Last call for a union town

CNN Money ^ | Ellen McGirt

[2banana]

Most are furious at the company, calling the entire bankruptcy a fraud, an effort to renege on legitimate union contracts. Some, like Bob Martin, 63, an old-school UAW member, say the union itself has been complicit: "The union betrayed me, the company betrayed me, my government betrayed me. [Delphi is] just trying to get rid of its contracts, and the union has rolled right over."

...

Others turn defensive - if not about the UAW per se, then about the idea that workers somehow brought this on themselves by weighing down carmakers with undeservedly fat union contracts and retiree benefits.

"Everyone hates us," says union member and Delphi worker Shawn Nevin, 37. Nevin builds circuitboards and is a skilled worker whose expertise can't easily be replaced. He feels his contributions to the company - and to a profitable plant - deserve to be rewarded and protected. "Can't they see that everyone has benefits because of unions?" he asks.

But elsewhere among the Kokomo community are quieter voices that seem to be saying, "Get over it and move on already: The days of union protection are dead." While you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who says he's happy about what's happening to the Delphi workers, some do see the bankruptcy as an opportunity.

Most of Delphi's union production workers are paid around $27 an hour (skilled tradespeople make more), and the company is now hiring folks to fill some of those newly vacant jobs at $14 an hour. And from Kokomo townspeople further down the economic food chain than the long-standing union workers, there's been plenty of interest.

[tcostell]

More to the point, they should be doing their best to make sure they don't add perverse incentives to the mix by their very involvement. Many an otherwise productive worker has been turned into a slacker by the unions.

If they negotiated floating rates of compensation based on productivity, and allowed the corporation to fire anyone who was more than 1 standard deviation below the mean, the company probably wouldn't even try to get rid of them.

[Teacher317]

"Can't they see that everyone has benefits because of unions?" he asks.

The only benefit to the consumer today is higher prices. Having worked at more than one union shop, all I saw was that the average union employee is not exactly an artisan, nor is he terribly concerned about a quality product. Far more important to the daily routine was break-time, maximizing their paid down-time, and complaining about their lives.

And yes, I am ardently opposed to the teachers' unions, as well.

[Lancey Howard]

By the way, the shift to benefits as the collective bargaining platform actually benefits (!) the employer as well

I totally disagree.
"Benefits" includes health-care insurance and (to a lesser degree theses days, thankfully) pensions. These are not fixed costs and the trend has been increases that are sharply higher than the rate of inflation. Heck, this is exactly WHY the unions do not want "benefits" replaced by higher wages, and exactly WHY so many companies are going belly up (or moving).

Regards,
LH

[Shermy]

"Unions are also stabbing their members in the back by pushing for open borders and amnesty."

Then they get nailed with new and additional guest worker programs and the realization even the new "restrictions" won't be enforced. They're dumb.

Or bought out. The head of the AFL-CIO sat on the board of the National Immigration Forum for years. Money involved?

[GOP_Proud]

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