Strike!!!!

[Navy1960]

And make no mistake, GM is in a horrible bind. That $1.1 billion loss in the first quarter doesn't begin to tell the whole story. The carmaker is saddled with a $1,600-per-vehicle handicap in so-called legacy costs, mostly retiree health and pension benefits. Any day now, GM is likely to get slapped with a junk-bond rating. GM has lost a breathtaking 74% of its market value -- some $43 billion -- since spring of 2000, giving it a valuation of $15 billion. What really scares investors is that GM keeps losing ground in its core business of selling cars. Underinvestment has left it struggling to catch up in technology and design. Sales fell 5.2% on GM's home turf last quarter as Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ), Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY ), and other more nimble competitors ate GM's lunch. Last month, CEO G. Richard "Rick" Wagoner Jr. and his team gave up even guessing where they'll stand financially at the end of this year.
Why GM's Plan Won't Work

Just a little food for thought here, while not blaming this situation totally on the Union themselves, it did take GM to agree to all those contracts that put them into that situation in the first place.

I'll give you a little example, I do a little bit for the aviation industry, recently the machinist Union at Boeing demanded a new contract, they went back and forth on this contract with Boeing offering a 8 year no strike contract , then the machinist came back and demanded that all aircraft be built in Wa. with Union labor. So Boeing decided to build a new plant in S.C. without Union labor taking the new 3000 jobs with them. While I have nothing against a Union in general , to me it would seem that the first job of a Union should be the empolyment of it's members.

Yes, I know well about the Boeing situation. A close friend was a Metalurgical Engineer for Boeing when Boeing decided that they could screw over their engineers, since they did not have a real union. Enough engineers struck and walked the lines that Boeing finally had to give in. Then proceeded to outsource much of their engineering.

Now that has worked real well, hasn't it? The wonder company that produced the 737 and the 747 cannot seem to get it's act together for their Dreamliner. Their factory with non-union labor will turn out the same.

Rocks, I've been in the aviation industry a long time and can tell you a few things here , first the all Boeing aircraft regardless of type be they 737-X all the way to 787-X are the result of International cooperation in the production process. The 787 is not unique in that nor is any aircraft made by any company.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes performs major assembly of all 737s at its factories in the United States; however, parts for the airplanes come from suppliers all over the world.

Assembling a 737 is a complex job. Factory employees must take 367,000 parts; an equal number of bolts, rivets and other fasteners; and 36 miles (58 kilometers) of electrical wire; and put them all together to form an airplane.

The fuselage, or body of the airplane, is produced at a Boeing plant in Wichita, Kan., in the American Midwest. At that facility, employees attach the nose section of the airplane's fuselage to the center and tail sections. When the fuselage is complete, it is strapped aboard a railroad car for a 2,175-mile (3,500-kilometer) train ride across the United States.

When the train arrives at the Renton factory, the fuselage is transferred to a large cart and wheeled to the final assembly building, where it spends about 13 days.

During the first stage of final assembly, factory workers focus on the interior. In the same way carpenters might finish the inside of a house, they install insulation material along the inside walls of the fuselage, then add wiring and plumbing.

When the fuselage is ready to move to the next stage of production, an overhead crane located 89 feet (27 meters) above the floor lifts it high into the air and gently places it down into its next position. Here, precision tools are used to install the landing gear and the two wings, making the structure look like a real airplane. At this point, the 737 can roll along the factory floor and take its position in the moving production line.
Boeing: A World of Service for the Boeing 737

While the 787 has had many production delays the 57 day strike did not help much as well as an issue of fastners that they are now dealing with has pushed back delivery even further, the final assembly of this aircraft in S.C. will be no indication of it's quality. In fact a lot of Boeing military and commercial aviation is preduced by non-union labor as well as aerospace and military hardware and done so in a professional manner. The mere fact that these individuals are part of a Union is no indication of the quality of the aircraft of it's future quality.

 

[rhodescholar]

Kroeger now owns Fred Meyer. They have started a program of firing their most senior employees here in Oregon for even the smallest infraction. I think it is time for all the unions in our nation to start to use their muscle in cases like this.

And Circuit City did the same thing, just fired outright its most experienced floor workers, turning a store that people went to for good electronics advice into Walmart.

And then the store went bankrupt.

BUT - there is no law that says a poorly managed store cannot drive itself into the ground.

Just as there is nothing to stop the experienced workers from going elsewhere, or better yet, starting their own electronics store, or food store, or whatever.

A fluid economy with less governmental regulations allows people who are willing to work hard and apply their talents to doing so. No one owes a worker anything, outside of the salary agreed upon.

 

[rhodescholar]

And I believe any Corperation that pays any of it's officers more than ten times what a skilled employee makes should be immediatly dissolved.

And why is that? Is the company preventing said workers from looking for a higher-paying job somewhere else?

 

[Diuretic]

And I believe any Corperation that pays any of it's officers more than ten times what a skilled employee makes should be immediatly dissolved.

And why is that? Is the company preventing said workers from looking for a higher-paying job somewhere else?

That doesn't follow.

 

[rhodescholar]

And I believe any Corperation that pays any of it's officers more than ten times what a skilled employee makes should be immediatly dissolved.

And why is that? Is the company preventing said workers from looking for a higher-paying job somewhere else?

That doesn't follow.

Yes it does, if the workers are unhappy that the managers are paying themselves too much, and them too little - they are free to leave and find a company with a more equitable salary structure - or can start their own firm as a competitor.

 

[Diuretic]

And why is that? Is the company preventing said workers from looking for a higher-paying job somewhere else?

That doesn't follow.

Yes it does, if the workers are unhappy that the managers are paying themselves too much, and them too little - they are free to leave and find a company with a more equitable salary structure - or can start their own firm as a competitor.

But OR's point, I think, was about excessive salaries for CEOs. If you instituted OR's proposition then its effect would be to ensure all companies were not paying excessive amounts to CEOs and other officers and that there would be, across the board (sorry, bad pun) a maximum ratio of 1:10 as regards the wages paid to the highest level skilled worker and the CEO and other senior people. It really had nothing to do with workers' wage claims, it was a proposition that said that the situation where CEOs and senior people earn perhaps a hundred times more than the most skilled worker in a company should stop and that a ratio of 1:10 should be imposed. I think that probably goes more to the ever-suffering shareholder than it does to the workers.

If OR's proposition was instituted then the workers would have nowhere to go because the max a corporation would be able to pay the CEOs and senior people would be 1:10 ratio on the highest paid skilled worker/CEO etc for all corporations.

That's what I meant by “it doesn't follow.”

 

[Navy1960]

If a company is doing well then the person that runs the companies slaries should reflect that, and likewise if the company is doing poorly then for some of these executives to take the salaries they do is less than honorable especially when they are laying off workers be they Union or non-Union. I fail to understand how a man can look at himself in the mirror knowing that he has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of families and then turn around and accept millions in compensation as justification for saving the company money. Let me say this, companies fail as a result of many factors, in the end though a company does not fail simply because it's workers compensation package is too high, if it is too high or the benefits are not in line with competetion then those that allowed it to happen should share some of the blame. More often than not, the people that do the jobs, make the aircraft, the cars, whatever just want a better life and to support their familes. The people that sit on BOTH sides of that bargining table often times are making millions in compensation and speaking of real people as if they were numbers on a spreadsheet somwhere. It takes a real leader, someone who is willing to accept the blame when things go wrong, and lead people down the right path in order for a company to be successful and that is WHAt is lacking on both sides of this issue..... When talking about labor issues I'm always reminded of this...

The Japanese public's confidence in Japan Airlines took a dramatic downturn in the wake of the disaster, with passenger numbers on domestic routes dropping by one-third. Rumours persisted that Boeing had admitted fault to cover up shortcomings in the airline's inspection procedures and thus protect the reputation of a major customer.[4] In the months after the crash, domestic traffic decreased by as much as 25%. In 1986, for the first time in a decade, fewer passengers boarded JAL's overseas flights during New Years than the previous year. Some of them considered switching to All Nippon Airways as a safer alternative.[13]

Without admitting liability, JAL paid 780 million yen (6.4 million Euros or ca. 12,600 Euros per victim) to the victims' relatives in the form of "condolence money". Its president, Yasumoto Takagi, resigned, while a maintenance manager working for the company at Haneda committed suicide to "apologize" for the accident.[4]
Japan Airlines Flight 123 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The president of the company resigned , there are many stories of this, but from what I understand he also issued a personal apology to each of the familes. Having said all this, if a company is riding the wave of success then the person or persons that lead it there, should reap the benefits of that. When they are not, then those in charge should be compensated to reflect the situation.