Inside Alabama’s Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs (safest, buy)
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Yes, there are many things I buy that are made in China, just like everyone else. In most of those cases I have little choice but to buy something made in China, because just about all of those particular products are made in China...
Not angry at anyone. Just noting all the anti-American car snobs who will buy their Hyundai or Toyota because they claim it's made better than a GM or Ford, and use the fact that it's made in Georgia or Mississippi to assuage their guilt at not buying American.
My Hyundai was assembled from at least 50% US-sourced parts in the US. Meanwhile, an awful lot of your "American" Fords are imported from Canada, or full of major assemblies from Mexico.
The name means nothing. I'm not sure what's more "American" than a profitable company, paying dividends to millions and jobs to tens of thousands.
But do feel free to buy the "American" name, wave a flag, and chant jingoistic slogans... I'm sure that's really helping out American workers
There is always some degree of risk in any industry that requires some physicality. When I was working grocery I saw a stocker fall off a step ladder and bust his kneecap.
Former OSHA safety officer here (basically anti-osha... one of my duties were identifying and correcting issues to avoid fines.)
It's required that OSHA Tip lines be posted.... usually in the break room and they HAVE TO Respond to any anonymous complaints.
So, if people don't call.... they have only themselves to blame.
This particular enterprise was very closely held "Christian" of a certain type...and I am fairly sure they keep things close.
But, yeah, good tip!
As far as Hyndais - it's interesting that we look at S. Korea - where their President just had to step down due to corruptions - as equiv. to Europe or even Japan. I think S. Korea is a place by and for the corporations.
I'm sure Trump will cut OSHA off at the knees. Those are the bad regulations he speaks about IMHO.
How much is "better", and why only that and not more? What happens when paying more increases prices?
Then we pay more
We are doing that right now, with the price of milk, housing and other stuff. I would definitely pay more money to a car company that treats there employee with respect oh, and doesn't have them dying on the assembly line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jnojr
What about the budgets of people who are buying? What happens when competition closes that employer down, and the people you claim to care so much about go from making not enough to nothing at all?
Let The free market work its magic.
I think you may have me confuse as some bleeding heart Liberal
Quote:
Originally Posted by jnojr
Labor is only worth what it's worth. You cannot mandate that employers pay more... one way or another, the invisible hand of the market will always beat you.
Totally Agree
But i will say they need to do a better job at training their people. If the company is injuring employees and then the employees can't work anymore and ends up on disability and welfare, then i have a problem.
BMW in Greer, SC seems pretty good. They had a fire 4 years ago or so and i'm sure there's minor injuries all the time.
Some of those stories are absolutely horrible.. The guy falling into the acid pit for example.. But the woman who went into the fenced off area.. Kinda shouldn't have been there.
Any manufacturing environment is going to be dangerous. employees and the company have the responsibility for safety.
To me.. This story speaks more to a failure of OSHA than anything.
Right...and OSHA funding keeps getting cut. And we all know businesses won't police themselves so watchdog organizations that actually have some teeth are needed...and not just in name only.
Safety should come first and any company that doesn't put safety first isn't worth working for. But, what if people are desperate for money and feel like they have to accept the unsafe working conditions to feed their family. Or, they don't realize how unsafe a place is or get bullied into unsafe practices or just don't think it will happen to them or don't realize that their machine took a guy's arm off before they came to work there.
I guess since it's all about money, we should be thankful when these employees win big lawsuits and when OHSA levies big fines for preventable workplace injuries and deaths. Enough multi-million dollar settlements and it becomes economically inefficient to operate so dangerously. It shouldn't take maimings and deaths to change company behavior, but apparently for some of these companies, that's all they care about.
Capital controls labor through wages, without "the third" force ballancing very unequal power equation invisible market forces will reduce "free" labor to any arbitrary level of destitution. Americans chose to buy into patently false ideology historically speaking, now it is time to pay the price. More to come, and then even more. And then there will be a turn of wage earning aristocracy who are somewhat delusional just because they were thrown a few crumble$ more.
No doubt the South has become the "Mexico" or "China" for many European companies. They build plants there because they are given tax credits, don't have to deal with unions and go wink-wink when it comes to safety and other such regs.
I was in the metal fab business - and my buddy stopped into a plant in NC that was one of the biggest in our industry. He could not believe the lack of worker safety equipment compared to the North or West.
I guess Life is Cheap in certain places.....sad that the Great America becomes the low cost production machine for more civilized countries.
Yep. "reconstruction" never stopped after the civil war........."stick it" to the rebels...........
Yep. "reconstruction" never stopped after the civil war........."stick it" to the rebels...........
It was never about sticking it to anyone - it was who would work cheaply. Since the general population of the south was less educated, non-union and slavery had taken a lot of the innovation and ambition out of the entire society, what was left was to build factories and mills (at first these were from NE, then they were southern) to process the cotton which was still grown nearby.
Now we have European and Asian countries thinking "hey, these states allow their people to work cheap - without many benefits or a pension...and they will give up millions in tax credits. Robotics allows for the workers to be less skilled...in many cases.
While it definitely beats a job at waffle houses, it is - IMHO - saying something about the USA that the equivl German working in the same company factory (VW, for example) will be able to create a full career, pension, health care, advancement and much more easily...in Germany. IN TN, this is not the case. While the wages are higher than the piggly wiggly, the benefits are not world class.
No one forced the south to take these plants and give them 100's of millions in tax breaks...and, the states could have insisted on Union, etc which VW and such companies actual favor.
It's nice to have a job but in the end the solution to our problems is not $14 per hour auto jobs...in relatively low quantities
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