Rick_the_new_guy

Fascinating.

I believe both of you guys have good points. Both (Management and Union) sides have failed the company IMO.

Creed/Incompetence/ are their enemies.

__________________
(PO3) Marcinko_R. (BF2 PR .509) Squad Member
(CPO) Marcinko_R. (BF2 PR .509) Squad Leader
(LCDR) Marcinko_R. (BF2 PR .509) Commander

Squad Member pledge to their SL:http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlef...ad-leader.html
Squad Leader pledge to their team:http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlef...r-platoon.html
Commander pledge to their SL:http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlef...d-leaders.html

leejo

The union piece is just a nail in the coffin, but it's a nail nonetheless. If you think blaming it all on the unions is silly, then I think ignoring their role in Ford's predicament is also silly.

I am at a loss to think of a single domestic industry with strong unions, that must compete with overseas corporations, and that is thriving.

Yes there are other issues driving the miserable state in which Ford finds itself, but I do think that they are competing with players who aren't boxed in by their relationships with unions, and until Ford discovers a way to be nimble again, they will get creamed.

TheFatKidDeath

I think it's a strech to say automobile union members have become "lazy" because they work in a dangerous, repetitive job and receive compensation based on those working conditions. For years, the big three were making record profits and no one claimed the workers were lazy. Are union members "more lazy" than non-union members? I've worked as a union member and non, with union members and with non and you can be just as "lazy" in a non union position as one could in a union one.

I would be surprised if union membership voted down the production of a product. Unions don't have veto power on which automobile's come to market, which is a function of management. Can you honestly see management giving a union yes/no power over what is to be produced?

__________________
|TG-9th| TheFatKidDeath
"Born to Party, Forced to Work."
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55640 - Check me out on The Onion
http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...ssfully_avoids - I'm on the local news!

SmokingTarpan

Yes, but the lazy non-unionized worker can be replaced far more easily than the lazy unionized worker. No hearings, no negotiations, nothing that drags out for long periods of time to figure out if it's "okay" to fire someone for not doing their job.

Union members get paid more because they can cause problems for their company (strikes, etc), not necessarily because they do a better job or deserve the increased pay. Back in the days when workers were treated basically like slaves, unions were a good thing. In today's world of vastly improved conditions, I see little reason for them. It's almost always about greed.

__________________

[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

Steeler

Those vastly improved conditions aren't a physical law. I personally wouldn't trust the consciences of our very politically-connected corporate America to maintain working conditions in a unionless vacuum. Not when even today they look across the Pacific at near slave-labor markets and lick their lips.

__________________

Trooper

Its not just the car industry that has them, you would be hard pressed to find a business or industry that isnt unionised. I wanted to go work for UPS one summer but half my pay check would go to pay for my "union dues". After the guy told me that i told him never mind.

Okay so unions arent to blame for all the problems in the automotive industry. And Ford has been on a decline since they bought those other 7 companies, to much to control and not enough revenue to control it with.

SmokingTarpan

Not physical law? We do have the OSHA Act of 1970.

General purpose (http://www.semcosh.org/osha-view.htm)

OSHA List of standards: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owas...rt_number=1910

I've worked several non-unionized jobs where we had routine OSHA inspections and safety meetings. We can't just throw people into machines to get chopped up anymore. At least not without penalties. And, to stem off any eventual "How well does OSHA enforce things really?" argument, the same can be said of any law. Your protection is only as good as the enforcement, from labor laws to murder laws.

But no, Unions are not the sole blameholders for the auto industry problems. They get their fair share, however, and I don't think it's insignificant.

__________________

[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

Black_V!per

Good thing im sticken with Dodge/Jeep.

__________________

Steeler

Tarpan, I was thinking more along the lines of fair wages, negotiation, hours, benefits, basic worker protections, that sort of thing. And given the frequency with which pro-business interests hammer the EPA or reduce other "operating costs" when they get the chance, I wouldn't expect OSHA to stand strong for very long if there were no counterveiling political force to champion it.

__________________

CingularDuality

I'm not sure what you mean by "physical" law, but there are certainly state and federal laws regarding minimum wages, hours, overtime pay and such...

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended.

__________________

Become a supporting member! -- Shop at the Tactical Market!

Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

AMosely

These companies dug their own graves, and I feel sorry for the youger workers caught up in it. The major US auto makers saw this storm coming a decade ago, and instead of facing it when business was still good (SUVs were coming into fashion, profits being made, good time to reorganize your burdens), they put it off until business was bad (today's oil market, auto profits not being made, burdens will crush you), thereby making matters far worse.

This should serve as a lesson, but it probably won't.

Evo<^|SiNz|^>

My take is that while unions may not be single-handedly responsible for the woes of the domestic auto industry, the legacy costs they continue to incur on automakers is playing a large part. The pension packages the Big Three were creating back in the heyday of success is now biting them right in the you-know-where. Of course, the blame lays evenly across the union and the management for creating these legacy costs. Very little foresight there.

A lot of the union people like to blame the management of automakers for not coming up with competitive products, which is true to an extent. But globalization would have come sooner or later to threaten market share. And the automakers cannot afford to compete in such a diverse marketplace with the costs they've screwed themselves into, regardless of quality.

The Big Three are just now starting to come up with some innovative and reliable products, but they still have a lot of catching up to do as far as how people perceive the product. Toyota has already overtaken Ford this year in global market share, and it's set to overcome GM as well.

__________________



"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- Attributed to General George Patton, Jr.

freekyE

I wonder, some of you say that unions cause the end cost of a car to go up, but i would hazard to say that EVERY single person above that union worker makes more than he does with the CEO making at least 300 times what the average union worker.

(The average CEO in america makesfrom 300 to 600 times the line worker does.)

union worker ...say 25$ per hour
CEO, say......7500$ per hour........wow thats almost a car every two hours in pay...not to mention bonuses and other incentives.

leejo

Yeah I agree that it would be sweet to knock down CEO wages, but here's the thing: if a CEO isn't working out, a company can kick him or her to the curb (albeit with a pricey parachute). But a union worker? Or worse: the deal the CEO who got kicked to the curb 8 years ago struck with the unions? Those are luggage and the company - and shareholders - have to haul them around.

Look, CEOs make what they do because of competition. The market has bid up CEO wages to a ridiculous level. But union jobs' wages are set in opposition to free market values. The whole point of the union is that without it wages and total compensation would be lower, right?

So if a CEO makes too much, that's the shareholders' and boards' own damn fault and they can fix it fast. But a Union deal isn't flexible and recent history is showing that unions are particularly eager or able to respond to market pressures.

Steeler

Um, CEO contracts are no more flexible than union contracts. Usually less so. You think a board voluntarily gives away a golden parachute to some dickhead who ran the company into the ground? That stuff is built into his salary package.

Exec salaries are artificially inflated by other execs scamming the "market." It's price inflation.

__________________