Copy of a letter I sent to a small local newspaper

[Flysure1]

I live near a town that used to manufacture maytag refridgerators, lawn boy mowers(omc corp.) butler steel buildings, and had a large Gates rubber plant (now scaled way down)--all were moved out of state or country to save operating costs---this town was hit hard as it is less than 35,000 people and depended on this manufacturing, I work as a teamster driver but I am not a die hard union preacher but I think the unions are getting the majority of the blame simply as a smokescreen in an attempt to hide corp. greed. Just my opinion and I won't get offended by anyones views-thanks--Rod


Big business blames the unions.

It seems that all the auto industry wants to do is blame the unions for their troubles, (along with some of the zephyr letter writers), according to the national bureau of labor statistics in 2007 union labor only made up 12.1% of the U.S. work force, why should they shoulder the blunt of the blame for our current mess?, education actually has the highest % of union represented workers. public sector is over 35% union but private industry is around 7.5--suprisingly Washington state is one of the most union representated states along with New York, If union wages and benefits are such a large problem with our automobile production costs why aren't the cars produced in the non union plants noticebly less expensive? Why when OMC pulled out of Galesburg because of "union" costs we never saw a drastic cut in prices of their product? What about the refrigerator giant moving to mexico? Anyone see the cost of appliances go down, hmmm, maybe it was just corperate greed? The same could be said about other places that have relocated abroad. How long did they really think it would last when our jobs here at home didn't pay enough to buy their products? They move out to save on wages and benefits but fail to pass even a small percentage of the savings on to the consumer. I realize that companies must make a profit to survive but some of the salaries and perks being paid at the top are a slap in the working mans face. The 8 hour work day, 5 day work week, health insurance, job safety,paid holidays/vacations, paid sick leave,good pensions, overtime pay are just a few of the things the work force can thank unions for! I can only hope for better times ahead so we can avoid the two tier system(the rich and the poor)! thanks Rod Fleisher, Maquon, Illinois

 

[Fast68back]

Rod, while I would not totally disagree with your viewpoints, look at it from a business standpoint. Say for example your company decides to shut down its concrete plant (I pray it doesnt happen), the reasoning behind the move is multiple reasons. 1. Wages are cheaper 2. Employee benefits are cheaper, this would include HUGE retirement funds that the company pays into on on behalf of its employees. Moving to the new location does not mean the new plant is free, nor is the equipment (trucks, etc) they also end up pay loads of money in travel for the people that have to go to the new location and oversee the building, the hiring, the training, etc. After all these they still have to ship all the new material bck to the states, so in the long run, they savings are really not all that large if any, so the consumer is not going to see a price break anyways, since the reason they made the move was to increase profits. I doubt any of the companies that moved said they were making to move so they could lower their prices.

About 10 years ago I worked for a division of Johnson&Johnson. Down the street from where I worked was a manufacturing plant that made the latex gloves. They decided to move the manufacturing to Singapore,to "save money". After over a year of building a plant in singapore they were still having issues with the water quality in singapore and had tons of issues and lost millions of dollars. Johnson&Johnson ended up selling the whole product line to a competitor. The old building down the road that used to house the manufacturing as well as the HQ for this division of J&J is now a Church, They tried for years to get 10 million for the building and land and ended up taking 4 million for the land and building. The division I worked for ended up moving to Memphis because the labor rates were cheaper and to be closer to the UPS hub to save on shipping charges.

Its not always the right decision to make moves like this. But it happens, poor decisions are made.

 

[blue65coupe]

Rod, just gonna present a different viewpoint.

I wonder if unions haven't gotten caught up in the whole "greed" thing also? I relate them to the government and every special interest group out there. They may start out looking out for the people but in the end.......

 

[Flysure1]

I would have to agree in some cases the unions have gone overboard, but they have gotten nothing the companies never agreed to, also the companies want them to make concessions (and they have done this quite often)while the top executives don't seem to make many concessions, they could drop the ridiculous top salaries some and spread that out and cover a lot of the union costs, do you really think if I agreed to work for $7.50 an hour and no benefits my company president would take a pay cut or even pass a small bit of the savings onto the consumer? I really doubt that they would. I think some sort of universal health care or price limits on medical costs would help both workers and business owners alike, who knows, we are in a bigger mess than I have ever witnessed, I was working during the 70's mess and this is going to out do that by far!

 

[blue65coupe]

Greed.........all the way around. I'll agree on the top exec. salary thing. What a gig for some of these guys.