the next boo hoo you'll hear

[DOGS THAT BARK]

is when they close this plant and move it south--wonder how many in Mich lay any part of blame on them no longer having jobs where it belongs--prob not many as they cheer Dems supported by unions claiming we'll bring jobs back

Seems $70 an hour isn't enough--wonder 2 years from now and they are on the street--fighting for minimum wage jobs ifunions compensate them any.

but not really much alternative for union workers--those that are smart enough to figure whats going on--are still forced to donate to Dem campaigns by unions --go figure:shrug:

UAW goes on strike against American Axle Tue Feb 26, 1:50 AM ET

DETROIT (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers began a strike against auto parts maker American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc shortly after midnight on Tuesday after failing to reach agreement on a new contract.

Workers in Detroit walked off the job shortly after midnight and quickly formed a picket at a gate carrying signs that read "Unfair Labor Practices" and "On Strike."

The UAW contract covering about 3,600 American Axle workers at plants in Michigan and New York expired late Monday.

Analysts have said a prolonged UAW strike against the Detroit-based company has the potential to disrupt production of trucks and sport utility vehicles by General Motors Corp, which ranks as the supplier's largest customer.

American Axle had stockpiled parts for GM with the chance of a work stoppage looming. GM accounted for nearly four-fifths of American Axle's revenue last year.

In a short statement, the United Auto Workers said the strike had begun at 12:01 ET on Tuesday. Talks broke off Monday with major issues unresolved, including demands for wage cuts of up to $14 per hour, the union said.

Elimination of future retiree health care and defined benefit pensions were also issues, the UAW said. The union also said American Axle failed to provide the UAW with information it needed to evaluate the proposed cuts.

The UAW has a "proven record" of working with companies, "but cooperation does not mean capitulation," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a statement.

American Axle said its ability to maintain U.S. production would be in "immediate jeopardy" without sweeping concessions from the UAW.

In a statement, the Detroit-based company said the union had "singled out" the supplier by refusing to allow it to cut hourly labor costs that are three times higher than its rivals at over $70 per hour.
The union said it had made proposals that would have reduced American Axle's labor costs significantly and given it operational flexibility.

"It's hard for everybody, strike issues are no win for anybody," said Darek Bazinski, a skilled trades worker, who was standing outside American Axle's facility in Detroit.

 

[dawgball]

Atlas Shrugged

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Yep brother Dawg but maybe not for long.

proof is in the pudding--which are flourishing and which have dropped like a rock--the bright side is employees are now smart enough to understand good pay /benefits is better than great pay/benefits butno job.
---------------------------------------

Toyota, Honda or Nissan
Today, Japanese automakers have 25 plants in North America, employing about 56,000 employees, and more are planned.

Korean and European automakers also are opening U.S. plants, and production from all plants operated by non-U.S. companies account for almost as much output as General Motors (Research) and more than either Ford Motor Co (Research). or Chrysler Group (Research).

But most of those plants are non-union.

With the Big Three looking to shrink capacity and trim staff, it is essential for the United Auto Workers to make a breakthrough with these so-called "transplants" assembly plants.

So far it has come up empty, losing a vote at a Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn. in October 2001.

"There are organizers at a number of foreign-owned auto plants in the South. They're putting together committees, identify leadership, training workers," said Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO's director of organizing. "These will be long fights."
+++++++++++++++++++++++
In Kentucky, where the average worker earned about $36,000 last year, $70,000-a-year Toyota jobs are among the best to be found.

Wonder how many of the out of work union auto workers in Michigan would like $70,000 vs what they are doing now.

 

[dawgball]

Yeah. Growing up in Henderson, KY, Gibbs Die Casting was one of the top employers (after the hospital and maybe one other). Nick Gibbs, former owner who is now deceased, supposedly stated while I worked for them as a customer liason that if the workers unionized he would retire and the doors would be locked the following day. Gibbs has always been known as THE place to work for their great pay and benefits to the employees.

Gibbs had a policy to never lay off a full time employee. During hard times, a line worker may have to go mow the grass, but the key point is they kept their job. They would replace things that they were "outsourcing" such as mowing, some cleaning services, etc. You still got paid on your skilled position scale.

The problem for Gibbs, though, is that the majority of their clients were the big three. So production has gone WAY down, and scale backs have become something that has had to be done. All outsourcing or temp positions are pretty much gone. I don't know what's going to happen.

And many of their best full time people have been seeing the light. Luckily, for our area, Toyota has opened (and since doubled by expansion) a plant in Princeton, IN. Most of my old co-workers that I had been friends with are now at Toyota.

Their comment is almost always the same. "It's a HARD job, but the pay is good, and they are fair."

This trend is not going to stop. We have to adjust or our country's productivity is going to flounder and the world is going to pass us by like every other super power that came before us.

"Thus by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in all matters whatever."

Charles Darwin, The Man Versus The State Spencer

 

[just cover]

I actually doubt they are making $70 an hour. That is probably what they earn per hour with benefits and pension wrapped all into one. I will admit the $70 is high. There was also plans for more plants but they have a problem with attendance in that part of the country. Why I don't know, but my boss said the transplants are pushing more north. I don't know what you call the union just gave up in the recent contracts but I call it alot. Frezzing of 401k matches, adding of more premimums for insurance, freeze of pay, and the worst allowing a 2 tier wage. All this probably had to be done but the 2 tier wage pits worker against worker and just isn't good for anybody.If you worked in auto plant you would want $70 an hour. It is back breaking work and I mean back breaking literally. I work at a Japanesse transplant that is union. There are more and more plants going up that are union. Does that mean it is good? Some say yes and some say no.

The union is good in alot of ways and bad in some. You get protection from asshole bosses who may have an axe to grind with you for no reason at all. Every place has that. You get a good wage and benefits. On the other hand it also protects the scum that shouldn't have a job for the problems they cause. To lose a union job you have to be a real fuk up.

One last thing I doubt the people making $70,000 at a Toyota plant are doing in 8 hours. They must be working 10 a day with soem weekends. I am not saying that is a bad thing. Where I work we had the whole 2nd shift laid off and we just last year took a $4 cut in pay and benfits reduced along with no 401k match. We still probably have the best insurance in the state though. The auto industry is in a bad place right now. I have a feeling there will be backlash coming against all the transplants.

jc

 

[dawgball]

I actually doubt they are making $70 an hour. That is probably what they earn per hour with benefits and pension wrapped all into one. I will admit the $70 is high.

jc

Good post, jc.

But how is that not making $70 an hour? Benefits are a huge part of wage, aren't they?

Yes. The Toyota plant workers do work a lot of overtime. But they are well compensated for it. I think Toyota naturally weeds out the worthless workers by making the job difficult. Then the ones that are left perform and are compensated for it.

The work that I saw first-hand being done in the Delphi, GM, and Ford plants was anything but back breaking. Not saying it was a worthless, easy job; but back breaking is very far from anything I saw in the 18-20 plants that I visited on a daily basis.

Coal mines. Now that's back breaking.

 

[just cover]

It is making $70 an hour when you add everything up. The post made it sound like they were making just $70 an hour straight pay. I don't know of anybody in the uaw that makes $70 an hour straight pay.

The back breaking part I was talking about is what I do. I should of been more clear. I don't work for the big 3 I work for a UAW transplant of Mitsubishi. It used to be Mitsubishi/Chrysler joint plant. When the car industry started to take a crap and Chrysler was in the dumpster they pulled out. It is hard work and everyday I wish I would have stayed in college. I just recently started taking some might classes to get my degree. I am planning on wearing a suit and being a State Farm insurance puke. Let some young guys kill themselves on the production line.

On the coalmining. We had a few coalminers come from southern Illinois mines and went back to it within 2 years. The production line isn't for everybody. I think alot of the 4 man jobs where 3 guys watch is pretty much done at the big 3.

jc

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

J.C. would agree some good aspects of unions--especially many years ago.
Worked both sides -union and salary for Chrysler in Fenton Mo back early 70's
Quit working the salary end--when they said seniority would be frozen for time in management--seniority meant more to me than a little extra pay.

Some jobs there were very simply--some a killer--but its like that everywhere.

I do believe unions became to political and powerful at a point in time--and primary concern was no longer the workers but power.

---and I have yet to hear the 1st politician make a comment that jobs were lost because unions wanted more that company could pay.

As example above--who will get the blame when they pull up stakes and move south--:shrug:

 

[IntenseOperator]

On the other hand it also protects the scum that shouldn't have a job for the problems they cause. To lose a union job you have to be a real fuk up.

I think this could apply to most unions here in Chicago.

Let me add, you are also paying an initiation fee and monthly dues. All that can add up to quite a bit as the years go by. Those fees/dues go up but wages and bennies stay the same or drop. Getting less and less for those costs unless you are the bust out you talked about. Unions getting weaker and weaker here.

Daley just privatized Midway Airport. I think garbage collection as well as many other city jobs (the last real union job here) will go that way as well.

 

[Spytheweb]

Right to work states

Right to work states

United States of American, but they don't want the people united. Unions are the reason we have a middle class and repubs want to destroy it. Ronald Reagan gave a free pass to 3 million illegal Mexicans living in the US, now we have 12-20+ million. Bush has been in office for 7 years, why no border fence? Repubs want that surplus labor coming over the border. The Repubs are turning this country into a 3rd world country with 2 classes, the rich and the working poor.


The costs to workers of residing in right-to-work states is significant. In right-to-work states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ?an average worker earns about $7,131 a year less than workers in free bargaining states ($30,656 versus $37,787).? This is in line with another finding reported by the Center for Policy Alternatives: ?Across the nation, union members earn $9,308 a year more than nonunion members ($41,652 versus $32,344).?

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Would have no doubt union empoyees get paid more as above indicated--your prob--which was reason of post is the loss of those jobs as results-

But Michigan has been an economic wasteland for virtually the entire decade. Its fortunes riding shotgun with America's ailing auto industry, Michigan has lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999. Its unemployment rate, 7.6 percent in December, has been at or near the highest in the nation since 2003.
=========================

In the 1999 contract, the Big Three companies and the newly established parts companies spun off by GM and Ford?Delphi and Visteon?agreed to a temporary moratorium on plant closings and sales. Even with these so-called job-protection measures, Detroit?s automakers cut roughly 53,000 hourly jobs.

In the deals reached this week, the UAW agreed to the scuttling of the moratorium and did not even make a pretense of fighting to defend jobs. On the contrary, it has agreed to ?exemptions? from traditional contract language mandating the filling of some positions left vacant by retiring workers and has sanctioned the permanent elimination of another 50,000 jobs. In this way the UAW is directly contributing to the further dismantling of the manufacturing base in the US, which has seen 2.7 million jobs disappear since June 2000?and the growing mass unemployment crisis in the US.

---so you got very few making big bucks and multitudes with no jobs and you think you have accomplished something--might I suggest you walk around Detroit with sign on you that says union jobs pay more

P.S. appears to me the united has been- Dems and unions--not workers

 

[dawgball]

The costs to workers of residing in right-to-work states is significant. In right-to-work states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ?an average worker earns about $7,131 a year less than workers in free bargaining states ($30,656 versus $37,787).? This is in line with another finding reported by the Center for Policy Alternatives: ?Across the nation, union members earn $9,308 a year more than nonunion members ($41,652 versus $32,344).?

United STATES of America

The states should have control. If you do not like to be in a right to work state, then move to a state with laws that are more in line with yours.

But it sounds like you are more concerned with a worker getting paid a little more for a few years than having a job for the future. If a company can not sustain wages, then they will leave to another country. It's that simple.

Read Atlas Shrugged for a road map to this future.

Have I mentioned Atlas Shrugged enough? :00hour

 

[Chadman]

No time right now, but I've been on both sides of the union issue, and had family members who were union members. I actually agree with Wayne in that I think they had a more important place in years past than now - I think today's worker is a bit more sure of themself in many cases and job competition and requirements probably cause employers to better reward employees to a degree - at least if they care about keeping good ones.

I really think the unions, in some sectors at least, need to become a lot more realistic in their expectations. But it is tough when the CEO's take such a huge chunk of the pie, and many times it has no basis on how they perform. Clearly, some only think the unions need to give some back...and not themselves - to a much larger degree.

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

Pretty interesting strike, IMHO as management actually has somewhat of a case.

Would it bother anyone that the CFO's been compensated $60 MM in the past 4 years? or that his son is the EVP? and that his other son is the chief negotiato in the labor negotiations?



________________________________________Reality squeezes Dauch, UAW

Dick Dauch, the chairman of American Axle & Manufacturing Inc., is never one to mince words -- even in Day Three of a United Auto Workers strike against his company, which will be 14 years old Saturday.

"We took over an absolutely troubled set of assets and nobody is going to hold us hostage," he told me in an interview Thursday. "The last three days we've been sitting here ready to negotiate and nobody's showed up."

Dauch and two partners founded American Axle on March 1, 1994, from General Motors Corp.'s decrepit axle and forge operations. Now he and his company are facing the kind of squeeze that defines legacies, shapes corporate strategies and, for the staunch defender of industrial America, determines how committed Dauch truly is to reviving manufacturing in his own country.

His chief rival, Dana Corp. of Toledo, has emerged from bankruptcy with competitive labor costs and more efficient operations. Axle operations at Detroit's automakers are exempt from the traditional union wage-and-benefit scale Dauch still is obliged to pay.

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"We are not an" automaker "and we never will be," he said. American Axle's "$73.48 (an hour) all-in labor cost is over 300 percent higher than my competitors in the United States. Our competition is in the $20 to $30 range, all-in."

Some 3,600 UAW members at five facilities walked out early Tuesday in a dispute centering on American Axle's push to bring wages and benefits sharply lower and in line with rivals operating union shops in the United States -- a discussion Dauch says has been under way for 28 months.

"How can he say we're holding him hostage when we're the ones out on the street," Dana Edwards, Local 235 shop chairman and member of the negotiation committee, told The Detroit News. "They know all the information we've requested, and we're waiting for them to turn over that information."

The UAW worked with American Axle to cut costs in the contract signed four years ago and is willing to consider further proposals this time, he said, but "we don't feel they are being straight-forward about how they arrived at those numbers."

Competition is here, not abroad
Any charges of unfair labor practices clearly rankle Dauch, who called them "an absolute cheap shot." He said it is "absolutely not true" that American Axle has failed to provide information sought by union bargainers. He ticked off the company's safety record, its $3 billion of investment in U.S. facilities and a string of 14 years with only a single-day work stoppage -- until this week.

"We are open to discussions at any time," Dauch said. "We are giving them everything they are entitled to. What the issue is here is not just about lifestyle, it's not just about feel-good, it's about market economic competitiveness in the United States. I'm not talking about Mexico, China and India, I'm talking about the U.S.A. And I'm not talking about non-union."

Fourteen years ago, Dauch and his partners engineered the kind of sweet deal that GM, longtime owner of American Axle's original plants, never again granted -- a cheap sale of operations building core components for its largest product lines and the evergreen contracts to go with them.

It was Dauch's chance to be the Detroit auto CEO he had worked so long to be, to prove union workers and local management could transform the rotting hulks of GM's neglect into an American manufacturing powerhouse and do it in the heart of Detroit, the symbol of industrial decline.

Ever since, the red-white-and-mostly-blue edifice on Holbrook just off I-75 has generally symbolized nothing but success, making Dauch wealthy and one of the few true automotive entrepreneurs among a generation of CEOs who are, at base, caretakers of someone else's enterprise.

Is bankruptcy the only option?
But things changed. Demand for GM pickups and large SUVs, core products to American Axle's top line, ebbed. Gas prices shot to $3 a gallon, the economy cooled and the industry's balance of power shifted to companies who went where Dauch once told me, in his inimitable way, he would never go -- bankruptcy court.

He said as much again Thursday: "Is that what we're supposed to do, go bankrupt?"

He added that American Axle's core five plants -- three near Buffalo, N.Y., and two in Michigan -- have delivered "drastic red-ink performance" as production volumes have declined and the company has been unable to hire new workers at "second-tier" wages.

Increasingly, Dauch's American Axle stands by itself. Delphi Corp., a similar cast-off from GM's vast empire, declared bankruptcy protection and got GM to finance the buyouts, buydowns and early retirements of thousands of union workers still receiving Big Three wages and benefits. Dana is leaner and armed with more competitive contracts, as are other rivals and the captive axle plants of Detroit's automakers, namely Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co.

Hence the AAM squeeze: Rivals have lower costs, customers want higher quality more cheaply. Worse, American Axle's former parent, GM, doesn't have the financial obligation to "help" Dauch solve his labor cost problem the way it did with Delphi.

He and the UAW have to do it together, alone, as bitter as American Axle's proposed step-down in wages and benefits truly is to union members walking the line. Denying reality, as both sides know, is not an option.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Executive pay would prob piss me off Bobby--but pale in comparison to losing my job --at these wages.

Have seen Ohio and Mich and others in auto industry harp on the NAFTA but there probs came long before it was implemented.

NAFTA too complicated for me to comprehend completely--but do know it wasn't responsible for auto industry demise.

Ohio-NY-Mich and others need to adapt IMO

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=5937

The main obstacle to attracting new employers is a poor labor climate. Employers looking at Michigan see a state with high labor costs. Our state has the second highest per-unit labor costs in the nation. These costs in turn increase the cost of goods made in Michigan, putting employers here at a disadvantage and discouraging new employers from setting up shop in our state. As global trade brings more and more competitors into every industry, that burden becomes more and more difficult to bear.

This is further aggravated by Michigan?s de facto policy of subsidizing labor unions. In Michigan, nearly 900,000 workers are forced to pay dues to a union without regard to whether or not they support its political agenda or collective bargaining demands. Tens of thousands of Michigan workers are union members, not because they want to be, but because if they aren?t they will lose their jobs. This legally mandated subsidy in the form of dues adds millions of dollars to union bank accounts.

A state right-to-work law would end that practice. Right-to-work laws have tremendous appeal to employers, who can set up shop knowing that unions funded by voluntary dues payments are more likely to represent the real interests of the workers they represent. Under right-to-work laws, union strength mirrors actual union support, and is not inflated by forced dues extracted from workers who are indifferent or opposed to the union.

Right-to-work laws do wonders for job creation, especially in manufacturing. Between 1970 and 2000 non-right-to-work states lost 2.3 million manufacturing jobs. Michigan alone shedded 100,000 jobs. But right-to-work states over the same period gained 1.4 million manufacturing jobs.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that right-to-work states have lower labor costs ? the average right-to-work state has nearly 5 percent lower per-unit labor costs than the average state without a right-to-work law. But this doesn?t mean such laws penalize workers in order to benefit employers.

In fact, workers themselves benefit from right-to-work laws. New jobs mean more demand for labor, which nudges wages higher. And when the cost of living in right-to-work states vs. non-right-to-work states is taken into account, workers in right-to-work states are the winners.

 

[djv]

Seen both sides of this type issue over my 40 years before retirement . Some times union had there good points and other way around. The good news is most union jops pay more taxes and have decent heath care. If the 70 bucks a hour is true and I don't buy a 15 dollar a hour job being that high. Our total package for our union guys was like 33 bucks for salary and bennies. And our top managemnent was in 1 to 2 million range. Untill we were bought out. Then the top guy made 20 million a year. So in this case. Only if heath care is 25 bucks of that 70. It might be that high. So we move a plant south to some place where there happy to work for 8 bucks. And pay less taxes so we make up difference as well as little or no health care. And we all get to help pay for that to. And top management still gets 70 million. And everyone says there taught those SOB a lesson. Yup, us to. Theres is middle grownd here and good companies and unions find it. Best place for them all is back at the table.