Posted on 04/17/2010 10:37:26 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
You made good points. Recovery requires that we restore the manufacturing jobs that we exported one way or the other. Unfortunately there is no one in Washington working in that direction. We need a decent balance between our standard of living and being a third world nation.
I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Yes, the plant was unionized. I'm not anti-union as many on this forum are. They have their place, IMO. The union I belonged to was very democratic (at least the local was), and I believe the company would have taken unfair advantage of the workers in many cases without the union being there.
In my case, my daughter was born with a serious medical condition, and cost the company over $9000 in medical expenses in her first calendar year, about 9 months time, simce she was born in late March. That was in 1982, and $9000 was a lot of money. Subsequent years were also costly to them for her medical care. The company knew which employees were costing them big bucks in medical expenses. You can bet that someone would have suggested finding a way to get rid of those employees if they thought they could get away with it.
The company never tried that, and the union is the reason why.
In my earlier comment, I wanted to make sure we were talking about Appliance Park. The employment went from 25,000 to 5,000. Does the union get some blame for that, or should GE have to shoulder all the blame? I don't know why janitors make $28/hr at GE. The thread is about skilled labor. Every $28/hour janitor is one less $28/hr machinist, no?
And thank you ColdWater. I appreciate it...
Thank you. I’m glad we agree. Sorry to respond so long after your response.
Thank you for the mention. I always try to be kind to those folks. It’s not their fault what is going on, and there’s no need to give them guff.
It is hard to understand them sometimes. And they don’t always understand us either.
NP. We’re old FRiends.
Thank you. Take care...
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