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US Organized Labor Humiliated After Volkswagen's Tennessee Workers Vote Against Unionizing
While US organized labor has been in a state of steady decline for several generations, never had it suffered as crushing a blow as it did last night, when in a 712 to 626 vote, Volkswagen's hourly workers in Chattanooga, TN, rejected joining the United Auto Workers labor union. What makes the defeat even more bitter is that a win would have marked the first time the union has been able to organize a foreign-owned auto plant in a Southern U.S. state, and would have been particularly meaningful, because the vote was set in a right-to-work state in the South, where anti-union sentiment is strong and all past UAW organizing drives at automobile plants have failed. What is most shocking, however, is that the defeat came even though the UAW had the cooperation of Volkswagen management and the aid of Germany's powerful IG Metall union, and yet it still failed to win a majority among the plants 1,550 hourly workers. As the WSJ notes, "the defeat raises questions about the future of a union that for years has suffered from declining membership and influence, and almost certainly leaves its president, Bob King, who had vowed to organize at least one foreign auto maker by the time he retires in June, with a tarnished legacy."
Frank Fischer, the chairman and CEO of the Volkswagen plant in
Tennessee, left, and Gary Casteel, a regional director for the UAW
hold a press conference at the Chattanooga, Tenn., facility on Feb. 14. AP
"If the union can't win [in Chattanooga], it can't win anywhere," said Steve Silvia, a economics and trade professor at American University who has studied labor unions.
Under an agreement the UAW has with Volkswagen, it now must cease all organizing efforts aimed at the Chattanooga plant for at least a year.
And while the UAW could not blame the company, it still found a scapegoat: "The UAW said that "outside interference" affected the outcome of the vote. "Unfortunately, politically motivated third parties threatened the economic future of this facility and the opportunity for workers to create a successful operating model that that would grow jobs in Tennessee," Gary Casteel, the union official in charge of the VW campaign, said in a statement."
Then again, it's not as if the workers did not know what they had to lose:
The Chattanooga workers had been courted steadily for nearly two years by both the UAW and the IG Metall union, which pushed Volkswagen management to open talks with the UAW and to refrain from trying to dissuade American workers from union representation.
Mr. King made forging alliances with overseas unions the centerpiece of his strategy after he was elected in 2010. The union now must come up with a way to halt its decline. It once represented 1.5 million workers, but now has about 400,000, and diminished influence, as a result of years of downsizing, layoffs and cutbacks by the three Detroit auto makers General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. F +1.06% and Chrysler Group.
So even with the stakes all too clear, the workers themselves voted against union representation: a step which many consider may be the beginning of the end for once all too powerful unions.
"The union needs new members. They have to organize the transplants or they don't have much of a future," said Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The election was also extraordinary because Volkswagen choose to cooperate closely with the UAW. Volkswagen allowed UAW organizers to campaign inside the factory—a step rarely seen in this or other industries.
"This is like an alternate universe where everything is turned upside down," said Cliff Hammond, a labor lawyer at Nemeth Law PC in Detroit, who represents management clients but previously worked at the Service Employees International Union. "Usually, companies fight" union drives, he added.
Or maybe this time even the workers decided to give efficient labor supply and demand a chance? It certainly wouldn't be the first time when workers have realized that there is more downside than upside to joining a labor union:
The union's loss adds to a long list of defeats for organized labor in recent years. States like Wisconsin enacted laws that cut the power of public-employee unions, and other states, including Michigan, home of the UAW, adopted right-to-work laws that allow workers to opt out of union membership if they choose.
Than again, instead of political influence, the primary reason for the huge disappointment was the union's own internal strife and political bickering as it seeks to remain relevant in a divided world in which labor representation is increasingly equated to political affiliation.
More workers were persuaded to vote against the union by the UAW's past of bitter battles with management, costly labor contracts and complex work rules. "If the union comes in, we'll have a divided work force," said Cheryl Hawkins, 44, an assembly line worker with three sons. "It will ruin what we have."
Other UAW opponents said they dislike the union's support of politicians who back causes like abortion rights and gun control that rub against the conservative bent of Southern states like Tennessee. Still others objected to paying dues to a union from Detroit that is aligned with Volkswagen competitors like GM and Ford.
"I just don't trust them," said Danielle Brunner, 23, who has worked at the plant for nearly three years and makes about $20 an hour—about $5 an hour more than new hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants.
The no-UAW vote raises questions on how the union proceeds now in separate efforts to organize other foreign-owned plants in the South, and whether international cooperation can provide any additional leverage for labor unions.
The UAW's alliance with IG Metall was forged over the last several years by Mr. King, who traveled to Germany, Japan, Brazil and South Korea in hopes of getting unions around the world to combine forces.
No matter the long-term future of labor unions, one thing is certain: yesterday's defeat will make the UAW's role and leverage in US manufacturing even weaker, and in turn - lead to some very big question marks about the future of organized labor.
The UAW's loss in Chattanooga also seems likely to complicate contract talks it will have with the Detroit auto makers in 2015. Right now, GM, Ford and Chrysler pay veteran workers about $28 an hour, and new hires about $15 an hour, and the UAW wants to narrow that gap.
But without the ability to push wages higher at foreign-owned car plants, the UAW is likely to have little leverage in Detroit, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Labor & Industry Group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
"They have to organize at least one of the international auto makers in order to attempt to regain bargaining power with the Detroit Three," she added.
The one sure winner from last night's outcome: corporations, who will be delighted to know that they can take advantage of the ongoing US depression and pay appropriate wages in an economy filled with labor (and demand) slack, and instead of spending more on wages, hiring and capital expansion, can continue doing more of the kind of "capital allocation" that has sent the S&P to all time highs: stock buybacks.
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Too many workers know a vote for a Union is also a vote for the National Socialist Democratic American Party (NSDAP).
No Thanks.
Obviously, requiring a company ID to vote and the injustice of no mail in ballots cheated the union of our expected victory. I'm sure these inequities will be addressed in the federal courts...wait a minute! We could have a mechanism that would allow us to intimidate workers into seeing the union ight! We coul call it, I don't know, maybe Card Check or something like that! We could get our pals in congresss to make it the law ofthe land! Happy days are here again!
Good.
Fuck unions.
Many people don't realize that unions are labor cartels. Like any cartel, they generally don't work unless violence is utilized.
In the DC US, the government is that violence, as unions could not function as they do if not for several enabling "laws" like the Norris-La Guardia Act. Therefore, by extension, unions are government entities, extensions of government. Then it should not be a surprise that unions ultimately function as nothing more than extortion extraction racket machines, as that is what government is.
So basically, the workers at that plant have rejected imposing another racket of government over themselves. Good for them.
Sidenote: Interesting that a big company, from Germany no less, has pushed for this unionization, as that is a tenet of the brand of fascism called National-Socialism.
"Guillotines save lives."
Pretty much a legal requirement in Germany. All businesses have to have management/worker councils. The VW management will be at home dealing with the union.
Are you out of your mind? Good God man, read a freaking book- trying to paint unionization as a tenet of National Socialism is nuts. If you're going to make an argument at least have the decency to know what the hell you are talking about.
Hey! kchrisco,
Next time you see a nurse, likely at a psychiatric holding cell, let her know just how much you hate her "fascist" Union.
Prepare to be Delphi-ed. Owebomba hates non union labor. Pay your dues or get the screws. Forward soviet!
What happened?
Company supported Unionizing ran head long into State and Federal anti-union political actions. Threats to "destroy" the jobs at the VW plant worked.
A VW-backed negotiation to form a Union with Worker-Management teams proven to build plant esprit de corp/worker ownership and productivity ran headlong into -naked- threats to undermine the tax breaks and planned expansion of the auto-plant.
This is what fascism does. Government and PACs intruded into the this auto plants private business.
America will continue to decline as the middleclass fail to rise above threats from elite lobbys and propaganda.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Debt to GDP ratio is the only meaningful metric.
If you want to imporve the ratio then you would support activities that increase middleclass incomes and lower poverty and thus TRICKLE UP the GDP and reduce the relative size of debt.
Or you can bitch about unions and watch your neighbors, your friends, your children be beggared by the capitalist system into poverty sot that they cannot be the conumers we so desperately need....That the capitalist system needs to survive.
You all are just so stupid I think this whole f'ing country is going to go bye bye. How did we get such a retarded bunch of citizens?
Its quite obvious that there must have been corruption if a union lost an election. Why that would be almost as absurd as if Saddam had lost an election. Every knows that union elections are typically bought and paid for, so they was obviously robbed.
Corruption. No one mentioned anything about corruption.
This is about naked aggression and terrorism. It's about fear used to intimidate folks for a political and social outcome.
BTW, Oldwood, you are a douche bag and a house-boy for the scum who are dragging this country down to 3rd-world levels of inequality and living standards.
Oh, I'm worse than a house-boy. I'm the devil himself as I am an employer of four people. I live to oppress them at every chance. Why I have gone so far as to treat them in such a way that they feel entrapped, enslaved by my employment as they have refused to go out and find other jobs for, in some cases twenty years.
If you want naked aggression and terrorism, find yourself faced with a situation where the business you own, your own personal property, is being told that you must hire union members and that if you do not comply with their demands, they have the legal right to close you down, and if you resist further, violence will be turned your way, while the Law, your beloved collectivist dictators, look the other way.
You are another fucking clueless statist drone who only believes they can advance through the violence of force of the mob. Some still resist out of principle, regardless of its personal cost. This too will eventually end and you will finally have your beloved utopian worker's paradise. As long as the liberal elite are allowed to write history, your progeny will never know the difference, and the language will be further modified as we see the new normal of employment and everything else, and what was once a third-world economic existence will be the first world economic justice utopia.
Arrest the owners of VW. Redistribute their stolen wealth.
If the management is good enough to provide for the workers why would they need a union?
If the management was absolute shit then it would deserve a union. Obviously VW has good management and looks after their workers.
I've heard it said that companies that have unions deserved them. Something to think about.
712 to 626 out of 1550... in anti union land. Hardly a landslide.
"If the union comes in, we'll have a divided work force," said Cheryl Hawkins, 44, an assembly line worker etc. etc.
sister, with only 5% deciding the result I've some news for you: you're already there.
Kudos to the VW mgt; they behaved like gentlemen all around, and when you've already got a pretty good idea that you are going to win that is always an excellent strategy. Well played sirs.
Unfortunately, most unions today are as relevant and effective as witchdoctors. They have not evolved into anything meaningful and useful. I used to work for a local union in the 70's and we did accomplish quite a bit do to the fact that most workers were in their 20's and had nothing to lose when dealing with an opportunistic and unfair employer...
Does anyone know if the workersaare simply treated well and compensated fairly?
first I am UAW, second the National leadership are managements bitches, it is a fundraising organization for the democrats. they are not interested in shop floor conditions anymore and don't respond to much. they get thier family in when they hire at the plant and snub anyone who doesn't know someone. the company picks the unions friends for good jobs and the rest get shit. it is nothing but a farce anymore, no saftey no respect for the average worker. they don't carry any wieght on the floor and a member is better off just being a reasonable worker and not screwing over other workers by being a union suck ass. even if you have to accept shitty jobs at least the boss will treat you with some respect.
I think I heard a slogan in your post...Being a suck ass is job #1.
Truely, that is the saddest thing I have heard lately. Could you quit?
Unions would gain more respect and members if they stopped investing workers' dues money in liberal causes and, in particular, the horridly anti-worker, anti-freedom, Democratic Party.
I drive thru Chatanooga a lot. In speaking with the people there, there is no reason for them to allow the UAW in. The city is clean, on a river and the workers make a good wage for the area (30k there is rich).
Now compare that to Detroit.
Do they really want to be paying dues to the liberal democrats who destroy everything they touch?
Apparently not.
"I just don't trust them," said Danielle Brunner, 23, who has worked at the plant for nearly three years and makes about $20 an hour—about $5 an hour more than new hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants.
It’s the triumph of the secret ballot (the torpedoing of a tyrannical union’s wishes).
I asked a question last year. The question was: How long will Americans allow the multinational corporations to force them to compete against workers willing to do the same job in a different country for a fraction of the cost? Danielle has answered my question.
America did not grow from the use of slave labor under the whip of global exploiters; it grew by recognizing the value of labor and paying a fair wage.
“Working men, keeping faith with the sacred tradition of Jefferson and Jackson…being independent producers, exploiting no one’s labor but their own, were engaged in mortal combat with the banks and monopolies and middlemen, who, unproductive themselves, grew fat and powerful on the labor of others.” --Albert Fried, Except To Walk Free.
And now the global exploiters have been using big labor unions as their plantation overseers.
The globalists began the deliberate crushing of private sector labor unions in America by using the infiltration of Marxists, corrupted leaders and low-wage Third World labor to destroy them and to open America’s door to outsourcing and off-shoring and open borders. Thus, began the stripping from the American mainstream the hard fought gains of America’s producers, accompanied by its high standard of living for middle class Americans, those gains achieved from liberty and many from the days of Walter Reuther-type union leadership.
And the dark ages of American labor began.
The American miracle is by definition: individual achievement in a free society. This form of government was not a money-powered oligarchy. Every man’s opportunity was to be protected by the entire society, guaranteed by statute. Inventing a successful instrument or process was a road to wealth; frugality was an avenue to security; moral business practices expanded one’s connections and financial success.
But that’s over now. The U.S. Congress is no longer an arena of representative government for individual citizens. Powerful forces have their way with politicians and corporations, and yes, over both organized and unorganized private citizens.
And so, as Shizzmoney wrote August 2012 in Obama's Master Plan: Bailout Everyone (ZH):”When new GM Manufacturing hires were a part of the bailout deal, both the unions heads, the GM corporate board, AND the Treasury Dept negotiated wages for younger workers at HALF of what the returning guys made ($28/hr to $14/hr), all in the sake of ‘shared sacrifice’ during a ‘tough economy’.....one that GM's investment house partially was a part of destroying.”
This sellout of sellouts to $14/hr began in 2007 – the victory of management connected with the government and the globalists; it’s called union busting by the Big Unions owned by management.
Stephen Lendman, on Global Research, wrote on October 22, 2007, in United Auto Workers (UAW) Sellout at GM and Chrysler:
“Other terms agreed to in the contract include a two-tiered wage and benefit package. Under it, new skilled assembly-line workers will get $26 to $32 in hourly wages but less in benefits than current ones for a total compensation package of around $45 an hour compared to about $73 an hour for existing skilled workers. In addition, a new non-core worker group, comprising up to one-third of GM’s workforce, will get around $27 an hour in wages and benefits. Both core and non-core employees will henceforth receive less in active-worker-health-care benefits with GM saving billions from the arrangement.”
________________________________________________________________
For those interested, here are additional 21st century Big Union bargaining results for its members noted by Lendman:
“Back in June, the UAW reached an agreement with Delphi Corporation that signaled what would follow with the auto companies. Following months of negotiating, it allowed the company to impose pay cuts up to 50%, lay off thousands, and slash health and retirement benefits. It was a win for company and a crushing defeat for Delphi workers.
“Then in July, UAW and the United Steelworkers reached an agreement with auto supplier Dana Corporation that allows the unions to take over managing worker long-term disability and retiree healthcare coverage. The deal is projected to save Dana over $100 million a year, eliminate $30 – $40 billion in long-term company liabilities, and it gives UAW leadership another chance for what it wanted for years – a VEBA (voluntary employee beneficiary association) agreement putting the union in the healthcare business for the big profit potential it represents.
“In the past, VEBAs proved costly to UAW workers. The union set one up with Detroit Diesel in 1993 that cost company retirees dearly when funds in it ran out in 2004. It happened again to Caterpillar retirees in 2005 who’ll see their out-of-pocket costs triple by 2010, and the sky’s the limit after that. As for Dana Corporation, it got more in the deal as well – the right to hire new workers at half the wages of current ones so older employees can be phased out and replaced with low-cost new ones.
“The same UAW – company pattern is now in play at GM, Chrysler and Ford. GM workers struck September 24 and returned to work two days later after union negotiators agreed to huge concessions the company demanded and got without breaking a sweat. Workers accepted the proposal by a nearly two to one margin, but in doing it signed away their futures with a deal they’ll live to regret. They traded shaky job security today for big contractual givebacks later. The pact affects 73,000 hourly workers at GM’s 82 US facilities, and key to it is a VEBA agreement for the UAW henceforth to manage GM’s 400,000 retirees’ health benefits while letting the company off the hook for what it’s been providing since 1964. The GM VEBA amounts to a multi-billion dollar trust fund that will transform the union into a major health care provider, and allow it to reap huge profits by cutting its own members’ benefits.
“For its part, GM is only obligated to contribute $35 billion of the $55 billion it owes retirees. But the deal is even sweeter than that. Health care costs are soaring, and the company’s have risen by nearly half since 2003. It’s clear what’s ahead. The VEBA employee experience at Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar is coming to GM. When funds in it run out, the UAW will cut benefits and hike premiums and co-pays so union profits aren’t affected. The agreement also lets GM divert pension fund money to the VEBA trust and allows for worker cost of living increases to go instead toward retiree health benefit expenses making the deal even worse…
“The company told Wall Street investors October 15 its 2007 labor costs will drop from $12.6 billion last year to $10.1 billion in 2007 (45% below 2003 wages and benefits paid) with “significant” further declines from 2008 to 2011. Further, GM estimates it will reduce its long-term healthcare obligation to workers by $47 billion and expects over the next four years to retire up to 75% of its current high-paid work force (earning $78.21 in wages and benefits) and replace many of them with low-paid non-core, non-assembly line new hires (costing $25.65 in combined wages and benefits).”
Working men on their own are weak, and only become powerful and independent, self-reliant producers when banded together for self-defense, i.e., unionized. America needs unions that are operated by the producers, by labor, by the workers - not by global management - and backed by a representative government.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/obamas-master-plan-bailout-everyone?page=1
http://www.globalresearch.ca/united-auto-workers-uaw-sellout-at-gm-and-chrysler/7148
I owned a company that competed directly with organized shops. The model we pursued was one of providing excellence to our customers. The hourly wages (on average) were just a bit lower, the insurance benefits were much better. We worked year round while other shops shut down due to lack of work; those who were industrious and committed were sought out to become a crew members. Talent and proven job skills were the foundation of our pay scale and a premium was paid to Team Leaders and anyone who brought in a new customer would recieve a share of the the middle line profit from the project. Our work rules conformed to the customers specification not a negotiated "labor right". Even though the work, we and our competitors did, generated a regular and predictable level of chemical waste a recent search of the EPA's listing of Conditionally Exempt small waste generators revealed that not one of our competitors had registered, which would have made it impossible to ship out the waste for incineration as required by law.
If you can't hire the best, you must be the best at training.
My favorite "bonuss" to give was a day off with pay.
It is my contention that the major Unions sold their "collective" souls to the Federal Government in return for the promise of increased regulation of the work place, which made the corporate practice of paying a fine prefferable to providing competitive and meaningfull employment opportunities. Unions are just as "corporate" and corrupt as any major DC lobbying entity.
Your experience, based on fair treatment of workers, shows how a successful business is operated.
But we all need to remember the extreme value that organized labor brought to America when coal miners and other exploited workers had absolutely no chance to gain a living wage or decent life without the severity of organizing and threatening the strike.
Americans in all walks of life, and especially those not unionized, benefited from the gains made by labor organizers who represented their workers. Of course, that was then and this is now – a deplorable situation where organizers became gangsters and organizers became tools of management and tools of the government -- enlisting millions of low-skill immigrants to help pay the union dues, displace American workers and support a socialized government.
The historical tragedies of the Colorado coal strike against Rockefeller interests and the miners’ strike are remembered in “The Charge on Mother Jones” – a case whereby management chose violence to resolve its grievances with labor.
Here’s to remember “The Charge on Mother Jones” when this tough union supporter showed up at the Rockefeller coal mine in Colorado during the bloody coal strike of 1913-14 – with an estimated 66 deaths and an unknown number of wounded.
THE CHARGE ON MOTHER JONES
(William M. Rogers)
The patriotic soldiers came marching down the pike,
Prepared to shoot and slaughter in the Colorado strike;
With whiskey in their bellies and vengeance in their souls,
They prayed that God would help them shoot the miners full of
holes.
In front of these brave soldiers loomed a sight you seldom see:
A white-haired rebel woman whose age was eighty-three.
"Charge!" cried the valiant captain, in awful thunder tones,
And the patriotic soldiers "CHARGED" and captured Mother Jones.
'Tis great to be a soldier with a musket in your hand,
Ready' for any bloody work the lords of earth command.
'Tis great to shoot a miner and hear his dying groans
But never was such glory as that "charge" on Mother Jones!
Note: Mr. Rogers recited this to the W. Virginia Federation of
Labor sometime between 1917 and 1920.
The famous war cry of Mother Jones:
"Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."
JR, kudos for bring to the fore the history of the fight for Human Dignity. Even though my business operated as a merit shop, I also claim no small amount of pride in having been involved with the UFWOC and the effort to bring protections to an extremely impoverished (no political power) group of American workers.
Civil Rights can not be bargained away and no amount of intimidation can force the retreat of individuals willing to die for the benefit of those yet to be born.
(The UFWOC was eventually over run by the AFL-CIO)
It never ceases to amaze me, DOT, the depth and breadth of ZH readers and posters of which you are one. Thanks.
That was touching, right up until "that was then, this is now"
Yeah, the brand of slavery to which you referred is not still happening and where it has already happened it can never happen again, right?
http://www.amazon.com/Disposable-People-Slavery-Global-Economy/dp/052027...
thank goodness it's all just such all ancient history, long past; phew, that's a relief.
Absolutely nothing new about slavery. As it has ever been, the greatest number of slaves may be found on "the plantation with out a fence". The chains that they wear hang heavy for generations.
Either I am not able to understand your point or you misread my post. For there's ample evidence that organized labor, espeically in the trades, improved the working standards of Americans and non-union Americans benefited from the rising standard of living that American workers produced and their wages rose as well in tandem.
BUT, there's a world of difference between the labor unions of the modern era whom I described as gangsters and public service unions that are not even unions at all, but are special interest blackmailers working against the common good.
This is not to say that abuses from unions in the past were not plentiful; the feather-bedding by railroad unions was despicable and the constant sandbagging of the auto industry from the UAW in bed with the government was deplorable, and it should be mentioned as well, the consistent union support of leftist politics at the expense of the middle class. And it is abuses of this kind that are exactly what brought us to the decline in the usefulness of the craft and trade unions as member resigned their memberships in droves.
But let me be clear; if it were not for the past advancements made for American workers by the early American labor movement, we would all now be working for the Rockefellers.
So do you support a unions ability to have a monopoly to completely dominate an industry?
Do you support a unions ability to force a employer to capitulate or be shut down, regardless if there are ample numbers of people willing to work for the existing contract?
Do you believe in personal freedom, but only to some financial limit? Say if you are worth more than two million, you no longer have a say over your property?
I support collective bargaining. I believe in freedom. Any employee or group of employees can make demands and be free to quit their jobs. Any person who has ever tried to run a business understands the costs of such an action and would try to negotiate a way to avoid it if possible. But there is no way that anyone should be able to tell an employer that they must hire any specific person or group of persons and pay them some specified wage. If you do not like the monopolistic nature of some employers, outlaw any business that employs more than a certain percentage of the local population. But DO NOT seek to solve a problem of monopolization and corruption with more monopolization and corruption.
The failing of our government is the belief that they can do exactly that. They respond with every government failure with more centralized power and control, which is what ultimately enabled the problems in the first place. Monopolies breed corruption. That is why they were outlawed.
Jr I understand your sentiment but I don't think you are looking at a big enough picture here. Single pay healthcare is in your future. And if Hillary is elected they will have 16 years to socialize your country. Well I'm from British Columbia. Heavily Union and very socialist. They have been difficult years and I'm closing in on 60.
Unions have been brutal aggressive and corrupt for decades. It was with trepidation I saw Hoffa stickers plastered all over the bridge I used to get to work. Now you may think that is a good thing, but I have a friend who is all of that and hates Unions everytime he got a job over a 15 year period the company would be Unionized and subsequently bankrupted. His words not mine. I've never been in a Union.
The whole system is corrupt. And needs to be redone. I remember when it was just senators in your country that were all millionares now I believe over 90% of your representatives are classified as rich. How in heavens name can they represent Joe the plumber. I think this is far more complex or at least comes from much higher leves and trickle down has grown new meaning.
I could go on but you get the Idea I think.
I hear you, Jeff. The same as you, I support a private market economy and adhor socialism. And I agree that the entire financial and political system is corrupt and must be cleared out. But hear me out on this one point.
Workingmen--you and I--are individually weak, and only become powerful and independent self-reliant producers when banded together for self-defense.
My mother was a journalist for a mid-size newspaper chain, where only the back shop was unionized. Yet, when the back shop fought for a raise and received one, she and the other reporters received an equal percentage raise. Without the unionized power of that back shop, there would have been no raises, neither for the back shop nor for the journalists such as my mother. She gained by their union's success.
America’s private sector employees are experiencing a decline in their standard of living because of their lack of self-defense. That's because most all private sector unions have been commandeered by the monopolists to sell out the American producer to the global exploiters.
The conditions that fostered the labor movement in the 1860s arose from the greed of the money monopoly and its government and academic sycophants setting the price of labor. Unions rose, and through greed and corruption and collusion with corporate bosses in the 20th Century, fell.
Again, today, as in 1860, the individual craftsman, artisan and professional face a money monopoly setting the rate for his labor. In addition, they are facing globalization, i.e., neoliberalism’s global policy to destabilize and control the world labor market for their sole profit. Labor costs too high: move the plant to Mexico. Engineers getting too expensive for Apple and Microsoft: get thousands from China to drive the rate down. Today, in Silicon Valley, most unionized nurses make more than engineers, yet the latter are the cutting edge of a nation’s innovation. However, they are not unionized; as a result they are powerless to fight the monopolists either for representative pay or to protect their jobs from H-1bs, L-1 visa holders or outsourcing.
America’s private workers—the producers-- must win back their political power from the amassed power of the Fed which is working in close alliance with government to favor only the money elite and the favored insiders (bankers, multinationals, and unionized public employees…) shielding non-producing capital and imposing the burden of government on the wealth-producing individual.
Because of America’s current disregard of her productive workers and their worth, Norm Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, wrote in 2011 in Forbes: “We're falling behind." When innovation was rewarded in America, 91% of the world’s greatest inventors worked in America according to a 1997 study of the inventors honored in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.
“Here we are in a flattening world, where innovation is the key to success, and we are failing to give our young people the tools they need to compete.” Or the financial rewards.
Wrote Augustine: “I’ve visited more than 100 countries in the past several years, meeting people from all walks of life, from impoverished children in India to heads of state. Almost every adult I’ve talked with in these countries shares a belief that the path to success is paved with science and engineering.
“In fact, scientists and engineers are celebrities in most countries. They’re not seen as geeks or misfits, as they too often are in the U.S., but rather as society’s leaders and innovators. In China, eight of the top nine political posts are held by engineers. In the U.S., almost no engineers or scientists are engaged in high-level politics, and there is a virtual absence of engineers in our public policy debates.”
Why? Because engineers have been pushed to the back of the financial line in America. In turn, the greed of the international monopolist is pushing America to the back of the line.
The American miracle is by definition individual achievement in a free society. This form of government was not a money-powered oligarchy. Every man’s opportunity was to be protected by the entire society, guaranteed by statute. Inventing a successful instrument or process was a road to wealth; frugality was an avenue to security; moral business practices expanded one’s connections and financial success.
But that’s over now. The U.S. Congress is no longer an arena of representative government for individual citizens. Powerful forces have their way with politicians and corporations, and yes, over unorganized citizens.
Ultimately, if successful, this alliance will reduce workingmen everywhere to a state of practical servitude.
Jr I understand your sentiment but I don't think you are looking at a big enough picture here. Single pay healthcare is in your future. And if Hillary is elected they will have 16 years to socialize your country. Well I'm from British Columbia. Heavily Union and very socialist. They have been difficult years and I'm closing in on 60.
Unions have been brutal aggressive and corrupt for decades. It was with trepidation I saw Hoffa stickers plastered all over the bridge I used to get to work. Now you may think that is a good thing, but I have a friend who is all of that and hates Unions everytime he got a job over a 15 year period the company would be Unionized and subsequently bankrupted. His words not mine. I've never been in a Union.
The whole system is corrupt. And needs to be redone. I remember when it was just senators in your country that were all millionares now I believe over 90% of your representatives are classified as rich. How in heavens name can they represent Joe the plumber. I think this is far more complex or at least comes from much higher leves and trickle down has grown new meaning.
I could go on but you get the Idea I think.
OOps sorry for the double up.
OOps sorry for the double up.
So proud to live in Tennessee. The anti-union sentiment of the South is exactly why we have jobs and the Northerners are trying to move here in droves -- can't say I blame em although I hate when they import their politics (example A: Virginia). But unfortunately King Obummer doesn't take well to being embarrassed, and I have no doubt OSHA and other feds will suddenly find lots of "problems" to investigate around the Chattanooga plant, even though management tried to play ball with the UAW.
The DHS has 712 new right-wing terrorists on their watch list.
...not to mention another 626 communists!
The tribal idiots are out in full force on this one.
The Oligarchs win again and no, not because the workers at this VW plant voted down UAW membership.
Bellum omnium contra omnes in sempiternum!
If they didnt win, they didnt need to win. Ever been to an auto assembly plant. they are a pretty nice place to work. Much of the old repetative manual work is now gone to robots leaving the rest with pretty high skill good wage postions.
Two sure winners: corporations and everyone else.
Let's join the UAW, the union that destroyed GM, Ford, and Chrysler! That'll bring job security for sure!
Yeah, it was the Union that cheaped up on the design and had exploding gas tanks. It was the Union that purchase inferior material. It was the Union that decided it was cheaper to pay claims rather than fix the problems. It is not your brilliant CEOs that made those decisions. GM, Ford and Chrysler had more problems than the Union.
Maybe the no voters had a chance to see this before yesterdays vote.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-02/how-cronyism-and-corruption-bro...
I have worked in TN for many corporations, unionized and non. Middle management or skilled union labor, I have experienced it. Over the decades it becomes obvious that management, despite pronouncements otherwise, normally operated as anything but a partner to employees. Unions are seen as equally disappointing and adversarial. I think southerners in general are much harder to fool by management or union, but cautious of being led to slaughter by either.
The realization for workers is, why have two adversaries manipulating them in the workplace. Management and union always attach at the hip, through privilege, favor or money. Why be manipulated from two sides when you can keep it to one.
I read TN politicians were worried for future industrial growth leading up to this vote. TN politicians should heed the message sent by the no union vote, the work force is not so easily fooled, by fools....... anymore.
In the North, they stopped with all the litigative and physical shenanigans that the South still wants to do to anyone that as so much wants a union.
They learned decades ago that trying to beat the living tar out of your own people for consenting to a union only made for a larger union representation. The South still needs to learn that lesson.
They'll be all without a job in few years wondering what in the world made them listen to Bob Corker, #1 banker in government.
I really don't understand all the cheering comments on this story. LOL...you're still just corporate slaves, whether you're unionized or not. Maybe you're just cheering for a more streamlined kind of slavery? Or maybe you just prefer your ass-fucking raw and unlubed? I don't know...well, anyway, enjoy the "victory"...
Tell'em how to live, go on. What path did you take and how has it benefited you?
I'm not telling anyone how to live. I'm just laughing at the idea that unions are some kind of evil menace whose "defeat" will somehow usher in a new era of prosperity. LOL! Do you know what percentage of the U.S. workforce is unionized? About six percent. SIX PERCENT! Do you people really believe that a six-percent block of the U.S. workforce is somehow responsible for the destruction of the American middle class and the loss of millions of jobs? Really? Christ--you fucking morons will believe anything, won't you? Earth to dumbasses: There's no need to defeat the "evil" unions--they haven't been a factor in U.S. labor for decades. They were defeated long ago. I love this line from the story: "Or maybe this time even the workers decided to give efficient labor supply and demand a chance?" Uh, yeah, asshole, that's it--the workers are sitting around giving a shit about whether "efficient labor supply and demand" should be given a chance. LOLOLOL! Here's the deal, you halfwit: The people in Tennessee voted against unionizing because they're happy to have a job--ANY job--and they're absolutely not about to rock the boat and potentially threaten their employment status in any way, shape or form. And guess what? I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THAT, and would probably do the same thing myself. But don't try to make this some kind of glorious, shining-new-era renunciation of labor unions. All it is is people trying to stay under the radar and stay employed...
Truth bombs are always spectacular.
Best post on a half baked comments section.
Kudos...
I should get an "assist". I agree it was a good post. I did not mean to antagonize the guy as much as I did. I really wanted to hear and others to hear what alternative path might be open to the folks in Tennessee. Although I do have a consulting business, my main gig is being a corporate slave and would like to put steps in place to become more independent. Whether we like it or not, we know that there will be events that occur that will force many of us to be either 1) more independent from the system or 2) more dependent on the system.
My oldest has taken what I consider an extreme path, which I will describe here, but I am interested in ideas that are more middle of the road. My oldest got a BS in psychology and was in the job market in 2008. He took a job in a group home assisting disabled people. After about 6 months he decided to travel the country hobo style by hopping trains. He did this for about 18 months. He reasoned that when he got back his situation could be no worse than it was since he made little money and was having trouble surviving even though he shared a place and split $300/mo rent. He did travel all over the US and saw and experienced a lot. Fast forward a couple of years. He now lives on a 27 ft sailboat in the Caribbean with his girl friend and plans on island hopping. My other 3 children are fast tracking to be corporate slaves: 1 in law school and 2 studying engineering.
Not every post asking a question is an attack. Sometimes a question is just a question.
You are not a corporate slave, obviously. What path did you take? How are your needs met? Chronological resume or bio you wish to share?
Bullshit. Your numbers are suspect and any number is meaningless without context. For the purposes of this post, let's assume your 6% is correct. How is the dollar value of that 6% in terms of payroll, benefits and net contribution to GDP? How much of that is public union and therefore part of the tax burden destroying the middle class? How much of it actually produces anything of tangible value?
I tend to agree that the vote in TN was just that, not rocking the boat. And the Germans are a lot more savvy at the union business. Another poster on here I believe alluded to the fact that the UAW likely got used and VW came out with a win/win, here and at home.
It's really too bad that your business failed, and you want to blame unions for that failure (anyone but yourself!) but the fact is that many businesses do just fine even though they employ union workers.
You and I have tangled before over unions. My business hasn't failed and I have never been union.
Yes, many businesses with union labor do well, not because they are union, but because they are competitive in the marketplace despite being union or because their shop leadership actually understands how a competitive labor market works, especially in a global economy.
I owned a construction estimating business in a right-to-work state way back when and had union and non-union shops as clients. There was a fair amount of Davis-Bacon work, but many non-union shops had qualifying apprenticeship programs so the union shops had to keep their pencils sharp.
I had a couple of union shops that were quite competitive and about par on successful bids for larger (non-Federal) projects ($10Mil+), due in part to the way labor efficiencies worked out and how the project played to a particular clients' strengths. I didn't determine how a client viewed their labor efficiency, they did. This was also exclusive of the repetitive-task labor efficiencies that were built into the software.
Union or not, everybody has to determine the costs involved in doing business. I had a good core of repeat clients - clients that understood numbers mean nothing without good project management.
The private unions slow demise can be placed solely at the feet of their brother public unions and the mountain of regulations they create on a daily basis. 90% of the benefits/protections of a joining union 40 years ago have been placed into regulations that "most" companies now are forced to abide by. Now all the private unions can provide, is some protection for a lower work output, which then leads to higher prices for the product produced, and in the long run the loss of the union job itself.
Good job, big brother government.
Simple survival. Corporations don't need to suffer unions anymore, they simply can close any union plant and open a non union plant. Our ore processing plant did this in the 90's. One company with the steel workers union, simply declared bankruptcy and sold assets to another steel company. Next year the plant opened non union and the former workers were on their knees begging to come back to the non union processing plant. Lesson is simple, unions are powerless.
Maybe JP Morgan can let Mr.King use one of its skyscraper rooftops for a launching platform. The Chase Manhattan Bank building has the necessary height and prestige for a UAW leader to end his career ( and life) in spectacular fashion.
I have driven Toyota's since 1988, thus much of my life. Compared to American cars, the Japanese manufactured 1988 toyota wa a gift from the gods. Never had a problem. It ran well into the 2000's. I drove it for four years, my wife drove it for 5 years and my daughter drove it for three while in high school. In the end it still ran good, until till her fucking boyfriend was fucking around and crached his car into hers at night. If not for that prick, who knows, it may have ran forever. I worked in electronic technology and saw Japan's consumer electronics take over the world in their day. Engineering was amazing, quality was first rate, I compared Japanese consumer electronics to US made way back in the 80's. The US stuff was fucking junk, worse than junk. I gained enormous respect for Japan's manufacturing and engineering. I hear they are having problems now, but their move to high quality was second to none and they destroyed the Detroit junk cars that union people made, though the Japanese Toyota plants were union, they were a different type of union. A japanese union is an arm of management and uses it's power to enforce good work, hard work and the highest standards. If you fuck up the line in Japan, it is the union boss who comes and kicks your ass. I still insist my Toyota come from Japan's plants. So far I have been able to get my vehicles from the import pool, I hope that remains possible, because I don't want any car made in America, I will never drive one, they fucked up so bad in the past, I will not give them another chance.
I had a co-worker who gave me shit about driving a toyota, because this is US Steel country here. I came to work next day with document to show that most of his Ford was made in Mexico. That shut him up.
So if I am correct.....he's your fucking son-in-law now!
I had one of those 88 Toyota 4 cylinder pickups. Loved it. Wish they still made a little 4 cylinder pickup as that is all most people need unless they are towing a boat or trailer. Now I stick with Mazda. They made the body for all those little Japanese pickups back in the day but they make ALL of their vehicles in Hiroshima so you know you are getting a car built by Japanese workers and not some trailer park or hoodrat from Ohio or South Carolina.
I'll take the GM or Chrysler that isn't underpowered and laugh my way to the bank for getting more car per dollar.
When Japan learns how to make a 6-cylinder car for well under $21k and an 8-cylinder for under $25k, then I might look at them with something other than disgust.
Good luck when we have $10/gallon gas.
I shake my head every time I see a guy commuting to his office job in his enormous, shiny pick-up.
X
I agree I can find a decent Toyota to fit my driving needs. Their full size pickups don't compare to Chevrolet or Ford.
Jack, from your comments one can tell you are a well-rounded person. You cannot expect to have a decent conversation of any substance with people that have gaping holes in their existence. This goes for white trash, illiterates etc. just as much as it goes for the asshole CEO who feels it its right to earn 90,000 times more than anyone else because he went to a preppy school and is buddy buddy with other similar people of influence.
The truth is always somewhere in the middle because there are always self-serving asses on both sides of the spectrum. The problem is that the pendulum doesn't stay in the middle. The middle winds up being the average over a very long period of time (hopefully? maybe?). Meanwhile there's turmoil and like leeches everyone's self-interest is #1. They see a window and swoop in to fuck everything up for a buck with their disingenuous horseshit.
I remember the 80's as well and how the Japanese workers exercised every day etc. As usual, most MSM outlets missed the point when reporting those stories. It wasn't the exercise that made them productive nor did it increase the quality of their work. That part was in their hearts and minds.
Profit sharing has always been a model that's worked well for me. Even that requires those involved to "be on the same page" but if the company makes money, everyone makes money. If things are tight, there is no profit sharing and if things are really bad people get laid off.
My 2 cents
I knew, the minute that Rattner the dirty Rat took over GM and the car industry as “Obama’s car czar” in 2009 to be followed by his partner Ron Bloom after his past caught up with him, that the modus operandi for Obama Motors would be to cheat. Czar Rattner was felled on pay-to-play charges stemming from his state pension fund schemes with the Securities Exchange Commission.
And that’s exactly how they tried doing it—cheating by monopolizing and trying to run their competitors, such as Toyota, out of business. Before Toyota came to America, the average life of most American cars was about 40,000 miles, running 6-12 miles per gallon—designed for two-year obsolescence. If you leaned too hard on the door panel of my dad’s fleet car, a 1972 Chevrolet Impala, it would dent he said. And even if it didn’t, the car companies changed the year model so fast and furious that it made last year’s fins as passé as yesterday’s sideburns.
The US car industry under Rattner and union boss Bloom was destined to be a closed insider shop, and if you tried to muscle in they’d break your knees with regulations, lies and harassment. Here’s just one quote from Stevie: To add critical expertise and help buttress us against attacks from the left, I recruited as my partner Ron Bloom, a tireless former investment banker with whom I had overlapped briefly at Lazard Frères but who had dedicated the previous 12 years to working on behalf of steelworkers. Ron's hefty Main Street experience could help balance my Wall Street baggage.—Steve Rattner: The Auto Bailout: How We Did It, October 21, 2009 (Fortune Magazine)
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/21/autos/auto_bailout_rattner.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009102109
http://blogs.courant.com/bob_englehart/2008/11/november-14-2008.html
Where’s Stevie, the NY Times former ace financial reporter, now…
Steven Lawrence Rattner (born July 5, 1952) is an American financier who served as lead adviser to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry in 2009 for the Obama administration.[1] He was a managing principal of the Quadrangle Group, a private equity investment firm that specialized in the media and communications industries. Prior to co-founding Quadrangle, he was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Lazard Freres & Co., where he rose to deputy chairman and deputy chief executive officer.[2] Rattner began his career as a journalist for the The New York Times.
Rattner is currently chairman of Willett Advisors LLC, the private investment group that manages billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal and philanthropic assets. He continues to be involved in public policy matters as the economic analyst for MSNBC's Morning Joe, and he has returned to The New York Times as a contributing writer for its Op-Ed page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Rattner
If you consider golfcarts as a "gift of the gods", fine. For the rest of us who want a bit more under the hood per dollar, not so much.
Perhaps if they could make an affordable muscular, American-style car with that supposed Japanese quality, there might be something worth it at Toyota. Otherwise, they just make vehicles that only a Third World terrorist could love.
Really, Jack? You think that way?
Jack, the Unions of the 1980's Detroit had influence on wages, hours, work conditions. And that is it. They did not control the executive functions of these automakers. So you are just repeating a smear, a lie and embarrassing yourself while doing so.
A moment's consideration reveals that the engineering and the strategic decision making regarding what cars to build and the "how-to" of the building process lie at the feet of a nepotistic elite of the Detroit Auto-cartels and industrialists.
You must not respect yourself, Jack, if you reveal such obviously facile and preposterous idiocy to the rest of us.
Tennessee Ernie Ford anyone?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCkQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjIfu2A0ezq0&ei=9cb_UuaWKOnhygHVr4GICg&usg=AFQjCNFzj9ES6pVwraKfM1v4Utx78AY8_w&bvm=bv.61535280,d.eW0
Neat, so who won on this one in Canuckistan:
Injunction granted against Bill 46?
Bill 45 is neater yet.
"Under Bill 45, the Public Sector Services Continuation Act, which has precious little to do with continuing public services, it is now illegal for anyone, no matter what motivates them, to suggest that a public employee might be justified to strike illegally -- which, since strikes by public service employees were already illegal in Alberta, presumably means it's illegal to say it makes sense for a public employee to strike, period."
Apparently the Alberta Gov't's first two rules of Union Club are: you do not talk about Union Club.
Union track record:
1) infiltrate
2) get certified
3) kill productivity
4) drive up costs
5) kill businesses
6) kill jobs
7) extreme poverty remains
8) ask Detroit if this is confusing
Where`s that fuck Bob King who`s head of this bloodsucking organization? UAW are fucking cockroaches and deserve to die.
9. demand bailout
10. demand tariffs
Intimidation by the state of Tennesee (and various interests of the South), plain and simple. They just couldn't accept a company that actually wanted the presence of a labor union.
They're scared that it was this narrow and that it might just work the next time around.
No one here has yet mentioned that the Tennessee legislature explicitly threatened both VW and its employees with prompt and complete withdrawal of all state subsidies and tax breaks if the vote went "yes."
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/tennessee-lawmakers-threatening...
Since the entire global automotive sector (I mean all auto manufacturers, all over the world) is heavily dependent on gov't loans, subsidies and tax incentives, one can conclude that the direct and unequivocal threats from the Tennessee government were probably the decisive factor in the close unionization vote.
Nothing for ZH'ers to cheer about in any aspect of the story. On the one hand, a global automotive sector closely wedded to gov't interventions of variuos kinds. As a result, governments freely and heavily intervene in the relations of auto companies with their employees.
The glory of a liberal global capitalist economy. Yay!
https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/show_picture.pl?l=english&cat=pics&c=pf&q=u...
Corker lived up to political standards. Took campaign money from the Union then burned them.
What the unions failed at was supporting the politicians who gave us this mixed up world of free money to move your plants overseas, a tax structure that keeps overseas profits from coming back to the US, a welfare system that supports people who do not want to work, environmental and workplace regulations that go way overboard, a healthcare system that takes four visits for every treatment because the health care providers need to keep the malpractice lawyers away, and a collapsing dollar that drives up energy and materials costs at every factory in the US. It is too much to overcome in a globalized economy.
My guess is, they sent down a bunch of manipulative Yankee pricks who thought they could hornswoggle the goold ole boys with their Delphi techniques. But the southern folks weren't interested in what they were selling.
The Tea Party iis to blame. GODDAMN YOU TEAPARTY! GODDAMN YOU KOCH BROTHERS!
GRRRRR!
HA! HA! Is someone pissy today?
"Unfortunately, politically motivated third parties threatened the economic future of this facility and the opportunity for workers to create a successful operating model that that would grow jobs in Tennessee," Gary Casteel, the union official in charge of the VW campaign, said in a statement."
Unfortunately, Casteel wants to interfere in what has obviously been a successful operating model.
Anyone with actual knowledge is perfectly well aware that the UAW is a criminal enterprise. This is a win for all, sadly closer than preferable.
Mr. King made forging alliances with overseas unions the centerpiece of his strategy after he was elected in 2010. The union now must come up with a way to halt its decline. It once represented 1.5 million workers, but now has about 400,000, and diminished influence, as a result of years of downsizing, layoffs and cutbacks by the three Detroit auto makers General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. F +1.06% and Chrysler Group.
Tell that to the GM bond holders who were screwed over, in favor of the union.
The UAW is allowed to try again in 1 year. This isn't over.
-edit-
Stupid is, is stupid does Mama always used to say...
Geeeeee, thats toooo baaaaad. No union for Volkswagen. Thats tooooo baaad. Looks like irs one in tbe fudge vault for the illegal alien musli, sociopathic fudge packer.
Dear Morons,
By what mechanism, if not by the re-emergence of UNIONS, do you propose to increase US household incomes?
Do you think YOUR boss is going to pay you, or your children, anything but the -lowest- possible wage that they can get away with? Do you know how many folks want your stupid, moron job? And do you know just how little THEY will accept to take your place? The situation holds for Dishwashers on up to Physicians and Lawyers...There is an H1B Visa monkey being fast tracked though trade deals into every job market in this country.
Just how STUPID are you ZH douche bags? Perhaps you think your loyalty to the faceless corporation will endear them to you, you special little twit?
The crisis the WORLD is facing is not one of productivity or lack of production, it is one of lack of consumer spending power. Production is in overcapacity by 20%+.
This is a consumer crisis...but you losers talk about Unions as though they were bad? What?
Simple economics says a consumer crisis, as we have, steam-rolls into a vicious cycle of unemployment leading to lower wages leading to decreased consumer spending leading to less demand and thus more layoffs and lower wages.
How will bashing unions make things better? Idiots.
Guess you're not a happy camper. Also guess bankrupting the entire city of Detroit isn't enough for hard-core 'it's all about me' people like you.
- It is well known it is NEVER enough benefits, pensions, paychecks 50% higher than other Americans... etc. And then you say, "Hey, anyone can form a union'. Right.
Hey look, I've tried to get into government jobs, because that IS the place to be. My buddy works at UPS, but they run a very tight ship as well... he earns his pay. Not like the UAW with guy smoking dope on the job, taking 3 hour lunches, etc. You guys have RUINED the competivie ability of US automakers. Plus until Japan came along, UAW cars SUCKED. I grew up in the 60's, 70's, and we had to rebuild engines every 100k.
COMPETITION is what drives excellence, not the extremely hard-core, never compromise union mentality.
But what's worse than anything else is the union leaderships radical, militant marxist mentlity in terms of politics -- they support hard-left Democrats who love abortion, racist 'anti-discimination' agends, extremely biased homosexual agendas, let-anyone-across-the-border agendas, and EXEMPTING unions from OSCREWMECARE.
F*** the unions, for price-fixing cars at twice the price they should be. F*** the unions for SUCKING the life out of NON-union workers who make up 95% of the population.
F*** the unions for those in them that CONSTANTLY complain like infants, CONSTANTLY demand MORE and MORE and MORE... all in the name of 'live better, work union'.
Unions have BANKRUPTED the free economy, driven ENTIRE nations to bankruptcy through their utterly corrupt pimp/whore relationship to politicians they get elected, who then pay back with BIASED LAWS that ONLY benefit unions.
F*** you, F*** unions. The LAYOFFS are caused by insane PENSIONS, That's why Detroit crashed, that's why California will crash, why ITALY and GREECE crashed... unions and government spending did it, combined with insane taxes on everyone ELSE to PAY FOR ALL OF YOU SCUMBAGS.
You F****** infant. Unions have their purpose, BUT they get OUT of control, and that is why they are losing members. They REQUIRE unlawful 'dues', monopolize industries, etc.
Economies cycle normally, but politicians now RULE the US economy, and the same goverment has grown to MASSIVE numbers of UNION workers. Who the F*** pays for all it you F****** moron? Who the F*** pays the UNPAYABLE debt?
America has become a cesspool of ME, and ethics now means to lie, deceive, and screw everyone else.
When EVERY American can get a UNION job that "guarantees" amazing benefits, wages, etc., then SIGN me up. In the mean time, F*** you, union-f****** bitches.
usa automakers had a 1500 dollar advantage(that was a nice chunk of change back then) per car in the eighties while all the ceos complained about unfair competoition from the japanese automakers. instead of using that advantage to protect their market share usa automakers played for profit today even if fewer cars were sold. the failure of the usa auto business was a case of bad management not union labor. that is the case study you would have discovered in an mba program.
I am sorry you are so confused.
Here you are living a crap existence that will only get worse, harder, and more desperate and, yet, your anger is turned toward workers who are sticking up for their right to a decent wage and standard of living.
You blame the Unions in Detroit for directing the production of cars that NO-ONE wanted? How lame-brained. YOu've internalized all the corporate propoganda and the message of envy of those who are striking a better deal just as the INdustrialists since JP Morgan would have wanted you to.
The truth is, STOP, that Capitalism is not a "MORALITY PLAY". It is a A-moral, un-moral system that relies on the exploitation of you and what ever offspring you pump out.
Get off your knees, man, and stop fighting your neighbors and start fighting for decency and a better standard of living!
Gimme a break nobrain, have you ever spent a single day of your life on a manufacturing production floor doing actual work? Contrary to what you read in Salon or The Atlantic it is critical that manufacturers have skilled help because the cost of poor quality is insanely high. You can't just let any idiot do any job or you get complete shit as a result and the Quality systems in current manufacturing don't allow for it (ISO and TS certification, auditors, etc.). If my company sends a part to CAT that's out of spec we get nailed for $780 per occurence- you don't get a good product with minimum wage. The guys who kick ass and do a good job get raises, the guys who skate by doing as little as possible don't and eventually get fired.
VW people in Tennessee make good money and can afford a decent life, the last thing they need is some urban northern jackass like you who has never gotten dirty hands on the job a single day in his life telling them what to do. You don't know a fucking thing about manufacturing and as such should have the courtesy to shut the hell up.
Go sip a latte, pajama boy.
Dear Lead-ass,
Your "argument" falls flat as you simply state "I Know" but the trutyh is that WE DO NOT KNOW YOU!. As always, folks like you that rely on the Psychic Friends Network for judging people and situations get it wrong. Ho hum.
Lead, it's better, more effective, if you consider forming an argument by stating a relevant position and then defending it. Then we can get somewhere.
1) Regarding this situation specifically: VW is a German company. Germany is HIGHLY unionized. They are a power house in the auto industry today. VW does not object to the formation of this Union in their TN plant...so why should YOU?
2) Your meanderings above suggest you do not understand how a market economy works. "you don't get a good product with minimum wage". The facts are that you can get any level of quality you desire if their are sufficient numbers of unemployed and hungry people in the world willing to work for what you would call the "minimum". We in the West have deduced this since the 18th century (Ricardo)...where have you been all this time?
And, putting theory aside, how is it that you don't see the inexorable trend downward in American standard of living?? Again, I ask, what planet are you living on? We have seen 40years of declining wages, ever more wealth going to the speculators and international corporate elites...do I need to quote the figures of just how lopsided this all has become? It's now as bad or worse than before the 1929 Great Depression! Come out of your cave and tune in for a change!
The Iron Law of Wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. The theory was first named by Ferdinand Lassalle in the mid-nineteenth
Some of the skilled trade unions here in the north part of the country aren't all bad folks.
so labor earning more pay than their peers owing to the influence of a foreign labor union reject a proposal to join a union.
you can't fix stupid especially from a stereotypical southern image.
They don't earn more due to the influence of a foreign union, they earn more because manufacturing HAS to pay decent money for a product that will be good enough to be profitable, The days of building complete shit for a captive market are long gone, you're either good or you're toast. At this point automakers are pretty much just assembly shops (they put together pieces made elsewhere) but it has to be done within very tight parameters as Quality systems today don't allow for "well it's close enough" anymore.
Stupid indeed, now shut up and keep sending us your manufacturing facilities.
if you'll reread the article, it specifically mentions the partnership vw has with the german union and how vw labor gets paid 5 dollars more/hr than other autoworkers. american labor is may work hard but they are not very smart.
Leadass, you keep stating wrong propositions like "they have to pay decent money".
Do you have the slightest clue as to how capitalism works?
So many myths are circulating here. So maybe we can cut through those with a simple question:
Q: HOW MUCH SHOULD YOUR BOSS PAY YOU?
A: AS LITTLE AS HE/SHE/IT CAN.
Q: What determines your worth to a employer within a market?
A: Your worth is only as high as the lowest pay that can be spent to fill your post. If you earn more than this then your boss will soon be fired or your pay will be corrected downwards.
Q: What is the logical, long term outcome of this system? A: Look around you, we are half way there.
Let's try this one:
If Corporations are OK in a market economy then why would Unions -not- be OK?
The answer is that UNIONS are "OK" and fit perfectly well into a market economy. They even keep a market economy healthy by providing a balance in labor/industry negotiations allowing worker consumers to take home more money to spend and keep the consumer cycle going.
I suggest those demonizing unions in this case, follow the money. There was A LOT of out-of-state money pitched into this campaign, against the union. things are not that simple. Unless of course you are a ZH poster and in that case, everything is simple.
I'd like to buy those nice anti-union workers a bottle of champagne, paid for out of deductions from their next raise. When I can reliably get people to vote against their own interests I can make money.