US Auto makers may become extinct, caused by Unions

ROFL!! Sounds like you need to go inspect your own and find out why your attitude is so foul!

Teachers unions create tenure which is horrible. It makes the school system keep lousy teachers. I agree that teachers are not paid enough. But what the teachers unions have done over the decades is create an education system that puts the needs of teachers way above that of the education of our kids. Whats needed is to get rid of lousy teachers and pay the great ones so they'll stay teaching. The unions do nothing of the sort.

Miles, please read what you are writing. The union created, the union did this the union did that. Again, the union or local negotiates with, in this case the school dept. They both AGREE to whatever is in the contract. Regards tenure. Tenure around here is not reached until 3-5 years. During that time the school admistrators evaluate the teacher. A tenured teacher can be let ago as well. The procedure is longer.

Agreed

Here you are again, the union. Miles, you are obsessed. There are two parties to any negotiations. Doesn't the other party have any responsability for the outcome of the negotiations or what is agreed to? It would seem that you want it all one way, your's.

Now what union was it that was involved with your family??

Roy

wrong again miles. i am in management. i am not union. i actually do the internal invvestigations where i work. we have a union workforce and a discipline agreement. i do not find the discipline agreement at all difficult to work with. it simply guarentees the employess a fair process. i have no problem following that. it also means that we have to have a reason to discipline an employee and that the punishment has to fit the offense or if we want to move higher on the disipline chain, we have to show that we are following the doctrine of progressive discipline. i have not found the union to be a problem. what they want is fair. they have not impeded my investigations. i do not see the gaurentee of due process and due cause as an obstacle to effective discipline in any way at all.

honestly miles, you need to get involved with your local school district. that is as untrue as anything that has been said here. as i said before, that is a lie. it is management that keeps bad teachers. tenure is not an unfair concept. it has benefits for an effective work force too. contracts do not say that tenured teachers can not be disciplined. in fact, tenure is not a discipline issue. show me a contract that says differently. you will not find one. tenure has no part in the discipline process with the one exception of probationary employees (usually probation is 6 months to 18 months, depending on the district) as probationary employees can be fired without cause in most contracts. but that is not tenure. how in the world are you getting tenure wound up in discipline and getting rid of bad teachers?

I repeat. Tenure is a BAD thing. There is zero need for it and it does not benifit the education system. Good teachers are kept and paid well, poor teachers are canned regardless of how many years on the job. A teaching job should be just like any other job where there is no such thing as tenure. You think negotiation is possible on this issue? BULL. The union is too strong to allow it.

Tell me Roy, how would say my state here in AZ negotiate to end tenure for teachers? You really think thats possible? No way. The teachers union would NEVER agree to it. You are obsessed with the notion that both sides are equally balanced in leverage against each other when negotiating. They are most certainly not.

How is it that in these negotiations they continually retain tenure and not just in a few states but nationwide? Tell me Roy, how could a single city, county or school district have the power to negotiate away tenure against a national union? The balance is simply not there as you are obsessed into believing.

SMWIA (Employee union) and SMACNA (Corporate Union that uses SMWIA workers).

Now tell me why does it matter to you which union?

State and federal laws already give a means for fair due process. Union agreements do not give much that already isn't in place in other forms.

So why should teachers be treated differently than any other job? Why do they need tenure yet pretty much nobody else in other jobs do? Tenure is a horrible concept that does not benifit our education system. It does nothing to provide the best work force possible. Quite the opposite. Sorry but you are wrong in your belief that tenure has zero effect on the ability for management to get rid of bad teachers.

Miles I am convinced that neither you or I will ever change our thoughts about unions and the rights of workers. The thread has become pointless imho. Time to move on

It didn't. I was just wondering. Is that the Sheet Metal Workers Intl. Assoc. Or the service employees?

Roy

Probably true. When you own your own company and have invested and risked everything you own into it then we'll talk more!

Sheet metal workers. Company is commercial A/C contracting.

"William Boyd" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net...

I think this thread has gotten away from the original argument. The original argument was Ford and GM's unions. I spoke with a GM executive on Monday. I asked him basically his take on the problems. He told me that GM and Ford were pension heavy. I said do you mean Union workers? He said mostly yes, but not necessarily. I next asked him what his finance department is doing wrong. He looked at me puzzled, and also with a "you got me" look at the same time. This look is hard to explain. I said, "isn't your finance department responsible for investing the pensions?" He said, "Well yes, but we are going to have to look at renegotiating our contracts with our unions, and changing our new hires pension plans." One of my associates chimed in, "I hope social security definately survives then." We left the conversation at that time. When I was younger, I was a union worker. I was under the Railway labor act. I am now on the other side of the fence in an executive position. I am astonished so many times on how clueless other executives and mid level management is as to the plight of the front line worker. Alot of failures are blamed on the front line worker, when in fact; the failure is in leadership. The example of the electrical workers union is a great example. The poster said that the workers and shop stewards were sabotaging work to get down time. The is a failure of leadership. The management allowed the union to lead. Also, maybe the management needs to make the job more imaginative and challenging. Maybe the management needs to learn just exactly what an electrician does. Someone once asked me advice (free advice) on the disatisfaction on Postal workers. I said to them, "Why are you asking me?" "Have you asked the workers?" The answer was no. I got a call from this same person 2 months later, and I was told that they tried to ask the workers questions through questionaires and surveys with no avail. They next finally decided to get up off their rear ends and actually ask the Postal workers one on one what problems were. The responses were overwhelming that the workers felt that supervisors were clueless and extremely lazy. The workers also felt that supervisors were imcompetent in handle problems whether small or large. The workers would try to handle problems on their own as a result, then the supervisors would discipline the workers for handling the problem. I see this go on very often in many industries. I've learned through the military and Union experience, that ultimately responsibilty and accountability falls on leadership. When the chain of command breaks down, and there is no contigency in place; and everyone starts "winging it." the problems begin. So in Ford and GM's case, and other cases make the union the scapegoat if you must, but when you stand back and look at things from a distance and hindsight, ultimately there is a failure in leadership. In Ford and GM's case, I see a failure in the leadership to get on the engineer and design teams about unimaginative design and engineering. Also, a failure to connect with drivers.

Railroad or airline? Were you vested?

I went through this while employed by Amtrak. They tried the survey approach and found that what was gleaned was unacceptable. So they hired a outside company to come in and do interviews. Think for a second, how does a management team become so far out of touch with it's workforce that they had to hire sombody to find out what the hell was wrong? They didn't or wouldn't believe the folks they hired. End result of years of bs, a congressional investigation brought about by the unions and as a result of the investigations and hearing a GAO study. All that finally brought about change, A almost totally revamped management team.

You make a number of very good points.

Roy

Thats true. There never was any surplus. Clinton WH projected that based on spending and tax trends there would be a surplus over a 10 year period. Trouble is, during Clintons years spending increased at twice the projected amount...8% a year increase instead of the 4% average seen under Bush Sr (and Bush Jr.).

I believe this subject is so complicated that no one here (or maybe anywhere) can really provide a complete and true answer. I think we are also looking at world politics that go back a hundred years (or more). I do know one thing....... state politics have helped to kill (or nurture) a lot of business in certain areas of the country. In New York State, for example, Republic Steel once had a Buffalo steel plant. That plant paid more in state/local taxes than all their other steel plants combined. Another nail in that plants coffin was Japanese steel which was subsidized by the Japanese government. (BTW, this Republic plant produced a very high quality steel used in car springs, rifle barrels, etc.). That plant closed its' doors in the early 80's. That closing can't be totally blamed on unions.

Also, FWIW, that plant had just built a new blast furnace considered the most modern of its' kind. After that plant closed up, the furnace was sold to the Chinese, who moved in and took it apart and put it back together in China where it is still in use today. I know this is true because my father-in-law was ass't. supt. eng. and helped design that furnace.

As for my own experience ........ I used to be the application eng. mngr. for an electronic components company. We sold a great deal of components to US auto makers (all 3). I remember one of the 3 wanting a "silent" electromechanical relay to use in their intermittent windshield wipers. Only 1 company in the world made it. I sat in on 1 week of meetings in Japan where the Jap manufacturer tried to convince the US auto maker that this was not the proper relay for this application. The auto maker placed orders anyway (because a new relay would have taken quite a while to make and get required approvals). That move really backfired later on (for the auto maker). The reason the US auto maker had to have this relay so quickly was so ridiculous I don't even want to go into it here (suffice to say it had to do with a board members wife hating the clicking noise in her personal car). I have dozens of idiotic engineering stories like this (wonder why American cars were once perceived as junk ?). Can this sort of thing be blamed on unions ? This sort of thing DID NOT help sell cars!

LOL, more horseshit. Funny how the war budget is not included here.

Look it up TBone. Budget increases were 4% under Bush Sr., 8% per year under Clinton and 4% under Bush Jr. This years increase will be about

2.5% over the prior. Add in the war budget if you want. Still, under

1. Go ahead TBone, look up the average increases especially under Clinton...I'll wait.

Play with your fuzzy math all you want Miles. The bottom line says it all.

Fuzzy math? Budget increases are not subject to your personal biased wishes. They are what they are. 8% increases per year under Clinton,

4% under Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. and this years increase is 2.5%, or 3% if you add in the war budget. That TBone, is the the bottom line despite your wishfull politically biased desires for it to be different.

What was the national dept a year before Clinton left office and what is it now?