14 responses so far ↓

• 1 Chuck // Jun 9, 2009 at 4:30 pm

  I guess that Jerry not have any new plans of where to relocate these people in new jobs and industries is going to hurt a lot. Looks like Ford is on a roll as well. So much for those sales stats they announced

• 2 DB // Jun 9, 2009 at 4:40 pm

  The UAW at work again I see. Good job guys.

• 3 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Jun 9, 2009 at 7:09 pm

  DB, last time I checked, labor didn’t make all the poor management and engineering decisions that has led to problems at Ford and other automakers.

• 4 DB // Jun 9, 2009 at 9:49 pm

  Steve, Ford managment shares a large amount of the blame. However, the UAW is bullying the hell out of these automakers like Ford and GM.

  It’s amazing that Toyota is making good profits, while the three automakers with UAW representation are struggling.

• 5 Ed Springston // Jun 9, 2009 at 10:27 pm

  DB you may want to check your facts. Perhaps you should veiw this article:

  EDIT: LINK REMOVED, POSTED WITHOUT PERMISSION

  Toyota is not all sunshine and roses financially either. And for the record the decisions are made by management period. he UAW has bent over backwards making concession after concession over the last 3 years trying to help the automakers succeed. Going out of business helps no one.

  labor knows that. Management got greedy. It really is that simple.

• 6 Mark H // Jun 10, 2009 at 8:01 am

  It’s always the management’s fault and the Union was an innocent victim… Come on Ed, yes the decisions are made by management, but to act as though the Union had no influence on those decisions is frankly, dishonest.

  They are both to blame for wanting financial gain at the loss of company viability. Management wanted higher bonuses and earnings by riding the SUV and truck bandwagon until it crashed, and the Union forced higher wages and benefit packages than their jobs could support in an open market.

  Union workers playing the martyr-card about taking wage and benefit cuts is about as sympathetic as an executive playing the same card for having to give up a company-supplied vehicle and stock options. It’s amazing how the “greedy” label only applies to management, and never to labor.

• 7 Carter Burger // Jun 10, 2009 at 8:14 am

  While you can spread the blame around to both management and labor, I think we are also forgetting a key aspect to this. Just as in the housing market, we had people getting loans they had no business getting. People buying way too much car than they could afford. The financial market has shrunk and people are not buying new cars as much. This is what happens when your economy (such as ours) is built on debt.

• 8 Mark H // Jun 10, 2009 at 9:31 am

  I agree Carter, the problem is far more complex than just labor and management. I get frustrated when one party pints the finger and blames the other when they are both responsible.

  You can add in there unrealistic expectations from individual and institutional shareholders that pushed management to make short-sided business decisions, at the expense of the long-term viability of the company.

• 9 Ted // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:15 am

  Mark sounds like the type of guy that pays his slaves err employees as little as possible to make sure to increase his bottom line. Unions and the working people are what make this country what it is because of people willing to bust their hump. Meanwhile the consumer class now gets their goods from Red China but what happens when the Communist Chinese government starts turning off the tap. No one wants to recognize that. So just remember to enjoy your slave wage products from overseas and when you complain about losing your rights and your home and everything else, just tell mark that you’ll work for eight bucks an hour that doesn’t even pay the rent or much of anything else.

  Try to get some perspective instead of following the brown shirts that call themselves Americans meanwhile working their compatriots for minimum wages at increasingly crappy jobs. George Carlin did have it right in his piece Who Owns You?

• 10 Mark H // Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55 am

  You can drop the slave labor crap Ted.

  For the record, I have 9 employees whose salaries range from $30K for office assistant to $73-$85K for my engineers. Plus, I pay 100% of their full coverage health insurance with Humana.

  You can always recognize a Union brain-washed employee when they refer to the someone and a “shirt” or a “suit.” If it wasn’t for me starting my business, none of these jobs and the taxes would exist.

  Also I put in 70-80 hours, seven days a week, so I am just as much a working American as someone on an assembly line. So don’t give me this bleeding heart populist working man crap and accuse me of being a slave driver.

  Go ahead and drink the union cool-aid and put your trust in what they tell you. History and the open market is not on your side as to the eventual outcome.

• 11 Sirico // Jun 10, 2009 at 2:40 pm

  Ted, BINGO!!! I couldn’t have said it better.

• 12 Sirico // Jun 10, 2009 at 2:44 pm

  Mark H said: “Also I put in 70-80 hours, seven days a week, so I am just as much a working American as someone on an assembly line”.

  -There is a HUGE difference between an assembly line worker that sacrifices his health 70-80 hrs/week, and a manager that sits behind his desk pushing a pen. It is amazing what some people’s definition of “work” is.

  Mark H said: “If it wasn’t for me starting my business, none of these jobs and the taxes would exist”.

  -You just don’t get it (or maybe you do). More and more businesses go to China so THEY DON’T HAVE TO PAY OUR WAGES AND TAXES! Then you guys have the gall to blame the Unions (for this mess) for NOT negotiating better deals with management. Sheesh!

  Mark H. said: “Plus, I pay 100% of their full coverage health insurance with Humana”.

  -Congratulations, you are one of the few bussinesses that do the right thing for their workers. However, it should be noted that a number of workers need their health insurance due to injuries at the workplace.

• 13 Ted // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:37 am

  Marky,

  You’re in a little bit different type of business than most around here. You’re the type of guy that has to pay his engineers a decent wage or they will be out of the state getting a job elsewhere or another job in this city. I would suspect those engineers would have to leave this city as I know one personally who has been looking for work for about 8 months now. Being a civil engineer and eight months without work is quite a lot.

  Notably, you’re actually giving your employees a great thing with the insurance. It must be noted though that prior to this last 15 years or so that 90 percent of the people working in this country were covered under a health plan.

  Now let’s contrast that with the vast amount of people here in Louisville that work for private employers in the service industry realm and get no health insurance. Don’t tell me that they can afford to pay that on service wages. You corporatists never talk about that. Just like THE average Wal Mart worker having to sign up for government benefits on their just above minimum wage job. Or how about the fact that a solid percentage of working homeless have full time jobs in Louisville making 8 or 9 bucks an hour. Marky, could you live on 8 or 9 bucks an hour.

  Interestingly, your type likes to blame the Union for the mess with the automakers when it was your type of incompetent management that ran those automakers in the ground. The Union only has so much power and ultimately if that power is confronted it will have to bargain. Guys like these robber barons want millions in their pockets while the average worker takes home just enough to keep from being homeless in at least most places.

  So Mark, tell us all how we should accept less and less because some greedy bastard wants it all and needs a few slaves to do the work. Kind of like the temp agencies around town and the cockroaches at many of these companies.

  As a business student and college graduate I used to see your view, but the more I’ve dealt with real world people, I cannot support the business community being able to do whatever it wants at the expense of everyone.

  The ultimate downfall of this nation won’t be caused by unions but by corporate greed and mismanagement. After all, look at the finance and banking sectors for starters. Lets look at the corporations and businesses that left our shores for Mexico and China and Vietnam to pursue cheap labor, no regulations, no labor laws, massive pollution, and every other human rights violation.

  So tell us how great that is and how it works for America and the average American not just your ivory tower types that have never physically worked a day in your lives. Its a lot different on an assembly line versus working in an office and all the pretty boys need a taste of that medicine.

• 14 Ted // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:40 am

  P.S. I worked at a union job once in this city at 13 or 14 bucks an hour for most of the workers, I can assure you that the union didn’t overstep their bounds and it wasn’t this big pay that your type like to complain about especially when it was like the autoworkers. Not even close on pay or bennies. So you’re just like most of the rest of the office boys in this city that sell your soul to the devil just to make sure you can work your fellow man to the bone.

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