[Karaya One]

This really pisses me off!

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...C01-115531.htm

Does a foreign made vehicle include all those cars and trucks made in Canada by GM?

Honda's in Ohio?

Nissan's in Tennessee?

It is shit like this that really makes people think union's are a thing of the past.

[bigred875]

what a fucking crock of shit...thgey are just pissed they're boy didnt win...

[highsider]

Thats pretty ridiculous....no matter what you think of Bush, you stll have to support our armed forces.

Bitching over parking priveleges:

If memory serves, the UAW is a mobbed-up clusterfuck anyway.

[odduc]

The unions are a thing of the past. They stopped actually helping their members, long ago. Now they're nothing more than a special interest group with a political agenda, and lately they have an axe to grind.

[Idiotboy]

Bullshit like that makes me happy my Dodge was built in Canada.

[SEVENSGT]

ya know I only bought my Hawk cause it was aasembled in MD, fuck unions, I've been in 3 and don't like any......

[mikeb]

unions have destroyed or forced companys to relocate there work force overseas or mexico, canada, etc... why? they demand outragest wages and benifets. a highschool drop-out makes 50 g's a year doing the same brain dead thing over and over in a factory.

don't get the honda or toyota built in usa shit twisted ether. those companies set up those plants here to please our goverment. 300 to 400 jobs here and there. all the parts still come from overseas. all they do is assemble them here. weve lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and they just give us some tokin ones back.

[highsider]

Unions are not always bad.

The bad ones are the ones that are too big. We deal with a bunch of smaller unions here at work that do a pretty good job of taking care of their people, making sure they are safe on a job sites, etc. They are about 1000 people.

But when there are HUGE unions like the UAW, they lose interest in trying to take care of the union members because there are so large, they could never make everyone happy.

[RandyO]

Originally posted by blackvfr
unions have destroyed or forced companys to relocate there work force overseas or mexico, canada, etc... why? they demand outragest wages and benifets. a highschool drop-out makes 50 g's a year doing the same brain dead thing over and over in a factory.

don't get the honda or toyota built in usa shit twisted ether. those companies set up those plants here to please our goverment. 300 to 400 jobs here and there. all the parts still come from overseas. all they do is assemble them here. weve lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and they just give us some tokin ones back.

and you don't think fords & chevys are made from parts that come from other countries.

if the UAW really represented auto workers, they would represent auto workers worldwide, not just workers for companies headquartered in Detroit

[SEVENSGT]

Originally posted by RandyO
and you don't think fords & chevys are made from parts that come from other countries.

if the UAW really represented auto workers, they would represent auto workers worldwide, not just workers for companies headquartered in Detroit

your absolutely right randy, my explorer is made from mazda parts, still a ford co, but based outa japan....

[mikeb]

Originally posted by RandyO
and you don't think fords & chevys are made from parts that come from other countries.

if the UAW really represented auto workers, they would represent auto workers worldwide, not just workers for companies headquartered in Detroit

uaw is just an example. i know my chevy has parts from all over the world. gm along with ford has in some cases controlling interest in alot of overseas brands. ford/mazda, gm/izuzu. dodge is now german controlled.

i was talking more along the lines of unions in general. bottom line is if companies can't make the profit they want by dealing with any workers union they pack there shit for china. american unions demand more than greedy corp owners will give. in the end we all lose.

[RandyO]

Originally posted by blackvfr
uaw is just an example. i know my chevy has parts from all over the world. gm along with ford has in some cases controlling interest in alot of overseas brands. ford/mazda, gm/izuzu. dodge is now german controlled.

i was talking more along the lines of unions in general. bottom line is if companies can't make the profit they want by dealing with any workers union they pack there shit for china. american unions demand more than greedy corp owners will give. in the end we all lose.

if ya ask me, the greedy ones are the union thugs, IF they really represented the workers interests, then they would unionize workers overseas too, Union workers are loosing cause of their own greed, not the cause of corporation owners, companies have to make a profit or they won't exist.

[Karaya One]

The jackass has kind of come to his senses...

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4284497/detail.html

He still seems pissed.

[mikeb]

Originally posted by RandyO
if ya ask me, the greedy ones are the union thugs, IF they really represented the workers interests, then they would unionize workers overseas too, Union workers are loosing cause of their own greed, not the cause of corporation owners, companies have to make a profit or they won't exist.

there's greed on both sides. thats the problem. i don't know how you could unionize workers in other countries were the goverment would strongly oppose any organized labor effert. probley with violence too. mexico and other goverments are getting payoffs from american comps and allowing them to set up shop with cheap labor. you think china would work with an american based labor union?

[Green Hornet]

Originally posted by RandyO
Union workers are loosing cause of their own greed, not the cause of corporation owners, companies have to make a profit or they won't exist.

Do you know the history of labor in America?

The reason why we have things like FLSA and OSHA is because of greedy corporations working people to death for poverty wages.

[benVFR]

Yah you guys need to put the crack pipe down if you think the jobs went overseas cause of the unions.

The jobs went overseas cause it is illegal to lock your workers in dorms when they go home from the job. Cause it is illegal to pay $20/month. Cause it is illegal to force people to work 80 hours a week. Cause it is illegal to have kids working in the factory. Cause people in the US expect health care. Cause it is illegal to have a dangerous job site, or force people to work with chemicals without protection. Maybe some of these things have to do with the unions, but plenty of it is just American culture.

As long as there are some 3rd world countries willing to turn their people into slave labor for American companies it will continue. It is only a matter of time before China starts worrying about things like health care, but there will always be another country further down the ladder ready to be exploited. A hundred years ago we were like that too. Who knows how many more centuries it will be before the whole world is humane.

[odduc]

yeah, but as most have said with regard to the unions; they started out as a good thing but have since developed into what they were trying to combat. The union bosses and management are now the greedy ones who have left their members behind while claiming to be fighting for them.

All of the bad things that you mentioned, Ben, are no longer taking place in the U.S. labor market. However, the unions continue to try and extort big business for more money, little of which actually makes it to the workers.

Randy had a very good point in that corporations need to make profits in order to stay in business for their customers and to pay their workers a fair salary. Profit ought not be a dirty word.

[benVFR]

The unions have all kinds of internal issues but as soon as workers relax the companies will go back to their old ways, try to push the boundaries as far as they can within the law, lobby for changes to the laws, etc..

Some of the laws for worker protections have been succesfully changed to benefit the company at the expense of the US citizen in the last 4 years.

Companies like Walmart, etc.. and their great success are a fantastic example of how the companies will fight tooth and nail to reverse everything the unions helped push through in the past.

Randy had a very good point in that corporations need to make profits in order to stay in business for their customers and to pay their workers a fair salary. Profit ought not be a dirty word.

The issue is how myopic US companies have become. Because of the way executive pay, etc.. has skyrocketed and how fickle the stock market is, companies are happy to do anything they can to gain a little extra profit this quarter without ever thinking it might tank the company 5 years down the road. This is the same kind of shit that causes US companies to try and figure out how to put a big V-8 back into every vehicle in their lineup as we hit an all time high oil price and the foreign car companies get further and further ahead on cutting edge technology to save fuel.

It is funny that UAW is mentioned, as those companies are not going to start doing a whole lot better just if pay & workers rights dropped or the union went away. They have so many issues you wouldn't know where to start. Killing UAW is not going to make Ford or GM come out with a competitive hybrid vehicle tomorrow or anything like that.

GM in particular, the big thing they would love to do is dump all the pensions for their employees. They are paying out a HUGE amount of money to retired ex-employees. By some accounts it is adding like $1000 to the cost of each new GM vehicle. Should they be able to do that? Did they have a contract with their employees? Should they be able to break that?

[mikeb]

[quote]Originally posted by benVFR
[b]Yah you guys need to put the crack pipe down if you think the jobs went overseas cause of the unions.

iQUOTE]

YOU DON'T THINK THERE PART OF THE REASON YOUR ON THE CRACK! like i said greed on both sides. ok this isn't the 1920's we don't lock fire escapes anymore or work to death 5 year olds. unions that once protected the worker now demand to much from employers. corps go overseas set up shop way cheap and say fuck you and your union.

[odduc]

corps go overseas set up shop way cheap and say fuck you and your union.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaccccctttttllllyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!(exactly)

Unions are a part of the reason why so many companies are forced to outsource their work. Yes, it sucks for the American worker as well as the consumer, but the unions ignore that.

[benVFR]

Yes except technology & engineering have never formed real unions, and those fields are outsourcing and sending work overseas like crazy, even when it doesn't even make sense and/or can't be proven to actually save costs & give a competitive advantage.

When it comes down to sending manufacturing overseas, the extra pay or benefits that union employees manage to get are a drop in the bucket compared to the savings by going overseas.

E.x. total guess numbers but I know the magnitude difference between here and overseas is in the ballpark.

UAW worker = $40,000/yr + benefits
US auto worker after UAW gets killed, say $30,000 + no benefits
Chinese auto worker = $1000/yr, no benefits, state keeps him from changing jobs or demanding more money

Even if the US union disappears the US worker is still fucked, the chinese guy is cheaper than McDonald's burger flipper here in the US.

Same thing with technology:

Computer scientist in the US: $40,000-100,000+ and benefits
Computer scientist in India: $5,000-30,000 + likely no company supplied benefits due to different healthcare arrangements.

Like it would really matter if all of us who are in computer science in the US decide to join ACM or something and unionize. It won't make us any less attractive, we are already way too expensive compared to someone living in a country with miniscule cost of living and a free college education.

The unions are just a small piece of the picture. If the UAW, etc.. disappeared tomorrow it would not erase 20 years of bad decisions by Ford & GM executives and managers.

[RandyO]

this is what I think about the union suck beaks (at UAW anyway) it that they promote socialism and nationalism.... isn't that what the NAZI party was all about?

they really have no clue that we are a global economy, they bitch that people buy foreign cars but at the same time buy fresh fruit out of season from Chile, Argentina and New Zeland, why aren't they supporting American farmers by refusing to eat imported food?

[WildBill]

Originally posted by benVFR
Yes except technology & engineering have never formed real unions, and those fields are outsourcing and sending work overseas like crazy, even when it doesn't even make sense and/or can't be proven to actually save costs & give a competitive advantage.

When it comes down to sending manufacturing overseas, the extra pay or benefits that union employees manage to get are a drop in the bucket compared to the savings by going overseas.

E.x. total guess numbers but I know the magnitude difference between here and overseas is in the ballpark.

UAW worker = $40,000/yr + benefits
US auto worker after UAW gets killed, say $30,000 + no benefits
Chinese auto worker = $1000/yr, no benefits, state keeps him from changing jobs or demanding more money

Even if the US union disappears the US worker is still fucked, the chinese guy is cheaper than McDonald's burger flipper here in the US.

Same thing with technology:

Computer scientist in the US: $40,000-100,000+ and benefits
Computer scientist in India: $5,000-30,000 + likely no company supplied benefits due to different healthcare arrangements.

Like it would really matter if all of us who are in computer science in the US decide to join ACM or something and unionize. It won't make us any less attractive, we are already way too expensive compared to someone living in a country with miniscule cost of living and a free college education.

The unions are just a small piece of the picture. If the UAW, etc.. disappeared tomorrow it would not erase 20 years of bad decisions by Ford & GM executives and managers.

It's nice to be young and stupid. like to see what you say in 10 years.