And, no braniac, I don't mean 15 year old boys to use, I'm talking about Hostess Company. They couldn't get the concessions they asked from by the striking union so they are starting the liquidation process. Close to 18,000 people will lose their jobs. http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=6d7b095e-e558-4dc4-83e9-1859d177e676 I don't know how much the striking workers make, but a coworker has a brother who works for a union bakery for Nabisco and he makes about $43/hr. I also recall the Hostess bakers have already taken one hit on their wages (maybe two) and would rather be unemployed than take another pay hit. Well, they can receive unemployment for 4 years so something will turn up by then. I have to say, leaving your job in a recession headed to a depression takes a lot of guts and conviction. More power to them. But as for me, I'd much rather have a $60-75,000 job over unemployment and food stamps- even if I am being underpaid.
60 to 75,000 a year MAKING CUPCAKES.... these people have no concept of reality. That's probably a job with very few college grads too. Meanwhile my fiancee is making like 30k out of college doing a job that should be making closer to 80k a year. Fucking unions.
Again, I don't know what the Hostess union workers make after their recent concessions, but still isn't being gainfully employed with benefits better than unemployment, food stamps and Obabacare? Isn't working better than being able to have 100% free time living off the government? Wait...
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you... I'm just saying that some of the wages that these union workers are getting are absurd for what they're doing.
Sorry to see people lose their well-paying jobs. Sucks. The brands will be bought up by non-union companies and workers will make a fraction of what they were making last week. Wages go down, profits go up. If you earn your living off of blue collar work, I feel sorry for you. It only gets worse from here. Figure out how to buy stock, because that's where all the money is going. It's not a Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, free market/protectionist, Non-Union/Union thing. It's just the way the world is. Anyway, Twinkies are terrible. I mean really, really terrible.
It's amazing to me how auto makers stay in business with what UAW workers make. Why, one would think they'd need government money to get by...
That is a true statement. I know people on the far left will disagree because they have to, but it is simply true.
Well, when a dude on a conveyer belt is making twice the money that someone who went to college is making, that says something. Unions were created to ensure that working conditions were safe, but that's not really a problem anymore. Hell, you don't need a union to sue the shit out of a company for negligence. They are an archaic system that is strangling this country.
Not really. We're still the largest manufacturer in the world. The problem is that where a job was once done by 20 blue collar guys, it's now done by one white collar guy with a robot and a database. Unions probably helped expedite that process, but it was going to happen anyway.
How much longer will that last though? I wonder if that's because the rest of the world is spread between India, China, etc.
I Remember when they used to make transistor radios in the USA. And VCRs and cassette tapes and computers. And when you called a company for help with their product and you didn't reach a call center in India. Those things were never made better elsewhere. Cheaper.
Well, increasingly that white collar guy with the database is outside the US. But that also means there are a lot of emerging markets for American products too. But people get too hung up about unions. I think they can be a good thing or a pain in the ass, but that's not a uniquely American issue: Union % of workforce by country
