Posted on 07/03/2018 9:50:19 AM PDT by Bigbrown
Just curious, when I grew up (70s) I remember one of our neighbors father was a union man. He had bumper stickers all over his vehicles in signs in front of his house to buy American products. What happened to that thought of we should look at American manufacturers before other countries. At that time, it was that everything we were importing was made in Japan. Where is the union out rage about not supporting American companies and buyIng American products?
9 out of 10 jobs in US manufacturing off shored were NON UNION to begin with.
I will say this about the unions:
They all have, for the most part, programs that take B/C students out of high school that will pay them to train them on the skill represented by that union.
The pay is good too - sometimes as high as $25/hr to learn the trade (six weeks per year) and then practice it ( 48 weeks per year) for two years.
They then must work at a union shop for two years.
No debt.
Funny - I don’t see the big tech firms offering anything like that.
I see them importing that from India.
The unions, for whatever reason, don’t even bother to make hay with it either.
I know whereof I speak - I live in one of the most heavily unionized cities in the United States, and have researched this for kids in my unit to steer them toward something that isn’t going to turn them into an educated debt slave for life.
I’m not pro-union, but they are doing something about the skilled employee problem that doesn’t involve importing cheap labor from overseas.
That latter bit is why I can’t stand Republicans. If you are for H1-B visas, you’re a traitor. That simple.
I can’t think of a more overt form of generational theft than that. At least with a Democrat, they tell you right out they are going to rob you.
Republicans? They’re solution to Democrats robbing you is to keep you unemployed.
A pox on both.
We’re long past needing unions to help the laborers. Union bosses lining their pockets have nothing to do with buying American.
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So, we decide we are going to let tech thrive - no union involvement.
How do they respond? Roll out tech programs to high school students that pay them a wage to learn a skill in tech and then require them to pay it back with X years of working at Company Y?
Do they create programs of online education that are free to kids K-12 that define career connected pathways to jobs most in demand in the tech area so that in school year 10 they can enter a career connected apprenticeship that works them 20 hours a week with contingent on taking 5 hours a week on courses designed to help them integrate into a common corporate culture?
Nope.
They bribe a congressman and create a program that allows them to flood the country with cheap foreign labor. That labor pool then coalesces into a guilt that bars any native skilled labor from entering the market and they invite family members to come over and get a job at those companies.
So, as to whether the unions, who have offered these very programs with no fanfare at all for decades, have outlived their usefulness I say that perhaps traitorous, generation robbing Republican congressmen have outlived theirs.
> “They all have, for the most part, programs that take B/C students out of high school that will pay them to train them on the skill represented by that union.”
YES, this was the primary benefit of the unions which were also known as guilds throughout American history. They trained and established standards for quality, but they lost this edge, see post #17.
Today there are crap unions such as SEIU, NEA, etc. They are all political leftist organs, adding no benefit to American production.
Any kid can walk into an IBEW hall and say, “I got C’s in school, and did OK in math. Never been arrested, would rather work with my hands, and don’t want to go to college.”
They will give him an application, help him fill it out, and they will get a phone call within 3 months. I can give you a list of unions that will do that.
And yes, add to that public employee unions to that list.
The trade unions are awesome. Period. I can provide you with human being evidence of people who in some cases where heroin addicted basket cases that are clean and making $75K.
The major technology companies? Contributed zero. Guilty of generational theft.
Part of the problem stemmed from Deming training the Japanese. And in turn, Deming trained the Japanese because American corporations and unions were effing stupid with a capital F in the 1960s, they were complacent, too cozy with their status quo. They needed their *sses kicked and the quality produced by the Japanese under Deming did just that.
See a humorous but very true film that explains all this dynamic:
GUNG HO!
Early on, correct.
But let’s not forget the high tariffs that made selling cars in those countries impossible, while the low tariffs on Japanese cars coming in more affordable.
What’s the excuse now?
The big American automakers took a sledgehammer to buy American.
Then they scattered the pieces.
> “Whats the excuse now?”
Thre is no excuse now, that’s why President Trump is swinging the pendulum back the other way.
Enjoy what is to come. Just be aware how the unions and their effed up leftist political masters need to be separated because it is indeed the leftist a-holes that took union money and abused the union legacy by encouraging laziness and noncompetitive behavior.
American unions need to understand and drill into their permanent memories YOU DO NOT REST ON YOUR LAURELS.
See Gung Ho! You’ll be glad you did, lots of lessons there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om3C1EpHLGs
The industrial unions I don't rank nearly so high. One of the reasons that so much of what we buy today is imported is that the production line unions took a sabbatical on assembly quality. Remember when you didn't want to buy a car made on a Monday or Friday?
Precisely.
Look carefully and tell me how much union labor is going into that vehicle.
Remember that union ad with the song “ look for the union label”?
Union labor per vehicle made in the USA = 7-8% of retail. So the labor on a $30,000 is around $2,000 to $2,300 per car. Not too bad.
Your favorite snack! Well I’ll be!
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