Someone wrote: "b) the unions did not help. everybody likes to get paid more than they are worth. but to think and to read and to innovate - are they encouraged by the unions? look at the teacher's unions. keeping dumb teachers in place at all costs. or the cop unions keeping corrupt cops on the job, brutal, nasty cops who are lucky they are not in prison themselves."
I would agree with some of your comments but not all. First is teachers union made it hard to get rid of teachers once tenure was put in place.
I do have to disagree with cop unions. Most were reinstated by civil service boards that are made up of the corrupt city officials friends.
On your comments a unions did not help is totally untrue. Having worked in both union and non union locations, I can tell you that I been treated better in union locations then non union locations. Safety conditions are better in union shops then non union shops I worked in. Union have lost more then they gained.
Have you every sat in on negotiations? The first thing on a unions wish list is not wages but better working conditions and benefits. It is not the union fault health care is so high. It is all of our fault for not taking better care of ourselves. It is the fault of lawsuits that don't need to be filed.
People formed unions to getter better working conditions then to get better wages. Delphi is asking workers to go from roughly 28.00 dollars and hour to 14 dollars and hour, give up their health insurance benefits and retirement benefits. Delphi wants to cut retiree benefits and only pay a pension.
They are not the only company wanting to do this. I work for a major chemical company. They did not ask us to take a pay cut but want us to pay more for our medical insurance. Presently they pay 80% and we pay 20%. They want to step it back to 70% company and 30% employee and drop medical on all future retirees. We rejected this idea because the company right now is making record profits and they are asking us to pay more. The CEO just got a 45 % pay raise. His profit sharing bonus is at 25% while ours is only
4% of our base salary plus 4% for all overtime pay.
Unions only ask that profits should benefit the low hourly workers as they do upper management.
If you that concerned about this countries future then buy from American companies that still have people working in this country and not from companies that ship a finish product here. Buy union made products.
Union Proud Union Made
Member of PACE local 4-750
Sarge