Are Unions done?

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Rob MacLennan said:
Please remember, though, that there were three parties to the deals that resulted in those wages; the unions, the employers, and the government. If the government hadn't given the auto makers the ability to so poorly under-fund their retirement funds, they might have fought a bit harder about the wages. The unions pushed for them, since everyone wants to make more money, but the other two parties GAVE them those wages.
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It's difficult not to give in to ludicrous demands when the union holds entire factories and productions hostage. Its been a downward spiral for a long time, and the plain simple fact is that we can't be competitive on a global market if we pay absurd rates to people who carry out absurdly simple tasks. Pouring coffee or making a hamburger only gets you $10-12/hr, but tightening a few bolts on an assembly line gets you $30-50? AND you get a lofty retirement? **** me.
 
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mmmnaked said:
It's difficult not to give in to ludicrous demands when the union holds entire factories and productions hostage. Its been a downward spiral for a long time, and the plain simple fact is that we can't be competitive on a global market if we pay absurd rates to people who carry out absurdly simple tasks. Pouring coffee or making a hamburger only gets you $10-12/hr, but tightening a few bolts on an assembly line gets you $30-50? AND you get a lofty retirement? **** me.
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That's a cop out. If you can't afford a deal, then you can't afford a deal.
 
mmmnaked said:
We want cheap products, but we all wanna earn $35/hour for tightening bolts on an assembly line as 'skilled workers'... too bad, it doesn't work like that. That's why the North American manufacturing industry was exported wholesale to places like South America, China, Mexico, etc etc.
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it worked like that for decades. Ford's idea was to give workers a good wage to buy the products they produced........worked very well for close to a hundred years. Then the free trade started and we see how that's gone!
Is it coincedense that countries like Japan, Korea, and now China and India try to get into the car manufacturing sector?
 
It's not so simple, there are future earnings to be considered as well. Not to mention what amounts to guesswork as to where the economy and the particular industry will be in X number of years. I suspect that manufacturers who are being plagued by expensive union problems in the USA are hedging those liabilities by building plants in cheap countries. Ultimately, when they can't afford to keep the show going, they do close plants.
 
DownUnder said:
Actually China is capable of making VERY high quality products that can rival US, Canada, Australia, German made etc.

I had a friend that moved his manufacturing there. The factories give you the options of making cheap crap or quality product. You can use cheap mild steel or medical grade stainless steel, you can use cheap bearings or top quality bearings, cheap metal or aircraft grade alloy stuff etc etc etc. They can reverse engineer a product down to the exact components, the exact amount of each and the manufacturing method used to create those be it metal or plastic etc.

The reason 99% of the stuff that comes from China is crap is because the Companies that set up there dont want to spend the extra $5/unit on stainless steel instead of mild steel or $0.50 on top quality composites or $0.05 on top quality fasteners etc. When your talking about an item that costs say $150/unit to mass produce the extra $7-10 to make sure its a great product seems too large of a hit for the "greedy" even though the retail price of the product may be up in the $500-$600 range.

This also comes down to the fact companies dont want their products to last forever anymore.

My point is, stuff that comes out of China isnt crap because the chinese dont know how to make good stuff, its crap because the multinational companies that set up there want maximum profit and dont want to make a great product.
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Non sense. We brought back a large part of the C Series Aircraft manufacturing back to Bombardier near Montreal because they have no understanding of quality concepts such as GD&T, SPC, and six sigma. They didn't know what or how to measure basic things that have an effect on aircraft symmetry etc. We have to go their and hold there hand for everything.
 
murf said:
Non sense. We brought back a large part of the C Series Aircraft manufacturing back to Bombardier near Montreal because they have no understanding of quality concepts such as GD&T, SPC, and six sigma. They didn't know what or how to measure basic things that have an effect on aircraft symmetry etc. We have to go their and hold there hand for everything.
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He's talking about blenders, you're talking about aircraft parts.

Your last sentence is exactly how the problem spreads. You go there, you hold their hand for a decade, and then they price you right out of competition when they no longer require your input. We're continually sharing our technology and wealth of experience in manufacturing just for the sake of saving a buck. But we're all guilty of it.. both the corporation and the consumer.
 
mmmnaked said:
It's not so simple, there are future earnings to be considered as well. Not to mention what amounts to guesswork as to where the economy and the particular industry will be in X number of years. I suspect that manufacturers who are being plagued by expensive union problems in the USA are hedging those liabilities by building plants in cheap countries. Ultimately, when they can't afford to keep the show going, they do close plants.
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The car manufacturers knew that they were getting into bad deals, which is why they had government rewrite things so that they could break the rules, that everyone had to play by.
 
These guys at EDM were not just "tightening bolts on an assembly line.", they are highly skilled workers, each locomotive was build to specfic specifications and each worker was responsible to read these specs and machine, weld or build what ever was in front of them.

Also my father worked at Massey Ferguson in Brantford for 35 years, yes he well paid, but until I worked on "the line" for a summer, I never considered him to be a "skilled worker", then after that it made me apprciate those guys who went iin and did there stuff. Yes I know there are some guys that worked there that did not deserve to be there, but that was a small fraction compared to the guys who went to work every day, being proud of what they did and the product they made.

IF you think working on the line is a lot of fun and takes no skill try it sometime, skill takes various forms, if you do not want to get your hands dirty take in a few episodes of Under Cover Boss.

mmmnaked said:
We want cheap products, but we all wanna earn $35/hour for tightening bolts on an assembly line as 'skilled workers'... too bad, it doesn't work like that. That's why the North American manufacturing industry was exported wholesale to places like South America, China, Mexico, etc etc.
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murf said:
Non sense. We brought back a large part of the C Series Aircraft manufacturing back to Bombardier near Montreal because they have no understanding of quality concepts such as GD&T, SPC, and six sigma. They didn't know what or how to measure basic things that have an effect on aircraft symmetry etc. We have to go their and hold there hand for everything.
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It wasn't all nonsense but yeah, he left out the part where foreign companies have to be prepared to put in place very tough process controls with a lot of training and oversight. Building quality into their work isn't intrinsic to their mindsets overall, but managing quality isn't a strong suit of many companies who look to China (or Mexico) to get things made either.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
That's a cop out. If you can't afford a deal, then you can't afford a deal.
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No, that's a cop out. When one side has an abundance of power then they call the shots. It works either way, non unionized workers get crushed, and unionized workers do the crushing.

As with so many things, there's a middle ground to be found somewhere but nobody's looking.
 
gwelfmike said:
These guys at EDM were not just "tightening bolts on an assembly line.", they are highly skilled workers, each locomotive was build to specfic specifications and each worker was responsible to read these specs and machine, weld or build what ever was in front of them.

Also my father worked at Massey Ferguson in Brantford for 35 years, yes he well paid, but until I worked on "the line" for a summer, I never considered him to be a "skilled worker", then after that it made me apprciate those guys who went iin and did there stuff. Yes I know there are some guys that worked there that did not deserve to be there, but that was a small fraction compared to the guys who went to work every day, being proud of what they did and the product they made.

IF you think working on the line is a lot of fun and takes no skill try it sometime, skill takes various forms, if you do not want to get your hands dirty take in a few episodes of Under Cover Boss.
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I had in mind auto assembly lines mainly... obviously there are tons of manufacturing jobs that take plenty of skill and experience to do, and the workers should be compensated as such. But a car assembly line isn't 'manufacturing'. It's a lego line where any particular person's field of expertise is extremely narrow and the parts just 'click together' in one way. Sure there's a steep learning curve right off the bat and it takes time to become quick enough to keep up- but unless you're physical or mentally challenged, anybody can do it.
 
fastar1 said:
No, that's a cop out. When one side has an abundance of power then they call the shots. It works either way, non unionized workers get crushed, and unionized workers do the crushing.

As with so many things, there's a middle ground to be found somewhere but nobody's looking.
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That power is an illusion, if the company is willing to close the plant. Look what's happening now, for example.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
That power is an illusion, if the company is willing to close the plant. Look what's happening now, for example.
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With the collapse of the US economy and the newfangled "right to work" idea, that power is in fact lessened. But back when they agreed to $30+ hr for a job any one of us could learn in 30 minutes, that power was very real, and very excessive.
 
DownUnder said:
My point is, stuff that comes out of China isnt crap because the chinese dont know how to make good stuff, its crap because the multinational companies that set up there want maximum profit and dont want to make a great product.
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Sorry, I didn't mean cheap as in quality, I just mean cheap as in prices.
 
fastar1 said:
With the collapse of the US economy and the newfangled "right to work" idea, that power is in fact lessened. But back when they agreed to $30+ hr for a job any one of us could learn in 30 minutes, that power was very real, and very excessive.
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"Right to work" has been around, for years, in the US. Fact is that the corps just kept on keeping on, long after it was obvious pay rates, pensions, etc. were insuperable. Who do you blame; the guy who asks for the money, or the guy who gives it to him? Me? I tend to blame the governments, that were "friendly to business", and changed the law to the point that those salaries and benefits looked to be something they could get away with.
 
Ha! Sorry, it's a newfangled idea to me!

But your question is leading. I could just as well ask who you blame; the guy who threatens the survival of the plant, or the guy who tries to keep it running? But thse questions are only distractions. I think everyone agrees that a salary of $30/hr for a "skill" that can be taught in 30 minutes is not sensible. The only way to negotiate such an agreement is to have an imbalance of power at the negotiating table. The minutea is for the parties in question to hammer out between themselves, the challenge is only to give them a more equal balance of power.
 
fastar1 said:
Ha! Sorry, it's a newfangled idea to me!

But your question is leading. I could just as well ask who you blame; the guy who threatens the survival of the plant, or the guy who tries to keep it running? But thse questions are only distractions. I think everyone agrees that a salary of $30/hr for a "skill" that can be taught in 30 minutes is not sensible. The only way to negotiate such an agreement is to have an imbalance of power at the negotiating table. The minutea is for the parties in question to hammer out between themselves, the challenge is only to give them a more equal balance of power.
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Perhaps. Perhaps not. I posit that the truly irresponsible parties, where this is concerned, are the ones who held the money and passed the laws/regulations.
 
I kinda get the idea that people are talking about different things.

You have people talking about the city workers union striking for the right to never get fired,
Guys that are tightening bolts on an assembly line
Guys that are making specified parts to order.

And then there is a bunch of random crap about China that is only half true. ...

Obviously you are not going to come to some kind of consensus on unions as a whole, the way that you cant' come to a consensus about corporations as a whole, they are as varied as the people that run them.
 
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