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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TH who wrote (45952)	11/22/2005 1:27:34 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

You have to face up to problems head on and deal with them. I suspect a large part of what you consider "union problems" are just that strata of society, which would be just as problematic if there were no union. People without the education needed to have advancement potential in their career. They get frustrated with their lives, that's just reality. Chevron saw their share of sabotage and violence, even though their relations with OCAW were most cordial. When I worked in the refinery one System Operator went into the Refinery Manager's office and sprayed him with a fire hose, sort of funny if you weren't involved. Of course he was fired, and of course the union took it to arbitration as they are required to do, and of course they lost, as they knew they would. Running a blue collar plant has a lot of similarities to being a probation officer working with delinquents. Its nothing I'd want to be involved with, but there are people suited by temperament and desire to deal with bomb threats, smashed windshields, and general hooliganism. Chevron was smart in placing new college and graduate student hires like myself in union jobs as their first assignment. In a few months you get to understand a whole different world. Without that experience you could sound tone-deaf to parts of the company later in your career. Two years later part of my job was represented the Richmond refinery with regulatory agencies and in land and liability matters. If I hadn't worked at the refinery for a few months: I would have thought they were nuts and paranoid -- well actually they were, but I understood how they came to that; I would have been unable to do my job because I wouldn't have been able to get refinery personel to comply with the law; they wouldn't have trusted me to do their negotiating for them. If you're not willing to deal with people who are not part of polite society, you have to ask yourself why you decided to run a refinery or an automobile plant. My Dad was involved with the Teamster problem because he was the number two guy in Chevron Personnel at the time. But the bottom line is you have to deal with your problems. You can't let them fester for decades like GM has done without confronting them. GM's idea of a good solution was to set up Ditech and lend home owners 125% of the value of their home. Now you would have to be high on drugs to think that was a great idea, yet that is where most of their capital is deployed. GM has essentially spent the past 30 years going bankrupt on the installment plan. That's not a plan, that's the absence of management. If you have large legacy health care and pension costs due to your past mistakes, you can't fix the problem by shrinking your company and letting your sales slip year after year. If you have a problem, you have to face it head on and take your medicine. GM management has never done that. GM's management is the biggest group of imbecilic whiners I'm aware of in our economy. If I had been a shareholder, they wouldn't have to worry about their homes being burnt down only by disaffected employees. I'm surprised shareholders like Kirk Kirkorian haven't put out a contract on them. .