UAW Faces Facts In VW Loss - Their Reputation Simply Sucks

UAW was doomed LONG ago, as soon as some thug there got the bright idea the organization needed to beef up and start manipulating the American democratic process.

The original idea behind a union was to uphold employee safety.

Look how far unions have strayed. Tens of millions in spurious campaign donations... Mandatory membership... STRIKES over a dollar an hour in PAY?

UAW is not the American way. They are WAY beyond worker safety. Nobody can explain why they behave the way they do, bullying people and manipulating elections. They are an enigma now. People don't like enigmas.

Actually, history shows us that North American workers had it pretty hard 100 years ago. A ditch digger who took a second to hike up his pants could get fired by the overseer for not doing his job, digging the ditch (a true story, BTW). Workers also often got meagre wages, just barely enough to buy food and clothing, and to pay the rent. Unions were originally created to prevent arbitrary power abuses under the hard hand of workers’ employers, and to give laborers income that was better than starvation wages.

Those days are long gone. There are all sorts of workers’ rights laws to protect employees, including workplace safety. Minimum wage laws allow today’s lowest paid workers to make a better living than the common laborer from 100 years ago.

Unions have morphed from an organization whose purpose is to fight for basic workers’ human rights and being able to do better than starvation wages, to a grand sense of self-serving entitlement, at any cost. The union mindset is:
... “you owe me a job”
... “you can’t fire me because I showed up”
... “it’s your obligation to take care of me, and provide for my comforts and lifelong security”
... “you’re obligated to keep me employed. You can’t replace we with someone better.”

It’s pure, unrealistic, self-serving entitlement.

UAW - Overpaid dinosaurs who only car about themselves, while building crappy cars.

The Industrial Revolution brought about new work concepts when the nation went from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Factories sprung up and there were no rules on how to manage employees or how they should be treated. At one time everyone had to show up first thing in the morning and someone would pick, ok you work today and so on, you didn't have full time employment you had job that day. Companies realized they needed folks that could bring the skills and took better care of them. Clearly there were issues, such as in the steel industry. However Ford Motor Company, unilaterally raised the wages of thousands of production workers to $5 per nine-hour day, from about $2.38. He more than doubled their wage, why, because he was a greedy capitalist pig..? No, he needed good quality, reliable, happy employees. Unions were probably a threat that perhaps moved "some" companies to adopt better work rules. However in today's global economy its all about economics and strategic advantages. Unions serve absolutely zero purpose except to drive a wedge between employer and employee. You bust your butt, you're going to be rewarded, you bring value, you bring a strategic advantage, you're going to get rewarded. It makes sense for companies to promote, provide benefits and do whats needed to retain quality people. Employees in unions have no incentives to get better at anything and thus stunt the intelligence of the people they say they're looking out for. One candidate I interviewed runs global mfg for a company and she refers to getting greater productivity in her plants by, "harnessing the productive power of the folks on the shop floor". The union blocks that, which weakens companies, it weakens the source of the employees livelihood... there is nothing good that comes from that. That is the legacy of unions, not what they might have done 100 years ago.

Wonder why they work so well in Germany & Japan? Still trying to get their workforce up from starvation wages? In any case we should not stand in the way of the giant push globally to reduce wages and unions might hinder that. Better to support our massive CEO pay that makes most in the rest of the world look like paupers pay. If the workers on the lines got some of that they would just run out and spend it... Which as anyone knows is not good....

valhallakey: Respectfully (and I'm not kidding),I have just two questions:
(1) Are the auto unions in Germany and Japan actually working well?
(2) What is the criteria for determining that, and what's the proof?

If they contribute to the success of the company, rather than the company being successful in spite of them, I think that would be great to know, and then to determine what's different there and here.

So VW workers rejected the UAW and VW is going to force the union on them? #IDIOCY

No the workers rejected the UAW. They would still like some sort of Workers Counsel, same as all other VW plants have. It's just US labor laws require the workers to have some sort of union representation for that to happen. Of course, it doesn't have to be the UAW. The UAW would just like you to believe that it had to be them.

I've been a member of a union twice. Both times the union screwed me over, not the company. Of course, in retrospect getting laid off from Boeing was the best thing that could have happened to me. Otherwise I would have never applied to be an Air Traffic Controller, and I absolutely love my job.

valhallakey - CEO's are paid by their Boards, who are elected by shareholders (owners & investors) in the companies. If CEO's stink, they're usually fired by the Board... can a UAW rat on a line run a multi-billion dollar company? Can you? All this "anti-CEO" and "anti-rich people" talk is just immature idiots who are jealous their lives stink because of all their bad decisions. Running a company is insanely complex and running it successfully takes VERY smart people especially in a globally competitive world. Idiots in Hollywood are paid tons more than CEO's for pretending yet no one gives them a hard time because they're pathetic liberals. That goes for Govt employees too, most of which couldn't make in the real world so they go into Govt. You think the Clinton's would be worth $150M by working for it? Talk about corruption....

You gotta love atc98092 - he took control of his own life and took the initiative to improve his life for himself and his family. All UAW members need to do what he did, make take responsibility for your own career and life. The UAW doesn't care about you anyhow, its the dues, and the power it buys from Democraps. atc98092 - You're an inspiration, YOU are what makes this country greater, well done and great comments.

This anti-union claptrap is too much sometimes. Workers should not always be subject to the whims of sometimes arbitrary and sometimes capricious management types they may not want to or have to kiss up to. And just cuz you suck up, if you do, does not mean you should be given preferential treatment or raises either. Human beings should not have to do these things and beg for scraps their "masters" deign to share with them. Actually, maybe it's good to have a few rules and regs to prevent gross unfairness on occasion from either management or labor. Unions may not have always created the best strategy for their members, but let's remember that, on the whole, unions have been a good force in America's economy. Of course there have been abuses, but certainly no more than employers have imposed on workers on occasion. Unless of course you believe employers have never cheated or done wrong, cannot now do wrong, and never could or would. And that workers should have no redress when used, abused and/or double crossed. Without unions, we might be all working for minimum wage. Further, unions are one of the last organizations able to stand up to those who are attempting to buy Congress and everything else worth owning in America. So you know what you can do with your anti-worker and anti-union lies. (All income gains to the top earners! Right.) Like an earlier poster suggested, the CEOs don't deserve all the fruits of everyone else's labor without being a fair employer. That's pretty much all that most workers want. And it's not too much to ask either.