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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16705 messages, Last post on Nov 25, 2009 at 6:56 PM
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jul 05, 2008 12:16 pm) Pittsburgh didn't move away from steel, steel moved away from it until all you have now is a relative handful of geeks with good high-tech jobs until they are outsourced to China or India. Meanwhile tens of thousands of former steel workers are either dead, working in low wage jobs, living on public assistance, or wards of the criminal justice system. Well, at least there is a lot less pollution. Well, if "Steelers" is a now meaningless name, maybe we can call 'em the "Pittsburgh Software" to honor those temporarily employed in high tech or simply change one letter to call them the "Pittsburgh Stealers" to refer to either the corporate cowards who offshored all the steel mills or the current profession of the unemployed to make ends meet? Gee, what do you suppose we do with all those former autoworkers in Michigan? Maybe we should ship 'em halfway around the world to be cannon-fodder in some senseless war?
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Replying to: lemko (Jul 06, 2008 6:56 am) According to some on Edmunds who blame the UAW for their problems with their 1983 Cavalier..., we should take them out and shoot them along with GM.  Funny they don't blame Honda assembly line workers for transmission problems or Toyo workers for the poor assembly and sludge in their Toyotas...  Amazing attitudes. As long as it's not them or immediate neighbors, who cares about jobs.
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Replying to: lemko (Jul 06, 2008 6:56 am) They could pack up and go to Alaska, North Dakota, Alberta, Canada or even TX where the economy is better. They could head South and work in one of the Japanese, German or Korean auto plants. This process of shuffling factories to get better tax and labor costs is not new. It started in the 1960s or before. I just posted an article about the new VW plant that will be built in the USA. They eliminated Michigan because of horrible taxes and previous experience with the UAW. What is important is not whether you are Union or Not Union. It is the cost of living relative to your income. There are good states and bad states. I would say CA and Michigan are real bad. Many companies are pulling out due to lousy tax and high cost of doing business. My son in law was given the opportunity to move from San Diego to Indiana at the same wage. Many in his company were told they could go with a cut in pay. They may shut this operation down. So my SIL took the opportunity while it was being offered. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jul 06, 2008 7:11 am) PS My wife's niece and nephew live in Ohio. He is an airplane mechanic. Some airline went broke that he was working for. He was offered a great job in Alaska and turned it down. He cannot stand to be away from family and his Ohio State Football team. He is going to drive truck so he can stay in OHIO. He had a great job for the government here in San Diego and quit to go back to OHIO. go figure
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jul 06, 2008 7:11 am) You know, it's funny how the well known sludge and transmission problems of Honda and Toyota get thrown around.... as if a high fraction of those cars are highly unreliable... every make has its problems.... but there is NO COMPARISON to the problems of the big 3. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jul 06, 2008 7:11 am) When I read the arguments supporting the UAW, it seems everyone wants things to stay the same and that cannot happen. The market place has changed, times have changed. We are now part of a global market. The auto manufacturers have to change with the market. Unfortunately, some of GM, Ford and Chryslers bad decisions are coming back to bite them and the UAW is suffering. With all of these buyouts, I hope the workers are using the money to learn a new career. The economy is not all bad. There are many fields that have shortages. Remember when one door shuts, another opens. You have to be willing to take the step through the door. Too many people are afraid of taking those steps. |
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Replying to: dtownfb (Jul 06, 2008 9:27 am) Right on. There is talk now how the manufacturing jobs will come back to US because of low dollar value. The companies are having trouble finding skilled trades. Of course it's the companies' faults for taking jobs overseas so that no one prepares for skilled trades here and it's possible they don't want to pay what the work is worth. IOW they want to pay third world to the workers (but not the management salaries  ). One example given was welding.
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Replying to: dtownfb (Jul 06, 2008 9:27 am) I certainly believe that is a very debatable topic.Seems to me that there are a lot of companies that went under because of long srikes. |
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"Funny they don't blame Honda assembly line workers for transmission problems or Toyo workers for the poor assembly and sludge in their Toyotas.. You know, it's funny how the well known sludge and transmission problems of Honda and Toyota get thrown around.... as if a high fraction of those cars are highly unreliable... every make has its problems.... but there is NO COMPARISON to the problems of the big 3" Well said...there is no comparison, as the number of bad cars due to sludge and transmission problems probably PALES to the number of cars put out by Big 3 that barely qualified as boat anchors... Mind you, I am NOT anti-American, as I own a Crown Vic and Dodge Ram, and am looking at Buick, Caddy, MKS, Taurus and other...but I have had 4 Hondas, and I believed, as I do to this day, that they were better made than any Big 3 car I have owned...just my opinion, of course...but I have seen my share of American junk and I CAN see the forest for the trees, whereas the union folks just want to be sure that floor sweepers get paid their $30/hour for a job worth $5/hour... I may rail against the unions, but, oddly enough, I have been buying Big 3 since 1998, five vehicles... Does that mean I have earned the right to be critical???... BTW, from a tax viewpoint, Mich and calif are probably two of the worst states to do business, which is why business is leaving to move to Nevada, Ariz, Oregon, Idaho...Michigan business is simply shutting down, as what they make is wanted by fewer and fewer people as time goes on... Looking at this macroeconomically, the auto business isn't going away, it is simply changing, and change is always painful...While Big 3 plants shut down, new plants are being built by competitors in the South...they will NOT hire the experienced workers of the North simply because of their entitlement attitude and militant thoughts, where anytime the sun shines the wrong way they strike...I would bet it will be along time before any plant down south has any kind of a strike... Unions were useful in the 1930s, maybe thru the 50s/60s...after that, they became too powerful, as workers should NEVER control the company, unless they have placed their risk capital on the line...the fact that they work there does NOT give them power...you might call the right to strike the power of the worker, but what you see happening is the long-term response to that right to strike...they will keep the right to strike when there is only one plant left in Michigan, and then the last UAW member will, hopefully, turn out the lights when the last unionized plant closes...
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jul 06, 2008 2:06 pm) How many Toyotas? It's interesting how there seems to have been a coordinated effort to stomp out talk about sludge on the part of Toyotas. If it were so minor, like the wrong snap ring having been installed in certain transmissions, it wouldn't have necessitated a PR effort. But there was a discussion here on edmunds with a rep of Toyota talking about that. But then the snap ring problem evolved into more with the shifting problem that people were having with the new fly-by-wire system. Kind of strange. If GM were to have had the money saved from high paid workers and nonworkers, and high paid executives so that they could have done more PR and more replacements and recalls, it would help their image also. |
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