Moparman wrote: No skills equal low pay. Moderate skills equal better pay and so on. It is not about how hard you work, but how smart you work. If you are doing a job that millions of others can do and 10s, if not 100s of thousands want to do, the pay is going to suck unless a union helps to artificially inflate wages. Supply and demand.
Apply that statement to a world economy and there are millions of moderately or highly skilled Americans who want or will want our government to act as their Union.
I'm not pro-union by any means, but people have a right to organize (I don't even like many of the rules regarding organizing).
There is a race to the bottom, the unskilled worker will suffer. One of the few things they can do is to try to protect themselves. It's worked nicely for the Autoworker, historically, not so much for every worker.
-James
Moparman wrote:
A ditch digger should be paid what the market for ditch diggers will bear, be it $10 per hour or $100 per hour. No one has a divine right to anything. We have rights to:
.
And if no one wants to dig ditches they have to pay the ditch digger more, but someone will bitch that they didn't go to college so they are overpaid. I hear this often. Our drivers get paid about $28/ hour plus benefits. Every person that hears that thinks its rediculous. If it's so much money to just drive a bus why can't we find enough qualified people to do it? Almost every person who I have heard complain could apply for the job, but for what ever reason hasn't. If they are making less money and feel that they are working harder then why not? You would think we'd be beating away qualified people with sticks.
and now GM closed 4 plants that make(drum roll)suvs and large trucks
stumpmj wrote: Couldn't we all just agree that greedy CEO's, inept management, and short-sighted/lazy unions have all contributed to problems at the domestics?
Oh yeah..I'd agree to that.
Dad used to be a shop steward at a large tobacco company here in Va. He quit the job when he started to see the companies side more than the union's side. If it can happen to him it can happen to anyone. He used to be much more pro-union before that happened.
So far as blaming others for misfortune...
I'm not saying one side is more responsible than the other. I am saying that both sides bear the blame for a failing company. Workers and Management, aka CEO's, are in this together. The company lives or dies according to their decisions. To blame the unskilled, and supposedly overpaid, line worker is half the equation. Overpaid and overvalued CEO's bear just as much blame. Maybe a smidge more because they make the key strategic decisions.
My comments about people choosing sides were to try to balance the discussion as I viewed it as being very critical of the average Joe instead of the supposed Genius MBA.
I have much more in common with the Avg Joe so I tend to side with them. 
