Originally posted by WhiteHawk
Ford engineers are non Union. McLean should never have agreed to a contract that prevents the business from operating successfully. Would your father and you have lost good jobs if the Union hadnt created them? It is a popular myth that corporations are forced to allow unions to run the business, in fact, unions lay a contract on the table that says, 'we will not supply your plant with labor unless these conditions are met.' The company can refuse or accept. Strikes these days are no deterrent to a company who can replace them permanantly and immediatly, which is any US company. In most cases, the decision for a company to move oversees is a combination of things. Cheap labor is one of them, no national labor laws is another, i.e. if you get mangled on the job, tuff luck. When you get old and brittle, see you later, if you dont polish my knob before your shift every day, you get the worst job with the least pay. Also, the relaxed environmental restrictions, pensions, no OSHA, no wages and hours division, no labor board, no discrimination or harassment. So, the unions are just the first line of defense against a free-for-all low bidder labor auction that would resort to massive insourcing of cheap mexican and chinese labor and resort in a dramatic decrease in the living standard of Many americans. I have no doubt, although I could be wrong, that most US companies would employ gulag conditions if the law permitted it. As was the case before the Unions.
The IBofT local 480 SUPPLIED us with those jobs?????????????? Who the HELL are you trying to fool? The union hasn't created a damned thing as far as jobs go, except for those leeches sitting up top sucking the rest of the members dry, THOSE jobs the union created. The union didn't get me a single job, I applied, and then I WORKED so they'd call me back. No, we worked our tulips off to get jobs, the union didn't get us jobs.
McLean didn't AGREE to a contract that killed them, the union slow walkers bled them down. "Don't work so hard, you'll make us look bad". Even my diehard pro union friends know it goes on and say it is wrong. It goes on everywhere I've ever had dealings with a union. No productivity no profit, no profit, no company, no company, no job. Thanks a lot IBofT.
The local GE plant here is closing in 6 months after being here since 1957. They went union (IBEW) about 15 years ago and it went down hill from there. When the union came in, GE was already the best place to work for wages and benefits. Now Nissan and others have passed them by, and productivity is so bad they're down to 50 employees from 1600, and they'll ALL be gone in 6 months. Thank you IBEW.
Strikes present no problem? Yeah, sure. Shut the plant down and stop production of the product that pays the bills. That's no problem at all.
Oh, UNLESS your state is a right to work state, once the union is in, they have to deal with and hire union. So no, you can't just say "We won't meet union demands, we'll hire someone else and get rid of the union."
Engineers aren't union? No kidding? Read what I wrote. I said management was just as bad as the unions, and cited the crappy engineering staff as an example.
