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You mean the same organized labor that's responsible for most of the jobs that left this country?
Toddster 13168791What policy did he put into place through passing a new law or creating a new regulation, that was intended to increase domestic production of oil?
Why pass a new regulation to increase production on something that was increasing production quite sufficiently on its own?
Now you whine because Obama didn't pass a regulation. Make up your hate-filled mind will you?
I did not quote any of your posts dumbfuck. I made a general statement which had NOTHING to do with your ongoing debates with others. YOU quoted MEGrampa 13167669Read the title jackass. You know what a title is right? It defines what the thread is about.
It's clear this thread is about the left's ability to keep their heads in the sand as long as it takes to ignore facts till they're gone.
Triple IDIOT!!!!
Title; 2. a descriptive heading or caption, as of achapter, section, or other part of a book.
First reason you are an idiot is the title contains the price of gasoline in Indiana. You declare the title is specific to the content of the thread. Then you violate your own dimwitted 'thread' rule by bringing up the price of gasoline in California.
The second reason you are an idiot is because you are admitting that you don't raad beyond the title to find out more specifics on the author's intent.
Grampa 13167669It's clear this thread is about the left's ability to keep their heads in the sand as long as it takes to ignore facts till they're gone.
The third reason you are an idiot is because you declare we must go strictly by the title to define the content of this thread and then you absolutely violate your own rule be declaring this thread is about something not close to being mentioned in the title of this thread.
We have been discussing the national average gasoline prices throughout this thread.
But if you do not mind being an idiot I don't mind pointing out exactly why you are.
Ray 13169113You mean the same organized labor that's responsible for most of the jobs that left this country?
Cite what data you are basing that on?
Tell us how trucking jobs left this country. Tell us how the highways, roads and bridges that trucks drive on, resulted in jobs that left this country.
Without unions we would have a lower cost of living in this country that would have made us more competitive with other countries.
Trucks can't leave the country or they would.
13169935Trucks can't leave the country or they would.
Why can't they leave the country. If it sucks so bad here go drive your truck somewhere else. What's stopping you?
Ray 13169113Without unions we would have a lower cost of living in this country that would have made us more competitive with other countries.
Why are you complaining that your boss man cut your wages and benefits then if it's a lower cost of living you are after. You make less than the you did before, so you have lowered the cost of living for everyone else, right? Oh no that's not right. Your boss man didn't pass your pay cut on to the consumers. He pocketed it and told his sheep to keep working and blame it on liberals. Labor needs to be organized to raise the standard of living for middle class and all workers.
My mother was fortunate to get a job at Ford and join the UAW, her medical benefits saved her life and saved her six children from going bankrupt when a heart condition complicated by a genetic disease kept her from working at an early age of fifty. With full Ford benefits that she earned working there for nearly twenty years - her high cost drugs kept her alive for thirty more wonderful years. She and my stepdad who took such good care of here went to NASCAR races every year almost to the end. They saw at least dozen grand and great grand children get married and graduate from college.
Your Union-less anti-worker health care system. Would have left them to die with their pre-existing conditions or bankrupted them and their children where they would have no life after working for over thirty years.
So cut the crap about unions driving jobs overseas. Unions do more good for working people and their families than any trickle down bullcrap that Republicans keep experimenting with.
Labor gets the blame by mindless wackos. Easy scapegoat who believes in low wages and that $15 per hour is actually s good wage. Pure bs
That may have been true at one time, but like anything else, unions got so big and so greedy that they ended up doing more harm than good in the long run.
Hey, is Ford still an all American company today? I didn't think so.
My last American made car was my last American made car. After 30,000 miles, my mechanic drove it more than I did. That's why I switched to Toyota. Never had a problem since. No more tow trucks, no more expensive car repair bills, no more getting in to work late all the time. My Toyota has never left me stranded once, and this is my second car from them.
It's my mechanic that tipped me off during one of the many times I was getting my American car repaired. He said he seldom gets calls from Toyota owners. That's because instead of pumping money into union wages and benefits, Toyota invests in engineering and quality parts. That's why they brake down much less than American cars.
Between his input and my experiences I've had delivering to auto companies, I decided to make the switch and haven't regretted it since. And believe me, I can tell you story after story about dealing with union employees. I can walk into a company that I've never heard of before, and within five minutes, I could tell you if they were union or not simply by how they worked.
.
JAPAN: HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT
Japan’s health care system is designed to make medical services available to all citizens via employer-purchased insurance and to control health care expenditures. This has resulted in one of the healthiest nations in the world at one of the lowest costs.
Various insurance plans are involved, financed by compulsory payroll deductions, taxes, and patient co-payments. Patients freely choose their providers, and providers are paid by a nationally uniform method and rate, negotiated by a council made up of insurers, providers, and citizens. Price increases are limited by a ceiling set by the government. A uniform fee schedule has helped to control costs and to ensure equitable access.
Japan’s system came into being for manual workers in 1922 as part of management’s belief that maintaining a healthy, productive work force contributes to the nation’s wealth. Later, coverage was extended to workers’ dependents and white-collar workers. Following World War II, Japan’s new constitution made health care a right for all citizens. By 1961, Japan had achieved universal health coverage, the first non-Western nation to do so.
.
Is Ford Still an American Company?
By John Rosevear | More Articles
June 29, 2013 | Comments (3)
On one level, it's a silly question: Of course Ford (NYSE: F ) is an American company. With headquarters in Michigan and over a century of building and selling cars here, the Ford brand and Ford's vehicles are an everyday part of American life.
.
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013, 11:27 AM
How Caterpillar Ruined a Union Manufacturing Success Story
BY DOMINIQUE PAUL NOTH
In 2009, Bucyrus machinists expressed pride in working at a union shop where business was booming and management seemed to value them. (Dominique Paul Noth/Milwaukee Area Labor Council)
Good news has been rare in the Rust Belt since the 2008 economic collapse. But in Milwaukee, the rise of Bucyrus International Inc. provided a sorely needed model of how a company with a unionized workforce can lasso in global profits. Now, the company’s new owner, Caterpillar, is threatening those gains, announcing major layoffs and failing to reach a new contract with its workers.
In 2009, Bucyrus emerged as a major manufacturer of gigantic shovels used for mining all over the world. Centered at a South Milwaukee plant, Bucyrus had weathered mergers and bankruptcies over eight decades to build a steady market share and a fine reputation. Its concentration on skilled machinery and a worldwide boom in the demand for ore caused annual sales to soar from $289 million in 2000 to $3.65 billion by 2010. Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan was widely praised for his business acumen and community commitment.
What made the biggest headlines, though, was Sullivan’s analysis of why his company had become so successful. After evaluating the world market in sophisticated ore excavation, he announced he was keeping the plant unionized and expanding operations in the United States, because his workers were more productive and efficient than lower-paid workers in other states or countries. Sullivan said he preferred the experienced United Steelworkers(USW) teams for financial reasons—and he said it so often that even militant workers conditioned to doubt management were happy to be respected so loudly, enthusiastically agreeing to be the public face for the company.
In 2009, union workers and management negotiated a four-year contract that both sides lauded as good for the company’s future growth and good for the workers. It stipulated the end of two-tier pay, a better pension plan for new hires, expanded benefits built on proven productivity, controls for the company and precise job classifications. Bucyrus appeared to be one of the few companies that rewarded good work in a troubled economy.
Just after that agreement had been signed, I toured the plant as a reporter, absorbing backslaps from both managers and workers, happy over the new contract. The mammoth Bucyrus plant seemed to almost hum as a romantic vision of efficient U.S. manufacturing. Molten steel in huge vats was poured into molds and shaped in stages into enormous wheels and gears. Heavy chains muscled mining components through huge buildings connected by rail tracks and scooters. The working areas were modernized and well ventilated. Workers did exercises before shifts. Safety experts checked all operations.
Bucyrus' success received plenty of attention. The best-known name in international mining, Peoria, Ill.-headquartered Caterpillar, announced in 2011 a protective move against the upstart. It would try to beat back Bucyrus—and another Milwaukee-based high-roller in this field, Joy Global—by creating its own line of giant mining shovels.
Then, within months, to the surprise of many financiers, Caterpillar abandoned its plan and paid a staggering $7.6 billion to acquire Bucyrus International. The company switched to promoting Bucyrus drills, shovels and draglines in the volatile global mining market, rebranding the products as Bucyrus/Caterpillar. Sullivan brokered the deal with Caterpillar, then walked away with nearly $29 million in cash and a total compensation package valued around $45 million, as well as unspecified options.
The most optimistic of the Bucyrus steelworkers took the purchase price as a confirmation of their worth while the pessimistic mistrusted the manipulations. Generally the workers expected some changes but noted that Caterpillar clearly preferred buying out Bucyrus to competing with its products. Many thought the proven talent of USW Local 1343 was key to that big financial deal.
Today, 18 months after the takeover, those hopes have long since been dispelled. On March 28, mere days before negotiations for a new contract were set to begin, Caterpillar announced it would lay off 300 workers at the South Milwaukee plant, almost 40 percent of the blue-collar workforce. The plant has about 800 hourly production workers in the USW local.
Caterpillar commonly claims labor cutbacks are necessary because of profit losses. However, as Reuters recently noted, among investors "no one really believes" the company's "overly bleak" assessments of its future profitability. Meanwhile, Caterpillar’s actions in early March suggested ulterior motives. The company asked Milwaukee Area Technical College, which has an incumbent worker training deal with the company, to rapidly train 25 managers in welding techniques. The college's unionized professors thought nothing of it—until the USW charged it a move to create non-unionized scabs in case Caterpillar failed to reach a contract agreement with its workers by the May 1 deadline.
.
Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
.
Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
Ray 13173216That may have been true at one time, but like anything else, unions got so big and so greedy that they ended up doing more harm than good in the long run.
Hey, is Ford still an all American company today? I didn't think so.
My last American made car was my last American made car. After 30,000 miles, my mechanic drove it more than I did. That's why I switched to Toyota. Never had a problem since. No more tow trucks, no more expensive car repair bills, no more getting in to work late all the time. My Toyota has never left me stranded once, and this is my second car from them.
It's my mechanic that tipped me off during one of the many times I was getting my American car repaired. He said he seldom gets calls from Toyota owners. That's because instead of pumping money into union wages and benefits, Toyota invests in engineering and quality parts. That's why they brake down much less than American cars.
Between his input and my experiences I've had delivering to auto companies, I decided to make the switch and haven't regretted it since. And believe me, I can tell you story after story about dealing with union employees. I can walk into a company that I've never heard of before, and within five minutes, I could tell you if they were union or not simply by how they worked.
Move to Japan - drive Japanese trucks. They have customers there. You'll have universal
Health coverage Japanese auto makers frequently sells at a loss to drive prices down and taking with it American workers wages and benefits down ward. Americans are the most productive workers in the world. Thanks for contributing to lowering the standard of living of the most productive middle class. You support a socialistic system in manufacturing such as exists in Japan - you support Japanese universal healthcare system. Go drive for Toyota then. Live in corporation managed housing. Salute the Toyota flag.
Japan contributes fewer taxes toward paying for our great US military and all the Americans that serve.
.
JAPAN: HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT
Japan’s health care system is designed to make medical services available to all citizens via employer-purchased insurance and to control health care expenditures. This has resulted in one of the healthiest nations in the world at one of the lowest costs.
Various insurance plans are involved, financed by compulsory payroll deductions, taxes, and patient co-payments. Patients freely choose their providers, and providers are paid by a nationally uniform method and rate, negotiated by a council made up of insurers, providers, and citizens. Price increases are limited by a ceiling set by the government. A uniform fee schedule has helped to control costs and to ensure equitable access.
Japan’s system came into being for manual workers in 1922 as part of management’s belief that maintaining a healthy, productive work force contributes to the nation’s wealth. Later, coverage was extended to workers’ dependents and white-collar workers. Following World War II, Japan’s new constitution made health care a right for all citizens. By 1961, Japan had achieved universal health coverage, the first non-Western nation to do so.
Comparing Health Care Systems
My wife will drive nothing but Mustangs. Never had a problem with one. Best car for the money in style and performance.
I drive an Escape and it is by far the finest car I've ever driven / not a single rattle or problem.
Only an idiot would not know for certain that Ford is an Anerican Company headquartered in Detroit Michigan, USA. And Unionized. Doing very well.
.
Is Ford Still an American Company?
By John Rosevear | More Articles
June 29, 2013 | Comments (3)
On one level, it's a silly question: Of course Ford (NYSE: F ) is an American company. With headquarters in Michigan and over a century of building and selling cars here, the Ford brand and Ford's vehicles are an everyday part of American life.
Now Caterpillar must be your hero - they switched HDQ's to Switzerland - to avoid paying taxes
.
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013, 11:27 AM
How Caterpillar Ruined a Union Manufacturing Success Story
BY DOMINIQUE PAUL NOTH
In 2009, Bucyrus machinists expressed pride in working at a union shop where business was booming and management seemed to value them. (Dominique Paul Noth/Milwaukee Area Labor Council)
Good news has been rare in the Rust Belt since the 2008 economic collapse. But in Milwaukee, the rise of Bucyrus International Inc. provided a sorely needed model of how a company with a unionized workforce can lasso in global profits. Now, the company’s new owner, Caterpillar, is threatening those gains, announcing major layoffs and failing to reach a new contract with its workers.
In 2009, Bucyrus emerged as a major manufacturer of gigantic shovels used for mining all over the world. Centered at a South Milwaukee plant, Bucyrus had weathered mergers and bankruptcies over eight decades to build a steady market share and a fine reputation. Its concentration on skilled machinery and a worldwide boom in the demand for ore caused annual sales to soar from $289 million in 2000 to $3.65 billion by 2010. Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan was widely praised for his business acumen and community commitment.
What made the biggest headlines, though, was Sullivan’s analysis of why his company had become so successful. After evaluating the world market in sophisticated ore excavation, he announced he was keeping the plant unionized and expanding operations in the United States, because his workers were more productive and efficient than lower-paid workers in other states or countries. Sullivan said he preferred the experienced United Steelworkers(USW) teams for financial reasons—and he said it so often that even militant workers conditioned to doubt management were happy to be respected so loudly, enthusiastically agreeing to be the public face for the company.
In 2009, union workers and management negotiated a four-year contract that both sides lauded as good for the company’s future growth and good for the workers. It stipulated the end of two-tier pay, a better pension plan for new hires, expanded benefits built on proven productivity, controls for the company and precise job classifications. Bucyrus appeared to be one of the few companies that rewarded good work in a troubled economy.
Just after that agreement had been signed, I toured the plant as a reporter, absorbing backslaps from both managers and workers, happy over the new contract. The mammoth Bucyrus plant seemed to almost hum as a romantic vision of efficient U.S. manufacturing. Molten steel in huge vats was poured into molds and shaped in stages into enormous wheels and gears. Heavy chains muscled mining components through huge buildings connected by rail tracks and scooters. The working areas were modernized and well ventilated. Workers did exercises before shifts. Safety experts checked all operations.
Bucyrus' success received plenty of attention. The best-known name in international mining, Peoria, Ill.-headquartered Caterpillar, announced in 2011 a protective move against the upstart. It would try to beat back Bucyrus—and another Milwaukee-based high-roller in this field, Joy Global—by creating its own line of giant mining shovels.
Then, within months, to the surprise of many financiers, Caterpillar abandoned its plan and paid a staggering $7.6 billion to acquire Bucyrus International. The company switched to promoting Bucyrus drills, shovels and draglines in the volatile global mining market, rebranding the products as Bucyrus/Caterpillar. Sullivan brokered the deal with Caterpillar, then walked away with nearly $29 million in cash and a total compensation package valued around $45 million, as well as unspecified options.
The most optimistic of the Bucyrus steelworkers took the purchase price as a confirmation of their worth while the pessimistic mistrusted the manipulations. Generally the workers expected some changes but noted that Caterpillar clearly preferred buying out Bucyrus to competing with its products. Many thought the proven talent of USW Local 1343 was key to that big financial deal.
Today, 18 months after the takeover, those hopes have long since been dispelled. On March 28, mere days before negotiations for a new contract were set to begin, Caterpillar announced it would lay off 300 workers at the South Milwaukee plant, almost 40 percent of the blue-collar workforce. The plant has about 800 hourly production workers in the USW local.
Caterpillar commonly claims labor cutbacks are necessary because of profit losses. However, as Reuters recently noted, among investors "no one really believes" the company's "overly bleak" assessments of its future profitability. Meanwhile, Caterpillar’s actions in early March suggested ulterior motives. The company asked Milwaukee Area Technical College, which has an incumbent worker training deal with the company, to rapidly train 25 managers in welding techniques. The college's unionized professors thought nothing of it—until the USW charged it a move to create non-unionized scabs in case Caterpillar failed to reach a contract agreement with its workers by the May 1 deadline.
They have already perfected Union Busting so there reason to abandon HDQ's in USA was not union related.
.
Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
Caterpillar has been active in bringing immigrants into the U.S. To replace American workers.
You must live this traitor company for contributing to lowering the middle class standard of living.
.
Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
Ray 13173216That may have been true at one time, but like anything else, unions got so big and so greedy that they ended up doing more harm than good in the long run.
Hey, is Ford still an all American company today? I didn't think so.
My last American made car was my last American made car. After 30,000 miles, my mechanic drove it more than I did. That's why I switched to Toyota. Never had a problem since. No more tow trucks, no more expensive car repair bills, no more getting in to work late all the time. My Toyota has never left me stranded once, and this is my second car from them.
It's my mechanic that tipped me off during one of the many times I was getting my American car repaired. He said he seldom gets calls from Toyota owners. That's because instead of pumping money into union wages and benefits, Toyota invests in engineering and quality parts. That's why they brake down much less than American cars.
Between his input and my experiences I've had delivering to auto companies, I decided to make the switch and haven't regretted it since. And believe me, I can tell you story after story about dealing with union employees. I can walk into a company that I've never heard of before, and within five minutes, I could tell you if they were union or not simply by how they worked.
Move to Japan - drive Japanese trucks. They have customers there. You'll have universal
Health coverage Japanese auto makers frequently sells at a loss to drive prices down and taking with it American workers wages and benefits down ward. Americans are the most productive workers in the world. Thanks for contributing to lowering the standard of living of the most productive middle class. You support a socialistic system in manufacturing such as exists in Japan - you support Japanese universal healthcare system. Go drive for Toyota then. Live in corporation managed housing. Salute the Toyota flag.
Japan contributes fewer taxes toward paying for our great US military and all the Americans that serve.
.
JAPAN: HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT
Japan’s health care system is designed to make medical services available to all citizens via employer-purchased insurance and to control health care expenditures. This has resulted in one of the healthiest nations in the world at one of the lowest costs.
Various insurance plans are involved, financed by compulsory payroll deductions, taxes, and patient co-payments. Patients freely choose their providers, and providers are paid by a nationally uniform method and rate, negotiated by a council made up of insurers, providers, and citizens. Price increases are limited by a ceiling set by the government. A uniform fee schedule has helped to control costs and to ensure equitable access.
Japan’s system came into being for manual workers in 1922 as part of management’s belief that maintaining a healthy, productive work force contributes to the nation’s wealth. Later, coverage was extended to workers’ dependents and white-collar workers. Following World War II, Japan’s new constitution made health care a right for all citizens. By 1961, Japan had achieved universal health coverage, the first non-Western nation to do so.
Comparing Health Care Systems
My wife will drive nothing but Mustangs. Never had a problem with one. Best car for the money in style and performance.
I drive an Escape and it is by far the finest car I've ever driven / not a single rattle or problem.
Only an idiot would not know for certain that Ford is an Anerican Company headquartered in Detroit Michigan, USA. And Unionized. Doing very well.
.
Is Ford Still an American Company?
By John Rosevear | More Articles
June 29, 2013 | Comments (3)
On one level, it's a silly question: Of course Ford (NYSE: F ) is an American company. With headquarters in Michigan and over a century of building and selling cars here, the Ford brand and Ford's vehicles are an everyday part of American life.
Now Caterpillar must be your hero - they switched HDQ's to Switzerland - to avoid paying taxes
.
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013, 11:27 AM
How Caterpillar Ruined a Union Manufacturing Success Story
BY DOMINIQUE PAUL NOTH
In 2009, Bucyrus machinists expressed pride in working at a union shop where business was booming and management seemed to value them. (Dominique Paul Noth/Milwaukee Area Labor Council)
Good news has been rare in the Rust Belt since the 2008 economic collapse. But in Milwaukee, the rise of Bucyrus International Inc. provided a sorely needed model of how a company with a unionized workforce can lasso in global profits. Now, the company’s new owner, Caterpillar, is threatening those gains, announcing major layoffs and failing to reach a new contract with its workers.
In 2009, Bucyrus emerged as a major manufacturer of gigantic shovels used for mining all over the world. Centered at a South Milwaukee plant, Bucyrus had weathered mergers and bankruptcies over eight decades to build a steady market share and a fine reputation. Its concentration on skilled machinery and a worldwide boom in the demand for ore caused annual sales to soar from $289 million in 2000 to $3.65 billion by 2010. Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan was widely praised for his business acumen and community commitment.
What made the biggest headlines, though, was Sullivan’s analysis of why his company had become so successful. After evaluating the world market in sophisticated ore excavation, he announced he was keeping the plant unionized and expanding operations in the United States, because his workers were more productive and efficient than lower-paid workers in other states or countries. Sullivan said he preferred the experienced United Steelworkers(USW) teams for financial reasons—and he said it so often that even militant workers conditioned to doubt management were happy to be respected so loudly, enthusiastically agreeing to be the public face for the company.
In 2009, union workers and management negotiated a four-year contract that both sides lauded as good for the company’s future growth and good for the workers. It stipulated the end of two-tier pay, a better pension plan for new hires, expanded benefits built on proven productivity, controls for the company and precise job classifications. Bucyrus appeared to be one of the few companies that rewarded good work in a troubled economy.
Just after that agreement had been signed, I toured the plant as a reporter, absorbing backslaps from both managers and workers, happy over the new contract. The mammoth Bucyrus plant seemed to almost hum as a romantic vision of efficient U.S. manufacturing. Molten steel in huge vats was poured into molds and shaped in stages into enormous wheels and gears. Heavy chains muscled mining components through huge buildings connected by rail tracks and scooters. The working areas were modernized and well ventilated. Workers did exercises before shifts. Safety experts checked all operations.
Bucyrus' success received plenty of attention. The best-known name in international mining, Peoria, Ill.-headquartered Caterpillar, announced in 2011 a protective move against the upstart. It would try to beat back Bucyrus—and another Milwaukee-based high-roller in this field, Joy Global—by creating its own line of giant mining shovels.
Then, within months, to the surprise of many financiers, Caterpillar abandoned its plan and paid a staggering $7.6 billion to acquire Bucyrus International. The company switched to promoting Bucyrus drills, shovels and draglines in the volatile global mining market, rebranding the products as Bucyrus/Caterpillar. Sullivan brokered the deal with Caterpillar, then walked away with nearly $29 million in cash and a total compensation package valued around $45 million, as well as unspecified options.
The most optimistic of the Bucyrus steelworkers took the purchase price as a confirmation of their worth while the pessimistic mistrusted the manipulations. Generally the workers expected some changes but noted that Caterpillar clearly preferred buying out Bucyrus to competing with its products. Many thought the proven talent of USW Local 1343 was key to that big financial deal.
Today, 18 months after the takeover, those hopes have long since been dispelled. On March 28, mere days before negotiations for a new contract were set to begin, Caterpillar announced it would lay off 300 workers at the South Milwaukee plant, almost 40 percent of the blue-collar workforce. The plant has about 800 hourly production workers in the USW local.
Caterpillar commonly claims labor cutbacks are necessary because of profit losses. However, as Reuters recently noted, among investors "no one really believes" the company's "overly bleak" assessments of its future profitability. Meanwhile, Caterpillar’s actions in early March suggested ulterior motives. The company asked Milwaukee Area Technical College, which has an incumbent worker training deal with the company, to rapidly train 25 managers in welding techniques. The college's unionized professors thought nothing of it—until the USW charged it a move to create non-unionized scabs in case Caterpillar failed to reach a contract agreement with its workers by the May 1 deadline.
They have already perfected Union Busting so there reason to abandon HDQ's in USA was not union related.
.
Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
Caterpillar has been active in bringing immigrants into the U.S. To replace American workers.
You must live this traitor company for contributing to lowering the middle class standard of living.
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Subcommittee exposes Caterpillar offshore profit shifting
U.S. icon routes profit through Switzerland to avoid $2.4 billion in taxes
Monday, March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON – Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss affiliate to shift $8 billion in profits from the United States to Switzerland to take advantage of a special 4 to 6 percent corporate tax rate it negotiated with the Swiss government and defer or avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes to date, a new report from Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations shows.
“Caterpillar is an American success story that produces phenomenal industrial machines, but it is also a member of the corporate profit-shifting club that has shifted billions of dollars in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Levin said. “Caterpillar paid over $55 million for a Swiss tax strategy that has so far enabled it to avoid paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes. That tax strategy depends on the company making the case that its parts business is run out of Switzerland instead of the U.S. so it can justify sending 85 percent or more of the parts profits to Geneva. Well, I’m not buying that story.”
Well I'll tell you what, I DO know millionaires--some in my own family, and none of them are behind being taxed to death to provide for those that don't produce or produce very little.
Well I'll tell you what, I DO know millionaires--some in my own family, and none of them are behind being taxed to death to provide for those that don't produce or produce very little.
LMAO Sure you do. Know millioniares being "taxed to death".
You so full of shit dude.
Which millioniare family member has threatened to leave the country if their taxes go up? You going with them? Be their driver.
Which has me ask; why dont you work for the millioniare in the family and make some decent money? You struggling and all.
Spoken like a true Communist "People that don't know how to budget within their means need micromanaging."
Well congrats, according to the White House, Commie Care made 10 million more government dependents, so I guess you have some celebration to do there.
Spoken like a true Communist "People that don't know how to budget within their means need micromanaging."
Bwahahaha.....you're the one complaining that you can't afford health-care and that suggests you want it free when you need it......FYI, communism would affect everyone in the country....people like you, that can't control their spending are not the entire USA....Bwahahaha....nice try, look up communism in the dictionary so you won't sound like a Faux News parrot.
No, what I wanted was government to stay out of my life so I could have health insurance. I had health insurance all 55 years of my life until the Commies came to power. Thanks to them, now I have none.
