"...the Barnacles of Unionism wrapped around their necks."

[Tristam]

That's exactly the problem here, aside from the widespread freeze-up of credit worldwide that's squeezing everyone. So the solution then is to make a fix to the healthcare system to make it less costly, not force these companies into bankruptcy court just to you can break union contracts and eliminate the pensions and health-care of thousands of retired auto industry workers.

I think it's gonna take a fundamental change to the way americans approach health care rather than a quick fix. We're improving the ability of medicine to treat illness and improve quality of life, but all of these improvements come with a cost that may be prohibitive, and to a certain extent we may need to scale back on QoL improvements for the elderly. The real burden, however, is the amount we spend on preventable diseases, and until America starts to treat disease treatment via prevention (i.e. diet, lifestyle), then the cost of health care is always going to be a big sagging ball and chain around our necks.

[Beckwin]

Socialized healthcare would nix all the problems with unions, but nooo, noooooooooo we can't do that because health in Canada, Cuba, France, England, Japan, Korea, Germany, etc is SOOOOOOOOOOOO TERRIBLE goddam that joe stalin

it's fucking disgusting that unions are being blamed by guys making 20 million a year in a country without national health care.

[Kuya]

Why do people keep bringing up the argument that companies without worker's unions do better? Someone care to explain who told them that worker's unions are for increasing a companies profits? Furthermore, do people know the difference between a generalization and a fact, when they mention how certain unions are corrupt and somehow try to extrapolate that into saying that all unions are corrupt? How do you go from some to all?

[Rhinox]

Like beckwin said universal healthcare would solve 99% if the auto industry's problems.

[Ksandra]

For me, as long as our society is run on capitalism unions are important. Sadly, though they are few because the government has shown it doesn't like unions and as widdled it down to mostly construction/factory/education workers. Like others said if it weren't for unions we'd be working 18 hour days 7 days a week to afford a loaf of bread. In capitalistic societies the top tries to get as much as possible and trickles down to the bottom. The fact that we're teetering on a recession right now makes unions VITAL to many people to make sure they can keep their jobs and get paid effectively for it. In many ways we need more unions not less. It would be nice for any job that requires a lot of skill/time/focus/brains that had a union to protect the working class, but that'll never be a reality.

[Tristam]

Why do people keep bringing up the argument that companies without worker's unions do better? Someone care to explain who told them that worker's unions are for increasing a companies profits? Furthermore, do people know the difference between a generalization and a fact, when they mention how certain unions are corrupt and somehow try to extrapolate that into saying that all unions are corrupt? How do you go from some to all?

This ^

I swear McCarthyism is alive and well in the US, it's like people think there's some underground marxist agenda connecting all unions that secretly wants to bring down the country.

Of course, for most people, the easiest thing to do is also the stupidest, that being to overgeneralize all unions and make assumptions. Thus a wedge issue is born.

[Olo401]

Why do people keep bringing up the argument that companies without worker's unions do better? Someone care to explain who told them that worker's unions are for increasing a companies profits? Furthermore, do people know the difference between a generalization and a fact, when they mention how certain unions are corrupt and somehow try to extrapolate that into saying that all unions are corrupt? How do you go from some to all?

There's another angle to this as well..

Sure, there have been, are and will be union leaders who are corrupt and greedy. Just like there are politicians who are corrupt and greedy. Just like there are business leaders who are corrupt and greedy. It doesn't mean that all union leaders, politicians and business leaders are corrupt and greedy though.

And to ksandra's point - Karl Marx's work Das Kapital cites that an organized workforce is necessary for a capitalist system to work properly because it prevents the leaders of industry from taking too much control over capital and concentrating it, which then destroys the economy. This is exactly what is happening now - too few people control too much capital, and the system is starving.

Ironically, conservative ideologues trumpet that they are the masters of the free market system, however they shun Marx' work, which outlines and defines the original capitalist economic system, because it includes organized labor as a necessary part of the system.

[Kuya]

Technically, manipulating the wages of workers isn't corruption, as it's what one would do if they wanted to increase profit margins. Now you might think that it's morally wrong, but nobody ever said capitalism was about morality.

[Absolutely Virtue]

What I haven't seen, but would very much like to see, are the wages and benefits (including pension promises) that the UAW receive. I want to compare it to my paycheck to see how it matches up.

I was raised pro-union, and my grandfather (newspapers- printing press workers) participated in the strikes and things that fought for their safety and rights. But those days are passed. It was honorable what they did, but things have changed. Hell, my ancestors used to have to fight for our food. Nobody does that anymore, right? Why can't the unions acknowledge their role has changed over the years?

I'm as angry as anyone is with the leadership of the US automakers. But to say the unions are innocent in this is ridiculous. Those companies are publicly traded, their financial statements are available for everyone (especially the unions, who know them front to back) to see. The unions were well aware that the companies weren't competitive with their international counterparts, they new about the poor marketing and development strategies, too. But they kept on demanding bigger and better benefits, using their bargaining power to negotiate for perks completely out of line with how the companies were performing.

The union leaders are just as guilty as the CEOs. If they actually gave a shit about the workers, they would have tried to help GM et al fix the problems that have been there all along. But instead, they fought for bigger and more expensive protections that ended up whoring the companies. Everyone is guilty in this. You know how you can tell? Because no one is admitting it. They're too busy pointing fingers.

Talk to people from Michigan who don't work for the auto companies, and they will tell it to you straight. The American greedfest of the past ten years was as rampant in the unions as it was in the window offices. If I ran my business like that, I'd be out on my ass. Let them all learn their lesson and start over. I don't sympathize, and I'm as bleeding heart liberal as can be. It's time for people to start taking responsibility for their actions, and it's time for people to realize that the decisions they make have ramifications outside the tiny little worlds they live in.

[Kuya]

Do you know how when you put up a damn, you don't see a surge of water rushing through the valley? What do you see after you take down a dam? Replace surge of water for increasingly polarized income which also may lead to lower consumption overall in an economy as the bigger the gap between incomes the less the economy consumes overall. Countries with little unions tend to have larger income gaps, which often goes hand in hand with more acute negative effects caused by the economic cycles.

[Correction]

What I haven't seen, but would very much like to see, are the wages and benefits (including pension promises) that the UAW receive. I want to compare it to my paycheck to see how it matches up.

I didn't double-check his math, but according to this: CARPE DIEM: Middle-Class UAW? How About Upper-Class.

There's an enormous income gap between the average income of a manufacturing job and one with the UAW.

[fantasticdan]

If it costs that much to pay an unskilled auto-worker in the US, why are there still any auto plants here? Is there some kind of law preventing them from moving the rest of their plants to mexico?

[Saphirea]

Unions had their time, now is not the time. Unions are crap and corrupt. The teacher union being one of the worst out there. They're all crap and yes, I do enjoy my "precious" right to work laws. I enjoy getting promoted on merit and I enjoy being able to buy whatever health care I choose. I enjoy not having to have some union think it knows whats best for me, as well as not supporting some political person that I morally disagree with.

Yeah, unions are great.

[Kuya]

Unions had their time, now is not the time. Unions are crap and corrupt. The teacher union being one of the worst out there. They're all crap and yes, I do enjoy my "precious" right to work laws. I enjoy getting promoted on merit and I enjoy being able to buy whatever health care I choose. I enjoy not having to have some union think it knows whats best for me, as well as not supporting some political person that I morally disagree with.

Yeah, unions are great.

Did you ignore what i said on purpose? It might be nice if you just outright said that you have some prejudices and that you don't care what we say because you're not going to change your mind because you think you can't possibly be wrong. At least then you're being honest.

[Absolutely Virtue]

I didn't double-check his math, but according to this: CARPE DIEM: Middle-Class UAW? How About Upper-Class.

There's an enormous income gap between the average income of a manufacturing job and one with the UAW.

Thanks for this. I have been wondering about that for a long time. And the blogger you quote certainly seems credible. He writes:

<i>"According to data from Chrysler, a UAW assembler earned $64,100 in monetary wages in 2006 (not including benefits), and a UAW electrician earned $74,800 in monetary wages. "</i>

Note that that is BEFORE the benefits which are costing the Old Three so dearly, especially the ridiculous defined benefits plans (pensions) that guarantee these salaries for these workers AFTER they retire.

I appreciate the value of an honest day's work. And I respect the invaluable contribution that tradespeople provide to our economy. But I simply don't see the sanity in paying factory workers (who make shitty cars, btw) wages like this, when I've got Ivy League graduates with Master's degrees working for me making less.

If you have one of these UAW jobs, and you've been making money like this, how on earth can't you take some responsibility for what has happened to the company you work for? Did you really think this business model was sustainable? Will you acknowledge you had a hand in driving your pile of shit company into the ground? The numbers might not make your eyes pop out, as they do when you see executive salaries, but greed is greed, regardless of scale.

[Beckwin]

I think it's a sad state to be in when we look at people in strenuous factory jobs negatively for earning a nice middle class lifestyle with security while accepting that CEOs/executives are cool to make 90 times that much.

[Correction]

To be fair I haven't heard any UAW spokesperson rule out wage/benefits concessions or layoffs as a possibility in future contract negotiations. Of course, nobody in congress would dare pressure them to, so it's up to the heads of the big 3 to make it reality.

And I've heard plenty of commentary, even on NPR/CNN, to the tone of 'you union workers better not show any signs of resistance to sacrifice when every other american household is having to do with less in this day and age.'

$64k/year is a hard sell as 'middle class' in Michigan.

[Khamsin]

How do you like your 5 day work week?

I have a 5 day work week, 8 hours a day, and my career isn't unionized.

[Charla]

The trouble a union causes? Like what?

...combined with people taking advantage of the power of unions for their own ends in the same way they take advantage of political or corporate office.

ITT: Olo answers his own question, then acts like that answer isn't sufficient because it's "only some of the time".

Unions are still necessary in general, but naturally they sometimes cause problems as well because of politicking and unrealistic expectations. What's more, a union is less appropriate for certain industries than for others, and as the economy becomes less dominated by manufacturing (the most traditional sector for unionization and probably that where it's most useful, both then and now).

Although my job isn't directly affected by unionization, I understand that the unionization movement of previous generations is largely responsible for the laws that ensure I'm not stuck in a sweatshop. But looking at the situation solely in terms of the present, it does seem a little bit arbitrary that a completely unskilled manufacturing worker 'deserves' to get paid twice as much as me because he's in a union. Wonderful, now he can support his two kids while my college degree can't even get me a living wage, because my industry doesn't have a history of unionization.

[Ksandra]

Unions had their time, now is not the time. Unions are crap and corrupt. The teacher union being one of the worst out there.

The teachers union is a problem. One one hand, yes it is too strong, on the other hand I do believe it is a necessity. For one, there is no moving in teaching. Once you become a teacher that's basically the highest, you can go and take classes/certificates to be come a principal or superintendent down the line, but that isn't really a "progressive moving up" more as a personal choice. Before the union, teachers were fired to calm down soccer-moms who's "perfect child" got a B. Or for radical-thinking like in Dead Poets Society (real story btw, teacher became a professor at my college).


The major problem I see with getting rid of the teachers union is that teachers are going to become way more obsessed with "teaching to the test" and making children think one way and one way only, in fear of getting fired. It's already started to happen with No Child Left Behind (the governments way of saying "fuck you" to the NEA). Because of it, now teachers can get fired if a certain percent of students in their class fail. So, what's been happening across the board? Teachers are dumbing down their classwork left and right and giving many students C's and B's when they should have gotten D's and F's, just so they won't get fired. If the union ceased to exist, then teachers will be so paranoid of doing anything out of the mold, that there would be no new thinking, and many kids would lose out.


Now yes I do agree that something DOES need to be done (even my parents see it and they are teachers (well my dad's a retired professor). You do have teachers that don't do anything but give out worksheets because they know they won't get fired. And for that, the NEA is a mess.

But between the two, not having a teachers union is much scarier for education, then having one.