Backed Into A Corner: UAW Forced to Conceed

its about time the UAW takes responsibility for the problems it has caused. The Big Three should drop Union labor completely.

As much as they would like, the UAW would not disband.

The only hope for that to happen would be if the UAW were to be depleted of cash and go bankrupt.

Right now the members are forcing the UAW to foot the bill the automakers could not. Basically what goes around comes around.

In order for American automobiles to re-obtain any type of respect, the UAW needs to disband. There is not if's and/or butt's about it.

Unfortunately the American worker population is lazy, and all the Union does is protect them. They need to be exposed to the fact that if they do not perform, their job will not exist the next morning.

Down the UAW!

I don't think the workers are lazy by any means.

However there is a point in time where you can't command premium wages for mundane work.

Think of it $40+ an hour to screw in 4 bolts on a seat?

The fact is some third world overseas plant will pay $40 a week for that.

So if the American work force is lazy, then does that mean the rest of the world is even lazier?

America leads all nations in worker productivity. Lower productivity=less work being done per person=lazier.

The Big Three should drop Union labor completely.

If You would work in the automobile industry, you wouldn´t write rubbish like that!
And unions are very,very important!

When did we become a country that valued the corporation over the worker as much as you all seem to do? I spent four+ years in college to earn less than $20 an hour. But I dont begrudge someone organizing with his peers to force a huge money making behemoth to fork over some of the profits earned off the sweat of their labor. Now the behemoths have put out crappy product for 30 years and are close to bankruptcy, and it must be the workers fault. Of course labor will bear the brunt of cutbacks to pensions, layoffs, and wage cuts while Mullaly, Lutz et al sit back in their Grosse Pointe mansions and watch their stocks rise.

Unions kept this country from turning communist, and they created a middle class and a consumer culture that allowed big business to thrive. And when business faltered, they inevitably have given back some of their power and largesse, so that CEOs did not have to give up anything. The UAW will make more concessions (again), will suffer more job losses (again) and the corporations will win out (again). Will you all be happy then?

1970toyotamarc
Well said

Hate to break it to you but unions ARE communist. All communist economies work exactly like unions do, i.e. they "care for the worker" and do not care about his/her performance whatsoever.

You said: When did we become a country that valued the corporation over the worker as much as you all seem to do?

The corporation IS the worker, a business is nothing without its workers and vice-versa. Businesses are nothing but entities front-ending real people. And the profits those businesses make belong to real people called investors (most employees are investors as well). The Big Three are owned primarily by the likes of you and I through our retirement and investment accounts and, guess what, we like performance and if those executives just sat around in their nice offices, they wouldn't sit there too long. It's a self-healing system where the better one wins and we all prosper because of that.
If you don't believe that to be true, go try to live elsewhere where the economy is more regulated and less free than in the USA and see how much money you can make.

And a final comment: The auto industry doesn't go away. While The Big Three are collapsing, Toyota is growing and they are adding workers as the other ones are losing them ... and according to some report published on this site recently, they pay better too.
It's all creative destruction and it's the only thing that promotes prosperity.

Stop lamenting and go get a job that pays more than $20/hr, there are a lot of them out there. You just need to be better than the next guy and with enough effort and a bit of brain, you can do it.

Cheers!

Before you went to college, did you actually ponder what fields to go into in order to make money? My guess is no.

Exactly - just because you're college edumacated doesn't mean you're instantly going to make big bucks. You need to be in a field that needs your skills and you need to work hard to find a company that's a match. Boo hoo.