Damler Chrysler

eric lavine wrote: bkh, why do you think Honda and Toyota set up shop in our back yards? Im asking this as without sarcasm and want to hear your opinion.

Eric,

I have not done the research to know why Honda or Toyota may have set up shop specifically in Ohio.

More generally, all of these companies established manufacturing facilities in the United states to make more money. End of story. Since the United States places ridiculous tarrifs on foreign auto makers, it was more profitable to set up shop in the US, even with our high labor rates, than to manufacture elsewhere and import. Of course, this makes it all the more ironic that American Car companies, in spite of the fact that they don't pay tarrifs, still can't compete and so they are going offshore to reduce costs of manufacturing.

Once the decision is made for the foreign company to manufacture in the US, the location may be chosen for many reasons. Again, almost always related to maximizing profit. In some cases states have offered tax breaks or other financial incentives to entice the company (Alabama for example). Sometimes, the manufacturer takes advantage of an existing facility which has been closed (Nummi in CA for example). BKH

well with toyota talking about scaling back wages and bennefits, they just may open the doors for the UAW to walk in. It's already in are paper here in Detriot that workers for toyota when on record as wanting the union down there. It's only a matter of time I think.

Oh yeah anyone else see the ma$$ recall of one honda's high end cars. Recalled all of last years production do to electrical problems. I guess they have problems to, ma$$ produce cars and quality slips. It happens, fact of life. This problems are going to be more and more frequent for Honda and Toyota.

Today we are in a global economy, like it or not. There will be no reverting back to how it "used to be".

Ryan, gotta a few friends who worked for LTV and they dont say very much after the fact, I worked side by side with some of those guys on warranty work and the last time i was down there i just new it would only be a matter of time. i was told several times that i was making thier mechanics look bad and to slow down. The feeling I got down there was that the employees were calling the shots and nothing mattered. one guy stood by me with a broom in which he was in the Heavy equipment operaters union and was diagnosed with epilectic siezures 2 years earlier. He was no longer allowed to be on any equipment down there and for the last 2 years he was still at scale which was i believe $26.00 per hour. the bad thing is he did'nt even sweep.
I was never exposed to that type of environment untill that time.

Ryan, Some of my best friends down here in NC were born and raised in Medina, OH. Last names are Labadie and Wa$$el, but families have retired and moved south. Your neighbor might have known them.

Eric, I don't know if we could ever keep the big corps from leaving. The price of third world labor can't be a target. Maybe we can keep some companies w/o that option from going under however. US Airways asked for and got concessions from their unions and is getting back on track, which was/is big news for us in Charlotte as a hub.

very interesting thread...hmmmmm being a 3rd generation local#33 union sheet metal worker im going to keep my mouth shut on this one.i will say this...just remember guys we all coose to be in the position we are in...thats it im done..im only a fourth year apprentice, actually just started my fourth year this past october..all trades are a five year program.

Backfoot: I think we musta been brothers in another life. I was Lead tech or In-Charge in my crew for the last 8 years of my career. Interviewed twice for mgmnt because I too thought I could do some good, such as teach new guys because our managers were all non-phone guys. But I had to turn it down because I was offered less (lots counting OT) than I was making. I told them what I had to have and got laughed at. Like I always told my partner, "we work the way we do 'cause of who we are, not just because we get paid the same as some of the other guys". We too had plenty of guys in the garage that were only there and recieving raises because of union bargining, not due to their efforts. But still, I feel as tho I did ok by being a union member.

john

ps: probably not brave enough, to be truthful, to do what guys like you or ReidP have done.

eric lavine wrote: Nate, this is sh*t that they dont teach you in school

Roger that Eric. When I was a manager I wanted to award a union overachiever with a raise, but the union scale wouldn't allow that. I was able to get around that by promoting him to a senior tech. I, of course had to justify it to the company and the union and the guy got a nice deserving raise. At the next contract negotiation, two other guys were promoted to senior techs just because the two other union departments in the branch didn't have senior techs. According to the union, if one dept. had a senior tech, every dept. needed a senior tech. These techs weren't promoted by merit but purely seniority. How fair is that? Now, you can take it a step further and try to rationalize why the company ended up downsizing and eliminating jobs. Mine being one of them. I'm sure that this one instance didn't cause the downfall of the organization, but this one and how many others like it sure had to contribute to it. Had I stayed in the field as tech, I would still probably be employed by them seeing as when I left the union, I was number three in seniority and that seniority would have protected me. Because I was an overachiever and I felt that I could really do some good for the company and the dept. that I was a part of, I went into management. I got rewarded with a cut in pay (a fairly significant cut) because the union scales and tenure combined with OT were significantly higher than my supervisor salary range. I never said that I was really smart did I? Anyway, now I was managing people who were making more money than me and when things went well, they got the at-a-boys and when things didn't go so well, I got the at-a-boys (that is obviously a negative conotation). Could never quite figure that one out either. Anyway, this may seem like I'm trashing unions, but I'm really not at all. Just pointing out my experiences as a union member and then as a non-union member. It may also seem like being a manager is the worst place in the world to be. Not at all, in fact I prefer it. I was able to make numerous changes in the dept. that raised moral, customer sat. and employee sat. and I eventually received my just dues for my work. Without my previous experience in the union though, that never would have happened. I never forgot where my roots were.

Wow! is this my Global Business Administration cla$$ or CCFAN? Thanks guys, now I'm not just wasting away my day on the site, i might actually be able to convince myself that im studying too...

Nate

reidp, your close with that last post. The company (Ford in this case) used to give us a bonus for coming up with money or time saving ideas. All you used to have to do to recieve this bonus was come up with and idea to save time or money and explain how it would work. Then the company would do the research and see if the idea held water. If it did, and the idea was used you got paid.

Now the company wants us to come up with the idea, tell them how it should work, research how much time or money it will save, research how much money or time it will take to put the idea to work, and research to find out if everyone likes the idea. For all this work that you have to do on your own time, you get wow thanks. Not that thanks isn't something, but some of the ideas we used to get from the line workers to make their job easier all went away because of this new system. I am not talking about large bonuses, just some thing to show gratitude. The lose of the idea program at are plant has affected moral greatly. They feel the company doesn't want to hear from them anymore.

The slackers usually go unpunished and that affects moral also. I work with a guy that misses alot of work and it pisses me off something fierce.

Sorry big rant there, but to some it up the company lost a lot of great ideas. I know there were some not so great ideas, but atleast people used to try. Now they don't. Alot has to do with no cooperation from the company. There will always be a barried between union and management so long as there are managers that think they can't learn from people that work for them. Not all are like this but I work for half a dozen like this.

So Reidp, keep up the good work. Remember small jestures go along way.

I promised earlier to zip my trap on this subject. I've never had a problem at all with the original goal and purpose of the union(s). I've worked with many IBEW guys over the years, but I a$$ure you these guys didn't fall into the negative ranks that were discussed above. My main disagreements have always been in the philosophy of promoting on seniority as opposed to merit and performance, and the inability for the worker to interact as closely with management. Of course I run a non-union shop, but there is very little union activity at all in the wireless side of telecom. It has and still exists mainly on the wireline side. Which brings me to the next factor of the union's impact on competition, which Eric hit upon in terms of sending jobs overseas to lower priced markets. On the wireless side of telecom for example, the competition abounds with at least 6 cellphone companies to choose from, so they have to keep the operating costs down. Until recently, you got your choice of only ONE land line provider, and the same with your power companies. Regulated companies can support the union mainly because of this.

While jbear stated that Eddie and myself may have been in a position to better see both sides of the story, I unfortunately have always seen a somewhat biased view living and working in one of the least unionized states in the country. So I could really be off base. I used to back my opinions with the fact that NC has traditionally had one of the lower unemployment rates in the nation, which I quite possibly mis-credited the lack of union activity. Another fact I soon found out later was that NC also has/had the 3rd highest number of mobile homes in the country. Possibly a result of a large percentage of the people working but at the lower non-union wages, I don't know, but a large number of large companies seek to locate here. This makes me think about that thought provoking thread some time back about our government and two party system. Whether the union issue outcome is positive or negative, our people, or majority thereof, ultimately choose to be unionized or not. That makes it acceptable to me.       

Greed and laziness is not confined to either side of the fence. Bad guys on either side hurt us all as you say. Guys like youself or ReidP have a much better chance to see both sides of the story than a guy like myself who was just a worker all his career.

john

Eddie; I used to run the phone system for a large school district west of Cleveland in Parma, Ohio. You wanna see waste! You should see them school admin guys. Beat auto or steel workers every day. Way more money swallowed up at the admin building on crazy projects than what went to the teachers and students.

It is sad to see what has happened to some of our "backbone" industries up north. Most of it is due to greed, and I don't mean by the Unions. I have long been a Union member and it has done well by me. Unions have given benefits and protections to people like me that otherwise would have never gotten these things on my own. No company, especially now-a-days, is gonna "give" anything to its workers. The workers have to fight for and earn these things.

john

The unions have to work in the best interests for everyone in a way to also benefit the employer, they need to re-structure or eventually as it slowly happens with companies disolving so will the unions, at one time the unions were needed because of the abuse from companies in the 1930's, now its the other way around and these big decision makers say f-it will show em and move to more PROFITABLE countries along with the American dream.... just babbling and hate to see alot of good people lose jobs,

Yeah, you definitly gotta point on the $100.00 an hour, I wouldnt either, there letting these kids fly thorough school some of them not knowing how to even read, Its to the point to where the kids are controlling the system and unfortunatly the teachers have to deal with it and it turns into a babysitting role and thier distracted because of the kids