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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (3834)	1/30/2001 5:45:45 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Hmmm, was the UAW able to organize workers at the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance, Ala? Just wondering.

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (3834)	1/31/2001 9:57:54 AM
From: dave rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Flapjack: Are you saying that unions make the U.S. manufacturers more efficient???

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (3834)	1/31/2001 11:48:16 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 59480

>>(1) The German automakers. You purposely avoided discussing German automakers Wrong. I specifically cited the Anglo-American unions as distinguished from the German workers. Sweeney and his ilk are driving the US industry off a cliff, just as his beloved labor leader mentors did in the UK. They wrecked the industry there and it is now foreign-owned. Their shared Marxist roots destroyed the domestic companies allowing foreigners only to achieve some measure of efficiency with the threat of closure. It is instructive to remember that what is killing the US industry is underinvestment in new products and lousy quality. But why has that happened? For decades management has allowed the UAW to exact wage increases far in excess of productivity gains because they have neither the will or means to fight the political power of the unions. And they didn't need to until US consumers wised up. Unions divide and conquer. It's a patsy's game. Just imagine the Dems' howls if the companies presented a united front! So the automakers grant the increases and allow the union rules that thwart efficient management, which makes the kind of investment they require to stay abreast of the market impossible, stupid or both. IS it any wonder that GM's plans to save Cadillac require half the assembly to be done outside their factories? And in this environment is it any wonder that GM's auto assets are comparatively valueless compared to Hughes? Why should GM invest ever more in their declining business when the auto assets return less than 1% in the best of times and that if do invest more they can only expect union "demands" to take the proceeds anyway? >>The auto unions in Germany have obtained contracts that every autoworker in this country envies, in terms of wages, vacation time, working conditions ... you name it. Yet Germany still turns out the best cars in the world. German workers are more cooperative and far more productive. Still, the German automakers are building all their new plants - and those that build mass appeal products - outside of Germany. >>(2) Singapore. Singapore is the envy of the Pacific Rim in terms of what it has achieved economically. Yet Singapore is the most unionized country in the world. What gives? Singapore is no argument for your side, just the opposite. Singapore is anathema to everything you socialists advocate. Singapore is one of the most economically free and capitalist nations on earth. It has few barriers to free trade or capital. It has scant government regulation and the government actively promotes the substitution of labor with capital. I suspect the unions there are not at all what you think. In other words, the US labor movement would find it to be hell on earth: heritage.org >>3) Extend your argument to other segments of American labor: Are non-union police officers "better" than union police officers? Are non-union airline pilots "better" than union airline pilots? Are non-union newspapers "better" than union newspapers? Wow, did you ever step in it there. I am against cartels of any kind, including the ABA and AMA. All we need to do is examine how unions have wrecked public education in this country. They created a system that takes ever more resources and delivers an ever more shoddy product. That sounds very familiar. The US spends more on education than any nation on earth yet the product is inferior. In fact, it can be shown that quality has decreased with ever greater funding. Is it any wonder that this result is the product of the unholy alliance of the teachers' unions and the Dem party? >>Moving on, I fail to see why you label my argument about unionization efforts at Toyota's Kentucky plant senseless and illogical. I will repeat what I said before in simpler terms: There's a chance that within the next couple-three years the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, will become a union plant. Your simplistic and wrong implication that the alleged threat of unionization is responsible for the high performance of the Toyota plant is fully nutz. And if the workers there were so stupid to trade personal gain for the inevitable reduced employment of future workers I would say that that is the history of the UAW. Just as clearly union rule would inevitably result in a decrease in productivity and most likely quality. But the people of KY will surprise you, I suspect that they are smarter than you think. Unions once served a purpose, but they are an anachronism in a modern economy - except in "company" towns where people have no alternative. But in a modern economy that situation does not exist. Unions use political power to exact unrealistic demands and transfer income from other workers and other citizens to their membership. They create lower employment in their industries and usually lead to decline if they are powerful enough. Much of the US's economic advantage has come as a result of its relatively low (and declining) union membership vis a vis other nations. Union decline has helped foster an economic renaissance since 1980. But in areas in which unions have thrived, mostly the service sector and especially government, their impact has led to high costs and poor performance. Sooner or later this area of the economy, the least efficient and most politically entrenched, must be reformed.

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (3834)	2/1/2001 12:50:58 AM
From: TH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

flap, "(1) The German automakers. You purposely avoided discussing German automakers in your most previous response. I know, your grad school study only focused on Anglo-American style unions, but, alas, not all of my questions can be answered in the context of your study. The auto unions in Germany have obtained contracts that every autoworker in this country envies, in terms of wages, vacation time, working conditions ... you name it. Yet Germany still turns out the best cars in the world. Your argument is the stronger the union the worse the car. So how come Germany is still turning out splendid automobiles?" LOL, you know nothing about German union. To even mention an American union in the same breath as a German union should be a sin. I've only worked with them directly for three years, and this is a perfect example of someone using a common term to make their case, even when the reality is apples and oranges. You ever worked with a German union worker? You ever been to Germany? German union worker CARE and take a kind of pride in their work that does not allow for failure. Yea, give me German union workers and I will be the first guy to support unions in American. Give me workers that do not just try, but do, improve the product and process. Give me a worker who cannot stand to face his management if he makes an error. Sure the union workers for the American company based in German are not so good, but in the German owned plants it is very different. I see this everyday on the projects I work for. In American we must define everything the worker does, from his repeated process steps to the procedure he must follow if a problem arises (read this to mean that this person cannot be trusted to think). We do ALL of his thinking well in advance of the potential error. Contrast to the exact same products we make in Germany. In Germany our R&D guy "proves" the concept on a small scale machine. Then the skilled German union worker must accept the responsibility of making the new product scale to high output/speed production equipment. Once the system receives the proof it is 100% the union worker responsibility to make it work...or to prove the chemist made an error. Just yesterday the COO, Director of R&D, and I spent 3 hours trying to figure out how we can legally pay someone outside our company to complete a task that our union workers can't manage without a manager watching them for an entire shift. We are actually considering paying an outside company a fee to use a technology we DON'T NEED because that would give us the legal right to remove a union job. A job that costs us money to run everyday, while our partner company (non-union) using older equipment makes a higher net margin everyday of the week. We can afford to pay more for the product than we current do (less the loss of scrape and labor) and yield a higher net profit. So 4 union dudes lose their jobs. Who cares. TH