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'Unpatriotic' Ford Agrees Union Deal To Offshore American Jobs And Hire Low-Paid Workers
As goes Ford, so goes America?
It appears that demand, supply, and capitalism briefly won - while 'fairness', 'patriotism', and all the other non-free-market interventionism lost - in the UAW-Ford negotiations...
Ford Motor Co. said its new four-year contract with the UAW will increase its U.S. labor costs by less than 1.5 percent annually by letting the company hire more low-cost workers and move production to factories in other countries.
The agreement - ratified by 51.3% of Ford production workers allows..
The contract allows Ford to hire an unlimited number of entry-level workers, who start at a lower wage than veterans, after a previous limit of 20 percent of its workforce as new hires.
In addition, Ford said it will be able to use more temporary workers, who also are paid less.
The agreement gives the automaker “the flexibility to leverage Ford’s global manufacturing footprint to improve cost competitiveness,” according to the statement.
The Ford deal, the richest of the contracts the UAW negotiated with the Detroit 3 this fall, promises $9 billion in factory upgrades and expansions that create or keep 8,500 jobs in the U.S. The pact provides across-the-board raises and $10,000 in bonuses upon ratification.
So to translate - union workers just agreed a contract which "creates or keeps" some jobs - sounds familiar; provides some short-term bonuses... but enables Ford to offshore American production and rotate from high-paid to low-paid jobs.
Still a job is a job is a job right? Even if it pays drastically less?
Does not sound like President Obama or Hillary will be happy about this kind of non-patriotism?
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... down the drain
No surprise from Ford. Ford has colluded with Toyota in trucks. Ford dropped their line of small trucks such as the Ranger and Explorer Sport Trac and Toyota no longer competes in the larger truck category. Completely dropped the lines even though they sell a line of small work vans. Makes absolutely no sense if their was true competition going on.
What would old man Ford think of what his progeny have done to his company? He instituted the $5 a day wage back in 1915 thinking about how it would benefit his fellow countrymen-workers. Today, they piss on them as they slowly erode any loyalty to the U.S. And what would the author of "The International Jew - The World's Foremost Problem" have thought about the man steering his company's ship, Mark Fields (Finkelman)? Hmmmmm.
Old man Ford put his engines in Panzers i believe. For sure many Nazi trucks. A Facist like no other so doubt hed flinch. You dont believe me watch one of the greatest documentary i have ever seen
http://themillenniumreport.com/2015/11/cia-company-the-real-plotters-beh...
Prescott Bush, Henry Ford Countless others. All played both sides. Dont for a minute think they gave a crap about anyone's well being
I suppose it would have been better if more Ford engines were put into Communist Red Army vehicles, eh? Henry Ford was an honorable man who valued the truth, sir... and he wasn't afraid to "offend" anyone in his efforts to disseminate it. He realized who the enemy of all mankind was and is... and he WAS loyal to his American workforce, whether you wish to believe it or not.
1: Like it or not, wages in the U.S. will continue to go down becasue the U.S. CONSUMER refuses to only buy made in the U.S.A. The U.S. consumer will buy what he sees as the best value - which normally means cheapest but will function as they want. U.S. companies either lower wages to compete, move jobs overseas to compete, or go out of business.
2: If the U.S. consumer does only buy made in the U.S. his standard of living will go down becasue he will have to pay more for products, having less money to spend on other items.
3: A BIG part of the problem is also government regulation. Government strangles businesses with unnecessary taxes and regulations in order to keep crony capitalism functioning. If the government regulation burden was less, companies would be more likely to stay in the U.S. becasue costs would be lower - they could compete.
Hard to buy made in the USA when we hardly make anything anymore. I fear that ship has already sailed about the time Ross Perot was telling us about that giant sucking sound.
EXACTLY.... besides rules and regs, bombs and missles.... what in the hell does USA make anymore?
Yes, being an american company that built equpment for hitler and the nazi's makes them decidedly unpatriotic and they contiue to this day. The real fucking bitch is I drive an old ford. Fuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM
We make pretty good socialist in our subsidized higher educational institutions, who magically avoid the historic failures of socialism throughout history.
Not aimed at you, LSD:
What??? The consumer is the market and in no way the problem. The market has every right and, I would argue, every obligation to select the best product that meets its needs.
If our government has entered into trade agreements with foreign suppliers of goods/services/labor that are artificially supported or there is a significant advantage due to wage arbitrage then it is the government’s fault for setting up a market that is unfavorable to domestic production and labor.
The economy of a country should work for the people of the country rather than the bonuses of the few C-level execs running large businesses and the government.
Until thinking citizens reengage in governing our country, the ego-driven prima donnas we elect and the monied elite who influence them will continue to act in their own best interest which is very different than our best interest.
The consumer is the market and in no way the problem. The market has every right and, I would argue, every obligation to select the best product that meets its needs.
What fucking market??? In the absence of our Centrally-Planned-To-Fuck-The-American-Worker system the best products would be provided by Americans!
Labor is such a low percentage of the cost of manufacturing in an industrialized free market nation that an EXTREMELY modest import tarrif would make input costs on goods a wash. Given that leveled playing field me thinks an American manufacturing worker living in flyover country who could work for a minimal wage yet still afford a standard of living would beat out Chinese slave labor every fucking time.
We are not given the option of selecting the "best product" nor are those entrepreneurs who truly wish to provide it given the option to in our centrally planned economic nightmare.
To paraphrase Jim Mora... Markets?!?! Don't talk about Markets!!! Are you kidding me??? Markets?!?!
Anthony Sutton broke a lot of the subterfuge, spying, and "playing both sides" story ....
i think this is the interview that talks about how US tech know how was passed to the Soviets ...
https://youtu.be/j3vZNSAi-QM
yes, no doubt there were infiltrator traitors within Ford Motor Co.
dup
$10,000 upfront - buying vote? Pay me a little now and a whole lot less later. Dumping older union workers will increase as new-hires work for less and if they act up, more jobs to Moterrey, Mex
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry FordAs a side note - 2003 was the last year GM Trucks were trademarked with "CHEVROLET"
Henry Ford's company died in 1956 when his sons and other family members decided to fuck the old man and take his company public to sell it off to the Jews his father so hated.
The man died knowing the lofty goals he had for the nation he lived in were crushed by the International Jew. A stern warning for anyone who dares to rise against the empire.
Post 1956 the real world economy stagnated and died. The only path to wealth was through Wall Street and only if "they" allow it.
Your point could be better made if you got the history a little more accurate. Henry Ford had only 1 child, Edsel. Edsel died (1943) before the old man did (1947). I think that you are referring to Edsel's sons.....Henry Ford II, William Clay Ford, Benson Ford. So it was the old man's grandson, Henry Ford II, who was in charge when the company went public in 1956. Also, the family members controlled a special class of the stock that always gave them 40% of the voting power, a permanent controlling interest in the company. This feature helped to keep the ravenous Jews at bay as intended. To the best of my knowledge, the family still decides who is going to run the company, although, as you infer, as long as the company remains in debt, they are somewhat at the mercy of moneylenders.
Ironic that the Ford Edsel failed. Maybe don't name cars after your dead children.
It was said that the grille shape was "feminine". Like a chrome pussy. Check out images of the 1957 Edsel, see what you think.
When you said "Like a chrome pussy" I thought it would be triangular. I think it looks more like a cunt, if you see what I mean?
Henry Ford was practicing enlightened self-interest, which, as anybody with an MBA or economics degree will tell you is evil. What is truly amazing is that none of these people can figure out why unemployed people, who are barely afloat, isn't buying more useless shit that is being imported from the third world by rent seeking cronies.....
The US$5.oo/day wage was to make workers able to afford Ford automobiles as a means to popularize the Ford automobile.
Imagine...workers able to afford the products they make?!
Old man Ford knew he would be getting a lot of that money back though, didn't he?! ...in the form of sold automobiles to his workers.
Also, old man Ford knew that the more cars he sold, the more he could lower his production costs. The more he could lower his production costs the more he could lower prices, the more he could lower his prices the more cars he could sell. The more cars he could sell the more he could lower his production costs, et cetera.
He knew he corner the automobile market by being more productive and more competitive...selling more for less...what a novel concept!!
Back then, wages were paid out of the "wage fund", this was the amount of money paid to the worker based on the value of their work budgeted into the cost of production...figured on the "credit" side of the ledger. (Remember, the dollar was backed by gold.)
Now, wages are paid out of the payroll line of "credit" which is a debt of the company to be repayed. This debt has to compete with all of the other forms of debt incurred by a company including Interest, Taxes, Depriciation, Ammortization or "EBITDA". The companies earning are veiwed on the credit side of the ledger while wages are now a debt, disconnected for old man Ford's 19th century wage model.
Herein lays your wage compression. Wages go down in relation to corporate earnings because wages have to compete with the other forms of debt a corporation incurrs. Anybody that cannot attach their wage directly to corporate earnings (like a bonus paid ahead of EBITDA) does not make a "first world" wage.
I know my explaination is simplistic and somewhat innacurate but you need to understand this:
I'm a dumb fucking heavy equipment operator working at a gold mine in Arctic Canada.
So, this is hope? I'm not and economist nor accountant nor Wall Street financier however I DID take a run a federal office in a forgotten part of this country...to no avail, I was ignored. BUT!!! If a dumb cunt like me can figure this much of the economic problem out for himself...just maybe there is a chance in this world?
Dumb cunts that know how many beans make three...UNITE!!!
Paying wages from a line vs a bank balance is based on cashflow, and not profitablity.
I would say EBITDA seeks to normalize profits from capex, cashflow, etc type of items.
A retailer that gets paid at the POS, vs a law firm that gets paid net45+ on a quartly invoice have very differnt cashflow needs.
That's exactly at the heart of my (greater) point.
Employees were paid weekly with a gold backed dollar and after the commerical invoice was paid by the retailer on delivery, which was almost immediatly. No debt incurred.
The retailer could get paid right away too, if he sold that Ford invoice for a car on to a capitalist at a discount. The capitalist incurred the risk of waiting the 90 days to get paid and his profit was the amount of the discount.
This was a 19th century style of business transaction that ended by the end of WWI. We don't conduct business like this anymore. There was no way to enslave peoplle with debt under a system of "Real Bills" payment in gold.
Furthermore...it was no mistake that that one of the outcomes of WWI was that we don't conduct business with these "Real Bills" any more. We now use a debt based financial instrument called money.
Let's compare Ford wages then with what Ford wages "should be" today if the wages were relative to the cost of the vehicles like 1915, shall we??
With a $5.oo/day wage it took 83 days of work to buy a new Ford Model T. (Average price of the entire Ford Model T line of cars.) To accomplish this today Ford needs to pay workers Cdn$126,100.oo/year based on a 40 hour work week. Below is the breakdown per day for comparison.
1915 Ford Model T = $415.oo
1915 Ford Wage = $5.oo/day
2015 Average Total Model Line = Cdn$40,240
2015 Total Model Line/83 days = Cdn$485.oo/day
Year: Touring Runabout
1912 $690 $590
1913 $600 $525
1914 $490 $440
1915 $440 $390 Notice anything about the price over time?
Makes a lot of sense in the NWO. This is Germany's MO re the refugee/serfs: Bring in lots of low-paid toilet scrubbers to keep wages low and wage inflation down for decades....
Those van trucks are garbage too. Made in Mexico and they fall apart. My brother's elevator repair company bought three of them and sold them off after three years; upolstery comes off, transmission problems, gas milegae was not as stated, and just poor quality with endless repairs.
Not at all. The need to trim costs never ceases, FORD is actually to be commended for keeping the jobs in the country. Entry level (apprenticeship) wages are, as a labor guy myself, realistic. Senior, experienced employees carry the corporate intelligence that is always being tapped for feedback, you won't do that with someone you hired last month. I certainly do not see this as some sort of unpatriotic act.
Where's the part about UAW executive asset accounts mysteriously jumping over 100% in Cayman Islands Banks...
Don't fret 'Murica! In 10 years when the U.S. has been "fundamentally transformed" into a third world hellhole and most of the population is desperate to work (for food), these manufacturing jobs will return!
Fucking Old Retirees Daily
Frantically Outsourcing Rest (of) Detroit
Young American workers are screwed. The senior workers (Ford, et al) greed bandwagon will sell out the future for pleasure today, as in, ‘my world ends when I end so I’m taking all I can get, fuck off’.
Your post highlights a structural problem with labor laws in the USA. Unions are run by high-seniority members. Union contracts, first and foremost, take care of the high-seniority workers. If a contract contains large wage increases that cause the company to turn increasingly to automation, it is the low-seniority workers who suffer the layoffs. The Union need not concern itself with those short-timers, who lack much in the way of internal union political clout.
Nowadays, all unions give lip service, and nothing more, to the concept of "solidarity". If it takes new and much lower wage levels for new hires to fund wage increases for the high-seniority members, then piss on the new workers. While a lot of the high-seniority guys have been promoted into positions requiring a lot of skill and experience, many of them are still laborers, and they will be working side-by-side with new hires or temps making a third of what the old guys are making.
Union politics dictate that wages must go up, up, up for the high seniority members. This only works intermediate-term if the company can replace workers with machines and increase productivity enough to fund the higher wages. Note that the amount of capital investment to which the company commits itself in the labor contract has become a major issue to be addressed in the collective bargaining agreement.
Long-term I don't know where this ends. Maybe ten guys making $250,000/yr. with full fringes running a fully automated plant. I just can't figure out who is going to be buying the robot-assembled cars, absent a complete re-engineering of how our society handles redistribution of income. Just as a system designed to manage an agrarian economy needed to be overhauled to manage a manufacturing econony, we need another overhaul to manage an economy where robots are doing more and more of the the "good jobs" that previously existed in manufacturing.
Even professional segments of the economy, like doctors, lawyers, engineers, and accountants, are already suffering losses of revenue due to the ready availability of previously guild-private information on the internet, and there already is much talk about utilizing A.I. programs for routine matters in those professions in the near future.
The animosity directed to outsourcing of jobs is rational only in the context of seeking to sway public opinion in favor of protectionist legislation to preserve high wages at home on a purely temporary basis. Meanwhile, overseas, even the low cost workers are being replaced by machines. Wake up. You are living in the Age of Robots. The only issue of import is how society will divvy up their production. The enrichment of the .01% has happened not only due to the financialization of things and asset bubbles, but also because the .01% own most of the capital in an era where the importance of labor diminishes day-by-day.
Did you see the movie The Animatrix?
Interesting segment on how AI eventually replaces the workforce.
I was unaware that The Animatrix existed. It looks interesting. While composing my original post, my thoughts wandered briefly in to the Dune series and the Butlerian Jihad.
You just summed up the Baby Boomer generation, in a nutshell.
+1 for beating me to it krisp. Gee, they saved 8500 jobs...wow.
10 years man are you ever optimistic. We have already been "fundamentally transformed."
bought Ford Credit bonds today 4.05%
Instead of wheels, each car will ship with a low-paid worker to run the car around like in The Flintstones.
Innovation, baby!
A free chauffeur with every new car.
Just keep the chastity belts locked tight around your wife and kids (boys and girls).
Ford construyó duro
Welcome to the world of business......
Bullish. They still are hiring in US, albeit lower tier wages and have 3 of best-selling brands there are. F-150, Escape, Fusion. and a 1% repossession rate, lowest in their history and NO GOV BAILOUT.
NO. Welcome to the world of crony capitalism where the workers, the people who actually built these damn businesses, don't get a cut of the deal when automation or off shoring is brought in.I remember high school in the 80's. We were supposed to have shorter work weeks due to computers. Instead the politicians sold out the people who elected them. This is not capitalism.
This is capitalism at its finest! Automation, outsourcing, hiring illegals, that's what the companies want! Why don't people understand that companies exist to make profit, not to provide jobs or build a strong economy. Everyone wants to blame the government, but as far as the corportions go, everything is going according to plan. Record profits and executive compensation, what more could a company want? Unfettered capitalism gives us monopolies and workers who get paid just enough to spend their salary on essentials at the company store. The US standard of living will have to drop to adjust to the global standard sorry.
Its a good thing -
Auto workers need to feel the pain of a contracting economy just like everyone else does. LESS PAY and BENEFITS MUST happen before the idiots wake up and vote for liberty and freedom instead of all this UAW-sponsored soft socialism.
EXACTLY ! If new car sales are peaking, this is how you keep people working!
I'm an autoworker, and my pay has been frozen for 8 FKNG YEARS! AND BENEFITS CUT!
What have YOU done to share in the pain?
...Idiot.
Maybe that 8 years of stagnant wages and cut benefits is a clue that you are in a line of work declining in value. According to the consumers who pay for your services by deciding how many cars they will buy at what prices.
Rather than indignantly demand others share the pain of your choice to remain in a job declining in value, maybe you should choose to change jobs.
You may not like it, but robots can increasingly produce what you produce more efficiently. Just as cars produced transportation more efficiently than horses, and stablekeepers seeing their wages stagnate for 8 years should have understood why and begun looking for new lines of work rather than demanding others share their pain.
You've already enjoyed the benefits of one taxpayer bailout that artificially subsidized your job, keeping it from disappearing entirely. And you continue to enjoy having a job only because auto loans are being artificially subsidized via money supply inflation paid for by all of us. How many more signals do you need that what you do is no longer sufficiently productive in its own right to fund the salary and benefits you want?
Outside of the government sector, outside of the financial sector, millions of people have suffered maybe a 67% pay cut, on average, and maybe more if you factor in all those people who can't find jobs.
Thank your Union for the degree that collective bargaining laws have insulated you from the general overall economic carnage. 50% out of work. 40% on food stamps. Foreclosures and bankruptcies running at historical highs.
Lots of people used to have good jobs like yours. Lots of them got laid off and, if there are part of the lucky few, they replaced their $75,000 & full fringes job with a $25,000 no fringes one.
Your pain so far has been insignificant when measured against the pain suffered by tens of millions of people in the USA.
Some are waiting for an opening in your plant to make more than they make in their present jobs. Many haven't had raises, either.
EXACTLY cpnscarlet! NOW, the public union employee's/workers need to feel that same pain! These damned government employees need to stop dictating who/what/where to business that are actually MAKING SOMETHING and get out there and start making wigets them damn selves! INCREASE GDP by making something .....bitches!
Socialist "Capitalism" at it's best
Ford is just another plantation.
When McD's, Wally World and Domino's start paying $15 there won't be any problems.... right
The White House is a union buster.
Move production to Europe, whe have a lot of freshly imported "highly skilled" unemployed workers here.
O wait, EU rules. Never mind.
screwing you is job 1
Obama or Hillary don't give a flying fuck about what's good for America. Cut the bullshit.
How will Ford's Transit Turkish van factory ( relocated from Southampton UK) work out when the Russians turn off the gas......
That's a good point!
Expensive labor, driven by entitlement thinking and crony capitalism, have leveled this country's manufacturing capability. That manufacturing capability was what prevented us all from becoming national socialists in the 1940s.
But hey, next to shariah law, Chinese communism doesn't look so bad.
We operate under a wage slavery system.
People have no choice in the matter.
It's rational to fight for the largest pie.
However wages drive up costs, this forces companies to relocate as it is also rational......
without a national dividend rational production / consumption loops cannot exist.
In a capitalistic system the solution to this unbalance is war....
"However wages drive up costs, this forces companies to relocate as it is also rational......"
The 1970's had the highest per capita wages ever and the USA had the best economy ever.
Based on your assertion how could this happen?
Wages are part of a companies inputs as well as energy, rent etc. Etc.
It's must recover these costs from sales
This is the most basic of logic.
A national dividend added to each person does not add to the costs of production.
You could imagine American companies reducing wages and thus costs of production while also seeing a increase of domestic demand as the dividend is added to people's accounts.
The current absurd transnational and transcontinental supply chain with all of its associated inflated costs is a consequence of companies trying to escape artifical capitalistic costs, this escape adds to real costs thus ?estroying the production consumptíon loop as happened in 2009.
Have you ever owned a 1970s car manufactured by the "Big 3"?
They were mostly a big pile of dog shit - they were living off past accomplishments - bleeding the company dry - paying lazy worthless union fucks 3X more than they were worth - to avoid a strike and protect large executive pay packages.
It took a few years for many people to wake the fuck up and realize that the Big 3 were selling polished turds, but by the end of the 70s Toyota and Honda had gained a foothold and the Big 3 were fucked in the ass.
Between the unions and US government, they caused many of their own woes. Seach the net for the WIKI article on the "Chicken Tax". That was signed by president Lyndon Johnson, father of pay for favors and welfare, and the vacation resort of Vietnam. Lyndon, the democrat, who took blacks in the 1950's with an unemployment rate of virtually zero to living like slaves again now. Clever, those democrats. The chicken tax gave Detroit an advantage on pickup trucks, so they continued to move every platform onto what they could get away with calling a truck. That's why you never saw an imported flood of foreign full size trucks happen in the US. It took years for the foreign companies to build US plants to compete. But Detroit destroyed themselves back then, because every vehicle they built got crappy gas mileage, and when the gas crises hit, a lot of folks unloaded their trucks to move to higher mileage sedans, built by "guess who"? Americans had all but abandoned sedans in favor of higher margin trucks and SUV's, because they didn't have to compete directly against foreign vehicles. More unintended consequences, courtesy of the shit for brains in DC and the short sighted unions, who pushed years later to keep the chicken tax on the books where it affected pickup trucks, after all over provisions of that law were scrapped.
"The 1970's had the highest per capita wages ever"
Do you think maybe "highest wages ever" may have had something to do with companies wanting to ship jobs out of the country?
Greedy fucking worthless union scum got big pay and benefits, but they killed the golden goose.
In the 1970's who gave a shit about worshipping Wall St.'s institutional investors. Now upper managers are Wall St. shills; Wall Street moles within their own companies. It's about this quarter and nothing else. Earnings per share must go up, or else the upper manager A) won't get his multi-million $$$ bonus & B) will get replaced with a more cut-throat shill.
Investing in new machinery domestically or in R&D for what the company will produce in 5 to 10 years is so passe. Easier to continue offshoring and buy back stock at historic highs.
Don't worry! Be happy!
Soon your children will be low wage workers like the rest of the world. American workers circa 1910 were making $1.50 per day. They had no vacations, bonuses or medical. Like a machine,,, when they broke, they were "thrown away"
Those good times are returning. Your iGadgets will still be cheap and made in the USA!
The current old guard can see the writting on the wall.
Funny how people demand lower prices for goods and always claim companies are ripping them off.
And then those same people, as employees, demand higher wages and benefits from the same companies?
And they think there's no connection?
The older Union members recognize that the U.S.A. is swirling the drain no matter who is President or controls CONgress.
They hope to keep their pay and pensions until they can meet their eternal reward.
An act of self-preservation in a country long sold-out.
The kids can take it, or revolt.
I believe this story is a week or so old - at tleast some of it. I read that Ford was going to keep/move production of all luxury cars/SUVs in the US. They make more money on the high-end stuff and therefore can aford the higher costs involved. They were going to keep/move the production of the lower-end stuff to Mexico (like the Escort or its successor). I think the F150 will be made in the US. I did not see where numbers of cars etc was mentioned.
Nothing new. When it came time to replace my Ford back in 2000, I heard they were replacing US programmers with Indians, so I bought a Hyundai.
If Ford wasn"t "buying American," why the hell should I?
We bought a Hyundai too - but because it was a better vehicle -plus cost less - and had a 10 year warranty -
Same old story. Promise to keep them on, let them keep their pay and perks, throw in a bonus and the old union members will go along with the paycuts and outsourcing for the new meats.
The company would have done it anyway, one way or another.
GM to import Chinese-made Buick SUV http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/11/12/gm-to-import-chinese-made-buick-suv/
Long term...this is a losing proposition for younger workers, short term...looks like a win for Ford stockholders...
It's a win for everyone. If younger Ford workers aren't productive enough to earn the level of wages they want without union regs or legal prohibitions, if they can only take home decent money by being subsidized by the productivity of others, the sooner that reality is revealed, the sooner they can change jobs and develop more productive skill sets before they get too old and heavily invested in their current jobs.
Younger gens r already hosed that is set in stone on ALL fronts.. No/low-paying crap jobs no retirement or SS.
Boomers need all they can get to cover the rising health care costs of their fat arses.
Retirees at least still have SS.
I realize it is against the law to point out any good news on this site - but I'll take the risk.
When Ford talks about -low wage workers, or temporaries, what they mean is workers who make the same as those who work at all of the transplant factories in the US - you know like Toyota and Honda.
I guess those workers don't have it as good as UAW employees, but they aren't living off of rice and beans either....
The last tech company I worked for in the US had a ton of Indian H-1B visa workers. But the people who had it the best - of all of us - were the Indian workers who worked in the US for a few/couple years and then went BACK to India to train people there. They had a sweet deal.
If I were in the auto industry and were 20-30 years younger, or if I had a son who was - I'd have a talk with someone at my next review and say - Hey, I'd really like to help out bringing a plant up in Latin America. Living in Puebla, Mexico has to better than living in Detroit MI.
They are just preparing for the inevitable invasion of Chinese made vehicles. Propping up Chinese stocks maybe. The West is fundamentally changing quick and we have lost this battle, the war is coming.
DONT BLAME FORD! The only people to blame are the UNIONS! Both the auto workers union for EXHORTING Ford, by demanding higher wages OR face all it's workers walking off the job AND the public union employee's for over regulating EVERY COMPANY in the USA to the point where it is economically unfeasible to operate a company here.
BEING AN EX SHEETMETAL WORKER for 14 years, I CAN SAY that the unions ABSOLUTELY RUINED our nation! For whenever you can have government agency after government agency dictating to the business HOW things will be done, only to justify their 6 figure job/salary along with their "union brother's" 6 figure job/salary MAKING ONLY RULES AND REGS, instead of making real products, our way of living and doing business WAS DESTINED to fail!
6 figures? where?
oh ya you were just bullshitting. lol
Take a look in Ontario at the "Sunshine List". Every public sector worker in the province, earning over $100k, has their name and salary published. Currently there are 111,438 names on that list (2014).
http://www.ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure
We all pick our trades, RIGHT? You just picked a trade that can be done for cheaper, elsewhere. You picked a job that a damn computer and robots can do! Who in the hell needs autoworkers these days? Not Ford, or ANYONE ELSE for that matter! That being said, 12 years ago when i stopped working at sheetmetal workers local 104, i was making $58 dollars per hour, AND $83 dollars an hour if you included my healthcare and 3 pensions.... during a time that my non union counterpart was lucky to make $25 per hour, no healthcare and no pension! I literally made over 3X the money they made..... WHY? Could it be that government ONLY HIRES union contractors who only hires union workers.... let me help you with that, YES!
SO YES, many many union workers (and just as many government public union workers) has made / does make 100K easily, by fleecing the taxpayers! WAKE UP and when you start looking for work again (because an asian halfway across the world will do you shitty job for cheaper), look towards a field that cant be outsources, like electrician, plumber or sheetmetal worker.... USE YOUR HEAD and find the job that will benefit you and yours... and STOP laughing and think people are bullshitting because YOU couldnt/didnt do it yourself.
And so who needs a CEO that literally make hundreds of millions of dollars? The so called free trade agreements such as NAFTA is what has ruined the job market in the USA. Look out for the TPP! The empirical globalists are raping America just as they've done to the smaller countries for a very long time.
I upvoted you and agree.... That being said, What CEO's are you referring to? The government ran IRS, the government ran BANKS or our government ran HEALTHCARE system CEO?
For the IRS literally steals 3 TRILLION dollars from it's citizenry each and every year DIRECTLY, then if you include inflation/debt/unfunded liabilities, that number is far far higher! After TARP and TALP, our banks are now government ran and the head of the banks are some of the most highly paid CEO's in the country AND our health care system is the ONLY THING of value we seem to "manufacture" around here these days (it's a sad day when our biggest manufacturers here in the USA are the people delivering health care to sick people.... BULLISH) and the government cornered that market as well!
.....WHEN IN ROME..... Do what they do, OR, burn the fucker down!
The majority of CEO's don't make anywhere near that much.
I know one CEO of a large, international engineering firm with over 40,000 employees, most are very highly skilled and highly paid. He earns less than $2m a year (including bonuses). Yet he's the one that keeps those 40,000 people employed in very high paying jobs.
Do you want a dunce leading a company when your job and high income are at stake?
$100,000 and up is 6 figures.
Are you sure? I can count 8 figures there. $1,000 is six figures. I must be fuckin' rich then. Am I?
There was a CAT locomotive plant in London, Ontario. It was unionized and their contract came up.
CAT had recently bought the plant from Electro Movtive Diesl. Almost eveyone was paid over $30/hr. Management at CAT proposed to cut new, unskilled labor from $30+ to $18/hr, and the skilled labor would maintain their $35++/hr rates. And CAT maintained their gold plated benefits and pension package for everyone.
The union went ballistic, and simply claimed that the evil CAT Corporation was cutting wages by 50%, implying that ALL wages were being cut, which was a lie.
So the union went on strike (actually CAT locked them out) What did CAT do when the Union rejected their offer? They MOVED THE PLANT and production will now be in the US and South America.
The 450 workers? The skilled machinsts, electricians, mechanics, who's pay was NOT going to be cut, will eventually find reasonable jobs, but unlikley with pensions and benefits.
However the unskilled labor that was going to make from $18 to $22/hr PLUS BENEFITS and PENSION? They are now competing for minimum wage McJobs with no benefits and no pension.
The fault was entirely the Union's. Yeah, the union really stuck it to the company, didn't they. Workers? Do you think the union actually CARES about the workers?
Bullshit! Ford needs to be blamed for being ignorant greedy fucks along with the crooked assed union brass that have been selling out their brethren for decades.
Try to consider that on the opposite side of all those UAW contracts sat some pretty highly paid management who agreed to the terms of those contracts. Their own salary's depended on the producers getting raises as did their benefit packages.
Ford is still doing a pretty good job considering the state of the world market, especially with their F series pick ups. If they can even stay in business competing with Toyota, that is saying something.
AS far as unfeasability of running a company here, as bad as it is, America is still the number one manufacturing country in the world.
Do you also believe that the rank and file paper pusher at your local municipal agency is making 6 figures? Really? You think they have some input as to what the rules are. pfft
One big problem is wherever you are getting your "facts" from. Put down the remote, quit listening to Limbaugh and CNN, and spend more time reading [the hedge] in particular. Click on many of the links by long time posters, look at some of the quality forums on the left of this page. Jesse's Cafe American in particular.
It's ok to bash unions, after all this is fight club. But get your facts strait and help the other readers not be mis-informed. There is ample propaganda from the msm.
Everybody votes their pocket book, everybody. It's like blaming victims.
"The only people to blame are the UNIONS!" ?? pfft, hey did you catch that Denver game?
Sometimes, you need to legislate the raising of Tariffs. The company can afford to offshore production for OFFSHORE SALES; and I mean, 3rd World Market Sales at that.
Higher taxes IS NOT the answer! Oy Vey!
is that what was happening with Smoot Hawley? i mean the bugaboo of no tariffs is thoroughly ingrained in US economic thinking as the cause of W2. now if we could have outsourced jobs in the great depression how good would that have been? from an economic standpoint this only legitimizes the flow of hot money to the EM. and the new IMF plan to float a global currency will provide plenty of ammunition. i think i am starting to see what is happening here, the third world has not developed as quickly as we thought, or quickly enough to pay off the debt that was issued. so yeah the union is doing its patriotic duty i suppose, but in the end they just end up a lot poorer than they already are, the salad says for auto workers were in the 60s, but its possible they will all be categorized as government employees which would be a significant upgrade to their standard of living. the future of america is performing the role of the global bureaucracy, and financial manager of debt and development and project manager.
"If you want to keep yo jobs, yo can keep yo jobs!"
with a national dividend there is no need for corrupt unions.
As you have purchasing power independence.
Ohhhh.... the lynchpin is that the politicians (especially the left) NEED THE UNIONS! Did you know that our union pays $500 per year, for every union employee to local and national political candidates? That is why the left panders to the unions and why the unions are not yet abolished! Not only are union members donating to left leaning campaigns, but these same union employee's are also voting them in ENSURING these same unions will continue to recieve union contracts (job security)! Did i mention that the government ONLY HIRES union contractors for all government jobs? It is one big circlejerk with everyone sitting at the table, ensuring they get theirs!
You might want to check your facts on the gov only hiring union. Even defense manufacturing is partially constructed in China.
Don't blame the lesser corporations .... for the stupidity and greed .... of the master socialist government corporations ?
The older workers think they are getting more 'bennies' - for now - but they do not realize that Ponzi schemes, like their under-funded pensions, require new lemmings to come along and prop up the excesses that those on the top collect. I doubt those foreign, or low paid, or temp workers are going to be pumping money into the Ford pension plans.
they're voting their own retirement on the back of new workers who will be foreigners. you can appreciate the symmetry of that can't you?
Never fear! The gov is all ready to pay those pensions with the new "red-colored currency" worth about...
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a correlation between the more workers laid off versus the bigger the size of the Stars & Stripes these companies plaster all over their offices/factories.
Basically, you're all being played...
yeah its like that football game last night, undefeated Patriots lost, Bellichick can beat every team in the league except the Zebras. nobody can beat them
When is holding not holding? Oh that's right, when the beloved Patriots do it. Sorry chowd's, Broncos Win.
Trump was right about F.
Unbelievable the rhetoric here about unions and non-unions.
Lots of bullshitting going on.
Its just ppl bargaining whatever they can get...in groups. that is all.
Without them, we'd all be living like slaves.
The evidence is clear in non-unon countries. They live like dogs.
If we all still lived in company towns where everyone works for the one industrial plant in town... I'd agree... but times have changed... and unions in a lot of cases haven't kept up. There was a time and a place for them... much as there was for horse drawn carrige makers .. and butter churn makers... oil lamp makers... and so on...
You don't need unions. You need the government to get the f-ck out.
Exactly. Thank you.
...we NEED unions BECAUSE the guvermint is involved.
Come on Dan.... put down the bong and pay attention! What is the BIGGEST UNION in the country? The public employee's union! You know.... government employee's!
The unions are in BED with the government that is why we need to abolish the unions!
We are in a recession/depression.... the american taxpayer is tired of being fleeced. Why pay you 3X the salary of someone willing to do the same job for 1/3 the pay? Paying people 3X the going rate WHILE ENSURING they can not get fired (for any reason) just doesnt make sense (unless you are getting a kickback somewhere).
What is wrong with a level playing field allowing every AMERICAN COMPANY being able to bid on government jobs? Dont more bids, make the price of things more competitive/cheaper?
Dont you think Americans deserve high quality products at the best possible price? Doesnt everyone deserve a chance? Or just you and your band of union brothers? Thinking that is the problem with america today... we need to abolish the "good ol' boy" system and allow EVERY company (not just union companies and employee's) to participate!
Off Shoring has been going on for decades. Occupations like IT (the one I retired from) started this process in the 1970s. Most of the high priced American industry was Off Shored to the third world by 2000 and replaced with cheap labor.
The other half of this process was to On Shore people with green cards. Many managers do not like to mange business units remote. So in IT 10s of thousands of green cards were issued under Clinton to handle Y2K. One project I was on as a contract manager had as its objective to convert old Ford data bases and programs used once a year in finance. In this project I was the only U.S. citizen all the rest were green card holders from India.
None of this Off Shoring process is new to business. It is just that we are now seeing all business processes run through the liberal propaganda mill for political points. I was totally amazed from 1970 to 2000 at how little press was actually given to destruction of the American manufacturing businesses 20 million jobs. All we heard from the press in those years is that this was a natural process to go from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. And NOW they want to finally worry about it?...
Like the trades. Constantly need apprentices with only 1 guy on the job that knows wtf is going on and takes all the crap for not getting shit done.
Also, this will foster a great work environment for sure. The cheap new guys will be treated like total trash. Once the old are gone, Ford will just be another globalized shithole of a Fox iphone plant.
with the strong dollar (with how much they print... I'm not sure why it's so strong)... and unions always demanding more... it's hard for any low skill labor or manufacturing to be profitable in the US.
I don't really think what ford is doing is unpatriotic, it's just the basics of business... do what makes you competitive and still makes a profit.
funny how it isnt the 'rich' that sold out the workers but the 8500 senior union members that are promised their jobs....hahahahaha
The new American Dream.
Get a big fat fucking gummamint job, join a gummamint union, fuck the dog for 40 hours a week, get overpaid, retire at 55.
TRUMP - Make America Great Again - TRUMP,,,gets my vote!
what I like about the Donald, and would make me vote for him, is the willingness to take on the propaganda of the main stream press. Today I had to listen to some moron CNN lady personality inject her personal opinion into what should be straight reporting of the facts. Her personal bias and unnecessary commentary was unbelievable.
Well, CNN first carries the water for the "Establishment" (Uni-Party) regardless of "party" (labels) and then second, for the Democratic wing of the Establishment over all others.
I don't even bother with them. Or MSNBC. Or CNBC (Except for brief interludes of stark raving madness, Santelli withdrawals or the painful necessity to keep track of the meme being pushed) NBC (Go Brian Williams) ABC, CBS, NYT, WSJ BBG (unless the sound is off, watching the numbers) .... Who've I forgotten? Doesn't matter, does it, if I can't remember? Hah!
Better check the undercarriage for explosives before you drive your new Ford off the lot, because it sounds like they're getting ready to hire a bunch of those "Syrian" refugees.
Sounds like the old guard union members are giving tons of ground because they're terrified of losing their existing jobs or defunding pensions. Isn't highly unusual to see 51% voters going for a deal that allows non-union cheapies and the ability to outsource?
Just goes to show everyone EXACTLY how relevent the unions are, huh? Hell, their own people see the writing on the wall!
CANT WAIT TO SEE THIS HAPPEN IN THE GOVERNMENT UNION SECTOR!
WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD .... BITCHES
Isn't highly unusual to see 51% voters going for a deal that allows non-union cheapies and the ability to outsource?
Actually, it is the "usual". It's called featherbedding and a two-tier system and has been going on for a long time. The only employees the unions are interested in is themselves.
Two-tier systems became more common in most industrialized economies in the late 1980s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-tier_system
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Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART
Inactivity Rate: Aged 25-54: Males for the United States©
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LRIN25MAUSM156S
The real key metric is that in 1985, our balance of trade with the Chinese was 6 million dollars.
tps://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#1985
Now?
$350 billion. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2014
All those jobs.
Gone.
Do the 'goezintas' on that number, for the number of jobs gone. (2 goezinta 4, twice.)
We’re not only eating our seed corn, we’ve killed the golden goose.
What's your point?
You cherry pick China and make meaningless claims. So what if balance of trade with China is negative. How about other countries where the US has INCREASED the balance of trade?
"ratified by 51.3% of Ford production workers"
AKA your union just threw 48.7% of you under the bus - a bus which will now be made in Mexico.
It's karama for stealing aston martin's grille design
Do you realize that Ford did own Aston Martin until 2007, and they still hold 8% of it.
Indeed I do. But Aston did have the grille first. I understad car compnaies swipe design elements all the time, but this one was a d00zy
Its government and central banks folks
PPL here blaming unions for the devaluation of money.
Stupid. Just stupid.
I WOULD BET MY LEFT NUT, that if the unions were not involved, Ford (and many other companies) would have choosen to remain an American company ... and we would STILL manufacture things here in the USA.... As it sits, we have lost 4 MILLION manufacturing jobs in the last 6 years. Jobs we will probably NEVER get back!
Good point. The only way those jobs come back is a truely free market. Open source would open the door for small companies to inovate the industry. Starting from the ground up.
My guess is the regulators kill off open source before it gets rolling. Still I will try.
This is how unions die; the barely-majority older workers vote themselves more money at the expense of the younger workers, and eventually there are no more younger workers in the union as it gets top-heavy. All the new people are temps or non-union people working elsewhere. Eventually the older workers retire and die off and there's no more union and no more bargaining power.
Open source cars and trucks built localy are a better path. Screw all the big boys. The best thing that could happen is real competition. The industry needs it so badly.
So how many layers of Fords management are going away? Thats been one of Fords worst problems for years.
Imagine what the auto industry would look like after say ten years with a level playing field. Take away the fiat magic an that market would be be far better off. With the consumers getting a far better ride. The talent is around.
Yes, "open source cars" would be great. Sadly, probably 100 trillion pages of regulations on vehicles have been generated by federal government.
I'm not sure how individuals or tiny-biz suppliers can afford to read, much less adhere to every requirement (much less get 3768 government approvals that are probably necessary for every component).
While I may have exaggerated a bit... probably not by much.
But in principle, I totally agree with you. But they'd have to take away the "regulation magic" as well as the "fiat magic". I don't see that happening.
However, maybe some clever dude could find some loophole sorta like the loophole for "experimental aircraft". With 3D component printing gradually becoming better, maybe every vehicle off the line could be different enough as to qualify as "experimental landcraft" or something. Assuming such a category exists.
The big guys will never allow substantially lowered "barriers to entry".
My relatively inexpensive little high-tech carbon-fiber airplane that gets 75mpg, travels at up to 300kph, and has a range of 4000km+ is a good example of what can happen when barriers aren't as high. I just don't think this will happen in the land vehicle market, because that market is just too huge.
What the world needs is ONE place on the planet without predators-DBA-government and their bogus rules. That place would advance so fast, and become so amazing... the predators-that-be would surely nuke it before too many in the masses noticed.
Most of the loop holes were closed in 93 with the check engine light regulations. OBD2 and the assorted BS saftey regs.
That said if people put their minds to it? Anything is possible. The main issue as I see it is the changing of the rules. They can and have changed the rules faster than a guy like me can keep up. My hope is with open source and lots of help we could bust it wide open.
Once thru the door we will out innovate all the big boys hands down.
Any ideas on how to keep it open accesable and free to all?
Quote: 'Unpatriotic' Ford Agrees Union Deal To Offshore American Jobs And Hire Low-Paid Workers
Ford Motor Company went unpatriotic back in the 1970s when they made everybody listen to their obnoxious starter motors.
Found On Reef Dead = Offshoring