Let's play a game...
What is wrong with this?
He is stationed at the very end of what’s known as the final line, the last stage of the vehicle-assembly process. By the time a truck arrives at his position, its frame has been attached to the chassis and the engine is in place. Powell has 1 minute 40 seconds to perform his routine on each vehicle, a series of tasks that includes attaching cables to batteries, tightening nuts and bolts and installing a transmission dipstick.
Powell earns more than $900 a week. Between his government unemployment and his supplemental G.M. unemployment benefits — or SUB-pay — guaranteed under the company’s contract with the U.A.W., he’ll make $700 a week while Pontiac Assembly is quiet, not quite enough to cover his family’s bills.
Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/magazine/28detr…
Thank you Unions....
I also liked the 3% down payment on his house...
I don't understand why every time one of these stories is written it serves as license for union bashing. What exactly are you blaming the union for? Negotiating successfully for their constituents? If Company X buys Company Y and pays way too much, do we all turn around and blame the investment banker who represented Company Y in hindsight for creating such terrible inefficiency? There are two parties to these negotiations, and both are to blame for the inefficiencies, lack of success and short sightedness, but labor having the ability to organize in order to improve their general condition is at the heart of the system, no different from a creditor's committee organizing in a bankruptcy.
Don't use biased stats please, it weakens your argument. The carmakers pay (paid) $75 an hour in wages and benefits to the union per hour of work, but a large portion of that was to workers who had already retired and were earning deferred compensation. I don't blame the UAW at all for people getting paid "too much" - if GM is stupid enough to pay them that, then they deserve it. I do have a (big) problem with their jumping the line over senior secured debtors, but hey, what did you expect when you elected a communist. As for Unions in general, they were a good thing when they represented a monopoly of workers taking on a monopoly employer - basically, leveling the playing field a little. Now, they represent an inefficient monopoly that benefits from irrational emotional populist responses taking on highly-competitive employers. Not the best.
I am not arguing the the recent track record of the UAW specifically is good by any means. My point is simply that you are painting broad strokes, and to suggest that the current problems at GM or elsewhere are the fault of "Unions" is disingenuous when in reality it is a specific, albeit large union that has a history of acting unreasonably.
Also, I agree that the sale of Company Y analogy is a stretch. The point, however, is that all parties are self interested, and, put another way, no party individually is concerned at a given time about the overall efficiency of the market. The criticism of the unions in this case is not that they demanded too much, it is that they (and GM management) were short sighted in their negotiations and did not foresee a world in which demand and market share would decline.
Fair enough. My point, and I think you agree, is that unions can be a force for good and aren't specifically anti-capitalist or anything, which is what it seems to imply when you make comments like "Thank you Unions."
Unions are not evil, per se. But if you read up on things like pattern bargaining you'll see that they need more limitations than they have now. Unions shouldn't be able to put companies out of business.
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