The Big Three's real union problem - (Let's ruin foreign manufacturers in the South too)

LATimes ^ | 12/6/08 | Jonathan Cutler

[WayneS]

Well, you CAN be (b) without being (a); I’m not so sure you can be (a) without being (b), though...

[sickoflibs]

I hope everyone here realizes that is democrats goal and if UAW goes bankrupt it will not help the cause.

[WayneS]

That's true if you are a monopoly.

...which is what the UAW effectively becomes if they manage to "organize" ALL the auto plants in the country.

[curiosity]

Well, the real problem with the Big 3 and the unions which have hogtied them is that not only do they pay well while they are actually working (which I don’t mind) but they also give workers overly generous pension plans as well

The pensions are actually not a problem right now since they are overfunded. In the past, GM contributed to the pension fund far more money than was necassary, so today the fund more than enough money to pay the current retirees without reducing GM's cash flow.

It's the retiree healthcare costs that are killing them. Also hurting them very badly are idiotic work rules that reduce productivity, as well as job security provisions such as the so-called "jobs bank." Currently GM is paying around 8,000 workers who don't work.

[jazusamo]

Bump to that.

[M203M4]

Say hello to more unions, more wage controls, more price controls, tariffs, more labor regulations, blah blah blah - just to make things "more fair". Some folks just don't want any cars - or anything else for that matter - built in America. But we will all be equally starving, miserable, impoverished, and underemployed - utopia at last!

[Anti-Bubba182]

Here is a promo on a book by Jonathan Cutler, an associate professor of sociology at Wesleyan University:

Labor's Time (Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism)

He is a total fawning apologist for the UAW.

[Ouderkirk]

The Big three should have made an all out effort to break the UAW. They should have been placing non-exempt salaried employees in many of the new production plants that they built. Leave the hourly pay scales behind.

Bit by bit, develop a new model line, open a new non union plant with tax concessions and close the union plant. Sell the property and move on.

[NonValueAdded]

well, the result is similar: abort the child, abort the business.

[FrankR]

"As is now clear, when the UAW exposed the Big Three to insurmountable competitive disadvantages, it cut its own throat."

The unions are the "liberals" and the companies are the "rich".

The unions have no idea what it takes to market the products and make a profit, they - like the liberal children trhey are - just think that the money just grows on trees and that they (UAW) are "entitled" to it for screwing a wheel on a hub.

Unions are an extortion racket, and turn ordinarily ambitious and independent thinkers in to mediocre sheet for the monthly slaughter (dues payment).

Unions have far outlived their usefulness and should be outlawed.

[VeniVidiVici]

You just got to love liberals and their egalitarian solutions to everything: The only way to make everyone happy is to make sure they are all miserable.

You gotta love it though. Take the successful companies and put them out of business by foisting upon them the troubles of the rotten companies.

[alex]

He is

c) environmentalist

he and his buddies simply dream of driving all manufacturing out of US and unions with their armies of useful idiot is the absolutely best tool available.

[WildcatClan]

We do not need to worry about who is running in 2112

You're right. In 2112, all will be run by the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx.

[WayneS]

You might very well be on to something there...

[AFreeBird]

a + b = c (All of the Above)

[WayneS]

Neil, is that you?

Alex?

Geddy?

[nascarnation]

The other part of the plan (in conjunction with “card check) is trade restrictions and tariffs.

[ANGGAPO]

As far as the unions go, the law related to extortion was repealed. We are going to prop up the auto makers and the union too? Just a bad idea and typical of a government fix.

[Brookhaven]

The jobs at southern auto plants pay more and have better benefits than any other jobs in the area. GM and Ford have been closing plants in the south at a fairly brisk pace the last few years. You’ll never convince someone at a souther Toyota plant (that already feels they are doing pretty well) they should unionize and risk having the plant shut down.

I think the big 2 1/2 have taken being unionized as such a status quo that the never have imagined life without the unions.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“So, the solution to saving the auto industry is not to use companies that are doing better as a model to fix what’s wrong with the failing companies, it’s to make the “succeeding” companies use the failing companies’ models? Ooookay... “

It’s the crab in the bucket analogy. There is a bucket of live crabs. One crab wants out and starts to climb. The others, instead of following the crab out of the bucket, pulls it back down.