A few observations: it's real easy to get outraged at the 'excessive' wages paid to the autoworkers, but those wages could never have reached those heights without the approval of the management. (Who can't demand reasonable wages, having set the bar so ludicrously high for their own salaries first.)
Most folks who yell about the union 'rules' have never belonged to a union, or they would know that it's not the union protecting the lazy workers, it's the shop foremen, who are afraid to write up violations, for fear of retaliation on a personal level - I've seen that many times, with my own eyes.
Union jobs are classified to prevent management from abusing the workers - same as we drivers get accessorial pay for extra work.
When you think an assembly job look easy, think about doing it hundreds or thousands of times every day - the human body wasn't designed to perform repetitive motion, and will protest, (often quite painfully). After eight years in a factory, I have permanent damage to my hands - luckily, my job went south, before the disability got too great, eh? I would have continued working there, because I needed the money, (like everyone else.)
All the outrage directed at the workers, and none at the root of the problem, which is the "labor vs management" attitude taken from the beginning, is a classic triumph of deflection. The workers are highly visible, whereas the management are not. But the workers are also highly regulated, with every aspect of their job defined and measured, from time clocks to production quotas. The same does NOT apply to management - they can be (and often are) paid 1000 times as much as an hourly worker, with zero demands for competence - in fact, when they are exceptionally incompetent, they get paid handsomely, to go away! Where's the outrage for that kind of setup?
Instead of being outraged that the union workers make so much money, I think we ought to be outraged that the rest of the working class makes so little! (Note to Greg: did it never occur to you that Americans demand cheap goods, because it's what they can afford to pay for, given their wages? It's not coincidental that WalMart rose to the top as the economy changed from manufacturing to retail: the pay scale is much less, and the benefits are going the way of the good paying jobs, too)
Greed is what is destroying America, and that's what I consider outrageous..
Most folks who yell about the union 'rules' have never belonged to a union, or they would know that it's not the union protecting the lazy workers, it's the shop foremen, who are afraid to write up violations, for fear of retaliation on a personal level - I've seen that many times, with my own eyes.
Union jobs are classified to prevent management from abusing the workers - same as we drivers get accessorial pay for extra work.
When you think an assembly job look easy, think about doing it hundreds or thousands of times every day - the human body wasn't designed to perform repetitive motion, and will protest, (often quite painfully). After eight years in a factory, I have permanent damage to my hands - luckily, my job went south, before the disability got too great, eh? I would have continued working there, because I needed the money, (like everyone else.)
All the outrage directed at the workers, and none at the root of the problem, which is the "labor vs management" attitude taken from the beginning, is a classic triumph of deflection. The workers are highly visible, whereas the management are not. But the workers are also highly regulated, with every aspect of their job defined and measured, from time clocks to production quotas. The same does NOT apply to management - they can be (and often are) paid 1000 times as much as an hourly worker, with zero demands for competence - in fact, when they are exceptionally incompetent, they get paid handsomely, to go away! Where's the outrage for that kind of setup?
Instead of being outraged that the union workers make so much money, I think we ought to be outraged that the rest of the working class makes so little! (Note to Greg: did it never occur to you that Americans demand cheap goods, because it's what they can afford to pay for, given their wages? It's not coincidental that WalMart rose to the top as the economy changed from manufacturing to retail: the pay scale is much less, and the benefits are going the way of the good paying jobs, too)
Greed is what is destroying America, and that's what I consider outrageous..
