Posted on 10/24/2005 4:39:45 AM PDT by carolgr
Companies that are worth billions of dollar are allowed to shirk their pension responsibilities through manipulated and contrived management moves. They are allowed to go bankrupt after openly stating that they are making these moves exclusively to get out of paying their so-called Legacy costs. This is the worst kind of betrayal for devastated workers.
This is a problem that only the workers, retirees and their families are now facing. Do future retirees have to worry? Absolutely! Workers know that the way present retirees are treated is the way that they and their spouses will be treated when they retire. Auto workers have seen their plants close down, subjected their families to crazy work shift patterns and have been forced to cave in to totally unfair two tier wage settlements, where two workers doing equal and similar work directly next to each other make profoundly different wages. Loyal workers have been forced to shift their families from town to town and state-to-state to stay employed and are now faced with these unfair devastating cuts that their UAW officials are asking them to take.
Companies have been allowed to underfund pensions, restructure and export away jobs, make profound management mistakes, manipulate the bankruptcy laws and then shift their mistakes onto the blue collar and white collar backs of retirees, workers and taxpayers.................
(Excerpt) Read more at michaelwestfall.tripod.com ...
...and making them less prouctive!
I guess the author would rather see GM lay off their current workers.
The time of the unions has past. At one time they were necessary but with today's regulations on business they have largely served a useful purpose. Protecting overpaid and unproductive workers have helped drive business out of the U.S.
Promises made and not kept.
I have no sympathy for the auto worker under these circumstances. None of them had the good sense to realize that their promised land "retirement" was a Ponzi scheme, destined to fail and hurt only them.
Nope, no sympathy here, none whatever, as they had no voice to raise in my defense, especially when they knew that the money they were giving to a union was being used to finance the high life and good times of some union officials and mafia types, yet they continued to allow the union and corrupt company officials to suck them dry.
The big difference between us is that we military retirees put our lives on the line; the auto worker retirees simply put time in on the line.
And yes, I know the auto workers contributed to their retirement funds from their pay; whereas we military retirees did not, but many potential military retirees invested their lives in it.
Ah, enough pissing and moaning, no one cares anyway, but you can bet your assets that we, the taxpayer, will bail these people out and the military retirees will take another cut in their promised benefits, in order to finance the save.
Sorry, but hardly breaking news.
retrebution for extortion is painful
Agree....unions suck !
Folks need to learn to never rely on anyone else for their income. Save for your retirement yourself and plan like your companies non contributory retirement program and social security won't be available when you plan to retire....
Live within your means, have zero debt and at least a years income saved and available if at all possible. Too many tools available to the individual to not prepare financially with such as the 401K, Roth IRA, CD's, Gold, DRIPS, Spider funds, etc etc ......
Just my opinion of course.....
They're doing that anyway.
If you reduced production line jobs to minimum wage with no benefits you still wouldn't get those jobs back in the US. They would still be cheaper labor in Mexico and China etc.
We've been steadily selling our birthright overseas. If this country had to sustain a longterm hot war right now we wouldn't have th production capacity. It's pathetic.
It really pisses me off that illegals and fat-ass inner-city mommas get better benefits than our retired militry and active military families.
That is correct because it is no small expense to move jobs to other countries. However, if reasonable demands had been proposed by unions, these same countries would not have been so willing to relocate in the first place.
How do you define "hot war?" The face of warfare has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Sustaining a rifle-war with any opposing force would a very foolish venture regardless of production capacity.
For the record, I don't like seeing jobs leave the country. I place high value on buying American and do so every chance I get.
China. It's going to happen, just a matter of time.
Sorry for all the typos in my last post. I wouldn't be surprised if we fight china again. We fought them by proxy in Nam, but it won't be the same type of war the next time.
Walmart, Target, and lots of other mega-retailers are exporting more jobs to China than any other industry in the U.S. It seems that 75% of items sold in these stores is made in China.
Older readers will recall when Consumers Reports actually published a "decoder" for VIN's so that you could determine which day of the week your car was made. Their advice: If your car was built on a Friday or a Monday - refuse delivery.
Good response.
Surely you can't mean ALL auto workers?
Not all are kool-aid drinkers as you seem to suggest
Many , like myself, have voted no on every contract, are conservative and vote as such and have tried to fight from within
That being said, I agree that its way past the time for the Union to go
WHAT IS YOUR NAME I WANT YOUR UNION CARD ON MY DESK IN THE MORNING
SIGNED
MR. BIGHEAD
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