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Well that sure is not true. Will not grow up here in the north.
Yeah, but up here you can always substitute Japanese Knotweed. I dunno how far north that crap grows, but it doesn't have a problem in the DC suburbs. It's actually kind of a neat looking plant, almost prehistoric looking. Too bad it's such an evil thing. Crowds out and kills off just about everything else...except poison ivy. :sick:
You know if they could turn Kudzu into ethanol maybe they could figure out how to do the same sort of thing with zebra mussels. We could have the environment all cleaned up and cheap fuel all at once.
Next we could work on a plan to make gasoline from old records by people like Debby Boone or the Archies. Lessen our dependence on foreign oil and save what passes for our culture all at once!
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Here is a novel idea. Why doesn't the UAW take the billions they get for health care from the Big3 and invest it in emerging technologies. They could specify that all investments would be made in companies in the USA that hire Union labor. Or they could buy GM with the amount that is owed them. Then fire all the over paid executives and start building cars the people want and show a profit. Does the UAW have the leadership that could run GM and make a profit.
Some employee owned businesses do well. It is the best way to police the non producers.
I wonder of GM thought to put a non-compete clause in there? Or are they assuming the UAW is dumb enough to just throw the money in a savings account and pay bills from that?
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
You have to have smart people running the Union. Our Union was told in the 1970s not to invest anymore of the millions in our retirement in Alaska businesses. So they took money and bought several 1000 acres in Indian Wells between Palm Springs and Indio, CA. To date that $13,000,000 has earned over $400,000,000. That is what the UAW needs to survive. Smart management of that windfall cash. I have not seen anything that resembled good management in the UAW in recent years.
Southerners in Right to Work states don't belong to unions, they don't want to join unions and they certainly don't want to join the UAW. Nor do they go on strike, since they can be fired so easily..
Workers at a Johnson Controls auto supplier factory in Columbia TN didn't get the memo apparently. They walked off the job Wednesday, threatening the roll out of the Traverse this fall.
The obvious reason they voted 170/172 is that they are all Michiganders who moved south to the Spring Hill area as the auto jobs left Michigan. They took on pseudonyms to hide their union background and reputations as awful people and infiltrated the supply network to auto plants.
Soon they have the Nissan Smyrna plant unionized and it will spread east and north to Georgetown.
I've had the pleasure to meet with the Saturn plants UAW brother and sister. It a different kind of car company. GM agreed to a no lay-off clause written in the contract. Labor bought into the new ideas of management. Both labor and management were making the calls. They were to attract the Toyota/Honda buyers back to American made Saturn's. Now were beginning to see is an ill fated business model. The ideas from Japan were to be Americanized. Where did this experiment go wrong?
UAW Local 1853 President Mike O'Rourke, who also represents workers at GM's Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant, said Johnson Controls management had refused to recognize the union even though 170 of 172 workers at the plant had signed cards seeking UAW representation.
I would say that means nothing till the NLRB sets a date for election. Then if they vote to go Union the company is required to negotiate in good faith. That can take years. The UAW may have shown poor judgment if their was no NLRB election and certification.
I know we got a group in AK certified and it took 2.5 years before the North Slope Borough, which was the local government in Prudhoe Bay to negotiate. One month after they finally settled the contract the Borough sold to a private company and those guys were all without jobs.
It looks to me like Johnson Controls is not interested in negotiating a contract. If they had already made a contract with GM to supply seats and consoles at a given price, they would not be able to make money with higher labor. Sounds like the company had no choice but lock out the workers and close up shop.
My guess is the seats will be made in China and those guys will not have to worry about not having enough gas to drive to work. There are millions of people in this country working for less than $11 per hour. Many in places more expensive than TN.
This is further evidence of what the high price of gas is doing to our economy.
"My brother's take on it (he's in Chattanooga) is that GM bought a lot of UAW workers to Spring Hill when they built the Saturn factory there."
Absolutely correct...Saturn was started by Roger Smith, CEO for most of the 1980s, when I was in Detroit...at first, Roger wanted to staff the plant with nonunion workers, having the foresight that he did, knowing what the union was like to deal with...but he reached and agreement with the union that it WOULD be UAW staffed, but that Gm could pick and choose the workers it wanted, meaning that the militant rabble rousers with the most seniority did not have to be chosen simply based on seniority alone...
Seniority was the first parameter, but if you had high seniority and you were a trouble maker, you could be passed over for Saturn...so, those with high seniority that were, shall we say, well behaved, sober, and regularly showed up for work (a rarity for the UAW) did have a chance of being hired for Saturn...they simply did not want to transplant to TN the same crap they had to deal with in Detroit...
so, those with high seniority that were, shall we say, well behaved, sober, and regularly showed up for work (a rarity for the UAW) did have a chance of being hired for Saturn...
Well, it's like this: The overpaid $30/hr UAW person only has to show up 1/3 as often as those $10/hr nonunion workers to earn the same amount at the end of the week.
Such sweeping generalizations, such baloney. The overall majority of the UAW people I associate with on a regular basis have good work ethics, show up each day (sometimes even sober) and do their jobs in a professional manner.
There are always a few rotten apples that will spoil the whole bunch. I've found that to be the case in both union and nonunion environments.
Like anything, all you need is a few bad apples to ruin the bushel, but when you talk about the cost of a new car, if you get a bad one you get hurt financially...don't like the priest at a bad church, just walk down the street to another church...recovering from the cost of a bad car is more difficult...
Plus, for YEARS, it was always known not to buy a car made on Monday or Friday, as the workers were either leaving drunk or returning with a hangover...sorry, the percentage of good workers simply does NOT overcome the worthless workers who screw something up on the line, because some buyer gets to buy that lemon that no one can fix...
BTW, one of my staff members, while I lived in Detroit, worked for GM...she was the one always talking about how his seniority put him at the head of the list for Saturn employment, but that his, ahem, work behavior might disqualify him...
Let's just say that when one thinks of superior quality in an automobile, one rarely blurts out UAW workers as the standard of excellence... :P
Such sweeping generalizations, such baloney. The overall majority of the UAW people I associate with on a regular basis have good work ethics, show up each day
I think more people look at Union workers as Bob does. My wife and her deceased husband owned a reinforcing steel contracting business. It was a union shop. The Iron Workers which he was a member of till they retired. They sold the business to his Son and when her husband died he dumped the union. The company is now a Non union shop and making more money than ever. My wife was behind him 100%. She said that dealing with whining union workers made it not worth staying in business. My wife ran the business and made less than the average union guy. She was a workaholic and could not relate to anyone that was not.
The public perception of Union workers is not good. I know in the 1980s we were required as Teamsters to walk picket line when other bargaining units were on strike. The overall traffic going by us in Anchorage was not supportive.
Well, it sort of looks like you're replying to me with the title there, but quoting Tedebear. So I'm gonna change the Re: field in this reply. I do agree that sweeping generalizations are often fallacious.
My wife got transferred one time in Anchorage to a union shop and the Teamsters were pretty worthless we thought. Luckily that lasted less than a year - road trip! :shades:
If the unions are irrelevant, they'll die off. Some say the politicians have been bought out by big business and imposed laws and regulations that make it harder for the UAW to be relevant. Right to Work stuff and all that.
At some point the pendulum will probably swing back - the UAW may find lots of room to expand in China and India.
The experiment went wrong when GM failed to update the Saturn S-series and did not give Saturn a second vehicle until 1999. Also when they changed Saturn from a "different kind of car company" to "just another division of GM", they officially killed the concept of the division.
>Some say the politicians have been bought out by big business and imposed laws and regulations that make it harder for the UAW to be relevant.
And the unions have been staunch Democrat supporters. The local unions were trying to make news headlines before Obacma was to show up here in Dayton and were complaining about McCain doing something or other. The connection was so transparent only the dumbest voter would have missed the intent of the unions. The same overweight guy who has been complaining about every public service union mistreatment was complaining about McCain.
But overall most people don't see any connection between what unions did to benefit workers and the wages and benefits they currently receive on nonunion jobs. On the other hand the continual drum beat of "haters" who don't like the unions telling stories from years ago (true stories) about abuses continue to effect negative images of all unions. It's sort of like the GM folks continually complaining about GM because they had problems with an older GM car, while overlooking flaws in their Camry or Accord.
The less than ethical leaders of the major unions through the years also affects people's image of the unions. Can you say "Hoffa"? and so on.
My wife got transferred one time in Anchorage to a union shop and the Teamsters were pretty worthless we thought.
I think if you dig deep you would find as bad as some units of the Alaska Teamsters were, the UAW is far worse. In my 37 years in the Alaska Teamsters we did not write any contracts that guaranteed wages when not working. You got laid off you got severance pay that was commensurate with your length of service. When health care costs started going off the scale they passed some of the co-pay to the workers. The retirement health care was eliminated 20 years ago IIRC. The Teamsters on only one occasion set out to break a company. That was a personal battle between the Company owner and our Teamster boss. That nearly bankrupted the Union. No one won on that deal. I think the UAW is doing to GM the same thing. They are pushing them over the brink. That Johnson control strike is just plain stupid Union tactics. How many workers will be laid off to try and make a point. From the article they have not even had an election or certified the UAW.
tedebear: There are always a few rotten apples that will spoil the whole bunch. I've found that to be the case in both union and nonunion environments.
The problem is that the UAW expends considerable effort and energy to protect the deadbeats. It can't do that much to raise wages and benefits or improve working conditions anymore, so it expends energy on this sort of nonsense, which largely has to do with internal politics and protecting local favorites as much as anything else.
My mother is in a union (not the UAW) - she was once the local leader. She's obviously not anti-union, but one of her biggest complaints was how the union regularly went to bat for the people who should have been canned. My wife is a teacher, and she complains about the same thing with her union.
When I hear this from many sources, the majority of whom are UNION MEMBERS, it's not hard to believe that the critics are on to something.
Years ago I was on the executive board in a union. Some of the wacky thing a union does in defending people who on the surface don't look to be a case to defend comes from having to follow the law and represent folks equally. In at least some cases the union would agree with the employer and yet they are required to defend those they represent.
Classic example - One of the groups we represented just had "pool days" forced upon them in a new contract. This where they combine sick, vacation and personal days and say use them however you want but that's all there is in a year and you lose them if you don't use them. Like everywhere else I've see this really amounts to cutting the number of total leave days and ends the ability to build sick leave over the years.
Well, anyway, this one woman had a history of using all her sick days when they had that. She'd call on particularly nice days and be sick.
So, the company finally decides they've had it with her and nails her for abuse of sick leave. She turns to the union. They figure the company has her nailed to the wall in that everything is well documented but since they have to defend her they needed to devise some sort of defense.
They settled on "since in the current contract there is no such thing as sick leave she can't be abusing it." Because the contract also moved grievances up to an impartial arbitrator if the tow sides don't agree that's where it went and the arbitrator, reluctantly or not, ruled you can't abuse something that doesn't exist.
There were lots of good stories from back then.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
injury, too many times, when I would talk to UAW members when I was in Detroit, they knew that the disciplined worker was a bad apple, but they wanted the union to stick it to the company, "cause my buddy shouldn't lose his job over something like bad work habits"...HUH???????????????????????
They never stopped to realize that their "buddy", the rotten apple, was one of the many reasons they were making junk...I hope this explains why I have sucj little respect for the union members, they cared nothing about the product, they just wanted to be sure their buddy kept his job...and then they could not understand why folks did not want to "Buy American"...
Maybe certain individuals command respect, but when you look at the union as a whole, they deserve as much respect as your local criminal gang...they asked for it, and they got it...
The Union contract signed after I left the Company is combining sick leave and annual leave, calling them POOL days. The company is already regretting their stupidity. Because ours are accumulated up to 60 days. We have guys just taking off at the beginning of their shift calling in sick. You have to use or lose when you are at the 60 days and no one wants to lose a paid day off. Who in their right mind would not use those days. Even though it causes scheduling problems. It is a problem brought on by ignorant management. Our old contract you had to have a release from the doctor if you were gone 3 days on sick leave. Not anymore. Employers that do not allow people to carry over leave days are just asking for problems. We used to cash out whatever vacation we had not used on our old contract. That was nice on your anniversary date.
......injury, too many times, when I would talk to UAW members when I was in Detroit, they knew that the disciplined worker was a bad apple, but they wanted the union to stick it to the company, "cause my buddy shouldn't lose his job over something like bad work habits"...HUH???????????????????????
While I agree that the stick it to the company mentality is wrong, don't you think that as a dues paying member, they are entitled to some sort of "due diligence" on the part of the union.
As an attorney, if you had to defend somebody who insists what they are accused of is not what happened, no matter how sick or vile what they are accused of is, or how guilty they "look", how do you go about it without looking like a [non-permissible content removed] yourself (and no, "I wouldn't take the case " isn't an answer).
Seriously, how would you go about it and keep some form of dignity in public??
I'm UAW and don't get any pay, other than unemployment in the event of lay-off. For that matter no severance either. To assume that all UAW collective bargaining units have a national agreement is just not fact. I have seen the Teamsters UPS agreement along with the Teamsters car haulers agreement and they seemed very generous to myself. However, no one twisted the companies arm to sign the agreements and no one held a gun to their head either. Both parties walked away from the table with something they can live with. Then if I envy them, thats my problem. Just as we could envy the CEOs and their agreement and wonder why a company would sign on to compensating them so generously. If they sign these agreements of their own free will and were sane rational when they signed, then they need to live up to them. If you sign a mortgage and or auto loan, you too are obligated to live up to them.
What about if your not in a collective bargaining unit and nepotism, quid pro quo sexual harassment, hazardous work conditions, and other substandard conditions are present? The point being, is that in any large organization, things which we deem bad and or evil are present. The best we can do is to try to change things/people, rather than judging. I'm always amazed by the youth and the fire they bring into the work place. Out to change the world. Think we all were that way at one time and those big organizations have a way of unknowingly beating us up.
I'm UAW and don't get any pay, other than unemployment in the event of lay-off.
Then your contract is not one that is presenting a bad image of the UAW. There are a lot of the Big 3 contracts that did have the rubber room clause in them. Just like many here are GM bashers because they got a bad GM car 30 years ago, there are a lot of people that look at the UAW as the reason the Big 3 are failing. I look at it as poor management. They should have been stronger 10 years ago with the UAW and not buckled in that strike. I got one of the last decent Suburbans built in 1998 before the strike.
As far as the Teamsters and truck drivers I have little experience. I know the warehousemen in our contract were over paid. They made just a dollar less than the technicians and tower climbers. The Teamsters do look out for those that got them where they are at. I voted against becoming a Teamster in 1970. The 90 Technicians mostly voted to become IBEW. The Telephone operators which numbered in the 100s voted us down. I would probably be getting about $1000 more per month with the IBEW retirement and would have retired 5 years earlier. The Operators believed the Teamsters and they did get more per hour than they would have in the IBEW. I'm not complaining. The last 15 years we were ahead of the IBEW Techs in pay scale by about $5 per hour.
Zacks.com Concerns Mounting for GM Monday July 21, 12:57 pm ET By Paul Raman, CFA
Weak North American sales, falling production volumes and rising raw material costs are increasing our concerns for General Motors (NYSE: GM - News). Significant incentives designed to stimulate sales and keep inventories lean are eating into margins. Furthermore, GM sales are hampered by poor resale values. The company is at a disadvantage compared to its competitors owing to huge pension and health care costs.
GM is undertaking a broad global assessment of its assets for monetization, which is expected to generate approximately $2 billion to $4 billion of additional liquidity. The company has suspended dividends on common stock. These compel us to rate the shares a Sell with a six-month target price of $10.00.
On July 15, General Motors announced reduction in salaried employment costs in the U.S. and Canada by 20% or $1.5 billion in 2009 through attrition, early retirements, buy-outs and lay-offs. In the year, the company will cut healthcare coverage for white-collar retirees over 65 years-old, and eliminate cash bonuses for executives. Spending for U.S. hourly and salaried legacy pension and health care will decline from the annual average of $7 billion over last 15 years to less than $2 billion per year in 2010.
GM expects to generate $10 billion of cumulative cash improvements by the end of 2009. The changes planned will leave an additional $15 billion in funds by the end of 2009. The company is reducing truck production by 300,000 units in 2009 by closing four truck and SUV plants in North America and boosting production of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The company is planning structural cost reduction to 25% by 2010 and 23% by 2012. General Motors suspended dividends on common stock, which is expected to improve liquidity by approximately $800 million annually through 2009.
At a time when American jobs are disappearing and our manufacturing base is being decimated, working people are outraged that Republican presidential nominee John McCain played a key role in the Bush Defense Department’s decision to award one of our largest military contracts to a foreign company.
Had Boeing been awarded the air tanker deal, it would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing jobs in the United States, many of them good union jobs, and more than 300 suppliers in 40 states. But now only a few thousand lower-paying nonunion jobs will be created. (Click here to send a message to your representatives in Congress, urging them to overturn this decision.)
The DOD announced Feb. 29 the awarding of a $40 billion to $100 billion contract for the construction of Air Force refueling tankers to Northrop Grumann and the European firm EADS, which makes the Airbus. Defense expenditures are supposed to comply with federal Buy American Law provisions, which require purchasing certain products from American companies when possible. But this administration has granted more waivers of the Buy American provisions than any administration in history.
Time magazine reports that McCain has been a “key figure” in the Pentagon’s attempt to complete the tanker deal. According to the news magazine, McCain wrote letters and pushed the Pentagon to change the bidding process so that Airbus’s government subsidies could not be considered when deciding to whom to award the contract. This placed Boeing, which receives no subsidies, at a clear disadvantage and conflicted with U.S. trade policy. In fact, the U.S. currently has a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO) charging unfair trade practices resulting from Airbus’s illegal subsidies.
Time also reveals that two current advisers to McCain worked on the deal for Northrop and EADS as lobbyists. They gave up their lobbying jobs when they came to work for McCain’s campaign, but a third lobbyist, former Rep. Tom Loeffler (R-Texas), lobbied for EADS while serving as McCain’s national finance chairman. Click here to read the Time article.
To top it off, OpenSecrets.org reports that McCain received $28,000 in contributions from EADS’s American employees, including CEO Ralph Crosby, Senior VP Sam Adcock and lobbyists representing EADS.
This is the third time in three weeks it has been reported that McCain was involved in highly questionable conduct that belies his claim to be a crusader for integrity. Newsweek and The Washington Post reported that McCain pressured the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to vote on an application to buy a TV station submitted by Paxson Communications at the same time McCain was flying on Paxson’s corporate jet and accepting tens of thousands in campaign contributions.
The media also pointed out that McCain weighed in on behalf of Glencairn Ltd, a client of one of his lobbyist friends, to urge the FCC to abandon efforts to close a loophole that was “vitally important” to Glencairn business. Click here to read the Newsweek article and here for the Washington Post story.
Machinists (IAM) District 751 President Tom Wroblewski says U.S. taxpayers deserve a better deal.
Now with this decision, America has to rely on a foreign country to defend our nation. This is wrong! And we will not stand silent on this issue. This is an unjustified gamble, which puts our armed services at risk. U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t be lining the pockets of Europeans.
Tom Buffenbarger, president of IAM, says working people will fight “tooth and nail and get this decision overturned.”
How we could turn over the crown jewel of support for our nation’s Air Force to foreign manufacturers is beyond me. We’re going to see that America gets what it deserves in the form of economic justice and fairness for American workers.
Gregory Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), says:
By turning our backs on American workers, we have certainly missed a prime opportunity to reinvest American taxpayer dollars in our own workforce. Our tax dollars are still at work, but in this circumstance, they are working to the benefit of foreign workers, not U.S. workers.
IAM and IFPTE combined represent 55,000 workers at Boeing.
The stakes in the bidding were high. Boeing would have performed much of the tanker work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. The company said the contract would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing family-supporting union jobs at Boeing.
The Northrop-Airbus proposal calls for converting new Airbus passenger jets, currently built in Toulouse, France, into tankers. Northrop said the planes will be constructed of European components that will be shipped to this country and assembled in a yet-to-be-built plant in Alabama, a so-called right-to-work state, resulting in far fewer U.S. jobs. In states with such laws, the average pay for workers is 15 percent less than in states where workers have rights to bargain contracts (including wages and benefits).
Richard Spevak, a member of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001 (SPEEA) in Wichita, speaks for many working people when he says:
I’m so mad I could spit. As an American taxpayer and worker, this is the most blatantly stupid thing our government has done.. Most of the jobs in this will be in a foreign country when it could be done here by Americans. I feel truly betrayed by the U.S. government. Also consider this: How safe are we when major military equipment has to come from outside the country clear across the ocean?
SPEEA members played a big role in designing the Boeing tanker.
Workers in Washington state and Wichita weren’t the only losers. Dominic DiFrancesco, former national commander of the American Legion, wrote in the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot:
For Pennsylvania, the stakes couldn’t be greater. The federal Base Realignment and Closing Commission’s decision to close a number of military facilities here will eliminate nearly 2,000 military and civilian jobs. On the other hand, we have a number of respected aeronautics companies in the state that would become subcontractors to Boeing if it wins the bid. We’re talking about preserving and growing hundreds of jobs.
The Downwithtyranny blog says the extent to which workers reject the policies of McCain were highlighted in yesterday’s strong worker support for the Democratic winner in the special congressional election in Indiana on Tuesday over a McCain-backed Republican. André Carson’s victory was a referendum on “McBush.”
Shipping American jobs overseas may be someone’s idea of “free trade,” but it doesn’t go over outside of the board rooms. When McCain bragged about having been instrumental
in denying an immense new contract to Boeing for refueling planes and helping the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co. (EADS) get it instead, there was outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security.
On Monday, Boeing said it will formally challenge the decision. The company said it will ask the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to review the contract award.
SPEEA President Cynthia Cole says:
I am very disappointed for our members and all employees at Boeing. I’m surprised the Air Force chose an unproven technology and an inferior product for this important program that supports the men and women in our armed forces.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says his union supports Boeing’s decision to challenge the award:
Instead of buying a tested refueling tanker, made in America by American workers, the Air Force is proposing to spend billions of our tax dollars on an untested plane, to be built by a government-subsidized European consortium.
UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, who directs the union’s Aerospace Department, notes that neither EADS nor Northrop Grumman has ever built a tanker with a refueling boom. Boeing, on the other hand, has been building refueling tankers for the U.S. military for more than 75 years.
New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech called the decision “unexplainable and reckless.”
I am shocked by the Air Force’s intent to move the manufacturing of military aircraft to foreign soil, giving other countries the ability to slow down our military capacity, especially during a time of war and the necessity of heightened security.
In a statement issued during its March 4–6 meeting in San Diego, the AFL-CIO Executive Council called for Congress to “do its job and exercise closer oversight of the relations between the Defense Department and foreign contractors.” In particular, the council said Congress should “defund” the contract, as well as conduct a full investigation into the circumstances under which the contract was awarded to a foreign contractor.
The Executive Council also urged all the presidential candidates to condemn the contract and call for it to be overturned. Click here to read the council statement, “Offshoring America’s Economic And National Security.”
Gene Lantz, radio host, KNON Editor, UAW 848 Secretary, Texas Alliance for Retired Americans Organizer, North Texas Jobs with Justice Communications Secretary, Dallas AFL-CIO and a few other things I don't get paid for "It is not sufficient to fight, it is also necessary to win."
My understanding is those planes were there for the taking by Boeing. Their management screwed up the bid ROYALLY. What was to keep Boeing from having the tankers built in one of their plants all around the World? They could have them built in China or Japan.
I think it is typical election year politics. It is a Democrat Congress that has proven they can over-ride a veto. So where are they on this contract? Blaming it all on McCain smells pretty bad.
"But this administration has granted more waivers of the Buy American provisions than any administration in history."
Neocon = pseudopatriot
It's amusing how that whole bid fiasco has now been recalled and is being redone. I wonder how much taxpayer money simply repeating the process will cost.
It's amusing how that whole bid fiasco has now been recalled and is being redone. I wonder how much taxpayer money simply repeating the process will cost.
Remarkable how they'll repeat the whole process but miraculously come to a different conclusion.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Sometimes we kind of look at the UAW as a major union. In fact it is about the 10th on the list. It is so visible as it probably has the biggest strikes with the most media coverage. The Aerospace workers are bigger than the UAW. If they will quit trying to undermine the Big 3 with strategic strikes that are aimed at the few bright spots in the marketplace, they may survive.
Comments
Yeah, but up here you can always substitute Japanese Knotweed. I dunno how far north that crap grows, but it doesn't have a problem in the DC suburbs. It's actually kind of a neat looking plant, almost prehistoric looking. Too bad it's such an evil thing. Crowds out and kills off just about everything else...except poison ivy. :sick:
I think when he was dressed as Clark Kent he was a mild mannered UNION reporter :shades:
If the Newspaper people are not Union now they should be as they are falling like flies in a DDT fog.
Thanks a LOT, Bob.....
You know if they could turn Kudzu into ethanol maybe they could figure out how to do the same sort of thing with zebra mussels. We could have the environment all cleaned up and cheap fuel all at once.
Next we could work on a plan to make gasoline from old records by people like Debby Boone or the Archies. Lessen our dependence on foreign oil and save what passes for our culture all at once!
Some employee owned businesses do well. It is the best way to police the non producers.
I wonder of GM thought to put a non-compete clause in there? Or are they assuming the UAW is dumb enough to just throw the money in a savings account and pay bills from that?
Workers at a Johnson Controls auto supplier factory in Columbia TN didn't get the memo apparently. They walked off the job Wednesday, threatening the roll out of the Traverse this fall.
UAW Uses Small-Vehicles Push To Its Advantage (Wall Street Journal)
UAW strikes Johnson Controls plant supplying GM (Reuters)
Oh yeah, the vote to seek UAW representation was 170 in favor ... out of 172 workers.
Soon they have the Nissan Smyrna plant unionized and it will spread east and north to Georgetown.
There's no hope for Mississippi and Alabama.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
170/172 almost makes it look like a tie just glancing at it.
My brother's take on it (he's in Chattanooga) is that GM bought a lot of UAW workers to Spring Hill when they built the Saturn factory there.
The 170 / 172 means 170 out of 172. Pretty overwhelming.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Forbes
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You're sharp today - I wondered who was going to pick up on that first.
Tennessee isn't all that cheap of a place to buy gas and groceries either but I think the tax burden is below average.
What do you mean "today"?... :sick:
Actually the sales tax is high, on the order of 9%. I don't know if I have a receipt from Smyrna/Murfreesboro and our last visit. I'll check on it.
It may be 9.75% in some locations. State appears to be 7%
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I would say that means nothing till the NLRB sets a date for election. Then if they vote to go Union the company is required to negotiate in good faith. That can take years. The UAW may have shown poor judgment if their was no NLRB election and certification.
I know we got a group in AK certified and it took 2.5 years before the North Slope Borough, which was the local government in Prudhoe Bay to negotiate. One month after they finally settled the contract the Borough sold to a private company and those guys were all without jobs.
It looks to me like Johnson Controls is not interested in negotiating a contract. If they had already made a contract with GM to supply seats and consoles at a given price, they would not be able to make money with higher labor. Sounds like the company had no choice but lock out the workers and close up shop.
My guess is the seats will be made in China and those guys will not have to worry about not having enough gas to drive to work. There are millions of people in this country working for less than $11 per hour. Many in places more expensive than TN.
This is further evidence of what the high price of gas is doing to our economy.
Sure sounded like GM would be scrambling a bit to build the Traverse if this shop stays shut down.
Absolutely correct...Saturn was started by Roger Smith, CEO for most of the 1980s, when I was in Detroit...at first, Roger wanted to staff the plant with nonunion workers, having the foresight that he did, knowing what the union was like to deal with...but he reached and agreement with the union that it WOULD be UAW staffed, but that Gm could pick and choose the workers it wanted, meaning that the militant rabble rousers with the most seniority did not have to be chosen simply based on seniority alone...
Seniority was the first parameter, but if you had high seniority and you were a trouble maker, you could be passed over for Saturn...so, those with high seniority that were, shall we say, well behaved, sober, and regularly showed up for work (a rarity for the UAW) did have a chance of being hired for Saturn...they simply did not want to transplant to TN the same crap they had to deal with in Detroit...
Well, it's like this: The overpaid $30/hr UAW person only has to show up 1/3 as often as those $10/hr nonunion workers to earn the same amount at the end of the week.
Such sweeping generalizations, such baloney. The overall majority of the UAW people I associate with on a regular basis have good work ethics, show up each day (sometimes even sober) and do their jobs in a professional manner.
There are always a few rotten apples that will spoil the whole bunch. I've found that to be the case in both union and nonunion environments.
Plus, for YEARS, it was always known not to buy a car made on Monday or Friday, as the workers were either leaving drunk or returning with a hangover...sorry, the percentage of good workers simply does NOT overcome the worthless workers who screw something up on the line, because some buyer gets to buy that lemon that no one can fix...
BTW, one of my staff members, while I lived in Detroit, worked for GM...she was the one always talking about how his seniority put him at the head of the list for Saturn employment, but that his, ahem, work behavior might disqualify him...
Let's just say that when one thinks of superior quality in an automobile, one rarely blurts out UAW workers as the standard of excellence...
I think more people look at Union workers as Bob does. My wife and her deceased husband owned a reinforcing steel contracting business. It was a union shop. The Iron Workers which he was a member of till they retired. They sold the business to his Son and when her husband died he dumped the union. The company is now a Non union shop and making more money than ever. My wife was behind him 100%. She said that dealing with whining union workers made it not worth staying in business. My wife ran the business and made less than the average union guy. She was a workaholic and could not relate to anyone that was not.
The public perception of Union workers is not good. I know in the 1980s we were required as Teamsters to walk picket line when other bargaining units were on strike. The overall traffic going by us in Anchorage was not supportive.
My wife got transferred one time in Anchorage to a union shop and the Teamsters were pretty worthless we thought. Luckily that lasted less than a year - road trip! :shades:
If the unions are irrelevant, they'll die off. Some say the politicians have been bought out by big business and imposed laws and regulations that make it harder for the UAW to be relevant. Right to Work stuff and all that.
At some point the pendulum will probably swing back - the UAW may find lots of room to expand in China and India.
Here's a great article detailing the in-fighting that led Saturn to where it is now:
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/05/16/gm-saturn-chrysler-oped-cx_jf_0516flin- t.html
One of the many bad decisions by GM management that has led them to this predicament.
And the unions have been staunch Democrat supporters. The local unions were trying to make news headlines before Obacma was to show up here in Dayton and were complaining about McCain doing something or other. The connection was so transparent only the dumbest voter would have missed the intent of the unions. The same overweight guy who has been complaining about every public service union mistreatment was complaining about McCain.
But overall most people don't see any connection between what unions did to benefit workers and the wages and benefits they currently receive on nonunion jobs. On the other hand the continual drum beat of "haters" who don't like the unions telling stories from years ago (true stories) about abuses continue to effect negative images of all unions. It's sort of like the GM folks continually complaining about GM because they had problems with an older GM car, while overlooking flaws in their Camry or Accord.
The less than ethical leaders of the major unions through the years also affects people's image of the unions. Can you say "Hoffa"? and so on.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I think if you dig deep you would find as bad as some units of the Alaska Teamsters were, the UAW is far worse. In my 37 years in the Alaska Teamsters we did not write any contracts that guaranteed wages when not working. You got laid off you got severance pay that was commensurate with your length of service. When health care costs started going off the scale they passed some of the co-pay to the workers. The retirement health care was eliminated 20 years ago IIRC. The Teamsters on only one occasion set out to break a company. That was a personal battle between the Company owner and our Teamster boss. That nearly bankrupted the Union. No one won on that deal. I think the UAW is doing to GM the same thing. They are pushing them over the brink. That Johnson control strike is just plain stupid Union tactics. How many workers will be laid off to try and make a point. From the article they have not even had an election or certified the UAW.
The problem is that the UAW expends considerable effort and energy to protect the deadbeats. It can't do that much to raise wages and benefits or improve working conditions anymore, so it expends energy on this sort of nonsense, which largely has to do with internal politics and protecting local favorites as much as anything else.
My mother is in a union (not the UAW) - she was once the local leader. She's obviously not anti-union, but one of her biggest complaints was how the union regularly went to bat for the people who should have been canned. My wife is a teacher, and she complains about the same thing with her union.
When I hear this from many sources, the majority of whom are UNION MEMBERS, it's not hard to believe that the critics are on to something.
Classic example - One of the groups we represented just had "pool days" forced upon them in a new contract. This where they combine sick, vacation and personal days and say use them however you want but that's all there is in a year and you lose them if you don't use them. Like everywhere else I've see this really amounts to cutting the number of total leave days and ends the ability to build sick leave over the years.
Well, anyway, this one woman had a history of using all her sick days when they had that. She'd call on particularly nice days and be sick.
So, the company finally decides they've had it with her and nails her for abuse of sick leave. She turns to the union. They figure the company has her nailed to the wall in that everything is well documented but since they have to defend her they needed to devise some sort of defense.
They settled on "since in the current contract there is no such thing as sick leave she can't be abusing it." Because the contract also moved grievances up to an impartial arbitrator if the tow sides don't agree that's where it went and the arbitrator, reluctantly or not, ruled you can't abuse something that doesn't exist.
There were lots of good stories from back then.
They never stopped to realize that their "buddy", the rotten apple, was one of the many reasons they were making junk...I hope this explains why I have sucj little respect for the union members, they cared nothing about the product, they just wanted to be sure their buddy kept his job...and then they could not understand why folks did not want to "Buy American"...
Maybe certain individuals command respect, but when you look at the union as a whole, they deserve as much respect as your local criminal gang...they asked for it, and they got it...
While I agree that the stick it to the company mentality is wrong, don't you think that as a dues paying member, they are entitled to some sort of "due diligence" on the part of the union.
As an attorney, if you had to defend somebody who insists what they are accused of is not what happened, no matter how sick or vile what they are accused of is, or how guilty they "look", how do you go about it without looking like a [non-permissible content removed] yourself (and no, "I wouldn't take the case " isn't an answer).
Seriously, how would you go about it and keep some form of dignity in public??
I'm always amazed by the youth and the fire they bring into the work place. Out to change the world. Think we all were that way at one time and those big organizations have a way of unknowingly beating us up.
Then your contract is not one that is presenting a bad image of the UAW. There are a lot of the Big 3 contracts that did have the rubber room clause in them. Just like many here are GM bashers because they got a bad GM car 30 years ago, there are a lot of people that look at the UAW as the reason the Big 3 are failing. I look at it as poor management. They should have been stronger 10 years ago with the UAW and not buckled in that strike. I got one of the last decent Suburbans built in 1998 before the strike.
As far as the Teamsters and truck drivers I have little experience. I know the warehousemen in our contract were over paid. They made just a dollar less than the technicians and tower climbers. The Teamsters do look out for those that got them where they are at. I voted against becoming a Teamster in 1970. The 90 Technicians mostly voted to become IBEW. The Telephone operators which numbered in the 100s voted us down. I would probably be getting about $1000 more per month with the IBEW retirement and would have retired 5 years earlier. The Operators believed the Teamsters and they did get more per hour than they would have in the IBEW. I'm not complaining. The last 15 years we were ahead of the IBEW Techs in pay scale by about $5 per hour.
Like I have been saying, US Auto is changing but it takes a long time to get a Tanker Truck down Lombard Street!
Regards,
OW
Concerns Mounting for GM
Monday July 21, 12:57 pm ET
By Paul Raman, CFA
Weak North American sales, falling production volumes and rising raw material costs are increasing our concerns for General Motors (NYSE: GM - News). Significant incentives designed to stimulate sales and keep inventories lean are eating into margins. Furthermore, GM sales are hampered by poor resale values. The company is at a disadvantage compared to its competitors owing to huge pension and health care costs.
GM is undertaking a broad global assessment of its assets for monetization, which is expected to generate approximately $2 billion to $4 billion of additional liquidity. The company has suspended dividends on common stock. These compel us to rate the shares a Sell with a six-month target price of $10.00.
On July 15, General Motors announced reduction in salaried employment costs in the U.S. and Canada by 20% or $1.5 billion in 2009 through attrition, early retirements, buy-outs and lay-offs. In the year, the company will cut healthcare coverage for white-collar retirees over 65 years-old, and eliminate cash bonuses for executives. Spending for U.S. hourly and salaried legacy pension and health care will decline from the annual average of $7 billion over last 15 years to less than $2 billion per year in 2010.
GM expects to generate $10 billion of cumulative cash improvements by the end of 2009. The changes planned will leave an additional $15 billion in funds by the end of 2009. The company is reducing truck production by 300,000 units in 2009 by closing four truck and SUV plants in North America and boosting production of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The company is planning structural cost reduction to 25% by 2010 and 23% by 2012. General Motors suspended dividends on common stock, which is expected to improve liquidity by approximately $800 million annually through 2009.
Regards,
OW
Gee, you leave me between Iraq and a hard place...........................
by James Parks, Mar 12, 2008
At a time when American jobs are disappearing and our manufacturing base is being decimated, working people are outraged that Republican presidential nominee John McCain played a key role in the Bush Defense Department’s decision to award one of our largest military contracts to a foreign company.
Had Boeing been awarded the air tanker deal, it would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing jobs in the United States, many of them good union jobs, and more than 300 suppliers in 40 states. But now only a few thousand lower-paying nonunion jobs will be created. (Click here to send a message to your representatives in Congress, urging them to overturn this decision.)
The DOD announced Feb. 29 the awarding of a $40 billion to $100 billion contract for the construction of Air Force refueling tankers to Northrop Grumann and the European firm EADS, which makes the Airbus. Defense expenditures are supposed to comply with federal Buy American Law provisions, which require purchasing certain products from American companies when possible. But this administration has granted more waivers of the Buy American provisions than any administration in history.
Time magazine reports that McCain has been a “key figure” in the Pentagon’s attempt to complete the tanker deal. According to the news magazine, McCain wrote letters and pushed the Pentagon to change the bidding process so that Airbus’s government subsidies could not be considered when deciding to whom to award the contract. This placed Boeing, which receives no subsidies, at a clear disadvantage and conflicted with U.S. trade policy. In fact, the U.S. currently has a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO) charging unfair trade practices resulting from Airbus’s illegal subsidies.
Time also reveals that two current advisers to McCain worked on the deal for Northrop and EADS as lobbyists. They gave up their lobbying jobs when they came to work for McCain’s campaign, but a third lobbyist, former Rep. Tom Loeffler (R-Texas), lobbied for EADS while serving as McCain’s national finance chairman. Click here to read the Time article.
To top it off, OpenSecrets.org reports that McCain received $28,000 in contributions from EADS’s American employees, including CEO Ralph Crosby, Senior VP Sam Adcock and lobbyists representing EADS.
This is the third time in three weeks it has been reported that McCain was involved in highly questionable conduct that belies his claim to be a crusader for integrity. Newsweek and The Washington Post reported that McCain pressured the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to vote on an application to buy a TV station submitted by Paxson Communications at the same time McCain was flying on Paxson’s corporate jet and accepting tens of thousands in campaign contributions.
The media also pointed out that McCain weighed in on behalf of Glencairn Ltd, a client of one of his lobbyist friends, to urge the FCC to abandon efforts to close a loophole that was “vitally important” to Glencairn business. Click here to read the Newsweek article and here for the Washington Post story.
Machinists (IAM) District 751 President Tom Wroblewski says U.S. taxpayers deserve a better deal.
Now with this decision, America has to rely on a foreign country to defend our nation. This is wrong! And we will not stand silent on this issue. This is an unjustified gamble, which puts our armed services at risk. U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t be lining the pockets of Europeans.
Tom Buffenbarger, president of IAM, says working people will fight “tooth and nail and get this decision overturned.”
How we could turn over the crown jewel of support for our nation’s Air Force to foreign manufacturers is beyond me. We’re going to see that America gets what it deserves in the form of economic justice and fairness for American workers.
Gregory Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), says:
By turning our backs on American workers, we have certainly missed a prime opportunity to reinvest American taxpayer dollars in our own workforce. Our tax dollars are still at work, but in this circumstance, they are working to the benefit of foreign workers, not U.S. workers.
IAM and IFPTE combined represent 55,000 workers at Boeing.
The stakes in the bidding were high. Boeing would have performed much of the tanker work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. The company said the contract would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing family-supporting union jobs at Boeing.
The Northrop-Airbus proposal calls for converting new Airbus passenger jets, currently built in Toulouse, France, into tankers. Northrop said the planes will be constructed of European components that will be shipped to this country and assembled in a yet-to-be-built plant in Alabama, a so-called right-to-work state, resulting in far fewer U.S. jobs. In states with such laws, the average pay for workers is 15 percent less than in states where workers have rights to bargain contracts (including wages and benefits).
Richard Spevak, a member of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001 (SPEEA) in Wichita, speaks for many working people when he says:
I’m so mad I could spit. As an American taxpayer and worker, this is the most blatantly stupid thing our government has done.. Most of the jobs in this will be in a foreign country when it could be done here by Americans. I feel truly betrayed by the U.S. government. Also consider this: How safe are we when major military equipment has to come from outside the country clear across the ocean?
SPEEA members played a big role in designing the Boeing tanker.
Workers in Washington state and Wichita weren’t the only losers. Dominic DiFrancesco, former national commander of the American Legion, wrote in the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot:
For Pennsylvania, the stakes couldn’t be greater. The federal Base Realignment and Closing Commission’s decision to close a number of military facilities here will eliminate nearly 2,000 military and civilian jobs. On the other hand, we have a number of respected aeronautics companies in the state that would become subcontractors to Boeing if it wins the bid. We’re talking about preserving and growing hundreds of jobs.
The Downwithtyranny blog says the extent to which workers reject the policies of McCain were highlighted in yesterday’s strong worker support for the Democratic winner in the special congressional election in Indiana on Tuesday over a McCain-backed Republican. André Carson’s victory was a referendum on “McBush.”
Shipping American jobs overseas may be someone’s idea of “free trade,” but it doesn’t go over outside of the board rooms. When McCain bragged about having been instrumental
in denying an immense new contract to Boeing for refueling planes and helping the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co. (EADS) get it instead, there was outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security.
On Monday, Boeing said it will formally challenge the decision. The company said it will ask the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to review the contract award.
SPEEA President Cynthia Cole says:
I am very disappointed for our members and all employees at Boeing. I’m surprised the Air Force chose an unproven technology and an inferior product for this important program that supports the men and women in our armed forces.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says his union supports Boeing’s decision to challenge the award:
Instead of buying a tested refueling tanker, made in America by American workers, the Air Force is proposing to spend billions of our tax dollars on an untested plane, to be built by a government-subsidized European consortium.
UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, who directs the union’s Aerospace Department, notes that neither EADS nor Northrop Grumman has ever built a tanker with a refueling boom. Boeing, on the other hand, has been building refueling tankers for the U.S. military for more than 75 years.
New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech called the decision “unexplainable and reckless.”
I am shocked by the Air Force’s intent to move the manufacturing of military aircraft to foreign soil, giving other countries the ability to slow down our military capacity, especially during a time of war and the necessity of heightened security.
In a statement issued during its March 4–6 meeting in San Diego, the AFL-CIO Executive Council called for Congress to “do its job and exercise closer oversight of the relations between the Defense Department and foreign contractors.” In particular, the council said Congress should “defund” the contract, as well as conduct a full investigation into the circumstances under which the contract was awarded to a foreign contractor.
The Executive Council also urged all the presidential candidates to condemn the contract and call for it to be overturned. Click here to read the council statement, “Offshoring America’s Economic And National Security.”
Gene Lantz, radio host, KNON
Editor, UAW 848
Secretary, Texas Alliance for Retired Americans
Organizer, North Texas Jobs with Justice
Communications Secretary, Dallas AFL-CIO
and a few other things I don't get paid for
"It is not sufficient to fight, it is also necessary to win."
I think it is typical election year politics. It is a Democrat Congress that has proven they can over-ride a veto. So where are they on this contract? Blaming it all on McCain smells pretty bad.
That said I'd sure like to see more of how this ended up like it did.
Neocon = pseudopatriot
It's amusing how that whole bid fiasco has now been recalled and is being redone. I wonder how much taxpayer money simply repeating the process will cost.
Remarkable how they'll repeat the whole process but miraculously come to a different conclusion.
Actually, there are 49 Democrats in the current Senate - same as the Republicans.
Open CRS
Don't forget all the earlier Boeing tanker scandal earlier in the decade either - Boeing's CFO went to jail you know. Scandal rocks Boeing; CFO fired
And lest this turn into a political discussion, if it's not UAW related please take it to the The Race to the White House discussion.
/nitpicks :-)
In UAW news, there really isn't any that I see ....