Bibble

UAW: It Should Be Giving Up More

Arrogant classist superiority complex. You should have that checked out. UAW members account for less than 10% of the cost of a vehicle. The waste you find so appalling is occurring in the educated but worthless echelons of GM – and society. Talk about entitlement. I want to get six figures for sitting at a keyboard and tinkering with numbers and letters, maybe send some emails, attend some meetings, then blog about it all for our social media endeavor. We value worthlessness and degrade actual work. That's the root of our current crisis, folks. A bunch of free-loading do-nothings convinced of their own genius and oozing self-made machismo all over the rest of us. And did you ever consider that maybe these ego-bruised physicians need a union? Or aren't they that bright?

Defending the UAW, Felix Salmon Abandons Logic

So finance lobbyists can 'organize' and 'collectively bargain' with Washington politicians for NAFTA, all manner of deregulation, legalized usury, bailouts for the banking and bossing class etc. But when workers do it, it's labeled corrupt by this same hypocritical crowd? Please.

Even Sect. 201 of your labor-market-regulating Taft Hartley Act clearly states the position of the U.S. with regards to collective bargaining:

"It is the policy of the United States that sound and stable industrial peace and the advancement of the general welfare, health, and safety of the Nation and of the best interest of employers and employees can most satisfactorily be secured by the settlement of issues between employers and employees through the processes of conference and collective bargaining between employers and the representatives of their employees"

Why don't you captains of industry try to grow your precious profits in ways other than simply extracting wealth from those who actually create it?

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How Unions Destroy Shareholder Wealth

We need more Americans earning more money, not less. Collective bargaining is the only way to achieve this.

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"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln

Politically Powerful Unions: A New Class of Senior Debt?

Turn about is fair play. While GM was paying huge dividends and making huge overseas investments with money that should've beeen set aside for retirees, plants were closing, COLA was delayed, health care was rising and union leadership went right along with the company. Now when the ramifications of not properly funding their obligations comes home to roast, the same folks who benefited from that slight-of-hand are whining again because they can't simply throw the workers who made decades of windfalls possible in the trash can? The union's hairCUTS began well before the latest and most severe ones of 05, 06, 07, 08 and 09.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abe Lincoln

Ben Stein Watch: November 8, 2008

It makes more sense to tie auto and manufacturing to fighting climate change and energy independence than it does tanks, war, and the military industrial complex. That's what these digital/knowledge economy hipsters fail to recognize. They seem to think that if they blog enough, somehow cars will get greener, wind turbines will be manufactured, electric trains will sprout out of the ground, and solar panels will build and install themselves. If let the Big Three die, this manufacturing equipment will be auctioned off, the factories will close, be demolished, and brownfields will spread throughout the country. GM will never sell the property because environmental liability laws hold the polluter responsible even if the property were sold. So GM, Ford, & Chrysler simply don't sell brownfield property. Why don't we recycle these factories? Why don't we make contingent on any money to the Big Three that they must sell brownfield property to anyone (private or public) willing use it as wind or solar farms? If GE can make everything from lightbulbs to warheads, why can't GM make trains & turbines in addition to caddys? These are the kinds of demands and conditions that should come with any gov. assistance. Talk about that and stop bitching about what these companies AGREED to pay their workers. Prior to the 2007 UAW contract, labor costs per vehicle (including pension & health care benefits) amounted to 10% of total production costs. Where did that other 90% go? Now, new hirers earn LESS THAN NON-UNION PLANTS in the South and receive no pension, no health care. And how is it that GM can afford to cut 30+% of their whitecollar jobs and still function? Hint: that's where the 90% of production costs were being squandered. Blame management all you want. But stop arrogantly demeaning the work of those on the factory floor. I doubt many here have spent 8 hours a day for 30 years bending and twisting and breaking their bodies, keeping up with a line, only to have the health care their job will make them need taken away by accountants and managers whose very existence within the company has proven itself utterly expendable – unlike the bolt on your steering column.