First, I never put JUST a car together, I didnt work in a assembly plant.
I understand what you did, and lump everyone in the same group for simplicity. If this insults you, then that is part of the problem with the mentality that an average UAW worker seems to have - it's not my job.
Nevertheless it is a valid position to take.
Second, I doubt very much that Michigans whole problem is because it is a right to work state, there are many right to work states that people cant find jobs in and even if they find a job it doesnt pay enough to afford even rent.
The problem is Michigan, like Ohio is not a right to work state. We have no real competition within the workforce outside of applying for a job. The auto companies are closed shops which in itself is a bad thing and led to the off shoring of jobs.
If Michigan was a right to work state, I could walk into one of the plants, talk to the plant manager and offer my services as a worker for less than what the others are getting. THAT is fair in many ways, the workers may not like it but it isn't about them but me and the competition that I bring for them to do a better job.
The problem with a global ecomony is kinda like us being in a war, they dont play by the same rules we do.
That's true to a point. BUT see here is the thing, we want cheap stuff and because labor costs are high compared to other countries, we screw ourselves by allowing our politicians and companies both to write rules that help everyone and not ourselves.
If we built those cheap things, we would have high inflation and rather a bigger mess.
What I mean can be explained this way, when was the last time a senators or congressmen actually fought for jobs in their state, I mean fought?
Not in a long time and this has been in all fifty states. They concern themselves with a health care bill, trashing the other party and making money for their reelection.
The example we can use here is Dingel, who has had the same seat for 56 years and between him and his father have held that seat for well over 75 years - how d*mn disgusting. The average voter is a worker in the auto industry and they keep voting him in despite the fact he has done less for the state but more for other states and we still have 15% unemployment.
They dont care how much they pollete, they dont care about safetly of workers, the govs over there subdize certain industries so they will be low cost no matter what, until there cost either rise to the point of us being competitive or the USA will have to come down to there level. simple
Yep I agree. I don't care about pollution in their country, I don't really care about their safety but governments subsidizing their companies, I can't blame them at all. The problem is that you and others don't focus on the real issues with this, one is simply that we are not business friendly. We didn't subsidize our companies in the past because we allowed them to operate unhindered from government intervention which is the real base of growth. We had a tax system when our country made its wealth that was so simple - it didn't exist. AND we treated private industry as private property.
By the way, wasn't the point about having a union in the first place all about safety and fairness?
Why would the government need to be involved with safety when there is a union?
Don't say it is for everyone, that's not the point. I would think that a union not taking care of the fight for safety of its rank and file failed to do their job.
You know as well as me that there are so many reason to what is going on here in this country, the list goes on n on.
It still comes down to the basics no matter how it is spun, the very nature of currency and how it works, the very nature of how the economy works and wages, taxes and so on all have an affect on each other.
The corportations have been working for 20 yrs to export all manufacturing in this country because of our safetly and pollution laws that are quite expensive but yet as i see it, needed.
NOT True.
The corporations have been exporting jobs since the 40's because of different programs, many of them government sponsored and paid for by the very taxes we paid. It is also not true that all manufacturing jobs can be done overseas or in Mexico for that matter because if that was the case, Honda, Toyota, and others would not come here to build plants. Our safety laws have little to do with it, really. Our pollution laws have some to do with it but it is our tax laws have almost everything to do with it.
But in addition to all of this, we exported our lifestyles to other countries and when we got complacent and lazy, they took over and moved forward.
A very very good example is the US manufacturing system and how it is complacent. When you, as an oiler worked on machines, how old were those machines?
I have a feeling they were not new but rather older machines.
When Nippondenso in the west side of the state built their plant, they installed new machines. After four years, they stopped production and replaced all of them. They moved forward with their manufacturing system and worked around our tax laws by justifying the capital needed to make the change.
I was in GM's Poletown plant the other day, where they are going to make the "volt", there are still machines sitting there that are over 20 years old.
Ford Rouge when I worked there in the early 90's had machines that were built for the Model A and they were being used.
A corportions job is to make profits, period, at whatever cost to the people.
Yep that is what they are supposed to do. The people, meaning labor is expendable. We no longer need 1500 people to build a car, we can do that with less than 200. The need to build commuters for model Ts was set at I think .7 man hours and that in 1919 was still less than it took in 1910. Now we don't even need the material handler let alone someone to actually put the coils on the flywheel, put the bolts on and torque it all down. That can be done by a machine and that has been talked about since the 30's.
What companies are there to do is make money, not make jobs.
The problem we now face is we dont have anything to put people back to work in, Construction? not for many many years, we cant spend our way out as in the past because we dont build anything here anymore, thats why the stimulas package wont work, we have out-sourced so many manufactoring jobs that paid well and we dont have jobs for those people, If it wasnt for the tech boom we would have been in this recession a long time ago, but now even those jobs have been out-sourced. So how do we come back? To be homest, I dont have any idea untill there is another boom item like tech.
Well first the problem we now face is a dollar that is being forced to lose value which is based on old ideas and theories that didn't work in the 30's and doesn't work now.
WE do build things here but the common items are not being built here. We still build cars here, we still build tractors and farm equipment and we have a emerging cottage industry with skill trades to build all kinds of things. What stifles things are ideas and theories that we need government, a union or what ever to protect everyone. We need in fact all of that to go away.
As far as the wage arguement goes, what u say isnt all true, even if wages went up in most cases productivity went up quicker then wages, so where was the need to raise prices? What is going on now has been put in place by our gov and the corportations over the last 20 yrs or more.
So where was the need to raise prices?
You answered the question when you ask where are the jobs.
If it takes three people to do a job and then some change takes place so it takes two, the company is not obligated to hold on to that worker. BUT in the world of unions, it seems that they do hold onto that person for what ever reason, make the company pay them a wage which is not justified and then that forces the company to raise the cost. The Job banks that are still used are the example of a union standing in the way of productivity, it isn't even about protecting the jobs but keeping them alive to collect dues.
