American Axle voting on new contract

[Seenitbefore]

Just thinkin wrote:

This forum has gotten very personal, very quickly. Looks like most people commenting in this forum against the union bash the workers greed but it seems to me the workers only vote on contracts that are approved by the company and that the time when a contract is up is the time for a company to make a change if they felt it was unfair. The company could have just left the country years ago and avoided giving all the things they did to the union along the way. Why didn't they just hire cheaper labor at the end of any contract and leave the UAW out in the cold? Another thing, the unions have no say in hiring since each employee must be hired and screened by the company and complete a probationary period during which the company can fire them before being accepted into the union so just putting in an application doesn't do it. Just a couple of observations I have made. I also wonder why anyone even bothers to build anything at all in America when we all will proudly stand up and say that the standard of living in this country is one of the highest in the world. Does kinda hit close to home when you consider that, in or out of the union, if you make a product here your job pays among the best in the world and most likely could just as easily be done cheaper somewhere else. Union or not we all like to think we do a better job than our competition would do and we earn that higher standard of living.

Very good thoughts at the Just Thinking.

Along with the highest standard of living in the world goes the need to make an income to survive in it.

That's exactly why foreign manufacturers have come here to produce their products and why they want to sell their from their home countries products here. We have consumer power. Well, we had consumer power. It's slipping away rapidly because we're giving it away with the belief we need to level off with everyone else.

[JerryInStl]

I also was made to use 18 vacation days due to the AA strike, I work in a GM facility that was down due to the strike where these UAW people sat home or went on vacation getting 90% of their pay and didn't want to come back to work, as I worried about being really Laid Off after my vacation ran out. Hows Your Reality Check feeling now. UAW Leadership are getting rich off the people they are suppose to be representing. Do you know they were getting apid 24/7 while you made $200 a week. I wonder how much harder they would have negotiated if they were living on $200 a week.

[Seenitbefore]

Chip wrote:

<quoted text>
We were kinda hoping you would move to Mexico as well. Take seenitnever and unionalltheway with you, they seem to think that economies strive on unskilled labor.

Actually we were hoping you would move there so you could teach them the right way to do things by teaching them what economies really thrive on. As opposed to strive on.

I don't know how you could possibly deny that their's is thriving on the low cost of unskilled labor.

[Union All The Way]

Seenitbefore wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually we were hoping you would move there so you could teach them the right way to do things by teaching them what economies really thrive on. As opposed to strive on.
I don't know how you could possibly deny that their's is thriving on the low cost of unskilled labor.

HHHMMMM..seems to me Chip doesn't mind being cheap and unskilled as much as he promotes it..right ...Chip..off the old block of....

[Cowherder]

Bill wrote:

Fire them all & rehire non union workers!

Yeah, fire 'em all so they make shit wages like you!! Have you noticed that people's wages have dropped the last few years that has contributed to our country's economy in the toilet..........yeah, that makes a lot of sense to turn this country into another third world country! It is because of the unions you make what you make!!

[Cowherder]

CFS wrote:

IF THE REST OF THE COUNTRY MADE THAT MUCH MONEY ALL THE JOB WOULD GO TO MEXICO OR CHINA. MAKE A GOOD WAGE FOR THE WORK. THEN THE PRICE OF ALL THE PRODUCTS COULD GO DOWN THE THE JOBS WOULD RETURN
T OTHIS COUNTRY

The workers make less wages the price of the products wouldn't go down, the company would just reap the bigger profits and the CEOs would get more bonuses and increase in their incomes.
Even the Mexicans and other foreign workers are waking up, they too don't want to make slave wages,they don't want to be used by big business thus the increase of immigrants coming to this country for a better life!

[Cowherder]

no tears wrote:

WOW!!! I don't know HOW I could make it working for a measly $18.50 an hour!! What a b**** that would be.

Your comment is frickin' stupid..........if a
person has based their way of life on a certain income and has it cut in half how are they to maintain what they have, what they worked their entire lives for!!?(Many
of these older workers, it has taken them 30 + years to make the wages they make, and now they are to accept a huge pay cut taking them back years!! That is crap!! At least,the UAW fought for them to get a lump sum to help them adjust to a lower wage.)
Let's say you make $12 bucks an hour and have your pay cut in half and see how you could manage your way of life.

[Cowherder]

Bryan Douglas wrote:

Welcome to the Global Economy. Thier standard of living goes up and ours goes down. Yes it sucks but it's better than nothing at all. Nothing we can do about it short of closing the ports and the borders and let's be real, that is not going to happen. Take the deal or the factory will move to Tennessee, Mexico or China where the labor is much cheaper. Keep on striking and you make inevitably easier for them to make the decision to move and shut down the factory for good. Take what you can get now before it's too late!

At least the UAW and its workers are willing to fight for American jobs instead of just taking it lying down. If people in this country don't wake up we are going to become a third world country ourselves, we are headed for a society that consists of the elite rich and poor and we can see with the decline of the middle class what is happening with our economy!!! The rich cannot sustain our economy for long we NEED the middle class consumers to keep our ecomony healthy!!

[Cowherder]

Seenitbefore wrote:

<quoted text>
Keep it going and we'll see the days when 10 year olds will be doing that kind of work again

Yeah, eliminate unions in this country and we will be seeing 10 year olds working in sweat shops again!!

[Union All The Way]

Just thinkin wrote:

This forum has gotten very personal, very quickly. Looks like most people commenting in this forum against the union bash the workers greed but it seems to me the workers only vote on contracts that are approved by the company and that the time when a contract is up is the time for a company to make a change if they felt it was unfair. The company could have just left the country years ago and avoided giving all the things they did to the union along the way. Why didn't they just hire cheaper labor at the end of any contract and leave the UAW out in the cold? Another thing, the unions have no say in hiring since each employee must be hired and screened by the company and complete a probationary period during which the company can fire them before being accepted into the union so just putting in an application doesn't do it. Just a couple of observations I have made. I also wonder why anyone even bothers to build anything at all in America when we all will proudly stand up and say that the standard of living in this country is one of the highest in the world. Does kinda hit close to home when you consider that, in or out of the union, if you make a product here your job pays among the best in the world and most likely could just as easily be done cheaper somewhere else. Union or not we all like to think we do a better job than our competition would do and we earn that higher standard of living.

Well said..

[JIMMYK]

Cowherder wrote:

<quoted text>
Your comment is frickin' stupid..........if a
person has based their way of life on a certain income and has it cut in half how are they to maintain what they have, what they worked their entire lives for!!?(Many
of these older workers, it has taken them 30 + years to make the wages they make, and now they are to accept a huge pay cut taking them back years!! That is crap!! At least,the UAW fought for them to get a lump sum to help them adjust to a lower wage.)
Let's say you make $12 bucks an hour and have your pay cut in half and see how you could manage your way of life.

Yes workers have a adjusted to living on the wage they were receiving, The problem is it was a wage that was far above median wage for the work being performed. The market will determine what price can be demanded for a good or service. Also in the same manner the market must be taken into consideration when determining unskilled wages as a percentage of cost. First and formost the company needs to make money, not just break even like most union members want. With profit comes investors and expansion and more jobs. The union has always used there walkouts to demand wages that were higher than the median. In years past business has no choice but to give in pay the wages and take a hit to the margin or drive prices up. Well times have changed big auto is not seeing the sales they once were and we all know the losses that have been posted over the years. Companies need to be returned to profitablity to survive, not just for one quarter or even on year. Consistently.

[Seenitbefore]

JIMMYK wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes workers have a adjusted to living on the wage they were receiving, The problem is it was a wage that was far above median wage for the work being performed. The market will determine what price can be demanded for a good or service. Also in the same manner the market must be taken into consideration when determining unskilled wages as a percentage of cost. First and formost the company needs to make money, not just break even like most union members want. With profit comes investors and expansion and more jobs. The union has always used there walkouts to demand wages that were higher than the median. In years past business has no choice but to give in pay the wages and take a hit to the margin or drive prices up. Well times have changed big auto is not seeing the sales they once were and we all know the losses that have been posted over the years. Companies need to be returned to profitablity to survive, not just for one quarter or even on year. Consistently.

Just who are you, with all due respect, to tell someone else they are making too much money? Or for that matter to spread the fallacy that some people are just making too much money as long as you are a believer in the market place?

These are simply ludicrous arguments. To believe CEOs and top level managers are making the kind of money they are, and the companies have the right to make as much profit as they can rake in is equitable based on the market system, while shop workers are supposed to be deprived that same freedom based on some prevailing wage formula is nothing less than hypocritical and elitist.

[cdc]

they all want you people to think they are not "makeing money" so they want to cut peoples pay!! aa made profits all the way and want to make more by cutting peoples pay!!!

[Lib Dem]

Reaper wrote:

<quoted text>
Blow it out your butt

Very nice response. Are you a CEO, perhaps a Harvard grad?

[Lib Dem]

mike wrote:

screw the union workers. they wine so much about everything. thinking that they deserve more money and work less. i worked twice hard and made half of what they get. so i hope they all lose their jobs.

Perhaps if you supported unions, you wouldn't work twice as hard for half the pay. Wake up!

[Lib Dem]

pwner wrote:

Maybe they'd all like it if we'd wipe their butts for them as well?
Oh wait. No butt wiping unless it's in your job description. That would be a breach of union regulations. If it's not then you have to submit a request for the earliest butt wiper to schedule you. This may take a few days so be prepared to become one with your poo till then.

You seem to be very knowledgable about butt wiping. Are you speaking from experience?

[tom]

Cowherder wrote:

<quoted text>
Your comment is frickin' stupid..........if a
person has based their way of life on a certain income and has it cut in half how are they to maintain what they have, what they worked their entire lives for!!?(Many
of these older workers, it has taken them 30 + years to make the wages they make, and now they are to accept a huge pay cut taking them back years!! That is crap!! At least,the UAW fought for them to get a lump sum to help them adjust to a lower wage.)
Let's say you make $12 bucks an hour and have your pay cut in half and see how you could manage your way of life.

hey cowherder...can you relate to logic?.....your employer is losing money..big money....enough with the ceo & bonus whining, I agree, but in their overall cost of operation, it's not enough to matter....they have to cut heavily to compete.....it's that simple and you know it. Other brands pay far less thand you get, and build a great product in the US....people buy them...GET IT! Your calling it junk is just plain stupid union logic, and it's laughable. It is what it is....no matter what you say or do...get it Jethro?

[Seenitbefore]

Mama sez wrote:

<quoted text>
Listen up dick shine, have you put gas in your car lately? Everyone of us has had to make adjustments. Three years ago we were paying what, a buck fifty, and now its four bucks a gallon? You don't see me flopping on the floor in the fetal position crying about how I am going to make it do you? Buck up axe wipe and deal with it.

Ya just deal with it. Don't go wasting time and energy to find out the why a way to correct a problem. What possible good could it do to make things right. Just sit around and be a woose and a whimp and let the ball roll where ever someone else throws it.

Yup that's a really good way to make life better. Live with a servile mentality and some body will come along and make it all better.

[Seenitbefore]

Mama sez wrote:

<quoted text>
Then go back on strike palomine. The first time the UAW brought back jack squat....very impressive way to make things better.
On second thought your right. The union members should have held out, had their jobs filled by others, or better yet, sent to Mexico/China. That would almost certainly solve the issue of high paid union members whining for more money everytime their noses run.

Hey Einstein?...I never was on strike. That's exactly what makes your comments and your attitude G A R B A G E.

[Seenitbefore]

Mama sez wrote:

<quoted text>
Then go back on strike palomine. The first time the UAW brought back jack squat....very impressive way to make things better.
On second thought your right. The union members should have held out, had their jobs filled by others, or better yet, sent to Mexico/China. That would almost certainly solve the issue of high paid union members whining for more money everytime their noses run.

"The first time the UAW brought back jack squat....very impressive way to make things better."
That's something else you missed. The union was only trying to not lose anything. They were not asking for anything (monetarily) extra. It was the company that wanted the workers to take cuts.

I wonder how much in cuts top management took. Probably nothing. Better to take it away from those who have less to be able to keep more. And hey, maybe even a bonus for getting the shop to give back.