Yeah, I get it. There are valid arguments on both sides.
1 … “We’ve gotta have unions or they’ll run us over!”
2 … “Not in my business! I’ll lock the damned doors first!”
This post has been nagging at me to be written for over a week. I’ve kept two small boxes out here on the couch as reminders. So, being honest enough to admit my point of view right up front, I hate unions. I grew up in Lansing, Michigan. For most of my life that city had only two major business entities: General Motors and state government, as Lansing is the capitol. The GM stuff consisted of the two auto plants building Oldsmobiles and Fisher Body where they made the shells to include all the car parts.
When I was a kid, driving a foreign car in Lansing was a good way to get your ass kicked. A common phrase when things got tough in the economy was, “Hungry? Eat your foreign car.” I get it. Uh, maybe it’d be better to say “I got it.” Back then. A long time ago.
When unions first got started in America they were a necessity. The first statement at the top was right on the money. Employers were using and abusing people and paying slave wages with no benefits or protection. I get it. Then the pendulum swung too far. It’s not current but, a few years ago I read an article that broke down all the hidden costs in UAW wages, including the hourly wage, sick days, vacation, medical, sick leave, pension and all the rest of what’s all rolled into each employee. Bottom line? It was costing $89.00 and change PER HOUR for an uneducated person to tighten a nut on a bolt 100 times per hour as the cars rolled by on the line. The people wondered why the American public wasn’t buying American cars.
There’s been a string of brouhahas about Wal-Mart, a nonunion shop. Supposedly they’re the ogre and an omen of downfall. Really?
Thanks to a combination of me getting old, (63), my stage four adenocarcinoma which has an unusual effect on the body, chemotherapy and, for all I know, my four ex-wives, I’ve become a fan in recent years of Imodium A-D. It provides near miraculous relief in 10 minutes from the agony of diarrhea. The trademark product was normally priced around $12.00 at the store where I bought groceries. There were a dozen pills in the package.
From time to time I expanded my search for a better deal. Even the grocery had an off brand with 16 pills at a couple bucks less. The final answer(s) to my needs were eventually found at … ta-da! … Walmart! Better yet, it came in stages. I soon found a 48 pill package for $8.97 under the Equaline brand name and thought it was over. Then, on a recent trip to Walmart, I found the Equate special, 144 tablets for the same $8.97, an incredible savings. That’s 12 times the medication at 75% of the cost of the name-brand “mini-sample”.
The reason(s)? No unions and buying in volume. Can you afford a car that costs $89.00 per hour to build? Diarrhea relief at 12 times the price? Still think unions are a good idea after all these years?
Look out! Duck! That swinging pendulum might knock your head off.
I’m just sayin’.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Why can toyota and honda build a vehicle for about a total of 33.00 and hour where at GM it costs 78.00? And why have they waited until recent years to buld fuel efficient cars when others have done it for 20. Of course we are America and we love our gas guzzlers. I’m guilty, I like my gas guzzler. But Unions… You don’t think the “Jobs Bank” at GM was a bad idea? unions had their place at one point, but their added costs have crippled the american car industry. Ford saw this coming a couple years back and made consessions and negotiated with their willing unions, UAW should have done the same. And Further, if you think that GM will be viable after bankruptcy, you are dreaming. they will have to turn bigger profits than they ever had, with less. Add the fact of loss of confidence in the company and you essentially have a government sponsored right to work program like after WWII. GM will eventually dissolve or slowly be bought up and all that tax payer money sent there to pay those unions will have been lost.
I agree completely.
The rise of the unions certainly presented a challenge, but what brought the auto mfrs down was the same thing that ruined so many American industries: the “corporate culture” of greed and the quick fix. Someone posted how years back the automakers opted to fund their workers’ pensions from future profits – contributing to the current crisis… the perfect example! If auto execs cared half as much about building great cars as they do about the bottom line (PROFITS, DIVIDENDS, ETC.) they might have a future today. When the idea of building great automobiles takes a “backseat” to stock prices, annual earnings, and profits – consumers will eventually catch on, and they did.