rockville

The Autoextremist had an interesting take on the Ford-UAW bit.
http://www.autoextremist.com/

vader1

I would not have even gone as far as that guy did but it was a fun article.

NuncoStr8

I wouldn't call that interesting, more like "extremist" as advertised. Does that kind of rhetoric help at all?

NFRs2000NYC

BS. Just because NOW unions build everything, it doesn't mean that privatized companies can't do the same thing. First of all, what, are all those workers never going to work again? They simply need to have their contracts torn up, and told, this is the way it is now, don't like it, take a hike. You really think all those people will walk. They will huff, puff, and eat it.

flexer

WOW....that article NAILED it! What a good read. I could not have said it any better. Now how to get that BLASTED across main stream media so people start to wake up!

J. r.

mxt_77

Yep. That's how people get paid fair wages. If their skills are in demand, then they can go work somewhere else that's offering a higher salary. This would force the automakers to pay more if they want to keep these workers around. Once it all shakes out, their salaries & benefits will be paid based on the basic laws of supply & demand. However, their skills are not in high demand and there are many people out there that can do this job just as well as they can, so they use unions to strong-arm the automakers into paying them exorbitant wages and benefits. Seriously, most of these jobs can be performed without a high school diploma and with little more than basic motor skills, yet they make more than many people with college degrees. That's ridiculous.

If unions are so necessary to keep a company functioning properly, how do Toyota and other automakers get by without having them?

Penforhire

F' the UAW! From that article, "pinheads in the UAW" indeed. If you do a crappy job you shouldn't have that job (hah, or be promoted into management!).

I believe if a company does well it should spread some of that income to its people, call it profit-sharing, but I also believe the reverse. And the UAW is a one-way ratchet on costs (more, more, more). This is the flip-side of government intervention in our automakers. It was an opportunity to well-and-truly break the unions. If the results of your actions cause utter failure then you are forced to change. We didn't force enough change... yet.

sahtt

I'd move for a "zero chance" assessment of that occurring. Obama has talked the talk and walked the walk-he will let companies fail and even give the unions more of the company than the actual owners (bond holders).

This distorts the incentive structure and enables unions to rationally choose to kill their associated firm.

NuncoStr8

See, private companies used to build everything with whatever labor they had. Now, it's certified electricians and steelworkers, mostly union because the union helps place you during and after the training. It isn't an accident or some nefarious scheme that got things that way. It's what you might call the pressure of history. It's a better way, as evidenced by the way things have gone. You can argue all you want that the current state of affairs in inferior to some theoretical condition, but it got that way for a reason. And given the anti-union atmosphere this country has always had, it's obviously a better system or it wouldn't be like that today.

Police have a union. Don't see that system causing the downfall of civilization yet. Ever turn on a light or make a phone call? Unions made all that happen, too. And if unions are so f'ing bad, how the hell did Ford, GM, and Chrysler get this far with them? How is it possible it took 100 years for the bad, bad UAW to bring those companies to their knees? How bad could they be if it took that long?

Now, you can either keep saying "unions suck!" or try to learn something from reality. And reality is that those workers will walk if you try to strong-arm them, they won't just "huff, puff, and eat it." It's called a strike. Read some history, they've happened before.

Or just plug your ears and keep up the anti-union mantra if it makes you happy. Your call

mxt_77

But if there weren't laws in place preventing it, there are plenty of skilled, unemployed workers that would be more than happy to come in and fill the positions that those striking workers left behind. And in that case, the workers would just "huff, puff, and eat it" because they know that they're already being overcompensated for their skillset.