable, more than say some college educated Joe Shmo."...that is always my point...someone who develops skills over time will be worth more, and that always included blue collar jobs in my thinking...but someone who tightens lug nuts on the assembly line for 10 years does NOT have 10 years work experience, they have one month of work experience and that have repeated it 120 times...that is why no one will EVER hire a displaced UAW worker because:
1. they are truly unskilled,
2. overpaid compared to ANY other industry for their skill level,
3. they have this entitlement attitude that demands $35/hour to sweep a floor,
4. they have this militant attitude that they will strike like spoiled children if they don't get their $35/hour
5. they have ZERO work ethic,
6. their rotten, entitlement attitude is projected about 2 miles in front of them, so when they walk into a Honda plant seeking a job, one can detect their attitude as they drive into the parking lot, they don't stand a chance
7. Name me ANY employer who might hire a laid-off UAW worker knowing how they think (what, you don't have a Jobs Bank for me to sit for months and do nothing, yet collect a full paycheck while eating donuts?), their total lack of work ethic, their total lack of work SKILL, their "strike in a minute" attitude, and this is embedded into their DNA and their children's DNA...
If I knew that someone's great grandfather worked for the UAW, I would never hire them for ANYTHING in ANY company that I might own, because that worthless work attitude is transmitted at the family dinner table for generations...maybe by the year 2100, that "UAW stink" will be washed out of the family DNA, maybe five generations from now will do it, no less than that. though...
A few reasons that it is not the same today. One is the work is not the same today as it was 35 years ago in most cases. Technology and innovation has made many jobs easier to learn. When I worked in the Central Office in the 1960 it took 6 months of schooling to be proficient on the mechanical switching equipment. Today the job is swapping cards for the most part. Same goes for PBX repair. Granted climbing a pole has not changed much. The time to learn the job is also about the same. Plus the test equipment is so much more robust than it was 40 years ago.
And maybe the biggest reason is there are more people looking for work than 40 years ago. Even then It took me 6 months of going to Pacific Telephone every Monday morning and enquiring if they had any openings. I always figured they gave me the job in the mailroom to get rid of me. How many out of work people drive 20 miles every week to try getting a particular job for 6 months? I was mowing lawns to live on and keep gas in my car.
I will say if a young person can get into an apprenticeship program in a Union like the IBEW they can do pretty well. Same goes for plumbers, pipefitters and welders. The Carpenters Union is a dead end street like the UAW.
Don't start a new thread unless you intend to bring up a new subject.
You, too, iluvmysephia. The "Reply" icon is your friend.
I get really upset when I think about the UAW. They have lived high on the Hog for over 50 years. Now that their industry is in a down turn they want the rest of US to maintain their opulent lifestyle. And the flakes in Washington DC are doing just that. What about the MASSIVE downturn in the construction industry? I don't see Barry doing much to bolster that segment of the economy. In my 5600 miles around the USA I saw a LOT of road work signs along the highways. I saw very little actual work being done. We were going across US 212 and it became a gravel road for about 30 miles. When we got to Watertown SD, I asked the lady at the motel about that road. She said it has been that way for over 2 years. It was paved 30 years ago when I last made that trek.
Usually, I am responding to someone in the last 10 posts ot so, so that my response is almost diretcly beneath theirs, sort of...plus copying their short quote does give the context in which I am posting...
Sorry, I simply do not understand the problem...I can leave the topic if my form of responding gives you ulcers...I can join rocky, wherever he is...
That is true. As the UAW workers when employed were doing something productive even if it was not that efficient with all the work rules involved. Every big city in the USA is filled with welfare voters with their hands out to our government. The problem is we are going broke supporting those millions of non productive leeches. And I do not mean the disabled. Though most disabled people I know are productive members of society.
cooter: "At some point, something must give. If the welders want $15, and the contractors are only offering $10, then I would assume some compromise must be made."...yes, absolutely, a compromise will be made...or, the 250 foot welding won't get done...or, the welders, if unemployed, will remain unemployed...but let the MARKET determine what happens...don't let some gov't group go in an mandate what should happen...if the contractor needing the 250 foot welder doesn't raise the offer, then he is penalized for breaking the deadline, but let market forces do their job, that is all I want...
The UAW-Big 3 problem was that mgmt always capitulated to the strike...now that IS the free market at work, altho I wish mgmt had done otherwise, but then, the system worked like it should...overhead became too much, cars weren't selling enough, and GM & C had to go Ch 11...that, too, is the market at work, until Hussein Obama stuck his nose in it and took away the free market aspect...I still think that GM & C will be gone within 2 years, someone else will buy up the assets and make the Cadillacs & Chevys, and the UAW will have to suck up and be re-trained, altho the prospect of someone hiring them is going to be a challenge, because I would bet that many employers think like I do about former UAW workers, and it ain't pretty...
I am just too gentle and kind when I express my mildly negative opinions about the UAW...maybe we need someone here who will state what they really feel, instead of beating around the bush like I do...
Do I hit "reply" now????????????????????????????
"After three years, four months and four days, there was nowhere to go but home."
A walkout ends, and strikers find a changed world in Elkhart, Indiana (Cleveland.com)
Surely, but the welders have a mortgage and bills to pay. So it all boils down to how many welders are for how many positions.
People accept that it is normal to pay for a DVD player $300-500 at one point and $25 at another. They accept merchandise gets cheaper as they it gets more common, more generic and its value goes to zero when itmes become obsolete or unwanted. The same dynamic rules employment, because it is a merchandise sold on a market. The value of an item is derived mostly from its desirability, not cost or difficulty. Sure, it is brutal and heartless - but we wouldn't buy a 80286-based PC for $2000 today, even if it would actually cost that much to make.
The only rational decision in changing market is to adapt - if job is unsatisfactory, you drop it and learn new more marketable skills, whether through education, or apprenticeship. Intel puts a new chip line every few years and makes chip improvements every few months. Workers should do the same - figuratively of course.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Luckily Unions are on the decline so we can get back to work to rebuild the country the correct way.
Most Americans take it as fact that manufacturing jobs have decreased over the past 30 years. However, that is not fully accurate. Unionized manufacturing jobs fell by 75 percent between 1977 and 2008. Non-union manufacturing employment increased by 6 percent over that time. In the aggregate, only unionized manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the economy. As a result, collective bargaining coverage fell from 38 percent of manufacturing workers to 12 percent over those years.
Manufacturing jobs have fallen in both sectors since 2000, but non-union workers have fared much better: 38 percent of unionized manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2000, compared to 18 percent of non-union jobs
Regards,
OW.
Why would they. Unless like you say they cannot get any welders for $10 per hour. Then they may have to offer $15 per hour. That is supply and demand very simply. The contractor takes the risk that the welder is capable of doing a good job. So it would be to his benefit to hire and keep good welders. If it costs him $30 per hour, that would be a fair wage. If he can get all the newly minted illegal aliens given amnesty for minimum wage that is a fair wage. It is really not the place of the Federal government to decide what a given job should pay. They have at times done it. I think it ended up costing jobs not helping labor or creating jobs.
Assuming that student instruments were being made by Chinese, the workers had to face the truth...someone was going to undercut their price, maybe with workmanship almost as good as theirs...for students, "almost as good" may be good enough...Back still had the market for top end instruments, but probably did not sell enough of them to matter for the majority of workers...
It makes my heart swell to see a union de-certified, esp the UAW...it means that the workers may actually have a brain after all...
They could have moved the whole shop down here, taken the time to train us "redneck toothless hillbillies" (right, rocky???), and hopefully made a decent product...like all UAW people, they think what they do is indispensable, when they appear to be quite replaceable (kinda like lawyers) as they hired new folks willing to cross the picket line...
Maybe Elkhart will learn, but I wouldn't bet on it...I wonder how many RV assemblers are sitting in the Jobs Bank, demanding they be paid while eating donuts...
Dump Hussein Obama, dump the UAW, and this country may just right itself again...
I know anybody that is breathing can be trained to replace a UAW worker, but who is credible to replace Obama??? (not that obama himself is credible, but the other side must put up somebody who stands for something, and McCain was not it)...
Amazing story. The skill of the workers prestrike will never be present in that factory again. We bought our son one of the last pre-strike higher-priced Stradivarius C-trumpets as the strike had begun. The quality is/was there; I could pick out his horn from 12 or so in the wind ensemble performances. The Chinese entered the cheaper end of the market for student level horns and took over. Why was that allowed by our government? It's just like Chinese tires being taxed and they have been if I understand right.
The quality of the workers prestrike is famous. I was lectured by a repairman at the music store for our son's using the trumpet in marching band rather than just in the elite indoor wind ensemble at school. The repairman, with credentials to have the knowledge to lecture me, explained it was too good an instrument to risk damage in the competition marching band.
So the deterioration of the quality of post strike instruments has occurred, and some will be happy because another union of entitlement has been 'busted.' Those workers who shaped the leadpipe mouthpiece ends and the bells that helped make the trumpets professional in quality can be replaced by those who'll do it for less money.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You would expect any other response from me????????????????????
Are you suggesting that government should protect us from cheap Chinese trumpets? You might want to fill another building in Washington with bureaucrats who'll keep Asian horns out of our schools, but I sure don't. That's one more step down the slippery road to socialism, & I'm not up for paying for it.
The last time I read the Constitution (remember that piece of paper?), I saw nothing that convinced me that "protecting" American workers from foreign competition is a legitimate role of government.
But, outsourcing to China is not always the panacea to high labor costs as it's made out to be. A recent article in EDN (a trade journal for electrical engineers) highlighted the fact that because of 1) increasing labor costs in China, 2) high transportation costs, and 3) lax enforcement of IP laws, Mexico is becoming more attractive than China as a place to manufacture many products. While manufacturing in Mexico is not the same as manufacturing in Elkhart, IN, at least it's in North America.
Low Cost Manufacturing in North America
arewere essentially handmade. The company wanted to mechanize the manufacture of same to reduce costs. The reputation of the Bach Strads is superb. If we'd had time, we'd gone to Elkart and son could have tried out different trumpets and picked the one he liked best.I suspect if they cheapen the lower grade instruments, the beginner instruments, they'll lose some of the following from all the band instructors.
The key here is the union needed to take a paycut for those making the beginner horns. The quality craftsmen deserve what they get.
The owners were attempting to be greedy rather than easing into a different cost basis. That's the problem with the Wall Street gang that led mortgage synthetic trading items since 2006 and with all their other shenanigans.
The change in cost structure should have been applied to UAW. But they had the individual manufacturers in a stranglehold since the manufacturers couldn't have collectively fought them without facing some kind of charge for illegally joining together.
It seems with the current administration's protection of the UAW we're still stuck with the few that are left at overpaid wages and the two car companies (three) trying to crawl out from under the oppressive salaries.
Meanwhile other folk are working for dimes by comparison.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
There's a Elkhart Selmer sax from the early 50's in the family. The skilled guys probably could find enough repair work to keep them going, although they may have to move and spread around some. One school district can keep an instrument repair shop going.
I've seen similar articles like your EDN one the last year or so - a good oil shortage would drive more jobs back to North America than the other factors I think.
Union Workers At Boeing Plant Approve New 5-Year Contract (SmartTrend)
In strange bedfellows news, "Auto tycoon Frank Stronach, who resisted unions for years, turned to the Canadian Auto Workers for a financial lifeline to save teetering Magna International in late 1990, retired CAW leader Buzz Hargrove reveals in a new book.
"His (Stronach's) quick reversal from an anti-union capitalist to the working man's friend was impressive and proved that many business principles go out the window when enough money is involved," Hargrove continues."
The union didn't have enough money in their strike fund to help, if they had wanted to. They would have gained a lot of bargaining power if they had loaned the company money. The CAW did grant other significant concessions to Magna in '07, and may be getting their foot in the door more.
Stronach sought CAW bailout, Hargrove says (Thestar.com)
I would almost gave the nod to the illegal immigrant (despite the fact that I would deport every one if I could) in terms if skill level, esp compared to the UAW, simply because of attitude...the immigrants WANT to work, willingly, an 8 hour day...considering the "welfare entitlement" attitude of the UAW, added to their arrogant militancy, then added to rocky's "toothless redneck hillbillies" making the cars, it is obvious that training them would take less than a week (being generous here) (hey, they taught the hillbillies, and look what we have now), and I would place much more reliance on the immigrant (let the legal ones come in slowly) than the current UAW worker...
Sum it up...the current UAW worker has NOTHING to offer, except a lousy work ethic, poor quality workmanship, a militant entitlement attitude that cannot be removed except by a frontal lobotomy...they can be replaced in a heartbeat by people who would be grateful to have the job at half the pay...
Is there any upside to the current UAW worker???...my bet is a resounding "NO!!!"
I hit "reply"...are you happy now???
I wonder what kind of contract Boeing has with the defense department for the Chinook and the V-22? If it's a cost-plus contract, then Boeing really hasn't given anything away as the added labor costs just go into the cost of the contract, and the government - sorry - taxpayers pay (at least within reason).
Traces from the picket line still remain, like shelters and signs.
"It's depressing," said Rick Ashcroft. "The jobs are bad, the economy is bad."
People like Coody said there's no looking back.
"It was a good time," he said. "I enjoyed it while it lasted."
What kind of nut case enjoys walking a picket line instead of working? Or was he referring to his days working at Conn-Selmer? 40 months on a picket line has to really show the level of incompentence in the UAW management. You have to wonder if any of the UAW officers took a cut in pay during that strike.
That is absolutely false. I was a member of 3 different Unions and a retired Union member. My complaints are with the UAW that helped destroy the US auto industry. And as 37 year Teamster Shop Steward & Board member, we NEVER went on strike to get a contract signed. We never asked for more than the company could afford to pay. That cannot be said of the UAW.
My bridge comments were in response to a post stating that illegals would provide sub standard labor to union labor. Which is just not true.
PS
There are hundreds if not thousands of old Bridges built by the WPA still in use from the late 1930s.
It's never going to be a perfect world. Perhaps we should get more practical in our potential solutions. Such as the UAW realizing that their work rules are killing their jobs and allowing automated Ford plants to be built in Brazil, not the US.
tlong: you are really stretching things to use the words "practical" and "UAW" in the same sentence...you simply seem unwilling (
The UAW is simply incapable of being reasonable, and will thus never "get it" because they cannot see themselves for what they are...if mgmt had stood up to them in the 80s, and taken a 1 year strike, they could have broken the UAW into more pieces than grains of sand in Saudi Arabia, and we could have beaten Honda & Toy in a heartbeat...but they just cruised on, and we have what we now have because of stupid mgmt (the few) and unskilled militant workers (the many) who think they have a skill, but that no one with an IQ over 60 will touch them with a 10 foot pole...
I will bet my one dollar that NOT ONE applicant at Honda or Toy or Nissan is given a 2nd glance when their work history says "Big 3" or UAW under the category "Work Experience"...they will escort them to the door like a pushing a snake outside...they won't stand a chance...heck, would YOU hire an ex-UAW member for ANYTHING???
But are the jobs really being moved for that reason, or to ensure irresponsible executives continue to collect undeserved riches and appease shortsighted self-destructive "investors" at the same time?
Your wife? I thought that you were a confirmed bachelor. What happened?
She had other ideas...
No disagreement about a lot of irresponsible executives.
However, I disagree with a conspiracy here. Corporations are designed to be beholden to shareholders. Shareholders (including you and I if we hold stock) want more profits. Corporations seek to maximize profit. With the advent of communications and transportation, national boundaries are less important. If a corporation can increase profits by offshoring jobs, many choose to do so. In fact, many of those corporate leaders might be found incompetent if they DIDN'T work to maximize profits if such opportunity existed.
Add to that situation a Union in your home country that makes the cost of manufacture ever more prohibitive and you have a natural and perfect situation to send the manufacturing overseas. Regardless of the execs being overpaid, most of the money is not in their salaries, it is in the cost of labor for the whole corporation. And when 10's of thousands of employees get gold-plated packages of salaries and benefits, it's practically an invitation -- a completely rational decision -- to send the jobs to less expensive place. Which the US auto maker have done even while the foreign makes are manufacturing more in the US.
(shameless union tie in :P ) Where the union would play a more important role than just wages would be to ensure that the guy who BELONGS 250' in the air is there, and the guy who belongs ON THE GROUND is there. That is what may keep someone from getting killed (nice fall??) just because a supervisor wants to "teach this kid a lesson")
( I know that the most senior guy may end up there, and could just as well find himself swimming with the fishies as their chum, but he had a choice to stay planted.)
I have no problem with that. Our contract paid time and a half for tower work above 35 feet. I usually let the younger guys have the extra money. I hated climbing towers. Especially at 30 below zero to adjust a MW dish.
I think we are agreeing on this...I have no problem that the guy at 250 ft is probably worth more, as I doubt the ground welder will do the 250 ft work for the same rate...but even tho we feel that intuitively, the market should decide that...maybe the employer can get it done for, say, time and a half instead of double time...the free flowing market can decide who will work for how much...I fail to see how a union such as the UAW can assist in that process...
Well, ideally if the government did it's job (w/o special interests getting in the way) there would be no need for a union. But, because they don't unions SHOULD be there to help protect the delicate balance of "power" between the employees and a workforce. Where this goes wrong is when one side gets "absolute power" and can run roughshod over the other.
While I see it as shameless that companies like Honda and Toyota will fight to keep the UAW (or any union) out of their shop, it is also shameless to see how the UAW manipulates the system against the Big 3. They can say what they want, but in the end cooler heads should prevail.
Where the whole system goes berzerk, IMO, is when the Big 3 allow the UAW to name the company it will negotiate with, and then expect the others to follow suit, regardless of their financial condition. I am happy that Ford got concessions from the UAW. it shows some rational thinking.
What percentage of UAW-automaker pricing or expenses is in bloated benefits? Is it all about that, or is it about finding an extra profit margin, no matter the cost? The best example being all of the frankly sickening offshoring to China.
Isn't that how many companies evolved? We are watching the auto industry do the same thing. The consumers are the ultimate judges. Speaking of guitars. I have owned many over the last 50+ years. There was junk made in the 1950s and great guitars from Martin and Gibson. Martin started down hill in about 1968 when Brazil cut off their supply of Brazilian rosewood. Probably the finest wood for backs and sides. Same goes for rifles. Find a pre 64 Model 70 and you will pay a lot more than one built after that year. So maybe the UAW workers at Conn were still building the finest Trumpets known to man up until the strike. I know nothing about trumpets. They still went on strike instead of working with the company to solve their issues. Many of the craftsmen crossed the picket lines to continue feeding their families. They decided a smaller paycheck was preferable to food stamps and losing everything. It is the UAW mentality that destroyed those jobs and ultimately led to the Union being decertified. Change is always going on no matter what the industry. Evolve with it or die.
Martin still makes a mighty nice guitar but you are of course correct about Brazilian rosewood. One of things like genuine tortoise shell - you can't get them anymore. There are leftover supplies of each that get rationed out like diamonds.
I once had a real tortoise shell pick. It was fabulous. HOwever one should never spend $10 on an item so easily lost...
I still think the outfit that bought up the Conn folks is one of these ones that buy up known entities and shake all the money out. It's been happening to the Simmons matress people for several years and they are just about dead now.
Maybe this is where we part company, but Honda and Toy should be given awards for fighting to keep unions out...between stupid work restrictions that ONLY serve to union featherbed "creating" jobs (i.e. increasng payroll overhead for no reason other than to reduce work efficiency), Jobs Bank programs (the thought that such an idiotic concept could even EXIST simply galls me), and the "gimme gimme" welfare mentality that the UAW had (and still has), I fail to see how the UAW helped the Big 3 in ANY way possible over the last 50 years...
Long before we had "union haters", like back in the 60s and 70s, we still had the old saw about not buying a car made on Friday (workers were drunk on payday) or Monday (workers were hung over from a drunk weekend)...that was the beginning, I would say...no one was "out to destroy the UAW" (like I am today), but the "UAW union mentality" was beginning to draw our criticisms back then...it has only gotten worse over the years...does mgmt have blame???...you bet...but much of mgmt's blame was in NOT standing up to the UAW's ridiculous demands like stupid work restrictions and floorsweepers making $35/hour...
If you look over the last 50 years, I place most blame on the "perceived quality" of UAW Big 3 cars going down the crapper on those who made the car, and that is the assembly workers, the UAW worker, period...
Most mgmt errors were simply in trying to avoid the UAW, and then capitulating...Saturn started out as a non-UAW concept in Roger Smith's mind, but then he capitulated to a UAW shop, so Saturn started out in the negative...none of the CEO's had the guts to take a strike over a few months, where they could have broken the back of the UAW...as fintail said, they were so worried about quarterly results when they should have looked at the long-term health of the company...breaking the UAW could have meant easier firing of worthless emplyees in one day instead of 2 years with UAW grievance procedures (which also should have been fought by mgmt)...
Simply, the UAW had NOTHING to offer to make any car better, and I applaud Honda and Toy for fighting to keep them out...if I ran either company, I would set up a 100 mile radius forcefield (like Star Trek's "shields up") that was programmed to beam away anyone with UAW DNA that even THOUGHT of driving inside that 100 mile imaginary ring...
That union destroyed American industry, along with every other union that demanded "highly skilled" wages for unskilled work...
Everyone has the right to try and make what they can, but to be able to squeeze an employer with collective bargaining, and then be able to force the employer to deal with a union, well, you see the result...the work and the jobs are sent out of the country, because no one can look at the situation and simply speak the truth: the workers are not worth anything close to what they are paid, because the skill level simply does not command that kind of pay...whether UAW workers, garment workers, or whatever, it comes down to the fact that unskilled workers are paid far in excess of what their job is worth, so any employer worth their salt finds cheaper labor elsewhere...folding shirts, tightening lug nuts, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, manually unloading trucks, while all honest work, takes no skill whatsoever...period...to think that work demands anything over minimum wage is beyond ridiculous...just because someone is feeding a family of five does NOT change to value of the work itself...just because someone wants to buy a 3000 sq ft home on the lake does NOT change the value of the work...and if it wasn't for the minimum wage, that work would barely be worth maybe $5.00/hour, because anyone, yes ANYONE, can do it with about 10 minutes of training...stocking shelves does imply that someone stayed in school long enough to read the alphabet, but reading is NOT considered a skill, any more than brushing your teeth and bathing...
Unions like UAW and garment workers have brainwashed and spoiled their members into believing that they are skilled workers who command top pay...I compliment them on their ability to brainwash so thoroughly, but they have lied to their workers like LBJ about the Gulf of Tonkin...they have NO skills and do not command anything over minimum pay...now they have no jobs because they still have this fairy tale brain about how skilled they are about folding shirts or sweeping floors...take pride in their work, yes, but highly skilled???...give me a break...
Strong opinion to follow soon...
They may not have killed it. They did have a hand in pushing much of it South into Mexico and to the Pacific Rim.
Unions like UAW and garment workers have brainwashed and spoiled their members into believing that they are skilled workers who command top pay..
That is the biggest disservice the Union leaders have done to the Union Workforce. I sometimes wonder if the UAW member ever thinks about the coercive rhetoric used by the leaders in the Union to get them emotionally fired up. Many are like TV evangelists. And do they realize how much these leaders are enriching their own lifestyle? Have you ever seen a Union leader quit taking pay during a strike? Living off the pittance from the strike fund? Anyone care to bet what that UAW leaders made while those Conn-Selmer strikers were getting $200 per week along with coffee and donuts. It is hard for me to shed tears for those that do not think for themselves.
True.
More and more corners need to be cut to keep the few happy....it can't last forever.
If it is unsustainable, then the corporation is making poor strategic decisions. While many do this, some don't.
You can easily argue that the cheap decontenting of interiors by GM and C were an example of short term decisions that were unsustainable in the long term. And the market has killed them for it. But the high costs of labor and benefits caused management to make poor strategic decisions (to decontent, stretch out refresh/remodel cycles, etc.) that worked for a while, but ultimately caused the US nameplate vehicles to be largely uncompetitive.
So looking back, if you were GM or C and you had to avoid stretched cycles and decontenting of vehicles, what would you do? I would have stood up to the union more quickly, and if necessary outsourced more manufacturing to Mexico, Brazil, etc. My competitors (Toyota, Honda, BMW, Hyundai, etc.) had a large competitive advantage by employing non-union U.S. labor, while I was stuck with the union labor and associated high costs and inflexible work rules.
What percentage of UAW-automaker pricing or expenses is in bloated benefits? Is it all about that, or is it about finding an extra profit margin, no matter the cost?
Well, give that GM and C were abysmal failures and Ford is barely getting by, I'd say it was NOT for excess profits, it was for survival. And the UAW is a big part of that (not to remove massive blame from management as well).
The best example being all of the frankly sickening offshoring to China.
Well as of right now there are no Chinese cars being sold in the US. There are probably lots of Chinese parts in current cars. But the only manufacturer that I know of that has sold entire Chinese-sourced engines is GM - not C, F, Hon, or Toy.
Say Hallelujah!
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSN1319952420091- - 013
"* Ford made a number of production commitments to the UAW intended to preserve union jobs. These included a renewed commitment by Ford to bring new products to assembly plants in Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky and Illinois."
From where will those jobs come to the Midwest? Mexico?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
* Ford agreed to build its Transit Connect commercial van at a UAW-represented U.S. factory if it decides to build the vehicle in North America and factory capacity is available. The van is currently exported from a Ford factory in Turkey.
I would say most of the return to NA would ride on increased US auto sales. I would not count on that happening with the current economic climate that is still deteriorating. I looked at those cool little Transit Connect vehicles they are getting from Turkey. They are not cheap. So how much more to build them here?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,