Guys,
Plain and simple: The unions have to go. Sooner or later they are going to be gone one way or another anyway, since they are driving the major corperations of this country into the ground and stomping a mudhole into them. There is no kinder way of saying it than that. The unions have crushed one major manufacturing corperation after the next (remember when NCR made CASH REGISTERS?), and now they've got their sights set on the automotive industry.
I hate to say it (since I will NEVER own a foriegn car), but look at Toyota or Honda (for starters) for the obvious explaination. They pay their employees about the same as those at "the big three", they build a better product (in every aspect) for less money and they are going strong as ever. Why? One word. UNION. Or the lack there of, as it is.
I can't comment on Ford or Chrysler, but living in a GM town I know many people who either work for or have worked for GM or Delphi, and I can tell you that the unions are entirely responsible for the situation that GM and Delphi are in.
Rediculous wages are only the start, and YES, I think $16/hr for someone to stand on a line and drop a square peg in a round hole all day fully qualifies as rediculous. The sad thing is that most of them are making around $20-25/hr. Skilled trades (like Steve Wood) is something entirely different. They deserve closer to the $30/hr range, which they are not usually getting, thanks to the the unions homogonizing effect.
Then add in the "Labor Pool" insanity. The companies must maintain an overflow labor pool so that when 50% of the workforce decides not to show up for work (which is regularly the case) they have "back-up" workers. These back-up workers get paid almost their full wage to sit in a break room and wait to be assigned. If they don't get placed, they still get paid most of a full day's wages. The companies can't eliminate this attendance problem by just firing the workers who don't want to work because.... WHY? You guessed it, the unions won't let them. They can send them home (with pay, by the way), but the union will have them back on the floor within 24 hrs.
People are very eager to place blame on the excessive saleries of the executives, but they just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, the top executives (and many of the not-so-top executives) are payed WWWAAAAYYYYY too much. But lets face it, these saleries are a virtually insignificant slice of their total wage budget. They could totally eliminate these saleries and still not survive the thumb screws the unions are sticking to them.
The unions are only concerned with one thing: DUES. This is why they won't budge on the wages issue in Washington. They know that if they waver on wages, then these people who actually think they are worth what they are getting (which most are not) may look for a job elsewhere, and that elsewhere may not be a union shop, and there goes one emplouyee's union dues, out the door. They are only working to perpetuate their own existance. Anybody who truely believes otherwise is in serious danger of contracting a terminal case of cranial rectitus. Or at least acute sphincter face.......
What the "big three" needs to do is to shut their doors and start entirely new corperations. New designs, new real estate and new employees. And this time, refuse the unions any access. Im not sure if this is even possible, since the unions are in bed with the communists that are now truely in control of what we call a government, but we can dream, can't we?.......
Thanks. Brad.
Titan Racing Components
BlackJack Hydros
