Judah, The issue is more granular than "union/no union." It must take into account the actions taken by unions over the years, the habits they gotten themselves into, and how those habit affect industries in today's world economy.
I know it's a very big subject, but here are what I believe are the points to consider: 1) Unions are good and necessary, and were formed out of absolute necessity in the face of imperialist practices by industries that treated employees like so much firewood. To gain a foothold, unions had to get tough -- damned tough -- and roll roughshod over everything in sight. If they hadn't they wouldn't have ever formed. 2) They had to continue doing this for a long, long time, which got them into the habit of demanding everything, settling on getting most of what they wanted, and striking in between. Again, you can't blame them for this because that was the only way anyone would listen. 3) Today industries can just pick up and move everything to a country with almost no organized labor opposition to the old-style imperialist abuse, but US labor unions still practice the "angry fist" techniques of negotiation without sufficient regard to the options industry has in the face of organized labor threats. The result is lost jobs for American workers. 4) Foreign labor unions -- especially Germany's -- act differently than American labor unions do. One reason is that they are more involved in the daily planning and operations of the businesses at the board room and shop floor level. Personally, I think this would work better for both industry and labor in this country as well, because it gives each side perspective on the other *before* decisions are made and then simply reacted to. So unions need to try to make industry work better, not just grab more for employees. Recently in Georgia the electricians union went on TV almost apologizing for screwing things up so badly that no one wanted to work with them, and telling everyone that they had corrected their mistakes, and "come look at us now." Just some food for thought. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these and other points of your own. I like how you brought government subsidized healthcare into the discussion. That's a *big* disadvantage we have to compete with, even before each car is built. Respectfully, Adam Phillip Churvis President Productivity Enhancement -----Original Message----- From: Judah McAuley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 12:45 PM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: Anyone Bummed About The GM Settlement? Hahahaha...that's a good one. That is one of the more patently silly statements I've seen in awhile not coming from the Bush administration. You aren't part of the Bush administration, right? Did it not occur to you that the people wiping the floor with our auto industry (think Japan and Germany here) have unions too? That they generally have a stronger labor voice and their employees get better healthcare and more time off? And you really think that its the UAW that's taking down GM? That's a freakin laugh riot. Japan and Germany have kicked ass for two big reasons: They don't have to pay extraordinary amounts for private health care and retirement and they have been making cars that people want to buy. The costs for health care and retirement are spread out amongst all the companies in those countries and there isn't the same profit hungry machine driving up health care costs at the rate they are in the US. GM has said that it adds $1500 per car just to cover health care costs. That's a fair bit of overhead to factor into a product that has to compete with ones from socialized countries where the manufacturers don't have the same overhead. But probably as much as anything else, the US has sucked at making cars that people want to buy. Pure and simple. They were surging ahead for awhile with the dawn of the SUV. It was higher margin and they got on the bandwagon first. But the cycle from design of a car to actually rolling into the lots takes years. And for whatever reason, it didn't occur to US auto makers that bigger and bigger wasn't going to be sustainable. That gas costs could spike, that environmental concerns might start taking hold. And lo and behold, the cars they were making were ones that people didn't want to buy anymore. Can't really blame the unions for that. Judah Jerry Johnson wrote: > I agree totally. > > The unions in the auto industry are the single most likely reason that > the American Auto industry will collapse. Taking with it huge swaths > of the country's economy. > > Did you catch Jim Kramer's rant? One of the tidbits is that GM is the > single largest purchaser of Viagra in the world. > > I wonder how many pills per car buyers are currently paying for. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Enterprise web applications, build robust, secure scalable apps today - Try it now ColdFusion Today ColdFusion 8 beta - Build next generation apps Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:243172 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
