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Prime example of winning the fight but losing the war. They'll all be boohooing when the company moves or closes its doors and reopens as non-union. Why should union members be exempt from pay cuts, hour cuts, benefit cuts, and job cuts that the rest of the country is having to deal with?
Prime example of winning the fight but losing the war. They'll all be boohooing when the company moves or closes its doors and reopens as non-union. Why should union members be exempt from pay cuts, hour cuts, benefit cuts, and job cuts that the rest of the country is having to deal with?
It is refreshing to see a union with some backbone stand up against a bully corporation and say HELL NO to huge cuts in their benefits! The company tried to bully the union by issuing threats to "move to Louisiana" and "move to Mexico" if the workers refused to take a 10% cut in pay, 3 days less in vacation and huge cuts in the medical and dental benefits. And the workers told them rightfully to go straight to hell. Sometimes you just got to put all the chips on the table and let the dice fall where they will.
The Kathryn Report: Hawker Beechcraft sales down, profit up in 2nd Quarter (http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2009/08/hawker-beechcraft-sales-down-profit-up.html - broken link)
Same thing happened with the Steel Companies in Johnstown PA! Hell No, we won't take pay cuts, Hell no we will not work for less pay and benefits..
Hell yes.. all the mills shutdown, Hell yes, most of them were to old to re-engineer themselves and work other places.. Hell yes, Johnstown PA is a ghost town living on "distressed" tax status...
Christ, you people just can't figure it out can you..
when unions were first created, they were a boon for the workers. the unions fought for better working conditions, and better pay and benefits. and that was good. but after awhile the union leadership got greedy and corrupt due to the mob getting into union leadership positions.
these days unions still have a place, but they need to evolve and clean up the leadership and get rid of the corruption.
another problem with the unions is the work rules, and the inflexibility of them. i have never been in a union, nor have i worked for a union shop, but i have worked where some supervisors were ex-union members. case in point, i worked at the grand canyon a number of years ago, and one of the lodges had a problem with their fax machine, and had a fax for a customer sent to the lodge where i was working. now understand that all the lodges were run by the same company, and the lodge where the broken fax machine was, was not very far from the lodge where i was working.
i asked the porter at my lodge to run the fax down to the other lodge, a 5 minute round trip, and his supervisor came back about two minutes later and said that the porter was not allowed to take the fax to the other lodge, despite the fact that very supervisor did the same thing i asked the current porter did when he had the lower job. but now suddenly it was a huge deal. this kind of inflexibility is ingrained in the union rules, and only costs the business more money to hire extra people. this is wasteful.
I worked in a Union RR shop for almost 30 years.
In one contract, we did not get a pay raise for 3 years, while at the same time, the amount we paid for medical benefits went up 30%.
Meanwhile, the company CEO got a significant bonus, while ALL the management, received 9% a year pay raises.
Yeah, them greedy, ungrateful Union employees suck don't they?
Steve
It is not the employees. They are caught in the middle. It is the union bosses that are the fat cats.
You think they took a pay cut, or is the collective bargaining of your labor, benefiting them as your pimp?
If you didn't get a raise, your not in control of your destiny. Your union boss pocketed the increases while he whored out your labor. You don't think the fat cat union bosses are not paid off personally by the corporations? Lobbying the union bosses with payoffs, keeps a company profitable. Corruption, take your pick. Your boss was paid off, if you were increasing profits and increasing production. Your voice was not heard by the people that argue for you. It was already bought off.
The Progressives in the Federal Government have to pay back the Union Fat Cats, for buying their election to office.
Why is that not a decent salary for a union worker when millions of office workers with degrees don't make that?
It isn't anything to write home about for anybody degreed or not, minus taxes, it's a do-able salary but hardly the level that drove the economy in it's greatest expansion ever. Todays youth figure that most of the US consumer economic growth was in their lifetime but the stats don't support that, what they do show is a growing narrowing of wealth distribution, the fifties were a time of unprecedented wealth distribution and unionization among Americans, as that spread narrowed so did the membership of union workers.
Those years after the end of WW two saw the living standard rise across all class lines, the working class was content with the fact of their lower status because at least they were making a living with some job security. That of course wasn't good enough for the corporate demand to maximize profits, capital began to look for those same old conditions and wages that US unions had overcome, thus the beginning of globalization forcing US workers to "compete" with foreigners who lived under tarps and old car hoods.
Oh well, those who don't understand the past can expect a return to that past. There is a lot riding on the outcome of the US economic situation for workers, it seems as though workers will need to return to the barricades in order to be heard, in the meantime radio screamers will continue to tell our children what a bunch of fools their grandparents were and what a bunch of Angels we have on Wall Street. Better known as, divide and conquer.
There's some logic to that for sure.
But on the other hand, IF.....I had gotten a decent pay raise?
The conservatives on C-D, would be screaming bloody murder?
Dammed if I do, and dammed if I don't.....to those with closed minds.
Same thing happened with the Steel Companies in Johnstown PA! Hell No, we won't take pay cuts, Hell no we will not work for less pay and benefits..
Hell yes.. all the mills shutdown, Hell yes, most of them were to old to re-engineer themselves and work other places.. Hell yes, Johnstown PA is a ghost town living on "distressed" tax status...
Christ, you people just can't figure it out can you..
Nope, not even when it slaps them in the face.
4 choices and they commit suicide!
Take a cut, keep your job and keep some of your benefits.
Force me to lay-off workers to stay afloat.
Force me to close the doors, because I cannot pay out more than I take in.
Force me to legally move my business overseas, with no penalties and live happy without the headaches.
As a employee, which do you take?
Is your job going to become "a job an American doesn't want to do"?
Sure sounds like it.
There's some logic to that for sure.
But on the other hand, IF.....I had gotten a decent pay raise?
The conservatives on C-D, would be screaming bloody murder?
Dammed if I do, and dammed if I don't.....to those with closed minds.
Steve
Damn straight it is logical and correct.
Your pay raise is not the issue, you earned it if you are working harder and producing more so the company profits more. That is how it works.
It is the benefit & retirement packages, your union Fat Cat bosses have created that are not sustainable. They are getting government bailouts to keep them going. The 800 billion stimulus, was one union bailout after another. Even though the economy caught itself, before 1/32nd of the stimulus had been spent, and leveled off before a 1/16th was spent and has stayed the exact same since. The Unions have received the left over stimulus money from the federal government to bailout their retire's.
You guys act like your big old lumps. Useless you are.
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