Big strike at GM

[BCPVP]

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The union's had their time and place

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Not really.

[ikestoys]

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Iron, as someone from Michigan, who has their entire family working in the auto industry

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I call BS. WHERE in the auto industry do they work? I'm guessing management, or some other non-union position.

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lol Snowball...

-Dad, Grandpa Engineer (non-union, but not management)
-2 uncles, auto parts plant (union)
-Mom, Healthcare Management, basically all her work is for the Big 3, directly or indirectly (self-employed)
-Not to mention everyone on my mom's side of the family who worked in [censored] ass union factories in Muskegon

Not to mention pretty much any business you are running in Michigan requires the auto industry to do well, for pretty obvious reasons. It isn't, so we are 49th (I believe) in economic productivity in the nation.

Also, cuts in management and engineering have already happened, and it sucked. Basically my dads dept was cut in half, he's lucky to still have his job.

Snowball, look at right to work states vs states w/ mandatory union factories. See which economies and workers are doing better.

[ikestoys]

[ QUOTE ]
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The union's had their time and place

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Not really.


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whats the time frame for those graphs again, because it looks like it ends in the 1960s, and we aren't in Pleasantville

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The union's had their time and place

[/ QUOTE ]
Not really.


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whats the time frame for those graphs again, because it looks like it ends in the 1960s, and we aren't in Pleasantville

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The book those graphs are from was written in the late 50's (F.A. Harper's Why Wages Rise). In any event, do you really think that right after the 60's wages somehow fell in line with union membership or wages fell out of line with productivity increases? What time and place did they have?

[ikestoys]

Some quick facts:
-Michigan has the second highest per-unit labor costs in the nation
-Between 1970 and 2000 non-right-to-work states lost 2.3 million manufacturing jobs
-right-to-work states over the same period gained 1.4 million manufacturing jobs.
-Wages in rtw states are lower, but that is w/o cost of living adjustments
-2001 David Kendrick of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research did similar calculations for nine Midwestern states and found that take-home pay was higher under right-to-work laws.

Quickly cherrypicked (i'm doing hw) from:
http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=5937
Which is a conservative group obv, but its in line with stats I've seen prior

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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liked seeing that unions are alive and well in this country. IMO, the single thing that government can do to improve quality of life the most is to strengthen unions.

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In college I had to take a labor relations course.
Mgmt and unions do NOT negotiate on a level playing field. The current federal labor laws GREATLY favor unions. I remember one case study where a company wanted to get rid of their union. So they got the idea to to set up a mgmt committee that would compete with the union for the workers favor by treating them better. The project was a success and many workers left the union (why pay union dues when the company is now treating you well). The union took the company to court and forced them to disband their employee program. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] LOL! The lesson is unions are like herpes. The courts and pols will fight like hell in favor of the unions because the worker bees have more votes than the owners.

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I think it also proves that unions are not necessarily a competitive disadvantage: the dispute is over how much to cut from the old contract instead of what new goodies the unions are getting.

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The auto unions did TOO good of job in the negotiations. Heavily capitalize companies like auto unions are VERY vulnerable durin labor negotiations because work stoppages are extra painful towards their bottom line (interest rates on the equipment kill them). So in the 70s,80s,90s.....Big auto caved more than they should have.
Health care costs are KILLING them. The CEO of GM claimed he spends more time on the workers health care costs than he does building cars....

The govt needs to butt out. Too many mfg jobs are being chased away by bad laws that are suppose to help union workers. The result is the companies get pissed and ship the jobs overseas.... Having overseas factories are bad for the comapanies as well. Look at Mattel in China. Corrupt govt can screw companies anytime they want...

Also companies they get unions deserve them. Usually by being arrogant and neglectful towards the workers. The problem is once the unions get in, it is almost impossible to get rid of them and union workers tend to be lazier than most. Afterall they all get paid the same no matter how hard they work. In my experience, the more militant a union worker is...they lazier they are. And you can't reward the harder working employees because the union fights tooth and claw for compensation based on tenure rather than productivity....

[T50_Omaha8]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The union's had their time and place

[/ QUOTE ]
Not really.


[/ QUOTE ]

whats the time frame for those graphs again, because it looks like it ends in the 1960s, and we aren't in Pleasantville

[/ QUOTE ]
The book those graphs are from was written in the late 50's (F.A. Harper's Why Wages Rise). In any event, do you really think that right after the 60's wages somehow fell in line with union membership or wages fell out of line with productivity increases? What time and place did they have?

[/ QUOTE ]I think everyone involved in this quote here thinks unions are pointless today. Let's not bother with an argument about whether they had a point 50 years ago.

Anyways,

It has always struck me as odd that businesses that form cartels and purposefully shut out competition at the expense of overall welfare are villified, and generally held in violation of various laws, while the explicit mission of labor unions is do the EXACT same thing and it is encouraged--even guaranteed by articles like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[T50_Omaha8]

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The CEO of GM claimed he spends more time on the workers health care costs than he does building cars....

[/ QUOTE ] Not to mention the fact that for every car GM sells, it has to pay a couple grand in "legacy costs" for its retired employees.

Even if the company were just as efficient and consumer-oriented as the Asian companies, there's simply no way they would overcome this. It will literally destroy them.

[lehighguy]

The funny thing is that unions have tried forever to break into Toyota US plants, and the US workers say they don't want them.

[lehighguy]

It's a microcosm of our own entitlement situation.