Um, “I write from the left on politics and policy.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.”
Those stats have some serious issues but what the hey, this is a car forum. I did agree with saving GM though. It was the right thing to do.
I disagree. But, we’ve had that debate ad-nauseum. I’ll avoid a rehash.
Yeah its water under the bridge or over the road or whatever. I hope they make us proud after the effort anyway.
I do too.
@mountainbike I agree; shoving the debt problem on your grandchildren is no way to responsibly run an economy.
Our founding fathers didn’t feel that way. Spending we do today will benefit our children and grand children…and their grand children.
There were upgrades at the plant I worked in from the 1960s through the early 1990s, and it was a unionized plant.
Maybe your plant did, but many didn’t. I had an uncle who was in management ay Crucible steel in Syracuse NY, and his sin was a union worker there. You should have seen the arguments they had about upgrading the plant.This was a small plant compared to the plants in Pittsburgh.
Actually, Mike, that wasn’t my statement, but I do agree with it. I believe in balanced budgeting.
PROPER spending will benefit our heirs. Improper spending won’t. Unless, of course, they go into politics… {
SMB
I must have been in a daze…doesn’t often happen. 
@MikeInNH
Thanks for carrying the mantle. Fewer then 12% of our jobs are unionized and you would think by some reckoning, that they were the chief cause of all that is going on in this world.
@same
You believe in a balanced budget my good man ? You ARE very "liberal " minded indeed.
Actually, Mike, that wasn't my statement,
I was actually responding to @Docnick who was responding to you.
PROPER spending will benefit our heirs. Improper spending won't.
That’s the crux of govt spending. We have more control at the local level…but the pork-belly spending has gotten out of hand (each party keeps trying to up each other).
Fewer then 12% of our jobs are unionized and you would think by some reckoning, that they were the chief cause of all that is going on in this world.
If companies treated their employees properly, then there wouldn’t be a need for unions. Some companies understand that.
The problems with unions only exists in industries that are unionized, and all industries with unions are not in trouble. Part of the steel industry’s problems were due to unions, and some of the problems were not.
Ironically, the only unionized organization I’ve ever worked in was the college… and I’m not sure that counts. Academia ain’t normal, I tell ya. {
Unions grew to where in many cases their business was exploitation of the labor rather than protection of the labor. In their inception, laborers were commonly exposed to dangerous work conditions, situations where they had work related necessary expenses that were not covered by the companies, long, hard schedules doing unsafe work, and truly horrible situations. Unions resulted in dramatic improvements of working conditions and elimination of a lot of the rampant unfairness. It was after those goals were achieved that they began using their newfound power to demand unrealistic “rights”, and since times were good and companies wanted to keep their factories operating fully, they simply acquiesced and tacked the added cost onto their products.
Unions are not good or bad. They’re just part of business. Were it not for unions, the pensions and benefits that became “assumed” in the '50s and '60s would not have proliferated.
If it seems like I have very mixed emotions about unions, it’s because I do. I probably would not get a pension check every month were it not for unions. Then again, the costs of products might be more affordable if so many companies weren’t saddled with long term obligations… like me, for example. Of course, wages would probably be lower too.
I do think that unions are often used as an easy excuse for industries’ failings. The steel industry discussed in this thread is a good example. The automotive industry is another example. It oversimplifies what are in truth complex causes.
The unfortunate thing is that unions still wield a great deal of power in Washington. They can still raise huge amounts of cash, and whether accurate or not, they’re still perceived to influence huge voting blocks.
One last comment on unions. Many years ago there was a news report that John Gotti’s grandmother had been mugged in NYC. Imagine being the mugger and hearing THAT on the morning’s news! I’ll bet he died before his time.
The only UAW story I heard first-hand was from the designer of an air dryer for a GM plant’s compressed air system. The requirements were for a full lockable enclosure with two sets of bypass valves - one set inside and one set outside the enclosure. The outside set was to have no guts, i.e., turning the valve handles did nothing. The designer asked, “Why?” The reason was that the hourly workers learned that if they bypassed the dryer, some air-driven line tools would malfunction and shut the line down. Most of them could then go home, receiving a full shift’s pay.
I was a union member for over 30 years, though not in the auto industry. In my opinion, it is true that companies which have unions mostly deserve them, In our company, “office” people who lived next to production workers would not permit their kids to play with the kids of production workers. In cases like that you WILL have a union.
I got a college degree at a local college, summa cum laude. In a personnel management course, there were 29 office and management people and one production worker (me).
The big shots always referred to the production workers as low lifes. You WILL have a union with attitudes like that.
@irlandes My collar is very blue. We had a chapter of the,AFT on my campus,and I was,treasurer. I was an advocate for quite a few faculty members at tenure hearings and we prevailed,in many of the cases,and the negative decision was reversed. Yet, even though I saved their jobs_most of these people would not join the union. It was beneath tbeir dignity. I actually got along better with the service staff than 80% of .my colleagues,
My very early affiliation with the AFT proved that they were a union in name only. One school board member said it this way. “The AFT needs to remember that the school board holds all of the trump cards”. It was true, year after year. I quit after three.
Of course, like someone else said earlier, academia is different from the rest of the world. {