A decline for unions?

[Steve]

Recently GM offered to buy out members of the United Auto Workers Union so they can be replaced with lower salaried workers. Is this the end of unions as we know it in the U.S.? How do you feel this will effect your business?

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I personally feel that right now unions are bad for business. They drive up employers prices that they have to pay for unskilled labors. My brother, whom is in plastics down in Detroit does sales for the big 3 auto makers. He has a 4 year college degree, yet these assembly line guys without an education make like $20 to $30 an hour. He has told me countless stories of where he has visited plants, and if you even pick up a piece of trash off the floor people come unglued because that work is supposed to be done by the "union" people.

[Billz]

For employees to hve some representation, and rights are fine, but the modern day unions are driving the price of labor up so high, that I can see why alot of bigger "union" shops are simply closing and moving to mexico, where the standard rate of pay for a week in a factory is 600 pesos... or roughly $60.

[kc2006]

Unions are a good and bad thing. Good because it helps so many people get higher wages, bad because it protects idiots once in awhile that dont show up for work or are just poor employee's but the union has to fight for them.

I personally am for unions. Our country would either have to become solely an educated country with office type jobs or we would end up like other countries and alot of people would end up making hardly any money to work the "low end" jobs with no job security after that.

If unions fail, my business will suffer greatly. We have a gm plant here, if that goes down this whole area will go down. We also still have alot of steel mills and other metal works here that are union. It seems the ones that get away from unions end up going over seas a few years later...that would put this area in shambles.

I dont think the gm thing is the end of unions though. Theres still alot of people that are pro union and I haven't heard of one person out at the local plant that did the buy out yet (they'd be stupid to). I personally think this whole gm situation is BS, every financial advisor on tv so far has said gm will definitely be way up this year. I think the company is crying poor just to move all their jobs over seas because they're greedy. They cry about profit, when my dad worked there they made j-cars (cavaliers), the cost to build one was something like $1300, that included labor, all material, everything down to the penny, the rest was profit...So they can't afford to pay the workers good money for pumping out 400 cars a night, rather get rid of the unions and pay them 10 bucks an hour or get an education.

[Steve]

Does anyone think that GM could file for bankruptcy? I had read they lost over $10 billion dollars last year.

Delphi has filed, what is stopping GM?

I think what is stopping GM is the reputation.

I can see GM though being bought out by Toyota.

[Steve]

What went so wrong with GM?

Why did GM stop development of EV1?



Why is it that Toyota is the leader in hybrid technology with the Prius?



This doesn't sound like it was a union problem as it was a lack of forsight in GM planners.

[maelawncare]

GM has been going down hill for a while, but so had ford and dodge. Just gm has been talkn about it more.

i personaly hate unions, yes they were good when we needed them. but now they are useless for the greater good. we all wind up paying for those higher saleries.

and i have a feeling toyota will buy out gm

oh and if we wanna fix the everything gonig over seas and being shipped here. just raise the tax tariff 200%!!

[Billz]

I certainly would like to see a tariff on items manufactured outside the US...even though it would mean paying more for everything. With no jobs left here all the cheap cars in the world are useless!

[kc2006]

I find it funny you guys are saying toyota will buy gm out when actually gm owns part (a good sized part) of toyota. *Even when it looks bad for gm...they have their hands in other companies we don't know about.

I was talking about this today with some gm employee's and my father who worked for gm for 30 years, like they've been told at the union meetings, gm told delphi not to file bankruptcy because it simply wasn't needed, but delphi brought in that Miller guy who is a known slasher of companies (look at his record, every place he's gone he's shut down). *Further more, delphi is "hurting so bad" yet they make wiring harnesses for most of the big 3, toyota, honda, the expensive exotic cars like ferrari and lamborgeini (spelling?). *It just cracks me up that they make it seem like they're so bad off, yet they have their hands in more then what we're told by the media, media wants everyone to think gm doesn't own the 30-40% of toyota that they do, and that delphi only makes harnesses for gm products. *It's all a front I say.

And to support the arguement that gm owns part of toyota, my father has personally met Toyoda (i believe that's how his name is spelled) in the past. GM used to bring him to the plants and show him and the other yota reps GM ways of building cars...Just giving competition their secrets to effeicency...or aiding their investment