United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)

tlong

There is nothing Constitutional about handing Section8, Food Stamps, Medicaid, ADC money at people.

You have to know Foreign aid is chump change in our Federal budget. Highest year was 2004 at 1.6% of the total budget. $44 billion total. That isn't a fraction of our US bottom of the food chain welfare.

And yet of course the bulk of the budget is the entitlement programs. They alone are the reason for the gargantuan Federal government. And then people complain about defense spending.

fintail

The pro-Chinese (in the industrial sense, not in a cultural sense) globalist lobby has had a huge amount of control for decades. I would be sickened if I wasn't simply not surprised. Still, terrible.

fintail

In many ways, defense spending is an entitlement program.

cooterbfd

Bob, the bigger issue is housing. Sec 8 pays the majority of the rent. At $10/hr., under your plan their max total benefit is $200/mo. That STILL doesn't answer the question "Where are all the $12-18/hr jobs?"

Not to mention where do they live? I also believe there is a certain segment of the population we are just better off "paying" to just go away.

cooterbfd

Gary, 2 things. 1. People get more on welfare than min.wage because it COSTS more than that to live. 2. There is nothing in the Constitution saying we should declare war on a country that is half a world away that, while politically hostile towards us,hasn't declared war on us.

gagrice

In many ways, defense spending is an entitlement program.

It is not what the government has in the budget as entitlements.

Total defense spending is about 18% of the $3.5 trillion budget for 2012. SS is about 20%, MC & Medicaid is another 20% and on down the line. All leave room for massive cuts.

cooterbfd

If we rooted out fraud in the welfare, UI, and other programs, we could save billions and keep them too.

gagrice

That is true. It does not seem to be a high priority for US to be hit first to retaliate. We do have a system where Congress has to be the entity to declare war. The President is supposed to carry out that war. Sometimes the President bypasses Congress in the case of Libya. Congress did declare war on Iraq. And I think a case can be made for lies being told to justify almost every war the US has been part of. When politicians are involved lies are told.

robr2

SS is about 20%, MC & Medicaid is another 20% and on down the line. All leave room for massive cuts.

Can we start with yours?

gagrice

Can we start with yours?

Absolutely. I have advocated cutting both SS and MC as it is unsustainable. I did get about a 55% increase in my MC premium taken from my SS. So that ate up the 3.6% COLA increase.

robr2

OK - just making sure what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Last year I got a great laugh from from a report on Fox News showing a group of seniors "protesting" that entitlements should be cut except for SS and Medicare.

fintail

Being called it on paper and being it in practice aren't always the same. Many connected industries and highly paid DC area residents no doubt feel entitled to the defense budget remaining as it is, or increasing at least with inflation. Not to mention several parts of the world who directly or indirectly reap some rewards.

SS and related cuts will come eventually, boomers will create havoc soon.

stever

So back to work.

The UAW is calling.

gagrice

I thought Paul Ryan had a good start on getting US back to reality. He got shot down, and the greedy seniors played a big part. If you were like me and paid in the full amount for 46 years, you may not get back what you put in with the interest promised. However the country cannot survive by printing more worthless dollars as they are doing right now.

If you are on SS & MC and cannot afford a 10% cut you did not think much about the future when you were working.

gagrice

SS and related cuts will come eventually, boomers will create havoc soon.

It is going on as we speak. Did you read the article from the SS administration. 10,000 new retirees every day onto SS. That boggles my mind. Here is an option for those that cannot make it on SS.

http://www.suddenlysenior.com/costaricaretire.html

stever

Maybe we need union fines here for writing non-union off-topic posts.

How does $200,000 sound? And no, you can't simply up and quit. :shades:

tlong

I remember reading earlier in 2011 that King (is that his name) of the UAW was going to picket major foreign makers in this country. Yet that didn't seem to happen. Now I read that they're "working with all of the manufacturers" (which probably means trying to talk with them. So what does that mean? Has the UAW realized that their militant approaches weren't going to do any good? (Although I suspect even talking nicely to them won't do a lot of good, either. If I were running a foreign plant in the US I'd be trying to stay as far away from the UAW as possible).

gagrice

It is possible for a Union, even the UAW to offer some benefits to a company. I know when I went to work for RCA in 1970, they were ready to have us sign Union cards and organize. It is a lot easier to deal with a single Union contract than with 1200 individuals all claiming to be worth more than the other person. One size fits all. Where the rub comes in is when the Union workers get to thinking they are more important than the product or service they are providing.

I would imagine BMW, VW and MB would all go along with being Union. As the article earlier pointed out they have a long history of Unionized labor. In the case of VW they had a less than good relationship with the UAW. I am sure that was the main reason they ended up in TN, rather than MI.

marsha7

"How does $200,000 sound? And no, you can't simply up and quit"

No, they can't quit and you can't fire them without cause, 'cuz they got dat dere union contract...

gagrice: I fail to see ANY union benefit to a company, esp in the auto trades, where the work is unskilled at best...maybe in telephones because you needs great skills to work those phone lines, so your principle may work just fine...

But in a RTW state, they will offer the workers, say, $15.00/hour...if they don;t want it they can quit, or, in GA, an "employment at will" state, they can be fired for any reason except race, creed or color...

And, in the deep south, if a position opens up, there will be 10 applicants for every job offered...and, if you fire the one militant, the rest will NOT rise up, because they want their jobs, too...

gagrice

The advantage the Union offered in the case of RCA was this. They took over an Air Force run communications system for the entire state of Alaska. In 1970 there was NO direct dial long distance in the state. It was all operator cord boards. There was a mixture of Civil Service and RCA people. Within the technician ranks there was at least 10 different pay scales some as little as 2 cents per hour different. I can tell you from experience, when the guy next to you makes 2 cents more you expect him to produce more. The Union contract set everyone at the same wage within the classification. End of hassle over who got 2 cents more. Management was happy, the workers all got the same pay. Were the workers all equally qualified for the job. Not even close. It still made for a better work environment. Did we have grievances and issues. Of course we did. Still made it easier to keep 1200 workers happy. OT was all offered by seniority. That leaves little room for complaint. Unlike non union shops where the son in law of the boss gets all the OT. Our Teamster Boss was tough. Probably the most powerful man in Alaska during the 1970s pipeline boom days. By the early 1980s the pendulum was swinging back and the Unions lost much of their power in the state.

Now they are hobbling along trying to keep what few members are left. The need for telephone operators went to near Zero. More technicians by far as communications expanded across the vast state. Now every little community has cell service and Internet. The Union overall was good for the communications industry. With a few exceptions. It could have been the same in the Auto Industry if Reuther and his goons had not gotten greedy and set up their pension & HC Ponzi schemes with the auto makers.

The heyday of trade Unions is gone. Sadly the only powerful Unions are sucking the tax payers dry. With no real oversight. If the voters could see past the end of their noses, they would be applauding Scott Walker and the Republican legislators in Wisconsin for saving their bacon from a cancerous public employees union system.

imidazol97

>a group of seniors "protesting" that entitlements should be cut except for SS and Medicare.

Wasn't there a TV ad campaign by the mercenary AARP using seniors telling their representatives not to cut SS and medicare--but cut everything else!!!

robr2

Yep.

In not too many years I will be "eligible" to join AARP. AARP is nothing more than a lobbying group - a fact that most of its members are unaware of.

imidazol97

>AARP is nothing more than a lobbying group

I consider it just a business within itself. It uses the concept of being a lobbyist for seniors to garner money for itself selling things to those who don't see what AARP is doing.

As for "representing" seniors..., I joined one year and didn't renew. I was no longer a member. Five years later I tried to join again. It wouldn't let me do that on the web. It said I _already_ was a member. What that told me is that they count anyone whose name they had one time as a member for whom they lobby -- for life. So when they claim to present a large number of seniors, I divide that by 3 or 4 as to how many are probably actual, paying members.

gagrice

AARP never removes your name. The only reason I no longer receive their propaganda, is an address change that could not be forwarded. They are one of the largest insurance companies in the USA. Barry pandered to them for their support of his HC plan, even though they knew it was not in the best interest of the Seniors. Or retiring UAW members. :shades:

imidazol97

> They are one of the largest insurance companies in the USA.

Are they actually an insurer, or do they just sell you insurance from the other insurance companies and take a cut of the action?

gagrice

They are tied in with other insurers. For Health Care they use United Healthcare insurance. They are the largest HC insurer. Which makes AARP insurance sales people. They sell to unsuspecting seniors mostly.

stever

Somewhere along the line, they lost my name so I don't get their junk mail. But my wife is now on their list. :shades:

Since neither of us were ever UAW members, I don't know how we got on the list in the first place. :P

cooterbfd

"....... In 1970 there was NO direct dial long distance in the state. It was all operator cord boards. "

No direct dial in a state that progressive??? Even with big cities like LA,SD, and SF???

BTW, I've got a cord board.

Number puhleeeese?

lemko

Number puhleeeese?

berri

a group of seniors "protesting" that entitlements should be cut except for SS and Medicare

Seniors aren't getting a totally free ride. Seniors are the primary loser under these federal reserve engineered and directed artificially low interest rates. Cutting medicare will just move more people over to medicaid and impose federal liabilities onto the states. Cutting future social security and medicare to the young will really screw them over because industry pretty much seems to kick their asses out once they are in their 50's and finally in a position to prepare for retirement after the kids are gone. Ironically, the only ones making out are those making over a $100K/yr because slightly above that they no longer have to contribute to SS, so their large salaries and bonuses are mostly not touched while they want to cut and screw over elderly and the young in the name of saving SS - the wealthy insiders like Congress and Wall Street are conning you guys yet once again!

berri

voters could see past the end of their noses, they would be applauding Scott Walker and the Republican legislators in Wisconsin for saving their bacon from a cancerous public employees union system.

Well, I'm glad I don't have kids in their school districts because there will be a price paid down the road. Pay and benefits may have gotten out of hand in some school districts (but not all of them), but they went beyond that and cut the teacher's ability to have any say in things like cirriculum. Personally, I think the real problem with schools is two-fold: 1) too much state and federal govt sticking their nose into local districts and 2) out of control lawyers and litigation. Seems today's school principals spend most of their time concerned about test scores (which don't seem to have been statistically validated and correlated to actual student ability and success down the road) and possible lawsuits. This unfortunately degrades the time for faculty and student local matters.

gagrice

Number puhleeeese?

Is yours an old 3CL board? Funny story. When the boss up there called to see if I was interested in the job. I had applied with RCA Global 3 years before. He asked if I had ever worked on a 3CL board. My response, Sure. Then when I got to work I asked the older techs what a 3CL board was. They were a piece of cake to work on. Servicing the Calculagraphs was messy. The 3CL step equipment was close enough to SXS that I had no problem with it. The only problem was fixing what the Airforce techs had kludged up.

Every call inter & intrastate was operator assisted. We installed an NT500 in 1971 and that was the beginning of Direct Dial LD. It was exciting and a great job. Pacific Telephone was getting real boring working on xbar switches.

The only regret is not getting more involved in the Union election process. By the time the ballots were in it was too late. The operators bought the Teamster sales pitch. And the IBEW sold the techs down the river.

gagrice

I think we are closer together than apart. It is not teachers that are making too much. Many of them are under paid. It is the fact that the people signing the Union contracts have nothing to lose. They do what will get them votes in the next election. Then administrators in many public agencies are raping the tax payers. No one but the legislators to keep it in control.

The Federal Government needs to totally butt out. Disband the Dept of Education. It is a pariah on the schools. As far as curriculum the teachers in CA have NO say. That is totally up to the school board. And it is a touchy subject with the teachers I know.

verdugo

No direct dial in a state that progressive??? Even with big cities like LA,SD, and SF???

Huh? The original post was about Alaska not California.

gagrice

The original post was about Alaska not California.

Thanks, that one went right by me. We had DD in San Diego in the 1950s.

imidazol97

>The Federal Government needs to totally butt out.

The FedGov is trying to further control education. My son mentioned they are wanting to number every student for tracking, allegedly for purposes like intervening to suggest vocational training for students not showing excellence in academics.

Trouble is it was the feds, like with housing, who intervened and wanted everyone to be college material years ago.

Obama will love having full control of state's education for the next 5 years.

On the other hand we have states like Wisconsin and Ohio where the legislatures and governors want to bring in even more for profit charter schools to take money from the public education funding and give it to their friends who donate to the Republicans' campaigns. Ohio wanted to quadruple the number of charters. Charters here have performed more poorly than public overall. Of course we have the White Hat company running charters who are Friends of Kasick (governor) and others in legislature.

State of Ohio Dept of Education had a meetig with all kinds of people interested in and running charters to tell tham the State and the Department were "very friendly" toward charters and would help them.

More donations, please.

Maybe some states deserve to have Obama and the Fed take over their schools!

berri

There must be some examples, but personally I've never really seen where charter schools do any better than regular public schools because they have many of the same government and legal limitations imposed on them. If you think back to when our public school system was very strong through the 50's and into the 60's the key difference to me is that back then schools were local, and as such the community was more involved. Standardized testing isn't the sole benchmark either. Some asian schools have top notch standardized scores, but their graduates lack innovative thinking. They may be good at product improvement, but not near as good at new inventions and change. Teaching US students strictly to test scores will ruin the creativity and innovation that Americans are good at. What does need to change is "tradition' and I don't see any of this state and federal govt intervention doing it. Cirriculum needs to modify such as less Shakespeare and more emphasis on reading comprehension and communication, less history and political science in social studies and more economics and business, PE expanding into teaching team playing and leadership, etc. PE teachers really are more capable than just being primarily the school athletic team coaches. Also, good science and math teachers should probably make more money than say social studies because of simple supply and demand. Stop the political correctness that the govt and our lawyers have foisted off on our schools. A bell curve means most students in a class get a "C". All kids are not equal and mainstreaming all kinds of students into a class only holds back the smartest ones. Schools used to put kids into tracks based on their strengths and talents (and a 3.0 grade point was actually meaningful), but govt and legal involvement has stopped a lot of it (and lo and behold, many of our top university science and engineering students are now foreigners - big surprise!). When you look at top notch world schools like Singapore or Scandinavia what is different from here? Teaching is respected, difficult to enter and pays well. In America we want it all "cheap" so we often end up with the lower half of college students going into it instead of our best and most talented even though education is really a large aspect of our future success and competitiveness as a nation. America needs less regulation (I'm not saying no regulation), fewer lawyers and more personal accountability and responsibility just like it was several decades ago when we led the world.

gagrice

“Some companies want to keep work here, or bring it back from Asia,” Mr. Pavy said, “but in order to do that they have to be competitive in the final prices of their products, and one way to be competitive is to lower the compensation of their American workers.”

The shrunken pay scale for newcomers — $12 to $19 an hour versus $21 to $32 an hour for longtime workers — threatens to undo the middle-class status of even the best-paid blue-collar jobs still left in manufacturing. A similar contract limits the wages of new hires at a nearby Ford Motor Company stamping plant, but neither G.E.’s 2,000 hourly workers nor Ford’s 2,900, nor their unions nor the mayor, Greg Fischer, have objected.

Quite the contrary, all argue that job creation must take precedence over holding the line on wages, given that the unemployment rate in this Ohio River city is above 9 percent and several thousand people apply for every unfilled, $13-an-hour factory job. “The trade-off is absolutely worth it,” Mayor Fischer said, arguing that while the city is actively subsidizing G.E.’s expansion here, mainly through tax rebates, that is not enough. “You must have a globally competitive wage to create jobs,” the mayor insisted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/business/us-manufacturing-gains-jobs-as-wages-- retreat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

fintail

"“You must have a globally competitive wage to create jobs"

But I have been told it is all about regulations, not labor costs.

And we race to the bottom, as the gap continues to explode

gagrice

There are 6 major problems with job creation in the USA.

No particular order. Depends on location:

Taxes
labor cost (Unions in non RTW states)
1000s of silly regulations
uncertainty caused by Obamacare
uncertainty caused by Democrats & NLRB
Lack of needed natural resources (see silly regulations)

fintail

I see it more like this

Labor cost
Labor cost
Labor cost
Desire for a guaranteed huge ROI and undeserved compensation for a top few
Taxes charged by a superpower being more than a tax haven, beneficiary of the American policeman ideal, or socio-economic criminal
Labor cost

And what's the solution? Emulate Chindia?

I don't get too hung up on socialized medical care being an impact when all first world competitors and many lesser already have it to one degree or another.

imidazol97

>>“You must have a globally competitive wage to create jobs,” the mayor insisted.

That must include the top people in the company as well: their salaries must be globally competitive rather than abusively extravant in terms of ratio to the workers in the company.

cooterbfd

Well, that explains a lot.

fintail

I know that the top few salaries are higher in the US than elsewhere - our execs and FIRE industry leaders are the new robber barons of the world.

gagrice

I think the disparity exists in countries like Germany as well. It looks like Germany has about the same ratio of billionaires to population as the USA. More than 14% of Germans are in poverty. So I am not buying all the rhetoric I hear about too few getting too much in the USA. I do believe many salaries are obscene. More so in Sports and entertainment than corporate. I also notice illiteracy is on the rise among the young in Germany.

fintail

Yes, there is a disparity everywhere. Simply billionaires aren't the issue. Different places define poverty differently. We had this debate before, remember? If the US used OECD definitions in formal propaganda pieces, we'd be at something like a 25% poverty rate. I have no qualms with saying conditions here are racing for the bottom faster than elsewhere in the first world. We've also lost the economic mobility edge.

berri

Personally, I think the US is in worse shape than the govt leads on. The consumer price index composition is altered to understate inflation, the unemployment rate reduction is primarily because more people have run out of unemployment or stopped looking for jobs that don't really exist any more, and the real estate industry has misled before with housing statistics that later are revised to worse than originally reported. Unfortunately, the media appear easily duped. That said, I think we are still in better shape than Europe and can't help feeling China is lying with their economic data. China is still a primarily poor population and its trade has to have been impacted by recession in both the US and Europe.

stever

One good index are the indexes. The US stock market was pretty flat all year.

That's good - almost every other stock market, including China's if I heard the radio right, was down double-digits.

Then:

75 years ago today, Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37 started (mlive.com)

Now:

UAW Refocusing its Organization Drive at German Automakers in U.S. (Motor Trend)

srs_49

And I see the major problems as being:

Lack of demand
Lack of demand, and
Lack of demand

With no one wanting to buy your widgets, no amount of tax reduction or regulation relaxation is going to cause a company to hire workers.

berri

Good point, as well as weak business and consumer confidence. I'm concerned we are going to pay down the road for this aggressive and artifical low interest stuff coming out of the federal reserve, and heck at these rates how much difference can more lowering really do? I'm thinking by hurting bond interest and bank account returns it may actually be aggravating the matter.