patrick.net

Yet another outcome of those on the right being coerced into believing anything that could be good for them is bad for them. Unions worked just fine with companies for decades: Employees made good incomes and the companies made lots of money.

That still works perfectly well in germany which has strong unions yet a high level of employment as well as a very strong manufacturing industry with workers that are paid far higher than their American counterparts.

Blaming the unions if a lame and ill-conceived notion. The union model works.

zzyzzx says

Unions killing yet still more jobs in the US

Yes, it's the unions who are outsourcing jobs to Chindia and lobbying for more H1B Visas. Those bad unions, especially the Non-existent Software Developers Union founded in the year i, an imaginary year, by union boss Fatty McSitsonhisass.

The outsourcing of jobs and the use of H1B Visas is a direct result of software developers not unionizing. 'Nuff said. Other industries, don't make this mistake.

Republicans, if you don't want other industries to unionize, stop assfucking the IT industry for not unionizing.

debyne says

Let's make minimum wage $40/hr, give everyone free healthcare and pensions, and our problems go away.

Healthcare doesn't have to be "free", but it certainly has to be nationalized to eliminate the parasites in the health care industry and the insurance industry. Capitalism has had a hundred years to solve healthcare and it has utterly failed. Any rational person will conclude that capitalism isn't the solution to 100% of economic problems.

Here's a guy who gets that and explains why the Republican solutions to problems are insane. If only our politicians were as clear thinking, effective, and ethical as this guy. Hell, he should be in charge of the whole damn health care system.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/CbY2lCVxefI

It is insanity to keep looking to "free market" solutions to a problem that the so-called "free" market has failed time and time again.

I'm glad that all Rep/Con/Teas have rejected union membership nationally.

zzyzzx says

OK, so you have no facts, then you just make up stuff instead. Are you Obama?

I TOLD you, I read other articles - something which you obviously know nothing about. Here's a Wall Street Journal quote. A right winger like you should like that source:

The contract, which was to take effect in late 2016, extracted deep concessions from the union, including significant changes in retirement benefits and the end of the defined-benefit pension. Accruals for the pension would cease at that time and would shift to a 401(k)-style defined-contribution plan.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303289904579196920935090330

See, the so-called "job creators" are saying "if you don't play ball and let us gut your pension, we're going to ship all your jobs overseas".

Just because YOU are gullible enough to read a crap "article" that pops up on your homepage when you turn your computer on that LEAVES OUT facts, does not mean they aren't facts.

Homeboy says

TOLD you, I read other articles
Homeboy says

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303289904579196920935090330

Link requires a login.

The contract, which was to take effect in late 2016, extracted deep concessions from the union, including significant changes in retirement benefits and the end of the defined-benefit pension. Accruals for the pension would cease at that time and would shift to a 401(k)-style defined-contribution plan.

In other words, they will have the same retirement plan as everyone else who does not work for government. Why is this a problem? It's not like the company won't be making 401K contributions. The move to a defined contribution from a defined benefit will prevent Boeing from going bankrupt.

edvard2 says

Yet another outcome of those on the right being coerced into believing anything that could be good for them is bad for them. Unions worked just fine with companies for decades: Employees made good incomes and the companies made lots of money.

That still works perfectly well in germany which has strong unions yet a high level of employment as well as a very strong manufacturing industry with workers that are paid far higher than their American counterparts.

Blaming the unions if a lame and ill-conceived notion. The union model works.

Germany's workforce is about 44 million people. Germany's Unionized workforce is about 12 million people, however this includes those who are retired so the numbers are skewed. In reality there are about 7-8 million unionized workers in Germany which accounts for 16% total workforce. That means 84% of the workers in Germany are not Unionized.

So much for your union model working theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany
http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/Germany/Trade-Unions

spydah_hh says

Germany's workforce is about 44 million people. Germany's Unionized workforce is about 12 million people, however this includes those who are retired so the numbers are skewed. In reality there are about 7-8 million unionized workers in Germany which accounts for 16% total workforce. That means 84% of the workers in Germany are not Unionized.

So much for your union model working theory.

Whoa there nelly, back up the train. In germany, it is actually a law that any company with over 1,000 employees muct have an EQUAL amount of workers on the board as corporate executives, with the workers upholding the interests of those on the factory floor. Secondly, the fact that from the 1940's-1970's the US enjoyed the highest rate of pay increases over time -a time at which unionized labor was also at its highest- also further demonstrates how that calling unions bad is sort of dumb.

spydah_hh says

In reality there are about 7-8 million unionized workers in Germany which accounts for 16% total workforce.

I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but this is the most recent data I could find. In 2005, union membership was about 27% of the work force. Historically, the percentage was stable at about 38%. The past two decades have seen a dramatic decline as evident from this graph taken from page 3 of http://ftp.iza.org/dp2193.pdf‎

In any case, the power of unions in Germany is still very strong compared to the U.S. as evident in this testimony from a mathematics professor at the University of Paderborn in Germany who lived extensively both in Germany and the U.S. I don't know the guy, but from his writings I can tell he is intelligent and well educated, so I'd value his perspective on this subject matter and, if you are wise, you will too.

Clearly, unions are much more powerful in Germany than in the US. They are huge, and they don't bother to bargain with individual employers: they talk directly to the employer's associations in the different fields. For instance, there is a single union representing everyone working with metal, and if this union decides to call for a general strike, a substantial part of the German economy stands still.

The whole bargaining process appears much more civilized in Germany. When the contract runs out, the parties meet, they can't agree at first, there's a strike which usually is only symbolical, and then a new contract is written up. Everybody pretty much agrees that this is a good process. In the US, individualism is so deeply rooted in the public mind that many people outright deny the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively (no one denies the right of capitalists to organize in huge corporations though...). Labor fights are often ugly and war-like and go on for a long time: employers hire replacement workers right away, they try to fire union organizers and other strikers (which is illegal in the US by the way, as it is in Germany), strikers try to keep the replacement workers out etc. To a German, it looks a lot like the Manchester capitalism that seemed to have been overcome a long time ago.

What's all this talk about Germany? Its almost like we lost the war:
The incoming leader of an influential German union warned Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) on Wednesday about trying to avoid unions in Tennessee, where the German automaker has an assembly plant... Meanwhile, VW's top labor leader, Bernd Osterloh, is scheduled to travel to Tennessee to meet with Gov. Bill Haslam and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga, to discuss Osterloh's desire that VW's Tennessee workers are represented through a German-style works council. Oh to be a fly on the wall... well, I'm sure the NSA will be listening in.

Dan8267 says

I don't know where you are getting your stats from, but this is the most recent data I could find. In 2005, union membership was about 27% of the work force. Historically, the percentage was stable at about 38%. The past two decades have seen a dramatic decline as evident from this graph taken from page 3 of http://ftp.iza.org/dp2193.pdf‎

It is 27% IF you count the retired workers, which the labor unions do and i stated that in my previous post. However it's only 16% if you only account for only those who are working. I provided links in my previous post for some of the information I gathered.

edvard2 says

Whoa there nelly, back up the train. In germany, it is actually a law that any company with over 1,000 employees muct have an EQUAL amount of workers on the board as corporate executives, with the workers upholding the interests of those on the factory floor. Secondly, the fact that from the 1940's-1970's the US enjoyed the highest rate of pay increases over time -a time at which unionized labor was also at its highest- also further demonstrates how that calling unions bad is sort of dumb.

And also over time cost of living increased as well (and still does today with no real wage increase in the last 30 or 40 years). However, on the flip side the cost of living from the 1860 to early 1900s decreased every year (Where there was no Unions or very little union support, Unions didn't get big until 1950s). The cost of goods/products were getting cheaper and cheaper each year. All that changed from 1920s and up, including today.

But I am not blaming the Unions solely on the issue here. A lot of the issue comes with other problems such as monetary policies and the removal of Bretton Woods, technology and perhaps NAFTA and etc.

zzyzzx says

In other words, they will have the same retirement plan as everyone else who does not work for government. Why is this a problem? It's not like the company won't be making 401K contributions. The move to a defined contribution from a defined benefit will prevent Boeing from going bankrupt.

Oh, I see. So the workers have to give things up just for the privilege of working, but it's o.k. to pay the CEO $21 million a year for producing planes that fall apart in flight.

zzyzzx says

In other words, they will have the same retirement plan as everyone else who
does not work for government. Why is this a problem? It's not like the company
won't be making 401K contributions. The move to a defined contribution from a
defined benefit will prevent Boeing from going bankrupt.

You mean it will allow the CEO to make $100MM/year as opposed to only $20MM/year.

Homeboy says

Oh, I see. So the workers have to give things up just for the privilege of working, but it's o.k. to pay the CEO $21 million a year for producing planes that fall apart in flight.

What does that have to do with you lying about Boeing wanting to take away their pension? Wouldn't you rather get 100% of your 401K instead of 35% of your promised defined benefit pension after the company goes bankrupt?

tatupu70 says

You mean it will allow the CEO to make $100MM/year as opposed to only $20MM/year.

Please provide a link stating CEO salary.

Well the workers are high on the assembly line constructing the planes that are falling apart, so they deserve what they don't get.

Homeboy says

zzyzzx says

In other words, they will have the same retirement plan as everyone else who does not work for government. Why is this a problem? It's not like the company won't be making 401K contributions. The move to a defined contribution from a defined benefit will prevent Boeing from going bankrupt.

Oh, I see. So the workers have to give things up just for the privilege of working, but it's o.k. to pay the CEO $21 million a year for producing planes that fall apart in flight.

zzyzzx says

Homeboy says

Oh, I see. So the workers have to give things up just for the privilege of working, but it's o.k. to pay the CEO $21 million a year for producing planes that fall apart in flight.

What does that have to do with you lying about Boeing wanting to take away their pension? Wouldn't you rather get 100% of your 401K instead of 35% of your promised defined benefit pension after the company goes bankrupt?

Boeing pensions is a dinosaur plan. Most America already abandoned that system. Accounting is much more predictable with defined contribution, defined benefit was a pipe dream that didn't work out.

I remember, and this was years ago, there were a lot of scandals in the media about underfunded pensions. Only government actually funds them, but they simply cut off services to the taxpayers in order to pay pensions. While a corporation can't afford to kill their product.

Pensions was a very noble idea, it just was an idea that doesn't work… kind of like communism. It simply runs out of money.

FortWayne says

Accounting is much more predictable with defined contribution, defined benefit
was a pipe dream that didn't work out.

It's not that hard. You look at the pension system every year and if there's a deficit, you add more. Just becuase management decided to underfund their pension, doesn't mean it's hard. It means they CHOSE to f*(k their workers.

FortWayne says

Pensions was a very noble idea, it just was an idea that doesn't work… kind
of like communism. It simply runs out of money.

Pensions work fine. You just have to actually, you know, fund them instead of giving $100MM dollar bonuses...

spydah_hh says

But I am not blaming the Unions solely on the issue here. A lot of the issue comes with other problems such as monetary policies and the removal of Bretton Woods, technology and perhaps NAFTA and etc.

The whole "blame the unions" thing was a political fabrication, mostly from the right for the main reason that Unions have historically supported Democratic politicians and so it behooves Republicans to shovel blame on unions in general. It goes along with their general narrative perfected by the Reagan Admin that somehow social benefits, unions, and other mainly middle class advances made in the 20th century are either undeserved, hurtful to the economy, or used by lazy people.

The historical reality of unions would argue otherwise. If you turn back the clock 100+ years or so and see what working conditions were like in US factories and industries, working conditions were basically 3rd world. Look up the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, where 146 people died- many whom jumped from a burning building due to deplorable safety conditions. Children were employed in dangerous jobs. Workers had almost no job security. There was no such thing as any monitors when it came to the handling of hazardous materials.

Over the following decades Unions formed out of sheer necessity. By the late 30's-40's Unions and the companies they worked for had more or less reached a stabilized relationship. Workers wanted stable jobs with decent pay and companies wanted reliable workers with increased output. The US made more than 50% of the manufactured goods in the world. Many people today aren't even familiar with such brands like Philco, Admiral, or Zenith- all enormous American electronics manufactures who along with the other American firms made at one point close to 70% of the world's electronics.

So what happened? A perfect storm of events, starting in the 70's and going all the way up until the present time.

Starting in the 60's Japanese companies began flooding the US market with cheap electronics- intentionally priced below their actual cost in the US and sold for higher prices in Japan. The Yen was also intentionally undervalued making Japanese products even more competitive. This would greatly impact the US electronics industry to the point where by 1975 almost all of the US firms had closed their doors. During the 70's we also had the fuel crisis as well as air quality regulations. Seeing as how a river in Ohio caught fire from the sheer amount of pollutants on its surface unquestionably meant pollution standards were needed. But given that US auto manufactures mainly built large, RWD cars and trucks with dated technology meant they were ill-prepared to make their cars compliant. At the same time with the fuel shortage the big three had to rapidly develop and deploy an entirely new fleet of smaller more fuel efficient cars and trucks- the very same kinds of vehicles European and Japanese manufactures had already been making for years and thus already perfected. The cars the Big Three offered in comparison were JUNK.

This last point is also a contributing factor to the decline in manufacturing: There seemed to be an overall lack of attention being paid to quality back then. American cars in the 70's-80's were crap. So too were many of the good made by other US firms. This was partially due to there not having been any foreign competition for years and years and so less need to focus on quality. But when that foreign competition came, the action many US firms took was to compete on price alone and thus make the products even cheaper an cheaper.

The last contributor to this decline was the rise of big box retail stores, whom demanded cheaper and cheaper products and in the case of the largest of them all- driving prices lower by setting up their workforce to also be as cheap as possible by only working them part time, providing no benefits, and so on. The rise of the big box stores in the 80's and 90's further hastened the decline of US manufactures as the insatiable demand for cheap chinese goods grew. From the 1990's-2000's 1000's of US factories closed almost in lock-step with the rise of large big box operations.

So I bring this up because what did the unions have to do with this? Did the unions make the decision to cheapen and devalue the products they made? Did the unions decide to sell products to big box stores? Did unions design crappily made products? No. None of those things, and yet what I mentioned above are some of the primary causes of the decline of US manufacturing.

So now we have a bunch of people blaming the unions for everything related to US labor. At one time a person could put in a decent 30-40 years at a company, get decent benefits, and retire with a pension and the company would still make money all along. This worked for decades because the companies themselves made a lot of money due to their highly successful market positions. Those who deride such working conditions really need to ask themselves if they too would have liked to have those standards. Of course you would. So why is even thinking about such a working standards seen as a bad thing? Its because your politicians want you to think that way.

So now here we are. We have made an incredible full circle where the US- which at a time period not so very long ago enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world with the healthiest middle class, an overwhelmingly large amount of individual security, world class education, and cheap healthcare- to now where we have sunk to the lower parts of that list of western countries. And yet somehow there is a large chunk of the populace who thinks that ANY and ALL mention of any legislation or other means to improve society through the very means that enabled us to have those standards of the past is somehow communist?

Its like the old parable of putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly heating it up so the frog won't notice: Many people have been successfully led to believe that shitty standards are the way to go and to not have enough balls that their predecessors had to question the status-quo.

edvard2 says

So I bring this up because what did the unions have to do with this?

You are forgetting to mention how bloated union wages made the pricing of products uncompetitive.

tatupu70 says

Pensions work fine. You just have to actually, you know, fund them instead of giving $100MM dollar bonuses...

Those 100MM dollar bonuses, if redirected to a pension fund, wouldn't put much of a dent in their financial viability. Raising retirement ages to keep up with "age inflation" would.

zzyzzx says

You are forgetting to mention how bloated union wages made the pricing of products uncompetitive.

They were perfectly competitive until unfair trading and monetary practices from countries like Japan came to the scene. Unions or no unions the same outcome would have occurred. Again- its real easy to "blame unions" but the blame is baseless in the case of wages.

Again- look at the situation in Germany. Highly unionized. On average much higher wages paid to their workers than those same workers in the US doing the same job. Their products are more expensive too. Yet their economy is one of the strongest in the world, and for a smaller country, they are the 3rd largest manufacturing country in the world, after the US and China.

edvard2 says

Raising retirement ages to keep up with "age inflation" would.

Statements like that more or less prove what I was saying above: Questioning the status-quo has disappeared and instead the acceptance and even suggestion of crappy solutions prevails.

edvard2 says

Again- look at the situation in Germany. Highly unionized.

Depends on the sector, some are highly unionized, some aren't at all.

edvard2 says

On average much higher wages paid to their workers than those same workers in the US doing the same job.

Again, depends on the jobs. Take nursing, much higher paid in the US than in Germany. Same for doctors. This is one of the reasons why healthcare costs are lower (but still sizeable overall) than in the US. Germany does not have minimum wage laws (you can go to court and sue if you think you are underpaid). Even the legal working age for minors (with parental consent) is at 13 and lower than in the US.

edvard2 says

Their products are more expensive too. Yet their economy is one of the strongest in the world, and for a smaller country, they are the 3rd largest manufacturing country in the world, after the US and China.

That's because they still make high quality products and have a better manufacturing to FIRE-sector ratio than the US and since there are no bailouts people are more prudent with their money so there are no asset bubbles compared to those in the US. That being said, union management (not the workers) in Germany often make high wages as well and are not popular.

mell says

That's because they still make high quality products and have a better manufacturing to FIRE-sector ratio than the US and since there are no bailouts people are more prudent with their money so there are no asset bubbles compared to those in the US. That being said, union management (not the workers) in Germany often make high wages as well and are not popular.

I would argue that there is a successful implementation of the idealism of "high quality" when it comes especially to many German brands. In reality many German car brands have either atrocious or at the very best outright mediocre reliability and durability. I have known a LOT of people with German brand cars that were in the shop constantly or had major mechanical and/or electrical problems. The truth is that in many cases Japanese and even American brand cars are more reliable. What German car companies do well is they focus on industrial design, tactile material look and feel, initial fit and finish, and smaller details. I hate to use the cliche', but "over-engineered" seems to be a rampant problem.

As far as bailouts are concerned, there is no country that manufactures cars that has not at one time had a bailout(s) and that also includes Germany.

mell says

Again, depends on the jobs. Take nursing, much higher paid in the US than in Germany. Same for doctors. This is one of the reasons why healthcare costs are lower (but still sizeable overall) than in the US

But the takeaway overall is that the middle class in Germany is by far in a much more stable, economically healthy situation than the middle class in the US. Given that a much larger section of the German workforce is employed in the manufacturing sector has a great deal to do with this.

zzyzzx says

Those 100MM dollar bonuses, if redirected to a pension fund, wouldn't put
much of a dent in their financial viability. Raising retirement ages to keep up
with "age inflation" would.

I don't know--what's the saying? $100MM here, $100MM there, pretty soon you're talking about real money...

zzyzzx says

You are forgetting to mention how bloated union wages made the pricing of
products uncompetitive.

Nobody is forgetting it. Because it's a HUGE LIE. One that you are only too happy to continue repeating.

Dan8267 says

Healthcare doesn't have to be "free", but it certainly has to be nationalized to eliminate the parasites in the health care industry and the insurance industry. Capitalism has had a hundred years to solve healthcare and it has utterly failed. Any rational person will conclude that capitalism isn't the solution to 100% of economic problems.

Come on man...health insurance has never been "free market", and you see it with Medicare/Medicaid as well as insurance companies that have monopolized certain states and regions and not had any motivation to innovate. The reason that innovation has recently kicked up a notch (like QLiance's subscription model or the move to bundled payments) is because of forcing downward price pressure from the monopolies (i.e., Medicare, insurance companies) on the fee-for-service model being operated by doctors. So just going single payer and forcing prices down WILL NOT WORK like you think it will because you'll lose the innovative side of how we pay for healthcare.

EBGuy says

What's all this talk about Germany? Its almost like we lost the war:

In a way we did. Our government adopted the philosophies and worldview of the Nazis. Specifically,

1. People are good or evil depending upon the group they are born into. Americans are good. Middle Eastern Muslims are evil.

2. Those bad people are subhuman. They should be labeled ("terrorists") so that they have no rights and we can do anything to them including raping, torturing, and killing them without any trial or accountability for our actions.

3. The ends justifies the means. Our goals are so important, it does not matter how many innocent people are harmed in the realization of those goals. The world will be better off no matter how we accomplish these goals.

4. National security trumps civil and human rights.

5. National security requires a level of secrecy that, by definition, makes transparency and accountability impossible. If the secret police are doing their job right, you can never know what crimes the secret police have committed.

6. Assassination of a nation's own citizens is ok when it is in the interests of the nation as determined, secretly and without accountability, by politicians.

7. Liberals who question any of these are unpatriotic and most likely sympathizers of the enemy.

8. The nation must be in an unending state of war because as long as anyone is alive, the nation has potential enemies.

Yes, we lost the war by defeating the Nazis but adopting their tactics, strategies, and philosophies.

spydah_hh says

It is 27% IF you count the retired workers, which the labor unions do and i stated that in my previous post.

Please provide references. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying I cannot consider you right until you back up your statements with evidence.

edvard2 says

So what happened? A perfect storm of events, starting in the 70's and going all the way up until the present time.

Starting with the 70's there became a growing global economy. No longer was it American worker vs American worker. It was American worker vs damn near everyone other worker in the world.

American workers were just too expensive, some of those expenses were due to unions while many were due to government regulations like SS tax, Payroll Taxes, and etc.

All we have seen today is Unions become bigger thanks to their growth starting int he 50s and getting involved with politicians which allows them to continuously thrive today. But the truth is most Unionized jobs of today in any country in the world are from government jobs, very little from private sectors. And yet look at all those underfunded pensions that the different levels of government provided. Many of these governments had to cut back on services just to pay benefits that were made by unions and their political hacks.

Why do you think Detroit has finally filed bankruptcy? Simple. Because they realized that in order to get things straight in Detroit they need to scale back on the pension payments they promised to current retirees and future retirees. And it's the same story for every other city that's filed bankruptcy and why they never fully recover because they cannot get rid of these pension thanks to some constitutional amendment that was placed by unions and their political buddies.

Dan8267 says

spydah_hh says

It is 27% IF you count the retired workers, which the labor unions do and i stated that in my previous post.

Please provide references. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying I cannot consider you right until you back up your statements with evidence.

I provided two links in my original statement.

Here I'll add another copy of it again.

http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/Germany/Trade-Unions

spydah_hh says

Starting with the 70's there became a growing global economy. No longer was it American worker vs American worker. It was American worker vs damn near everyone other worker in the world.

American workers were just too expensive, some of those expenses were due to unions while many were due to government regulations like SS tax, Payroll Taxes, and etc.

Not sure how many more times I will need to repeat this. But the primary reason for the fast decline in US manufacturing was PRIMARILY due to cheap overseas manufacturing, and mainly because of countries like Japan artificially cheapening their currency AND from basically dumping their products, basically driving US firms out of business. It would not have mattered if US wages had been slashed 75% overnight: There was NO way that any company at that time could have competed against such incredible deltas in cost. spydah_hh says

Why do you think Detroit has finally filed bankruptcy? Simple. Because they realized that in order to get things straight in Detroit they need to scale back on the pension payments they promised to current retirees and future retirees.

Again- an all too easy assertion. One of the main reasons that Detroit and the auto companies within went bankrupt or otherwise faced years of financial woes was more to do with the product, not the workers that made them. The Big three made CRAP and did so forever. They basically became complacent and all to happy to let the bean counters define the products versus actually listen to the consumer. Meanwhile companies like Toyota, Honda, and Datsun( Nissan) came in and offered far more reliable, better-built cars and trucks. Gradually the market share of the Big three went from being almost dominant to more like 50% overall. And so with less and less market share naturally that meant those companies could not meet their financial obligations when they were at a better market position and again- they probably would not encountered those problems if they had made better products and kept their market share.

Its really only been in the last 10 years or so that the Big Three finally got their act together. By the time some went through bankruptcy, their product portfolios were the best they had been in 40 years. As of now the Big three finally have highly competitive, desirable products. Whether this will equal a return to full, robust American manufacturing will be resolved in time. They have already hired quite a few employees back.

So the takeaway is its really easy to say : " Oh, its cuz' of unions" and call it a day, the reasons for the issues US manufacturing encountered from the 70's-on are far more numerous and complex.

edvard2 says

Not sure how many more times I will need to repeat this. But the primary reason for the fast decline in US manufacturing was PRIMARILY due to cheap overseas manufacturing, and mainly because of countries like Japan artificially cheapening their currency AND from basically dumping their products, basically driving US firms out of business. It would not have mattered if US wages had been slashed 75% overnight: There was NO way that any company at that time could have competed against such incredible deltas in cost.

Right like I said a Global economy......

edvard2 says

Its really only been in the last 10 years or so that the Big Three finally got their act together. By the time some went through bankruptcy, their product portfolios were the best they had been in 40 years. As of now the Big three finally have highly competitive, desirable products. Whether this will equal a return to full, robust American manufacturing will be resolved in time. They have already hired quite a few employees back.

Dude... Detroit owe over $18 billion in debt, it's unfunded retiree health care liability and unfunded pension liabilities (thanks to the unions) account for more than $9 billion of that $18 billion dollar debt.

No way is the auto industry in that area going to pull them out of the water. Only way to fix Detroit's problem is to make drastic cuts in those union promises. The same can be said for the State of California and just about every other bankrupt city.

Like I said before... Private sectors got rid of Unions for the most part but the governments still have them and yet look at all the governments that went heavy with unionized membership, they're all essentially broke and a HUGE PORTION in fact MOST of that money is locked in to pension and health benefit obligations.

I work for the state of CA and I barely pay anything for my retirement or healthcare. Yet the state pays a lot for it. My mother worked for CA for almost 30 years and she gets 100% medical paid for and it even pays for my father (her spouse) who is also retired (but from a private sector job).

spydah_hh says

Why do you think Detroit has finally filed bankruptcy? Simple. Because they realized that in order to get things straight in Detroit they need to scale back on the pension payments they promised to current retirees and future retirees.

I think you're confusing the forest for the trees.

Here's the typical sequence of events (roughly).

1) Finances are tight for a city and politicians are battling to get money for their pet projects or for Whomever.

2) Finances get more tight.

3) City starts to defer payment into pensions as a way of trying to please too many politicians, thinking they will deal with that later (in other words it's seen as freeing up some money for something else now).

4) repeat 3)

5) repeat 3

later on after this has been done a couple times too many, and when revenues are dropped for other reasons, such as a few years of reduced property taxes due to housing crash, and now all of a sudden stiffing the workers is see as a way out.

Not sure whether you can get it, but just because the pension underfunding was out of hand at the end before bankruptcy, doesn't mean that too high pension costs were the real problem. Choosing to essentially loot pension plans is often a symptom of the problem, rather than the cause.

spydah_hh says

Private sectors got rid of Unions for the most part

I guess you didn't read the comments about Germany above.

marcus says

I guess you didn't read the comments about Germany above.

Germany's Labor union workforce only represents 16% of the entire workforce (The U.S. is about the same with most being in public sector). That's relatively small compared to the overall workforce even if most of it was in private sector (I am not sure if they are and didn't read the comments above but as I said in my first post, since the labor union workforce in Germany is small to begin with it really doesn't matter).

Please don't ask me for links about Germany's Labor Union workforce because I've already provided it twice within this thread.

spydah_hh says

http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/Germany/Trade-Unions

Confirmed. This article agrees with the graph I posted.

Only around a fifth of employees in Germany are union members, and union density has fallen sharply since the early 1990s, in part because of a sharp fall in manufacturing employment in Eastern Germany after unification.

However, this does not seem to support the statement that unions kill jobs. Rather it shows that the loss of jobs kill unions, which makes sense because why would people pay union fees when the jobs have been shipped overseas?

Dan8267 says

spydah_hh says

http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/Germany/Trade-Unions

Confirmed. This article agrees with the graph I posted.

Only around a fifth of employees in Germany are union members, and union density has fallen sharply since the early 1990s, in part because of a sharp fall in manufacturing employment in Eastern Germany after unification.

However, this does not seem to support the statement that unions kill jobs. Rather it shows that the loss of jobs kill unions, which makes sense because why would people pay union fees when the jobs have been shipped overseas?

You're right the statement doesn't say that unions kill jobs it just says that unions are a small part of the workforce. I was making that statement with someone else who claimed that Germany had a large unionized workforce, which is very untrue.

However, if you look further and do more research you will see that unions do kill jobs. It's why the private sector (around the world) got rid of them in the first place. And as I said before most of the union labor is in the public sector and the public sector is doing poor in many states and cities and the number one reason why is because of the huge unfunded pension/health liabilities that they have to pay that was supported by unions and their political friends.

Unions simply cause things to cost more and they're inefficient. It's hard to layoff or fire an employee is who under performing because they're backed by union support and a contract.

Trust me I know, I am a part of one and I see it everyday. You wouldn't believe the stuff I see constantly. I see stuff everyday that would cause someone to get fired, suspended, or cut in pay if they were in the private sector. In some cases I've seen both events happen while working in the public sector and before when i used to work in the private sector. The difference? Where I work now the employee came back to work and received a write up which is nothing, but in one of my old jobs that employee was gone.

Hell, I've even seen someone purposely break state equipment out of frustration and yelled out threats to a few supervisors in the area, and filed for stress leave and was gone for about 2-3 months then came back and resumed work. All from the courtesy of our union. And I won't even get started on sick leave, lol.

zzyzzx says

What does that have to do with you lying about Boeing wanting to take away their pension?

Put down the crack pipe. YOU left out the part about Boeing wanting to gut the pension in your thread. Then I told you about it, and you lied AGAIN by still claiming it wasn't true. Then I SHOWED you an article and quoted the exact part of the article that says it, and you STILL lied and claimed it's not true. So you have lied THREE times, and you have the nerve to accuse someone ELSE of lying? Unbelievable.