The American Axle strike got confrontational today, as UAW workers picketed an AA replacement-hire orientation in Kalamazoo. MLive.com reports that some 20 striking workers picketed a hotel where testing sessions were taking place, shouting "Unfair Labor Practices!" and other niceties at potential scabs. The company says that they're creating an applicant pool in preparation for forthcoming buyout offers, but spokesfolks won't deny that the new workers could replace strikers. "(AA) seem to be more concerned with pushing through new workers," said Kevin Bushouse, an executive board member of the Three Rivers local union. "We'd rather see them negotiate with us, settle with us." AA has received "thousands of applications" since it advertised for replacement labor, and will continue holding testing until Friday. Meanwhile, a UAW "informational picket" will continue in Detroit where UAW-AA talks are said to be improving.
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Makes sense to me. The present workers don’t want the job at the new wage. They should go find other jobs. Hell, they do all the work at AA, why don’t they go open up their own axle company?
Landcrusher,
That would require them doing more than what is currently in their job description I suspect…I think the Union does not allow that to happen.
This is the first I’ve heard anything about buyouts. Previous offers from AA were for pay cuts only – sorry, no buyouts or buydowns.
I still believe both sides are waiting for GM to at least partially fund these buyouts and buydowns.
Hell, they do all the work at AA, why don’t they go open up their own axle company?
It would also require ambition, leadership, and efficient operating practices.
GM will no doubt provide the proverbial “tit” and once again bribe the UAW to settle at a ridiculous high price. There is no testosterone left in Detroit anymore. Just surrender and pay. One of these days GM’s well will run dry. Thanks to the UAW and their auto suppliers. How long will it take for this blood letting to continue?
with the way the economy is they are going to have a hard time telling people not to take a job if they have the chance.
Time to bring in the Pinkertons.
The union said “We’d rather see them negotiate with us, settle with us.” DUH!!
Shouldn’t a company have a right to hire and fire the employees it chooses, not who a union tells them they have to hire?
Isn’t GM using axles made in Mexico to fill the gap?
Why doesn’t GM move entire production to Mexico?
Easy to always blame the UAW for all of GM’s problems. Is the UAW to blame for some of GM’s troubles? You bet. ALL of them? No way. You can’t blame the workers for lousy designs, or poor business decisions or a bad mix of vehicles. How would you like to keep YOUR job for half the pay? Here is the typical American business line: “If you pass that new (insert your regulation here) law, it is going to cost American jobs”. Yet every chance business gets you hear “we have to outsource to be competitive”. Hear that giant flushing sound? It is the middle class of America going down the crapper.
I agree the UAW is not the cause of all of GM’s problems.
Yes, UAW is part of the problem but GM makes money not cars.
Those words are from form GM CEO Roger Smith.
GM corporate culture is the main reason I will never purchase any of their products. GM doesn’t care about their customers, products or their own employees!! Yet, people here bash Toyota and Honda!! WTF!!!
If you work for GM or their suppliers sure purchase their products but others that are not benefitting from them there is no reason to.
golden,
If they half the pay WITHOUT a union, they would lose mostly their best workers. The best, most qualified people would simply leave as they found new jobs. Eventually, the company would end up paying a market rate for the labor. The union itself IS the cause of THIS problem.
I would not keep a job for half the pay for long, but then, I am not in a union. I did not bet my life on the union keeping me in a job. I did not get fooled into thinking I was living in a communist utopia where someone would make sure I got a “fair” deal.
I would simply leave. I wouldn’t waste my time yelling on a picket line about it. In my opinion, AA should be allowed to offer whatever wage they want. If they go out of business because they pay too little, that is their problem as well.
This is America and we are all responsible for our own success. Even Union Workers. So the UAW members bought a line about job security through solidarity. There are, were and will be no guarantees of any job at any wage. It’s sad to see people that claim to be streetwise cling to the notion that
A: they dictate, control and decide what AA does
B: That they have a claim or entitlement on AA
AA and GM in general are a business, not a government agency, and as a business they need to make money so they can pay the workers. IF the entity does not profit, WTF are they supposed to do? It does not help the 2.8 to spend borrowed money and pay ridiculous salaries to executives and then ask the rank and file to take a puch up the keister but again it is a company, not a voted in government by the people.
Bottom line is all these workers should have paid attention the past 7 years since gas shot up and the market changed. I’m not in the same career field I started in 20 years ago, I made a switch and they should too.
Landcrusher
Your assertion that were your pay cut in half you’d simple move on makes no sense. Certainly if your company found that the skills you bring to the table could and would be preformed for half the pay other companies in your industry would be moving in the same direction as well. More to the point the question should be; what would you do tomorrow if you woke up and found that your skills were worth half of what they are today?
And that is the direction the “global economy” is moving in. Our wages are going down to meet the foreign competition. White collar jobs are already being moved off shore and the trend won’t end soon.
There was a time when people in this country met adversity head on and found ways to overcome. Some people still rise to the challenge, others have been taught to wait for the hand up. Guess who will win in the end. Foreign workers are maligned for being cheap but they work hard, have good skills, and end up being good employees. They also are getting more expensive every day so the cost advantage is disappearing fast.
Another boogeyman is the excessive regulation, taxation and litigation companies face with a US workforce.
Landcrusher: I don’t work in manufacturing or have a union position, so you are not likely to find me in a picket line either. Nor is my job readily outsourced. So I am lucky enough not to be directly affected by this sort of thing. However, with the present trend of “go global”, many Americans are going to have to either retrain or see their standard of living deteriorate. You are correct that the market will reset to a new wage, a much lower wage. However it is so easy to say “retrain” when being an armchair warrior. Like it or not, everybody is not able to afford schooling at this time of their life, and lets face it, some are simply not capable. America used to offer opportunity to all citizens, not just a select few. This is not “communist utopia”; it is (was) the American Dream, what this country used to provide. And it is not just manufacturing either. Dell’s outsourcing is well known, but how about CitiBank’s customer service? How about AutoCad operators who have their drawing/drafting work emailed to India? As outsourcing drives down wages, our country’s standard of living declines. Will cheaper labor at AA result in lower prices for us consumers?? Yeah that’s a good one. That may be true for Chinese DVD players. Any additional profits will be sucked up by the fat cats. (Oh I forgot, the fat cats will spend which will cause jobs and growth…how could I forget, foolish me)
Again we have this notion that we are helpless and only a larger older brother in the form of government intervention will defend us on the schoolyard. America still offers more opportunity than most countries, especially Europe.
No one complains when consumer goods drop in price, add new features and enrich our lives. To the rest of the world we all live like kings.
Your right, it’s not easy to retrain. So the sooner we get started the better. The 435 elected representatives excel at spending tax money to get re-elected, they have no idea how to create prosperity but plenty of ways to spend it.
Cheaper labor may not promise lower prices, but higher labor costs guarantee lower profits, higher costs and the like.
Vamvet,
If my saying I would find another job due to a pay cut makes no sense to you, you need to stop worrying about this website, and get an education by talking to some successful people.
I have, in fact, left a perfectly good job because I felt that my pay was not improving fast enough. I mistakenly took a job working for a crook. I started looking again almost immediately, and found the best job I ever had.
What one company thinks means nothing. There are millions of companies. Furthermore, when my industry took a dive a few years ago, I jumped industries. I took a pay cut, but so what. I will make the same money again before long.
If you think that there is a “trend” to remove your jobs off shore, then you can whine about it, try to bully others to stop it, or you can get out in front of it and figure out what will be the best way for you to get ahead.
Whatever you do though, stop trying to get the government to fix your problems. Don’t you think you should try to figure out what is best for you? Do you want the government or a union to tell you what to do? Why should you want them to do that for me?
You can do it. Take care of yourself first. Once you realize how to do that, THEN you can figure out how to help your neighbors. If your neighbor isn’t starving or drowning, you will likely find that you sound like me when you tell him to rely more on himself.
Golden,
There is almost nothing you can learn in a school that you cannot learn with only a little more effort by going to the public library. I have a degree from a top university, I have not worked using that degree since I left school. In fact, I have functionally worked as an engineer even though I failed calculus and had no engineering courses. I have mostly worked as a technology sales person selling software and hardware. Many of the best engineers I worked with had no degree. I learned very little from my few computer courses because I knew most of what they taught from teaching it too myself.
After all of that, they don’t teach in school the most valuable skills in the workplace. Social skills are mostly self taught on top of a base you get from your parents. My parents were not tops in this area, though mom did teach me how to act like a gentleman (not that I always manage to live up to the standard).
You know, there IS a problem with CEO pay in this country, but that doesn’t explain the income gap. The real gap is caused because so many people cannot be depended on to show up on time, behave courteously, and show at least some responsibility and purpose towards the ends of the enterprise in which they want work. I know few people who do all that, who can’t with a little effort make a six figure income.
No, you can’t go from a manufacturing job to a six figure professional job in one step, but if you can do some research, start talking to people outside your circle, and try hard, you can figure out how to get there in 3 years. You can at least find a job that pays over 50k, and isn’t all that tough.
My cousin has never made more than 50k in his life, and he has a quarter million in the bank. How? He lives frugally. He is a success. He plays piano in bars and restaraunts.
He taught himself to play the piano.
Landcrusher:
Certainly, at this late date the last thing I’m worried about is this website.
Your premise of finding another job if your pay were cut in half is based solely on the hope that another job paying your old rate is available or still exists. Because this may be the case today doesn’t mean that it will remain so into the future.
I’m curious exactly how do you define “successful” people? In October my wife and I will celibate our 37th wedding anniversary. Does that define successful? We raised and educated three beautiful daughters. Does that define successful? Ours daughters weren’t saddled with huge student loan payments after college. Does that define successful? This summer I will retire with both a substantial 401k and monthly pension? Does that define success?
The point is that as companies put downward wage pressure on its lowest paid workers higher paid workers won’t be far behind. Take GM as an example; in the next few years they will be paying most their union employees $14-$16 dollars an hour. Do you think the men and women supervising those employees will continue to make their big bucks? Lower salaries will, over time, work their way up the food chain.
The millions of companies in this country that you speak of will be forced to realign their cost structures to complete with the millions upon millions of foreign companies.
As I wind down my work career its not my future I’m concerned with but rather the future of “middle class” America and its younger workers.
Oh and just for the record, Landcrusher, an eternity ago I put my life on the line for this country (2nd Battalion, 502nd Regiment, 101st Airborne Division ; Class of 1969) Believe me if I ever feel I need help from my government I WILL NOT be shy about asking.
I was talking strictly about financial success because we are talking about jobs. Gratz on all your success. And thanks for your service, Airborne. I believe it was the first of the 502nd that I supported while I was in Korea in ’88-’89. Luckily, we ducked a LOT less lead than you did.
Still, I have to say, that your understanding of economics is severely lacking. All the jobs are not going overseas. For the most part, it’s manufacturing jobs that are going overseas. We can despair all we want, but the truth is that those jobs are less desirable than we believe them to be. Also, at the current labor rates, if they did not go overseas, they would get automated our of existence anyway. Would that be bad in your mind? The manufacturing myth is pervasive, but the problem is that people only want those jobs if they can get a non competitive wage for their work while buying their goods at the low, free market rates.
I don’t care if my old job is still there, I will find another, or open another company, or whatever. There is no limit to what I believe I can do to make money. If I need to learn a new skill, I will. OTOH, If I believed my livelihood depended on stealing from others, I would just as soon starve.
The arrangement that UAW has with AA is theft. It is condoned by the state and federal governments, but that does not change that it is theft. The owners of the company are just that. They should not be compelled to do business with an organization just because they say they represent the laborers. They should not be compelled to deal with anyone who does not want to work for what they are offering.
We currently have about 5% unemployment in this country, the days of being compelled to out up with slave wages and conditions due to poverty and lack of opportunity are gone. If they come back, THEN we can talk about unions. As it’s going, it’s the unions that will put us there with their political machinations and donations.(BTW, average wages have continued to rise since Reagan took office. The oft touted “household income” numbers are a sham).
Furthermore, if you put tariffs on imports, you are stealing from the consumer in order to give money to the domestic producers. It’s still theft. Your 401k is presently taking a huge beating. Why? THEFT. The government is taking all our money and using it to support all sorts of crap, and the bill is coming due in the form of a recession. If they all don’t stop with all the tax and spend rhetoric, it will be the 30’s all over again. The New Deal did little to help the economy, and a hell of a lot to extend the malaise. We don’t need to go through it all again. Protectionism works poorly everytime it is tried. So does legislating economic outcome. It simply won’t work for long if at all.
One of my best friends is a doctor. He decides how many shifts to work each month. As he has done before, he will reduce his hours to avoid the top brackets because he doesn’t think it is worth going to work for the resulting wage. He is not alone. I have several friends who are 2 professional couples where almost all of them now have one spouse at home due to the taxes. These are not people who TAKE jobs, they are people who MAKE jobs. I closed a business a couple years ago due to over regulation and taxes, and I won’t open another one because of it.
The answers for all the things you are worried about are predetermined by the people who made you believe in the problems. The only attack on the middle class in this country is being orchestrated by the Democratic party and many willing conspirators in the Republican one.
This idea you have that there won’t be any good jobs left is a sham, and you shouldn’t fall for it. Not for one second.
Have an Airborne Day!
I remember an article in the WSJ from 1993 that had a line I’ll never forget.
“Slow dim witted millionaires are not about to fork over their wallets to the IRS”
People that stand around with signs bemoaning the fact that times are changing and something must be done to bring back the good old days are going to be there for a long time. Meanwhile the rest of us find a way or make one.
IF we insist on hanging on to the past we’ll never move past where we are right now.
I have seen many couples with dual high earner incomes park one spouse at home to raise the kids because the tax load of AMT was too much. Add to that daycare and the stress of two income households and we see a choice to be made.
There are diametrically opposed opinions on what to do next but only time will tell who is right. FDR did prolong the depression, WW2 really ended it and by 1947 we were at least moving in a better direction. the New Deal brought us institutional socialism and never ending government. JFK polished it off by allowing government workers to organize. LBJ made it OK for the government to just throw money at the problem.
Landcrusher
Hey, it is always nice to meet a fellow vet. I am sure that whoever you supported they appreciated it very much. I know that we did whether it was artillery support or the occasional hot meal at base camp.
The link provided leads to a fairly unbiased discussion of the out sourcing debate. I’ll admit that to some extent it supports your position while admitting that the true depth of the problem is unknown. It is also somewhat dated having been written in 2004.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/7749/#4
I don’t really put a lot of stock into “Average wage” and/or “Household income” figures. My sister is a professor of statistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Damn Kansas). She teachers both undergrad and post grad courses. One thing she has told me several times is that numbers can almost always be spun to support one’s point of view. Similar to the way words are spun. Perhaps in this discussion “per capita income” figures would give a better picture of the “over all” direction of wages in this country.
At any rate, have a great day and better tomorrow.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics