UAW not leaving Chattanooga and may contest the vote.

[bersaguy]

I grew up in the North were the Unions thrived back in the 50's and 60's. The UAW, The USS Worker unions, The Teamsters, The Dock Workers and so on and so forth. When the EPA was created and they set upon their first target the Auto Industry why didn't the unions step up and say Whoa, Hold on just a second and lets rethink your plans here. Instead they sat back and did nothing except continue to collect their Union Dues. When the EPA turned their attention to the Steel mills after destroying the auto maker companies that began putting demands on the Steel Mills that they knew would be impossible goals and the almighty Iron and Steel Workers unions stood stood idly by and never say whoa wait just a minute and lest look at these so called new rules and regulations and see if we can't work something out. Nope they sat there on their hands with their mouths shut and did exactly nothing to help all those Iron and Steel workers save their jobs. The Teamsters Union is another joke that did nothing to help their members when things began to go down the tubes. But they still expected to collect their union dues just like the UAW did and the Steel Workers unions did right up to the bitter end when the jobs were going to China. I guess people have given up looking for Jimmy Hoffa Sr. by now but Jr. is walking right in his foot steps. There was videos back last year during that Teachers Strike in Wisconsin when they recalled the newly elected Governor for a new vote when he had to make some tough decisions about the over whelming money the state was paying to their teachers and it was because of the Teachers union demands and he refused to meet the demands and raise taxes and in the videos it showed thugs beating people and knocking people down and kicking them because they were against the union demands.  The union got their recall vote and the Governor elect got re-elected by even a larger margin than he did in the first election. The Union didn't get the demands and the teachers went back to work with a cut in benefits the union was demanding.  Someone mentioned in an earlier post that people have smartened up to Unions. Yes they have and the days of the Strong Arm Threatening Union organizers are pretty much over. I think a great many people saw that last year in Wisconsin....................jmho

[Hershmeister]

VW "supported" workers councils like they have in Germany. But make no mistake - the german unions are quite powerful, and i am sure that it was just smart politics for VW to not try and stick their middle finger out to unions here in the USA. Unions are beginning to form global alliances as a method to combat global labor competition. Workers of the world unite - indeed

[cardia10]

The German works council's are very strong but don't try to strong arm the companies that employ their people. The works council still focuses on priorities of US unions from years ago. I got a good lesson from a union worker when I was 18. Had a huge box to lift for the workers of a company. Everyone was at lunch except 1 guy. Claimed he couldn't help me because he was in a union. What a joke. US unions have become nothing but a support system for laziness and in the southeast US, laziness is frowned upon by most of us. There are still a few that receives their monthly paycheck in the mailbox and wouldn't lift a finger to work, but the unions can keep their ideas of how to run a company in the north. They sure have done wonders for Detroit. If not for every US taxpayer's contribution, the "US" automakers would be bankrupt today.

[leroy]

Bingo!!!

 

Hersh hit the nail square on the head from the VW perspective right here... It's window dressing (...to some extent, i think...) and giving lip service to a "genuine try" to help the union cause --- the german model, that is....

 

VW "supported" workers councils like they have in Germany. But make no mistake - the german unions are quite powerful, and i am sure that it was just smart politics for VW to not try and stick their middle finger out to unions here in the USA. Unions are beginning to form global alliances as a method to combat global labor competition. Workers of the world unite - indeed

 

Excellent observation!!! Keep up the good work....

 

leroy

[Rightwinger]

Unions.... :down:

[Guest TresOsos]

So Haslam came down on the side of the corporate interests that bought and paid for him. Just curious, how is that any different than the Democrats coming down on the side of the unions that have bought and paid for them? The only positive thing I can say about Haslam is that as a politician he at least appears to stay bought.

Excuse me Haslam did not need any corporate interest to buy him the election for Governor.

He bought and paid for that with his own money.

[Guest TresOsos]

These aren't Yankee's, they're the mafia.  Plenty of Yankee's who don't like the Unions either.

Guess I'll have to fix that....sore *ssed Yankee Mafia Carpet Baggers.

 

Oh and Unions weren't a southern invention, besides the word Union is offensive to southerners, as in the Union and Union troops.

[Hozzie]

[quote name="TresOsos" post="1112758" timestamp="1392693281"]Guess I'll have to fix that....sore *ssed Yankee Mafia Carpet Baggers. Oh and Unions weren't a southern invention, besides the word Union is offensive to southerners, as in the Union and Union troops.[/quote] If your offended by the term Union because of something neither you nor I were a part of, I don't need to say anything else. It's pretty well summed up in the North/South thread and I'm not interested in debating such mundane things. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RobertNashville]

I, for one, am immensely glad that we don't have a Confederate Stats of America today but if by some chance the CSA has won the war and we did have two countries where there used to be one I've not doubt that both would be just as screwed up as the current USA is.

[Chucktshoes]

[quote name="RobertNashville" post="1112946" timestamp="1392742635"]I, for one, am immensely glad that we don't have a Confederate Stats of America today but if by some chance the CSA has won the war and we did have two countries where there used to be one I've not doubt that both would be just as screwed up as the current USA is.[/quote] I'd agree with that assessment. As long as people believe they have a legitimate right to use violence and coercion to rule others, we will have a screwed up state of affairs. When folks are allowed to voluntarily choose their associations, only them will things begin to not be so fucked up.

[Guest TresOsos]

If your offended by the term Union because of something neither you nor I were a part of, I don't need to say anything else. It's pretty well summed up in the North/South thread and I'm not interested in debating such mundane things. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It was a little tongue in cheek humor..........sorry if you didn't get it.

[bersaguy]

Back when I was just a kid I worked for a company after high school each day for a full shift and it was a family owned company. Right after I went to work there I learned there was a steel workers Union trying to get their foot in the door. They had been trying for about two years and had not made it yet. I had a guy that worked there ask my how I felt about the plant going union and I said I think it would suck and he walked away. When I got out of school I kept the job and I saw the man that owned that company help out a lot of people that fell on hard times. sickness, deaths in a family, even if the guys kids just needed shoes and clothes to begin school with he made sure they had the money. Every 4th of July he would pay to have an amusement Park come and set up for the entire weekend and it was all free. Even the food. Every Thanks giving every employee got a huge basket of food and a Turkey. At Christmas every employee got another basket full of food and a ham was in the basket. I mean this guy didn't have 10 or 15 employees. They ran 2 shifts and each shift has about 200 people working or more on it. Everyone got a 1 week paid vacation the first year and after 5 years you got 2 weeks paid. Paid time and a half for overtime. I mean the guy ran a great company. I was getting ready to enter the military so I had left the job but he told me when I returned I would have a job. Well I had made a few friends while there and we wrote back and forth and I learned that about a year later after I left all at once there was a walk out and people wanted to vote in a Union. And they did and that was in May of 1968 and the employees got a 2 year contract with the union and an across the board 80 cents an hour raise. And Union Dues which consumed about all of that 80 Cents raise they got which quite a few there was husbands and wives both working there paying double dues. The owner didn't say one word about them and their union. Even gave the guy from the union an office all of his own. About a week later a guy got hurt while at home and couldn't come to work and had a large family. When he was able to get up and out with the cast on his leg he came to the owner and asked him about a loan. All the owner did was tell the man to go ask your union man for a loan and pointed to his office. Needless to say the man didn't get no loan. Come 4th of July they didn't get an amusement park all free either which had been going on for about 20 years. Thanks giving came and went along with Christmas and there was no food baskets. You see unions don't give those or loans or amusement parks. All they do is collective bargaining for your contracts on raises and benefits and take money from you for dues. During the first year of the contract the owner because turning a lot of jobs into automated positions and began putting in robotic lines to do the work the humans were doing and the robots didn't have a union so he could work them 24/7 with out paying overtime. By the time the 2 year contract was up the plant was about 70% automated. Union guys office was empty. He had moved on about 5 months earlier. When the contract was up the union was gone but they got paid right up until the last day of that contract and dues were taken out for exactly 24 months but the Union was gone because the number of employees had dropped to make it not profitable for them to be their. The union could not force him to keep people employed when that persons position was taken by a robot. Once the plant went almost completely robotic the Owner and his family sold it, moved out west where they had another plant operated by people. Never heard any more about them after that but I did learn a lot about Unions and I wasn't even there. Got a lot of letters keeping me updated..................................jmho

[bersaguy]

Back when I was just a kid I worked for a company after high school each day for a full shift and it was a family owned company. Right after I went to work there I learned there was a steel workers Union trying to get their foot in the door. They had been trying for about two years and had not made it yet. I had a guy that worked there ask my how I felt about the plant going union and I said I think it would suck and he walked away. When I got out of school I kept the job and I saw the man that owned that company help out a lot of people that fell on hard times. sickness, deaths in a family, even if the guys kids just needed shoes and clothes to begin school with he made sure they had the money. Every 4th of July he would pay to have an amusement Park come and set up for the entire weekend and it was all free. Even the food. Every Thanks giving every employee got a huge basket of food and a Turkey. At Christmas every employee got another basket full of food and a ham was in the basket. I mean this guy didn't have 10 or 15 employees. They ran 2 shifts and each shift has about 200 people working or more on it. Everyone got a 1 week paid vacation the first year and after 5 years you got 2 weeks paid. Paid time and a half for overtime. I mean the guy ran a great company. I was getting ready to enter the military so I had left the job but he told me when I returned I would have a job. Well I had made a few friends while there and we wrote back and forth and I learned that about a year later after I left all at once there was a walk out and people wanted to vote in a Union. And they did and that was in May of 1968 and the employees got a 2 year contract with the union and an across the board 80 cents an hour raise. And Union Dues which consumed about all of that 80 Cents raise they got which quite a few there was husbands and wives both working there paying double dues. The owner didn't say one word about them and their union. Even gave the guy from the union an office all of his own. About a week later a guy got hurt while at home and couldn't come to work and had a large family. When he was able to get up and out with the cast on his leg he came to the owner and asked him about a loan. All the owner did was tell the man to go ask your union man for a loan and pointed to his office. Needless to say the man didn't get no loan. Come 4th of July they didn't get an amusement park all free either which had been going on for about 20 years. Thanks giving came and went along with Christmas and there was no food baskets. You see unions don't give those or loans or amusement parks. All they do is collective bargaining for your contracts on raises and benefits and take money from you for dues. During the first year of the contract the owner because turning a lot of jobs into automated positions and began putting in robotic lines to do the work the humans were doing and the robots didn't have a union so he could work them 24/7 with out paying overtime. By the time the 2 year contract was up the plant was about 70% automated. Union guys office was empty. He had moved on about 5 months earlier. When the contract was up the union was gone but they got paid right up until the last day of that contract and dues were taken out for exactly 24 months but the Union was gone because the number of employees had dropped to make it not profitable for them to be their. The union could not force him to keep people employed when that persons position was taken by a robot. Once the plant went almost completely robotic the Owner and his family sold it, moved out west where they had another plant operated by people. Never heard any more about them after that but I did learn a lot about Unions and I wasn't even there. Got a lot of letters keeping me updated..................................jmho

 

UPDATE:::  After they went out West to the plant there it never went union and never were automated and robots never replaced humans. Mr. L said it was hard for him to do what he did in Tennessee but he allowed the people to make a choice and he didn't question their decision but did question their motives because he gave them an across the board raise each year and benefits he could afford to give. The only thing he didn't give was Health Insurance and he thought that was strange that the Union never requested it either. I spoke with a guy last night that not only was one of the last ones to leave his employ here but Mr. L moved him and his family out west and he worked for him in the plant out there till his retirement and then he and his family moved back home to their roots in Tennessee. Mr. L       Passed away in 2003 and his son took over and from all indications nothing changed in company operation until 2008 when it went automated and robotic and as it did when a person lost their position they got a large severance check to help them get by until the could find work or retire and the company that bought the Tennessee location also bought the one out west. I guess you could say happy ending for all. I know  this for a fact. Mr. L  was a great man and a great person to work for and a very caring individual right up till the day he passed. He bought me my first pair of steel toed shoes back when I was 17......... :up: :up: