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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16663 messages, Last post on Nov 08, 2009 at 9:32 PM
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The AMA/UAW is the union/lobby for doctors/rank and files. So they watch over the doctors/tank and files best interests. I did not see the AMA begging for money from the US government. So what is your point about them? Are you saying that the UAW has never protected a member that should have been fired? but annual income from member dues, interest and other revenues exceeded $300 million in 2006. Lets seperate the winners from the losers please. Good idea. What is their current condition? Did they generate big profits this year? Too bad they have driven the Big 3 onto the verge of bankruptcy. Lets see if I'm getting this right? They used your money to build that? Kind of a long story. The governor told the Teamsters they could not invest anymore into the state as they were gaining too much control. So they went out in the desert near Palm Springs and bought a huge tract of land. They then developed it as an investment. It has netted the Pension Fund approximately $450 million. Never was designed as a playground for the Union members. The golf course was added later on. Its a money maker by fact that its a top course. It is funded from interest on the UAW strike fund. Because it is funded from the strike fund interest it is not real money lost? A $23 million loss does not sound like a money making golf course to me. Most year round golf courses lose money in this country. They are a tax shelter for rich people. If the UAW is rich enough to own a golf course. Why are we bailing them out. That $23 million would go a long ways re-training the 1000s of UAW workers that lost jobs this month alone. Those UAW jobs are gone forever. Those people will need to learn new skills. It is the UAW's responsibility, not GM's or the US tax payer's responsibility. Good to see you have your priorities in line.
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 28, 2008 6:10 am) Lobby's and special interest cost the consumer more. Just as when the govt pays farmers to not grow and or to grow certain crops. We pay at the store. Supply of any certain service or item is rationed by price. So therefore, less people in the medical profession means, higher cost at doctors office. You certainly don't think that these big lobbies spend millions on public relations? Giant pharmaceuticals go to Washington to protect their members special interest. Hence, when you go to the drug store you pay more than if they were absent in a capitalist system. I say let the markets decide and put an end to all these groups who seek to enrich their members. Begging/bribing they are. Implicitly or explicitly they seek special treatment outside the supply and demand structure. At the least you must consider Medicare and Medicaid money taxpayer funds. These people are not stupid and they are getting their moneys worth and then more. Such is a day in the life of one of 17,800 registered Washington lobbyists upon whom interest groups spent $1.56 billion last year to sway Congress and the executive branch — numbers that are grossly understated due to the narrow definition of "registered lobbyist," says Jeffrey Birnbaum, author of The Lobbyists: How Influence Peddlers Get Their Way in Washington. An estimated 40 percent of those 17,800 lobbyists promote health care agendas, according to James Albertine, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based American League of Lobbyists. To put it another way, there are 13 health care lobbyists for each of the 535 members of Congress. Among their most passionate causes this year are Medicare reimbursements and tort reform. Hundreds of medical groups have a lobbying presence in Washington. The AMA — the third-largest lobbying group (based on expenditures) — spent about $17 million in 2000, the latest year for which figures are available. Collectively, health care groups spent $209 million in 2000 to gain passage of bills that benefit their members or to sideline legislation that might harm them. That places health care interests third in lobbying expenditures, behind power brokers for finance, insurance, and real estate, who spent $229 million, and manufacturers and retailers, who invested $224 million in their work. http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/0208/0208.lobbying.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502351.- html Because it is funded from the strike fund interest it is not real money lost? Its absolutely real money and belongs to the membership. It has nothing to do with the Big Three funds and or anyone else's funds. The UAW membership elects on how to spend their money and not FAUX NEWS. Certainly you don't let the Teamsters tell you how to spend your money. Above and beyond my union dues, I have elected to fund CAP within the UAW to represent my interests in Washington. I did so of self interest and of my own free will. The AIG scandal will go down in history of how a few high level executives enjoying the spoils of taxpayer funding and the UAW rank and file membership has equal access to their resort paid by UAW money.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Dec 28, 2008 7:49 am) You continue to deflect from the issue here. Was spending money on a golf course and resort beneficial to all UAW employees? I think NOT. When that project was started the UAW was a strong, wealthy, vibrant Union. Now it is a weak remnant of days gone by. Yet they hang on to the past and waste the member's money to support an entity that probably less than 10% can afford to use. Not to mention the 1000s that have lost their jobs and cannot afford the gas to even get to THEIR fancy golf course and resort. Or are you saying UAW members get free green fees and lodging in the hotel along with free meals for their $23 million lost? It has nothing to do with AIG or the AMA. It has to do with the members and how their money is spent. Do they get to vote on keeping this money losing operation? We as Teamsters were given a chance to express our dissatisfaction with a rec center and hospital that was losing money. And we sold it before it drained our finances. I keep forgetting the UAW leadership only look out for themselves.
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 28, 2008 8:17 am) Retraining? College at 40? There are workers at GM working in maintenance and production with master's degrees. Where do you propose to employ hundreds of thousands of retrained or college educated workers at a living wage, when the majority of the ones being graduated today are not finding work? In the future, history will show, not protecting U.S. manufacturing and jobs by whatever means necessary, tariffs, protectionism....... will be the reason the golden goose died. Being jealous or moaning about the UAW or their workers pay, benefits or workload, is not only foolish, it is a misconception. What you see on tv are usually assembly plants, clean, fairly quiet. Go into a fabricating plant or aluminum casting facility, most people would run out of there and never go back. Most UAW workers earn their paychecks and benefits and suffer shortened lives because of their jobs. UAW members have given concessions in every contract of one type or another for about 20 years, the UAW leadership doesn't want to say that because they always tout the "new" contract as a gain, but ask any UAW member and they can tell you, the UAW has done plenty to help GM and the others over the last several years. There are non producers at every level of business, usually brothers in laws, nephews, sisters, etc. Rarely are they fired. Maybe there should be a test, like they are proposing for teachers at all levels of business to help weed out the workers that deserve to be fired in all companies? Of course, who would make that decision? I am sure, neither you or I would lose our jobs? Oh, wait, maybe that is why the unions still exist and neet to? It keeps management from hiring more, brothers in laws, nephews, and sisters as dead weight that someone else has to carry at the expense of the real workers?
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 28, 2008 8:17 am) I've been there. My family has been there. Its a Family Education Center during the summer and a leadership education center the rest of the year. If you apply to go, you might get to go. We did. The staff was so wonderful and we came away so much more knowledgeable. I've been on some awesome vacations, this rates right up there. I loved it and know many others whom have came away with the same feelings and it energized us. Its our money, I would never think or dream of telling the Teamsters of what to do with their money. As long as they put it to good use, which they are doing, the membership has no issues. Sorry, but I'm very blessed to be part of the UAW. They have been very instrumental in my providing for my family. Not just the private schools, cars, homes, and tangibles, but also the many brothers/sisters with which I hold special bonds. Their families as well and the union people of the future. I refuse to disrespect union people, even if there have been instances of abuse (which there were and will be). By far the greater good is being served and everyone, in leadership, that I know is there for the right reasons. Sorry, I can't speak for the Teamsters. There too I was able to ask some questions. Why are you spending our money on NASCAR? They replied, its a dollar per hour of over time given by the auto manufacturers for each hour of overtime worked. So as to discourage overtime and have UAW members at home with their families. Quality family time, a family values agenda by the UAW. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 28, 2008 6:10 am) I'm surprised that Goldfinger didn't offer to mortgage the golf resort to help out the automakers. After all, that loan money is very critical to the D3. Everybody should sacrifice, right?
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Replying to: 04cad (Dec 28, 2008 9:01 am) Show me the statistics where a *majority* of college graduates are not finding work.
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Replying to: tlong (Dec 28, 2008 9:33 am) A good friend of mine was here over the holidays. He was a VP at a major bank. He has has to lay off 16 people under him. The price at the pump has also discouraged the energy companies. There is going to be competition for fewer positions by experienced layed off workers and those coming out of college. http://media.www.thelamron.com/media/storage/paper1150/news/2008/12/04/News/Rece- nt.Graduates.Run.Against.Struggling.Economy.Job.Market-3569858.shtml That's the weakest outlook in six years and reflects a sharp recent downturn. Just two months ago, a survey by the same group projected a 6.1% increase in hiring. The August survey included 219 employers, 146 of whom responded to the new survey, conducted earlier this month. The big drop in hiring projections is "extremely unusual," says Edwin Koc, the association's director of strategic research. http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/106007/For-'09-Grads,-Job-Prospects-Take-a-Dive
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Replying to: tlong (Dec 28, 2008 9:28 am) Like for non-ordinary people like AIG management, the state is now giving them so much. A tax payer bailout of AIG is surely necessary, but it has been justified so that ordinary people suffer less, not management. Its insulting that you would look to the poor for more welfare for the wealthy. The bailout to AIG, etal, is a farce and an insult to every hard working American whose job may be in jeopardy, not to mention the millions of Americans whose assets and savings built over many years is being vaporized day by day. The perpetrators of the largest fraud in recorded history should be held accountable by the courts through indictments of misfeasance, malfeasance, and outright theft. And where is the Congress, many of whom are complicit in the meltdown of our economy? Obviously our elected representatives lack the courage to deal with the almost total destruction of millions of lives and property. And yet the talk is merely the elimination of bonuses and/or salary increases. How many billions of dollars have been filched by greedy executives and boards of directors in the form of obscene salaries, bonuses, stock options and other creative forms of payout? The American public has been and continues to be raped and pillaged by greed. Will it never end?
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