The unions were asked to take cuts to help out the companies. To be fair. To be unfair, the union execs go off to some Spa at all our expenses (indirectly) and Obama looks the other way. If it's the company execs doing it, he mouths off about it.
When the taxpayers have to bail out a union, then Obama ought to "mouth off" about how the union has been run. So far, that hasn't happened. barfo
I believe unions saved this country from communism at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, like the buggy whip, they're an anachronism. The government has basically replaced the unions in protecting workers' rights. The stuff unions protest against would be laughed at by the people who tried to form them in the late 19th Century.
Taxpayers are bailing out the unions. The automakers costs include the salaries of those workers who pay those dues. The money goes taxpayer => govt => bailout => automaker => union workers => dues
Sure. The money also goes taxpayer => govt => bailout => automaker => union workers => porn. So we are bailing out the porn industry. barfo
Seriously, who pays for porn anymore? I guess it's all about who you ask, but unions are either loved or hated. My dad worked for Freightliner and he LOVES his union. If it wasn't for them, Daimer-Chrysler would have screwed a lot of people over. For me, I think unions are redundant for the most part these days. Seniority should not give you automatic job security. Job performance should.
If you want to question the CEO's pay, then you might want to question the union workers' pay. Sure, the CEO might make $50M, but add up $55/hr * 100,000 workers.
Oooh, me! $5.5M per hour. Generally you go by the 2080 hr/yr rule for determining a man-year (including vacation, sick day, training, etc). So $11.44B/yr. I can do arithmetic. But I can't rivet. Yet.
I agree... unions did save the country from communism. They also improved social and working conditions for employees and filled an important "safety net" role to ensure that the country didn't go too far, too fast. That safety net is now being provided by the government (for better or worse) and the expectations and economics created by many unions are simply unsustainable today. They're going to go down, and they're going to go down hard. Or are they? Unions vote individually and they can act collectively in influencing the government. In a voting nation of taxpayers, handouts could be checked by majority rule. At the rate we're going, fewer than 50% of citizens will pay taxes, and ... they might as well vote for shit they're not paying anything towards. Ed O.
