Following the same road map that led to the ongoing organization efforts at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., the United Auto Workers have allied with German union IG Metall and Daimler’s works council on their march toward Mercedes-Benz’s MBUSI plant in Vance, Ala.
Reuters reports the UAW are doing card checks and distributing propaganda at MBUSI with help from the two German organizing bodies in the former’s ongoing march to unionize the South; other efforts include those at two Nissan plants in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Furthermore, the UAW has gone after Daimler via the National Labor Relations Board over allegations of interference and intimidation of MBUSI workers in exercising their right to organize; the hearing is scheduled for April 7.
Leading the Southern march, UAW regional director Gary Casteel explained how the union was paying attention to globalization and its effect on workers’ rights:
“The companies globalized a long time ago, and workers’ rights didn’t follow suit. It’s time that the workers’ rights caught up, and that’s the reason you see all the interaction between international unions and a global strategy.”
Said interaction comes as the result of the UAW gaining representation with Daimler’s World Employee Committee, whose role is to “strengthen and deepen the dialogue and information transfer between the various employee representatives and unions” according to Daimler in a statement.
While union leaders on both sides of the Atlantic want to see representation at MBUSI, not all of the plant’s 3,000 workers are on board. Elizabeth Kelly, who works as a team leader in quality control during the plant’s overnight shift and is opposed to the UAW, sees no link being what the union is doing with VW and Mercedes:
“The UAW supporters believe that if a union is voted in in Chattanooga, it will help their cause here. I tend to believe that it doesn’t really affect us one way or the other. It’s two totally different companies.”
The domino effect perhaps could work -with a big emphasis on perhaps- on other German transplant plants.
But the real test will be on Japanese and Korean plants.
I really don’t see the Japanese Transplants going for a Union any time soon, as most of the plants seem to match the earnings of what the UAW plants currently have. To organize the Korean Transplants, the UAW will have to do the same thing they are doing with the German Plants, tie up with the Korean Trade Unions who really control the South Korean Auto Plants. Real wages have increased in South Korea so much that they are no longer the “low cost” manufacturing giant they once were. I predict that as the Auto Industry is becoming much more global, trade unions will step up their game as well.
@schmitt trigger
The Germans are trying to make their plants as “American” as the “Big 2”
Is this really necessary in these modern times? Seems to me like the ultimate UAW goal is to make more money for the UAW.
So UAW through collusion with I.G. Metall and use of the US legal code and doing an end run on zee Germans in N.A. I echo Schmitt Trigger, what about the Japanese transplants guys?
I stated this very fact a few days ago in reference to the VW UAW vote, but even I’m surprised at the momentum that this is progressing. Perhaps we will start becoming a more harmonized utopia in the near future:
– Centralized Healthcare
– Gender Neutral Marriage Nationwide
– Manufacturer Owned Sales Organizations Nationwide
– Livable Wages for nearly every working person
– a 35 Hour Work Week
Aww, who the hell am I kidding anyway, when I read the Bob Corker would rather kill jobs that have UAW representation, that Ted Cruz is on another mission to deny certain people of their rights, and that not one but several millionaires equate people going after their wealth to what was done to the Jews in Germany…
*a more harmonized dystopia
Fixed it for you.
On the second point, please pickup a book and enrich your knowledge of history before you make such comparisons.
” and that not one but several millionaires equate people going after their wealth to what was done to the Jews in Germany…”
I haven’t heard about several, but I think he is referring to a recent “letter to the editor” published a few weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal where that point was made.
IF that’s what udman is referring to, then attributing it would be helpful; not everyone heard of that little piece. It’s fairly obscure.
Thx for the info.
here is the article…
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/millionaire-apologizes-for-comparing-progressives-to-nazis-says-his-watch-is-worth-a-6-pack-of-rolexes/283391/
You will have to cut and paste it within your web browser…
Thx for the link.
UD:
Good history of how your boys destroyed Detroit:
http://www.detroitbankruptmovie.com
Bankrupt – How Cronyism and Corruption Brought Down Detroit
ibid.
Also on youtube:
Sounds very familiar to the worker utopia Marx promised Russia. What happened there? How many millions did Stalin murder, in pursuit of Utopia? How many did Mao murder, and Pol Pot? Seems like you have to kill, intimidate, and destroy a lot of people in pursuit of Utopia. Where are those Utopias today? Generations behind the economies of the rest of the world, as they try to catch up. Unfortunately for America, the low info voters here, with no knowledge of this history, and the destruction of people caused by statism, are following the very same path here.
I might argue by design.
I guess that you aren’t aware that Marx died more than three decades before the formation of the Soviet Union. He didn’t promise them anything.
You apparently also aren’t aware that Marxist-Leninism had some precepts that were notably different from Marx, such as Lenin’s belief that it was possible to create an industrial society without an interim period of capitalism.
(I am neither a Marxist nor a Marxist-Leninist, but at least I know what their positions were.)
Two powerful unions involved with the automakers intimately and one coming from the vaunted Germany are looking to unionizing another plant and you seek to quote one person? Aren’t we going back to the same anti-union drivel you said you intended to avoid? I appreciate that you thought Kelly represented the majority of feelings but come back to me after the vote passes.
Wait a minute: Just a couple of days ago, the TN legislature was resurrecting the “Domino Theory” that fueled much of the cold war power struggles, and now we have a union opponent quoted in this story about how the UAW at one plant doesn’t have anything to do with the UAW successfully organizing another plant.
So, there’s a horrible risk of Unions spreading like the plague when politicians are trying to discourage union organization at a particular plant, but should the organization be successful… then the story shifts to “whatever; they are totally separate plants!”
Nobody with any knowledge ofAmerican auto history blames the UAW solely for the Big 3’s demise. It takes more than a corrupt labor union to destroy a manufacturing base. Likewise, no one with any knowledge of history wants the UAW to be successful organizing in the South. Leftist union supporters, and Democrat office holders, who are bribed legally with UAW PAC funds, are about the only supporters the UAW has.
Kind of like McDonalds, the largest hamburger restaurant in the world, that cannot make an edible, high quality product, the UAW contributes NOTHING to either its members, or it’s car producing “partners”, but is so big and powerful, it cannot fail. A night shift QC worker at a rural production plant knows little to nothing, obviously, of the power that the UAW has obtained with its legal contributions to Democrats.
I hope the workers at Chattanooga are smart enough to not to vote in a parasite organization. There is plenty of history of pain caused by unions, you just have to be informed and knowledgeable. A stretch for people that voted for our current fraud of a government, twice.
Except for literally EVERYTHING you just said is either a flat out lie or a misinterpretation of reality. I really would love to get a hold of the right-wing history that seems to be floating around as of late. Especially this belief that unions some how created this problem. Keynesian economic theory pretty much points to unions as a strong point in turning around economic depressions because they keep wages higher and thus avoid the liquidity trap that we’ve been in for nearly 7 years. Even Smith and Ricardo would be for the idea of unions if only in an effect on wages to create further spending and develop a larger middle-class.
There is zero support for your argument that isn’t anecdotal as goober will surely run in with. The ultimate issue is as I would attest to is that Goober is simply running his mouth while I could quote economists.
That would be the same Keynesian theory that supports huge deficit spending by governments. Keynes theories are just that, his opinions. They have acceptance among DEM politicians, who believe you can spend your way to prosperity. I am sure no halfway intelligent economists are in the Keynes camp anymore, unless again they are leftists, or actually on some DEM payroll. Economic theories have supporters and detractors that ebb and flow like a tide. Karl Marx had economic theories much of the world saw as refreshing and insightful, at one time, not so much anymore.
Keynes was one economist, with unproven theories. Because to the uninformed he has some name recognition, he is often quoted by DEMS mostly, as he was a proponent of their high taxes and deficit spending philosophy. History is constantly evolving. One day Keynes will be just another asterisk in history, like Marx.
Actually, the greatest economist of the last century showed how unions are not only unnecessary, but against the interests of the majority.
Unions are only an economic benefit when there is a “company town”, otherwise unions merely transfer income from other workers to union members.
When higher wages and better working conditions come from competition for workers, that comes from no one else’s expense.
Thornmark, who do you speak of? Friedman and the completely disproven monetarists or perhaps an austerian? You’re entitled to your own opinions but the facts are far in support of keynes. Most of the world uses his models, really only in the US is monetarism strong.
You’ve gone a bit far there.
Pretty much every central bank in the developed world uses monetarist principles in managing monetary policy, the US Fed being among them. Mainstream economists, including those who differ with Friedman, would dispute the idea that Friedman didn’t contribute anything to the field.
That being said, Keynesian economics form the basis for much modern mainstream economic theory. Those who refuse to know Keynes can’t possibly understand the subject matter.
That assumes perfect information and equal bargaining power, which are laughable assumptions in the real world of enormous multinational corporations.
The management hates the unions, because they want the cheapest, most easily disposed-of labor possible.
There is the occasional vignette about an under-par worker protected by his union, but for the most part employees work hard and care about what they do. The benefits of unionizing favor the employees, which is why the corporations fight tooth and nail against them.
If the benefits of unionization favor the workers, why is union representation of non government workers down to 7%, the lowest in history? Total union representation, including government workers, is 11%, also an historical low. The ONLY growth in union representation is government employees. Unions are parasites, sucking money equally from members and manufacturers, while the union leadership makes huge salaries, and visit Obama in the White House.
As long as union PAC money pours into DEMOCRAT coffers, the DEMS will continue to support union objectives, over the desires of the rest of the electorate. The union paid for them, lock, stock, and barrel. When the SCOTUS allowed corporations the same rights to make political contributions, that unions enjoyed for over a century, oh how the DEMS and the leftists screamed! No union or any DEM likes a level playing field, or a fair fight.
The teachers unions also control the DEMS through their PAC’s. Ever wonder why Junior can’t read? Thank a union controlled Dept. Of Education.
I argue those unions are merely subdivisions of the People’s Democratic Party, not the other way around. If those organizations were truly independent they could play one side off the other but they don’t they exclusively act as a funding device for PDP.
“If the benefits of unionization favor the workers, why is union representation of non government workers down to 7%, the lowest in history?”
Because the workers haven’t had significant political power for about 30 years.
You’re so angry about “DEMS” that you can’t see straight.
It’s hard to take seriously those who consistently resort to hyperbole such as “crony” and “parasite” at the drop of a hat.
If you can’t make your points in a more measured fashion, then they probably weren’t worth making. That kind of rhetoric suggests that there isn’t a whole lot of steak to go with that sizzle.
Of course, if your goal was to look ridiculous, then please carry on.
Typical leftist. Ignore the salient points, instead attack the integrity of the messenger. Same tactic defense lawyers use against victims on the stand. Refute the points if you can, if you can’t, impugn the character of the witness with innuendo. You add nothing to the discourse.
What salient points? You’re obviously not very knowledgable, and you resort to using rhetoric because you have nothing substantive to add.
There are smart conservatives, but you aren’t one of them.
More of the same. You obviously have no insights to add.
Oh please, TTAC B&B can’t even differentiate between communism, socialism, and capitalism. They’re really classicly misinformed tea party types. Mostly high school educated or if they hold a college degree it is almost certainly in business or another field where they never saw the inside of an economics book let alone a history one. Conservatives really just come in two forms: corporatists and social regressives. Most of these are corporatists willing to sell themselves down river in hopes that they’ll be rich someday.
I’ll type slowly so those who watch Fox News can comprehend this. Not all “Unions” are one all-encompassing “Union”. There are Trade Unions and there are Labor Unions. Those who use the term “union” to mean any union labor are as ignorant as those who rail on about “them”, “those people” and for those who rub jelly beans on themselves as they listen to Rush; the all-encompassing term “government”. Showing yourself to be too ignorant and lazy to do something, oh like research and then getting all pissy when people don’t fall in lock-step with tin foil hat brigade really shows your complete lack of intellect and ability to find facts. BTW, for those whose jaunty chapeau’s are made from Reynold’s finest protect: my old union DID NOT endorse Obama in the last election. Rant off. Have a nice day.