UAW prepares strike vote during contract talks with GM

[truckofwinandawesome]

The union guys also get more holidays paid than most other workers in the U.S., and certainly more than any business owner. I used to haul to auto assembly plants. These guys do goofy stuff. For instance, depending on dock, they are required to unload X number of trucks per hour. Once they reach the minimum, they shut the forklift down, grab a newspaper, and sit on the forklift just passing time till the next hour. I have seen this myriads of times at assembly plant docks. Doesn't matter that the driver of the truck needs to get unloaded so they can move onto the next load or go home.

 

I have no problem with a trade union like electrical workers, plumbers and pipe fitters, etc. They also demand certain levels of training to stay up to date on new techniques and products, and have certifications of proficiency. But labor unions are primarily focused on how to get more for doing less. To be fair, most guys on the line do a lot of work and deserve fair compensation for what they do. But there is a lot of folks under the UAW umbrella that need to be culled from the herd.

 

I DO have a few choice words about the Sheet Metal Workers union, that I won't repeat here, but I WILL say they tried to cheat my dad out of the Pension he worked 30 YEARS to earn.

[Chevor]

The biggest threat to the American worker is other American workers. This thread proves this.

[kstruckcountry]

A good worker is a threat to bad workers.

[anthony2558]

go to work, do your job, go home, and be happy. stop wishing to have what others have. live with in your means. The new American dream is "Keeping up with the Joneses".

 

but if this is about there pensions.... well, fight all day. I hope this bailed out company flops. Pontiac is gone and noone seems to care, nor has the economy suffered.

[WilliamBos]

This is the reason why my truck was built in Mexico. We can blame the job losses on the UAW/CAW.

[dbannerz71]

The UAW are payed Hourly by GM. GM has the power to lay off its workers when there is no demand.

They are line workers and maintance personal.

 

The ones making the decisions brought down GM, not the low level employees.

 

A lot of ignorance here.

I'm engineer and I don't work for GM and I guarantee you the same so called low level employees and line workers are making more per hour than I do. And they didn't have to get a college degree or anything else for it simply because they are in the Union. I call bull on your statement. They have no goals objectives due dates requirements that have to be done even after they leave work. They have the gravy jobs in this country.

[Chevor]

Then why aren't you working on the line?

 

Because all engineers do today is cut and paste.

[14Silverado14]

To all of you that bash unions: You probably have never belonged to a union so you don't understand them.All you hear is high wages and nothing else. You are probably lazy bums that a union wouldn't approve of anyways.

These large corporations are taking more than their share in wages,bonuses,stock options etc. While leaving the people that actually do the work with a bare minimum pay check and piss poor benefits.

A union assures it's members of an acceptable piece of the pie for their blood, sweat and tears on the floor while their counterparts sit in an air conditioned office in front of a computer screen and earn 4 times the amount the average worker does.

All the union would ask for is a decent middle class living wage.

WOULDN'T YOU WANT THAT ? OR WOULD YOU RATHER LIVE PAYDAY TO PAYDAY SCRAPING TO PAY YOU BILLS ? Meanwhile mgnt gets a $14,000 bonus for just doing their job,....nothing extra

How fair is that ?

Vote UNION !!!

Hold strong UAW!!!I'm with you all the way.

[calgator73]

And this attitude is why robots will replace most blue collar workers

 

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[14Silverado14]

GO UAW !!!! Get your fair share of the pie. UNION forever !!

[MikeNH]

Some posts are borderline attacks on others. We can have a debate but keep it respectful.

[14Silverado14]

Maybe I am. The way America is today who would wanna be proud to be an American. Have you taken a good look at this country lately ? It's pitiful ! And it wasn't union people that brought it down either. It was corporate greed and crooked polititians. Plain and simple.

Corporate greed as in lets make cars in Mexico and over seas and pay the workers a bag of 3 peanuts on Friday. WOW, we'd make a killing and could give our management bigger raises and bonuses !! 15 million a year in compensation isn't enough for us anymore, we want more money !! I don't know about you but if I made 15 million in one year I'd never have to work again. But they want MORE........why ? What the hell are you gonna do with that much money in your lifetime ?

 

The other countries are sitting back laughing at us for letting this country get this bad. Our dollar is almost unrecognizable. Who has the time to get involved in trying to make this country better ? Most people are working 2 jobs trying to raise a family and make ends meet. You can't trust any of the polititians you vote for anymore because they all just turn on their supporters. Wasn't it "Government OF the People, BY the People, FOR the People" ? That was America.........the America that I was proud to live in, not this land of greed it has become that takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich so they can be richer, no sir, this is not America anymore.

If there were more organised labor unions in America people would only need one job and would have time to spend with their families and address their countries problems.

 

When Obama stepped in on GM who did he fire ? Rick Wagoner. It wasn't the contracted union workers it was GM's CEO.

......and btw your president is PRO UNION.

 

So if you don't like what I have to say and I mean YOU then maybe it is you that should GTFO !! (eye for an eye)

Moron

 

and btw I AM not UAW I AM IAM. All union brothers stick together and support one another. More proof you know nothing about unions.

---TOTAL SOLIDARITY---

[iCryWheniGoPoop]

Lol... It's obvious most people have no idea what a union is or why they exist. Are there bad unions, yes... But that doesn't mean unions are bad.

 

After reading some of the post before this, it's those idiots that the unions were designed to protect but in the wild is why many parents eat their offspring.

 

 

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[4x4Hank]

OK, I just don't get the Union bashing. A Union is just a mechanism for workers to have a voice at the workplace. Rather than have to bargain with the boss (who basically has all of the power) individually, a group of employees vote whether to have Union representation at the workplace.

 

I have been a Union Bricklayer/Stonemason for 41 years. A 3rd generation Union Bricklayer/Stonemason. I have made decent enough wages to have a house, put three kids through college while having good health benefits and building a pension that I look forward to collecting soon. The pension won't make me rich but combined with my SS I will retire with dignity, live my remaining years comfortably without having to eat dog food. The only job security in our craft is your ability to make the employer money by being productive. There is not a spot as a Bricklayer, or any construction job that I have seen in my lifetime for that matter, for anyone that is lazy. The Union does not protect lazy workers and not does it encourage holding back. It just doesn't work. You don't produce, you get your check and go down the road. So for the people that say that the Union protects lazy workers it just does not happen in construction.

 

I have noticed a trend of jealousy of Union workers over the past generation or so. When I first got into the trade I had friends that would say "you have a good Union job with good pay and benefits, how do I get one of those jobs?" Now, I hear people say "you have a Union job with good pay and benefits, I don't have that so you shouldn't either. To those people I say grow some balls and start an organizing campaign at your workplace, win an election and bargain a collective bargaining agreement and quit whining about what other people have. Turning an industry like construction or any other industry Union didn't happen out of the goodness of the employers heart. They are in business for one reason and one reason only.....to make money. It can be hard to stand up for yourself all alone but if you are all together and you can provide the employer(s) with a productive trained workforce like none other that he can find in the non-union sector than you can usually come to terms and have a cooperative working relationship.

 

I don't claim to know everything about the auto industry or the UAW but the members pay dues for representation and then they get to vote on the contract. If the terms are not acceptable they have a right to withdraw their services. That's all a strike is, withdrawing your service. People do it all of the time just not in large groups. Anyone at a non-union workplace can go on strike too but they rarely do mostly because they are afraid of the boss.

 

Wages for the working class have been stagnant for the last 30 years (basically since the Reagan years). I did a quick google search and ended up with a few thousand hits on how the middle class is shrinking and the rich keep getting richer. I attached just one:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/

 

Lastly, people seem to dislike the fact that GM and Chrysler got bailed out. Did it even occur to anyone that it may be a matter of national security? When the U.S. was bombed by Japan and we entered WWII it was our ability to mass produce weapons that won the war for us. The auto companies retooled and were manufacturing weapons faster than our enemies could and faster than our enemies could imagine. It was our steel industry and auto manufacturers that helped win that war. If we lost two auto manufacturers to bankruptcy leaving only Ford it sure would leave us vulnerable. Could we depend on Toyota, Nisson and Honda to manufacture our defense weapons? I wouldn't want to count on that! The government bailed out the banking industry. They give subsidies to oil companies. I don't think that it was a bad thing to save two auto manufacturers that helped the U.S. in the 40's in our time of need. They probably saved as many if not more white collar jobs as they did jobs for Union workers.

 

My Silverado was UAW built in Fort Wayne, IN. I have other cars all UAW or CAW built. I won't buy a car that doesn't have a "1" or a "2" for the first number of the VIN. I hope that a strike does not happen with any of the US three but if comes to that and they don't come to terms, I support them.

 

I have found that you get out of the Union (or probably any organization) what you put into it. I always attended Union meetings so I saw first hand how being a Union member helped me and my family.

 

Hank, proud Union member.

[iCryWheniGoPoop]

I like the Anti-American slogan from a certain previous poster. Pull on a Union Job sight and see how many foreign cars are in the parking lot. See how many use foreign made tools or even allow them on the job sight for that matter.

 

One time years ago fresh out of the apprenticeship, I bought a sport bike while booming out to Local 101 Boilermakers Union out of Denver Colorado (Comanche Plant) , and made the mistake of riding it to work to show off how I practically stole it... Well I got harassed for 2 months after that and picked up the nickname Suzi for the rest of the job. 15 years later I'd manage to run into some muphugger on the east coast who would say... "Hey Suzi!"

Harley would have been a much cooler nickname, and to say unions are Anti American is proof you have no time in one.

 

 

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