Delphi and The Truth About Cars

[Martin]

As you may (and probably should) be aware, Delphi, GM's autoparts manufacturer has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a move that is seen by many to be the beginning of the end for the UAW. Many expect to see GM do the same.

GM has already announced major health care cuts and plans to cut 25,000 jobs by 2008. The implications of this are huge - GM is the US's single largest healthcare provider, and also the largest cash cow for the UAW. This will be the death of unions (thankfully) and perhaps a major turning point in US health care as well.

I don't envy Rick Wagoner right now at all.

For more, check out http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/

[lyam_kaskade]

Martin wrote:

This will be the death of unions (thankfully)

What's wrong with unions?

[codemage]

Nothing wrong with unions in principle, but too many of them abuse their power. Workers deserve fair & equitable wages, treatment & conditions, but not to the point where it destroys the industry.

[Tony]

from what I hear, unions make up a difficult working environment for co-op students.

They just kill off any ambition and motivation to try and excel. Remember that the idea behind unions is to get paid the most, for the least amount of work performed. Umm... communism anyone? That's well and all.. job security and such for your average factory worker. Though for an Engineering co-op student, trying to get things to improve will likely get you in numerous conflics with the union. And the excuse of "oh, I'm new here" works for only that long.

[wtd]

No, the idea behind unions is to provide collective bargaining power. A single employee may be seen as quite powerless against a corporation, but that is not quite true. The corporation has soem degree of investment in that employee, in terms of training. Get enough employees to demand somethin and those little bits of investment add up. Eventually it becomes less expensive to give in to employee's demands than to fire them all.

The problem with unions is that they became themselves corporations, without union unions. No local union can speak out against a larger umbrella union's actions with any effectiveness.

The idea of the union is wonderful.

[Martin]

What's wrong with unions (in Delphi's case) is that Delphi was forced by the union to pay its line workers at about $65US/hour. That's around $124,000US per year with four weeks vacation.

[wtd]

Martin wrote:

What's wrong with unions (in Delphi's case) is that Delphi was forced by the union to pay its line workers at about $65US/hour. That's around $124,000US per year with four weeks vacation.

That's a problem with a union, not unions in general.

The fundamental flaw here is that the union got too strong, and became a powerful corporate entity itself, within which members had insignificant power to influence policy (such as accepting slightly lower pay in exchange for continued employment). Eventually, you end up beeing a union of union members to be able to influence union policy.

Wonderfully recursive, eh?

[Martin]

There are enough legal protections for employees now that unions are more of a burden than they are a benefit. At one point they were needed, now they are just uncompetitive.

I have to admit though that the only unions I know very much about are the UAW and CAW.

[wtd]

Oh, employees still need defending. Abusive employers are quite rampant.

The problem is that some unions aren't interested in doing that. They definitely should wither and die, but to use their misdeeds to condemn the basic collective bargaining tool of employees just plays into the hands of the same kind of corporate weasels.

[md]

There is some use for unions where the government is concerned, and since my mom works for one I'm kinda obligated to support them a little (at least until they start asking for money from me). And certainly teachers do need their unions, although they wouldn't if people actually stopped to think some.

[codemage]

Quote:

And certainly teachers do need their unions, although they wouldn't if people actually stopped to think some.

I'm a member of a teacher's union. As much as I don't really like the direction that unions are going in general, and some of the arrogance & childish actions coming from their leadership... I don't know many teachers who haven't been helped by the union at some point (myself included) because of grievances (when school boards or the government or post-secondary admins breach their contract & try to screw them over), or when a teacher has been wrongfully sued, etc.

The best situation exists when there is a power balance between corporations & unions. Corporations are ONLY concerned about profits, not the worker - unions are ONLY concerned about workers, not about profitability. What both lose sight of is that worker contentedness and profitability are symbiotic.

Oh... and when a union asks you for money, you generally don't have a choice.

[wtd]

One could say the omnipresence of unions in the modern workplace has fostered an environment where workers have become rather apathetic about their own rights, trusting the union to protect them. As such there exist few other places an aggrieved employee can turn for defense.

The union in turn, having a monopoly on "protection", often becomes a form of extortion. A worker either joins the union or faces the prospect of standing alone when his or her employer becomes abusive.

[Boo-chan]

Actually, in a "closed shop" you don't have a choice whether or not to join the union. Its kind of interesting how Canadians have the right to associate with whomever they want, but not the right to not associate with people, ie they can't force you not to join a union, but they can force you to join it.

My father was part of the CAW in Oshawa and I've read their monthly newsletter for the last 3 or 4 years, so I have a relatively good understanding of that union at least. I dislike unions partially because they are relatively to the far left on the political spectrum, which is interesting since surely the majority of the union members aren't(otherwise the NDP would win more seats). Also, as Tony mentioned, unions promote the lowest common denominator approach to work where simply putting in your time is sufficient( The senority system has some good points but also a lot of downsides) As well, the unions seems to have a lack of common sense in a lot of things or maybe thats just due to the fact that they have a different view point than I do. Finally, the unions serve to push up the wages in developed countries, then attempt to have laws passed so that the companies can't outsource their jobs to developing countries. All the while being vehemently against things like trade barriers and believe that the developed countries should help develop 3rd world countries.

[codemage]

Although the end result is essentially the same, a lot of the unions in Canada are actualy open shop. However, there's a weird condition that where unionized labour makes up the majority of the workplace, the union is granted sole bargaining rights with the employer.

Since the union is then arguing for the rights of all employees (ie all employees benefit), all workers must pay union dues, but don't necessarily have to actually join the union.

At that point, everyone is all but a de facto member anyway; and besides, there are many union hardliners out there that will victimize other workers if they find out they're not on the union. (Think slashed tires, bricks through the house window, etc.) It's disgusting, but it happens.

[1of42]

Unions were a great idea back when workers were legitimately exploited by large corporations. All of the big unions now have gone far past "protecting the workers"... now it's all about "how can we do as little work as possible, and get paid as much as possible", which is ridiculous.

My personal view is that unions stifle a lot of productivity, and no longer have the place in our society that they seem to think they deserve.

Example: BC. Ridiculously unionized - and the union are bullies, frankly. Not contributing to anything except waste.