Nearly 35,000 Ford workers sign grievance over pay

[tbubster]

workers of ford are treated like slaves thats funny right there!I lived in romeo michigan for a long time.there is a engine plant on 32 mile rd just outside of town.they dont get fired for missing one day of work.they dont get beat or raped.$20 something an hour and in mmany cases $30 something an hour is not slave labor wages.and thats not time and a half or double time.never mind the fact that if someone cant pay their bills on that kinda of money then yes they are living beyond there means and in no way should anyone feel bad for them.
ford took no money from the U.S goverment bail outs.ask anyone who has ever worked in a town that has an auto plant in it how good the big three workers have it.they will tell you things that most people cant belive.
We live in the only country in the world where a person that is born poor can die a very rich man.there are many self made millionaires in this country.how did they do it?They worked hard for what they wanted.They did not stay working jobs that were not part of their plans.they choose to invest money and they choose well.
your failures in life are not someone elses fault just because they worked hard and were not content with working for someone else their whole lifes.your failures in life are not someone else fault because they have more money then you do.its not someone else fault that you do not have the same drive as your boss does.your failures in life are your failures and only you can let them make you feel like a slave.
i really have to laugh when people say they should be making the same amount of money as the higher ups in a company.most people who work hourly wage jobs go home at the end of their shifts and dont think about work again thill the next day.while many of the higher ups stay and keep working.even after they leave they still have work on their mind.are we gonna make that important deadline.how are we gonna land this new account.are we selling enough this month to not have to lay people off.
the pay raises in this case went to the salaried workers.that mean they make the same weather they work 20 horurs a week or 90hours a week.they dont get that 30 dollars an hour for anything worked over 8 hours a day.slaves thats funny right there.

 

[greg334]

I'm trying to figure out how the institution of slavery which isn't all about beating, making people work while they are sick and raping can be compared to that of a modern day mess we have.

Overall, many don't face real hardships in the job market but feel they are facing it. Ford UAW workers don't know what work is, I've been in those plants and would like to have it that easy. Try for a bit living on hardly nothing for three years and can't get a job because your former employer hounds you as a punishment - see what life is like than.

As for slavery, there are two very good books, one from Yale press and the other from Harvard press both of which actually peels away the BS of modern day revisionist history to tell the story of slavery in this country with a lot of historical references and facts - I think they are still published. Whether or not you want to believe this but it wasn't all about beating people or raping them, but it was a culture of its own and one where justice on many plantations were handed out by the slaves themselves without the owner's intervention. I was amazed at the amount of slaves like in Charleston and Richmond who owned their own businesses, had the freedom to come and go off the plantations and even raised families without the owner ripping them apart. The one thing that stands out in the Yale publication is that the southern farmer was in many cases worse off than the slave and lived in worse conditions - a lot of jealousy was formed around the problems that the plantation would force farmers to lower their prices to compete.

 

[purgoose10]

It isn't just people expecting to get something from the government, it is a lot of them expecting things from everyone.

One example is somewhat sad. A kid graduates with a computer science degree from a university with crappy grades. He has an interview at Compuware four months after he graduates. He has no connections to depend on nor does he have the grades to carry him. The university isn't known for their computer science degrees, to be exact it is one of the best civil engineering schools around. In the interview, he is asked a bunch of questions about situations which he answers the same way, "I would have them work it out" or "I would work it out with that person". He goes through the computer skills test and has little problems with that but when he was asked what he expected to make, he replies "I want to start out at $70,000 and than get a raise to $80,000" He didn't get the job.

Another example is my wife's friend has a daughter who is in a desperate need of a job to help pay the rent. Every time I set her up for an interview, she blows it by asking for money that more than they are willing to pay. The last time she went for an interview at a friends place, she asked for $12 an hour as a presser. She expects the money and we all explained to her she isn't going to get it unless she works her way up to it.

I saw on the news the other day a piece about Silicon Valley was wanting to hire 1500 computer science graduates. Starting salary for B+ students is $125,000 a year plus benefits.

 

[clcooper]

so what is a slave today ???

Nowadays slavery doesn't only come in the obvious form in which one person owns another person (which is traditionally called 'chattel slavery'). Other practices that amount to slavery are:

Bonded labour or debt bondage
This is when a person's work is the security for a debt - effectively the person has not been sold, but they are on 'a long lease' which they cannot bring to an end, and so cannot leave their 'employer'
The conditions of employment can be such that the labourer can't pay off their debt and is stuck for life, because of low wages, deductions for food and lodging, and high interest rates
The debt may be inherited by other family members who are then themselves forced into bonded labour
What is Modern Slavery?

BBC - Ethics - Slavery: Why slavery persists

Modern Slavery in America


http://frank.mtsu.edu/~tah/currunits/slavery/facts.pdf

bribery, deception, treachery, and force,


In 1562 John Hawkins, an English navigator, seeing the want of slaves in the West Indies, determined to enter upon the piratical traffic. Several London gentlemen contributed funds liberally for the enterprise. Three ships were provided, and with these and 100 men Hawkins sailed to the coast of Guinea, where, by bribery, deception, treachery, and force, he procured at least 300 negroes and sold them to the Spaniards in Hispaniola, or Santo Domingo, and returned to England with a rich freight of pearls, sugar, and ginger. The nation was shocked by the barbarous traffic, and the Queen (Elizabeth) declared to Hawkins that, " if any of the Africans were carried away without their own consent, it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers." He satisfied the Queen and continued the traffic, pretending that it was for the good of the souls of the Africans, as it introduced them to Christianity and civilization.


no slavery isnt happening today
Slavery, sex trafficking targeted by state attorneys gene » Naples Daily News


(slā'və-rē, slāv'rē)
n., pl., -ies.
The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household.

The practice of owning slaves.
A mode of production in which slaves constitute the principal work force.
The condition of being subject or addicted to a specified influence.
A condition of hard work and subjection: wage slavery.
During 2001, at least 700,000 and potentially as many as 4 million men, women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions, according to the U.S. State Department.


Although slavery is illegal in every country in the modern world, it still exists, and even on the narrowest definition of slavery it's likely that there are far more slaves now than there were victims of the Atlantic slave trade.

The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history,[4] remaining as high as 12 million[5] to 27 million,[6][7] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world's population in history.[8] Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations.[9] Human trafficking is primarily for prostituting women and children into sex industries.[10]


As the Roman Republic expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved,


Siddharth Kara has also provided an estimate of 28.4 million slaves at the end of 2006 divided into the following three categories: bonded labour/debt bondage (18.1 million), forced labour (7.6 million), and trafficked slaves (2.7 million).[163] Kara provides a dynamic model to calculate the number of slaves in the world each year, with an estimated 29.2 million at the end of 2009.


Although an independent government was created in Haiti, its society continued to be deeply affected by the patterns established under French colonial rule. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and threats.
Their domination of politics and economics after the revolution created another two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers.[1] In addition, the nascent state's future was practically "mortgaged" to French banks in the 1820s, as it was forced to make massive reparations to French slaveholders in order to receive French recognition and end the nation's political and economic isolation. These payments permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth.[2].

By the 1740s Saint-Domingue, together with Jamaica, had become the main supplier of the world's sugar. Sugar production depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans in the harsh Saint-Domingue colonial plantation economy. The white planters who derived their wealth from the sale of sugar knew they were outnumbered by slaves by a factor of more than ten; they lived in fear of slave rebellion.[4] White masters extensively used the threat of physical violence to maintain control and limit this possibility for slave rebellion. When slaves attempted to assert power through leaving the plantations or disobeying their masters, they were subjected to this violence in the form of whippings, which were a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves, and more extreme torture such as castration or burning.

Trafficking in human beings (also called human trafficking) is one method of obtaining slaves. Victims are typically recruited through deceit or trickery (such as a false job offer, false migration offer, or false marriage offer), sale by family members, recruitment by former slaves, or outright abduction. Victims are forced into a "debt slavery" situation by coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their victims.[181] "

On May 21, 2001, the National Assembly of France passed the Taubira law, recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity.

When a town falls to a hostile army, it is normal to take into slavery those inhabitants who will make useful workers and to kill the rest.

Read more: HISTORY OF SLAVERY

Surprisingly, Babylonian slaves are themselves allowed to own property.


Both the leading states of Greece - Sparta and Athens - depend entirely upon forced labour, though the system in Sparta is more properly described as serfdom rather than slavery. The distinction is that the helots of Sparta are a conquered people, living on their own hereditary land but forced to work it for their Spartan masters. Their existence is a traditional rural one to which certain rights remain attached.

 

[AMonger]

i really have to laugh when people say they should be making the same amount of money as the higher ups in a company.most people who work hourly wage jobs go home at the end of their shifts and dont think about work again thill the next day.while many of the higher ups stay and keep working.even after they leave they still have work on their mind.are we gonna make that important deadline.how are we gonna land this new account.are we selling enough this month to not have to lay people off.
the pay raises in this case went to the salaried workers.that mean they make the same weather they work 20 horurs a week or 90hours a week.they dont get that 30 dollars an hour for anything worked over 8 hours a day.slaves thats funny right there.

In addition, those execs and management personnel took time and invested tens of thousands of dollars in their education, deferring their employment and wage earning capabilities for years so they could earn a Master's degree. When the time comes around for bonuses to be reinstated, of course they're at the front of the line, ahead of someone who has no such investment.

Kind of like the military. Sometimes, enlisted men wonder why rank has its privileges. It's because of both the investment the officer and the service have in each other, the amount of responsibility officers/management have, and the ease with which one can be replaced; it's easy to replace a one-striper but hard to replace a major or a colonel with experience and expertise.

So when the computer systems went down and the programmers had to come in to solve a problem, they were the ones under the gun. The colonel was on their @$$es, not mine or the other enlisted personnel. They were the ones who had to be task-oriented, who had to stay until the problem was fixed, no matter how long that was. My shift, otoh, was relieved at 1445 when the next shift came in. So R may have its Ps, but sometimes being a worker bee has its benefits, too.

So, bottom line, management is treated different than an assembly line worker because:

--a manager has greater investment in his career, in both time and money, which pays off in salary and perks;

--the company has greater investment in them than in an assembly line worker;

--a manager is harder to replace than an assembly line worker;

--a manager has greater responsibility and has a correspondingly higher risk/reward than an assembly line worker.

 

[AMonger]

then let them do it . why should anybody care about anybody else . just as long as ME is taking care of . . Yep the working people are just a NUMBER not a real person . kind of sounds like being treated like a slave .

You have to keep in mind that we operate in a free market, one comprised of the owners of capital and production, workers, and consumers, all of which act as a check and balance on each other, much the way the government is SUPPOSED to work. Most of us, being business owners, already know how the free market works, but some of us are former union workers, and obviously don't.

The owner/management of a company has work that requires workers. They own not just the company, but the position. It's theirs to award to whomever they choose for reasons that are important to them. If it's a well-run business, those reasons will be largely based on merit and qualification. If some other factor is substituted, output and quality will suffer, and the consumers, who operate in the same free market, will punish that company by not buying their products, and the company will fail. Generally, when a company does fail, it's because of some failure on the part of the company, whether it's a mistake in pricing, in quality, or in the estimation of demand for their widgets, etc.

As the ones with the lion's share of the investment, they also have the most to lose.

Employees have investment, too. They invest in their education, training, skills, and qualifications, for which they trade their time and treasure, much the same way those college boys in management did when they invested time and money in their education, but the workers do this to a smaller degree.

They are free to market and offer their skills to the highest bidder. If they choose one who bids lower than the going rate, they may have greater security, but will forego some earnings. If they choose one who bids too high, they may make more, but at greater risk, because the greater costs will be reflected in the cost to consumer, and the consumer may reject the product in favor of a less expensive product, causing the company to fail, putting the workers on the street. So the employee has profit and loss considerations, too. He has a responsibility to make the right decisions so he can make enough and save enough to support himself for his whole life, including when he's too old to work and can't being in any more income, do he won't be a burden to his family or society.

The job exists at the agreement if the worker and employer. In a free society, they agree on terms and continue as long as they both desire to. The employee may leave when he chooses, and the employer may withdraw the position when he chooses. If this is not the case, that society or market can't be considered free.

The consumer is king and decides who he rewards or punishes with his dollars for whatever reasons are important to him.

That's how the free market is supposed to work. In socialist, fascist, or otherwise centrally-planned economies, the government intervenes in this area or that, giving favor to one of the three groups at the expense of the others, throwing the whole system out of whack. There's not a single solitary interference in the free market that doesn't cause more inequities and suffering down the road than any inequity it was designed to fix, including social security or laws favoring union workers at the expense of management and consumers.

The reason that seems foreign to union thugs, er, workers, is because the entire union system is a system designed to insulate workers from all the negative effects of the free market, while still enjoying all of the benefits. Like any other interference in the free market, that can only continue so long before it implodes, which is what we've witnessed, as unions have priced themselves out of the market and dragged their employers down with them.

Beyond all that, I'd have more concern for the plight of the UAW if their workers would stop being such (rhymes with tricks). Anyone who'se delivered at auto plants knows what I'm saying.

 

[greg334]

You all can argue among yourselves with an intellectual definition of what is slavery and what isn't but ...

We have slaves today among us, they are bonded slaves by their inability to think beyond what they feel they can do. This is a mentality borne out of two things, one is the need to belong to a group who maintains their job for them and the other is the society who has defined victims as anyone who has obstacles or road blocks in their lives or more importantly those who are victims of an injustice that had befallen their ancestors in the distance past.

This is real slavery.

When people talk about how unfair our immigration system is and how they justify people living in the shadows because they invaded our country, they are not just condoning slavery but promoting because it is a real form of slavery.

With that, the open border allows people to enslave others through a form of indentured servatude or outright slavery. THIS include those who are smuggled here to become property for the purpose of sex, making babies and a number of other things.

One is not a slave because they can't find a job other than being a slave to themselves. One is not a slave who chooses to take on too much debt to have a big house, new car or what ever, that is what they did on their own.

If 35,000 ford workers are upset with something, they have the right to address that problem but because I have zero sympathy for those UAW workers who have had their union handed money out of the pockets of those who have yet to be born, I can't help but to tell them to live with it because many more are worse off.