Originally Posted by Adux

AYN RAND : CAPITALISM, The unknown ideal; There has never been such a revealing book.

Unions are organized gang collecting money from small time and medium scale business men. They are muscle on hire or when needed for its benefactors or the communist party.

Originally Posted by ba1025

I also question whether the non wage compensation is overstated It includes pensions and benefits that companies are going into bankruptcy to avoid paying or re negotiating years after guaranteeing them. Who goes back and adjusts past compensation when that happens. Look at the buyouts at the big three. Those buyouts are paying out considerably LESS than what was originally guaranteed it's just being paid in cash. Is anyone going to make adjustments on previous years based on Delco, American Airlines and soon most likely the big three's shedding of past guarantees of non wage compensation? If it's never going to be paid it isn't really compensation is it?

Originally Posted by ba1025

I also don't have anything but crocodile tears for the big three who have run their business into the ground and scapegoated unions. How come Ford has an underfunded pension yet...

Dec. 31, 1988: Ford's worldwide earnings were $5.3 billion, the highest of any auto company to date.

2000 Ford reports record earnings of $7.2 billion in 1999, more than any other automotive company in history.

PERHAPS THE WORKERS WEREN'T THE ONES SCREWING THE POOCH HERE.. Maybe some of those earnings are non wage compensation guarantees that the workers will never receive? Maybe when Ford was reporting those earnings in 2000 it was just maybe overstating how well funded it's pension fund was? being they were crying it was breaking them a short 5 years later what else could be the case. What will be amazing is if they end up in chapter 11 someday and we the people pay those pensions. Then ALL that non wage compensation goes away.

Originally Posted by 7thsfsniper

As to the man who paid his people what the market could bear....He was already rich enough to never have to work again (Correct, but what did that have to do with the market. Was he supposed to pay people more out of his own pocket!?)

I worked at a non union shop. i got yelled at for having too many soda bottles on my bench(4). I must be drinking soda all day. i made $5.00 an hour in 1982. I was a kid. i was once stabbed by a junkie working there with a hypodermic needle. I ended up missing 3 days of work i did not get paid for. They did pay for my antibiotics and a couple of Dr's visit when I developed cellulitis and a systemic infection from the dirty needle. They did not file a workers comp claim. The man who stabbed me was a profiecent toolmaker as well as a junkie. he made them money. They didn't fire him because he said he had thought the needle was covered. i look back and say WOW. i didn't know better at 20. I meekly asked for my 60% ins pay when i found out i was owed it from a co worker a few months later. I often used to sneak glasses of milk from the coffee room on Wed and Thur. I didn't have enough to pay for an apt, a car and food all the time and at the end of the week i was hungry. A lot of weeks I lived on Cumberland farms .39 cent white bread and peanut butter. Gas was exploding in price it really sucked driving an old Monte Carlo my Dad had given me.
He( the owner) mostly sold tooling to Textron and Pratt and Whitney. He employed about 30 people. He also told us he would close up shop if we tried to unionize. I was in a skilled trade but admittedly a journeyman. When my Leadman found out how little I made( salary is top secret at job shops) He was flabbergasted and i got a .50 raise to $5.50. In 1983 he said there was no money for raises due to the economic conditions. like i said i was young. it was my first full time job. I worked my ass off from 730-4 everyday sodas not withstanding. I really was in bad shape and constantly under money pressure just to get by. There were no big friday night outs.
Anyway, the straw that broke the camels back for me was when he showed up with a brand new Winibeggo and had me out there cleaning it. how could there be no money for raises but money for a 80k touring van?????? i started putting in applications the next week and 4 mo later got offered a union job for almost twice the pay. They tried to tell me they had benefits other than pay to offer me and enticed me with a $1.00 an hour raise( a bit in 1983 especially since he couldn't give ANYONE a raise that year).

I left and still have the same Union job that has offered me and my family a middle class life working at a profitable well run company that funded it's pension fund when it was reporting record profits unlike Ford. That man did not pay his workers what the market could bear he was a capitalist and tried to make as much money as he could. I believe in American Capitalism and with that i believe in unions which have been an integral part of that for 80 years. I BELIEVE IN UNIONS BECAUSE I WORKED FOR AN EXPLOITVE SOB AND THERE ARE NO SHORTAGE OF THEM OUT THERE STILL.

Originally Posted by ba1025

they don't have experience on the other side of the coin i do. How bad did the economy have to get before Unions got protection from unfair practices....took a great Depression.

How does the median income of Americans being 6% smaller in relation to the Average income of Americans 10 years ago jibe with the picture of Capitol suffering under labor abuses? Capitol's share of the nations wealth has risen in comparison to Labors as evidenced by the growing distance between what the average and median incomes are . It would appear to me the greed is on the high end not the low end or the average persons wages wouldn't be so far behind the average wage.

Originally Posted by Shek

Are we being very selective about what statistics are being used?

What was the asset vs. liability position of Ford's pension in 1988? 2000? all the other years?




.

Originally Posted by ba1025

I'm glad you are enjoying the fruits of this country, but your story is hardly appalling. Everyone has a hardship story but few know actual hardship. Honestly, do you think taking a butt chewing for having a mess in your area is unheard of or bad treatment. Your dad gave you a car! How fortunate. I apologize if this offends you but I think you need to look around a little and re-examine things in comparison to the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by Shek

Next, I don't disagree that the big three have made some strategic errors. Some of this can be attributed solely to them (e.g., the decision to supersize vehicles in the early 90s, which put them at risk to rising gas prices), and some of it can be attributed to the inefficiencies created by the union dynamic.

Originally Posted by ba1025

Honestly, I couldn't readily find the data on the other years for free. Ford in it's contracts created future obligations to it's employees who agreed to those non wage benefits in good faith. Ford did not plan well for them and now claims it can't afford them going forward. I can't say either way. Did they make horrible miscalculations and therefore it was poor business planning and if it bankrupts them and Toyota gets to buy them it's market capitalism at work right? Did they pass on what should of been pension investments to shareholders in which case it's fraud in the moral sense of the word.

I would agree the unions need to make some concessions. I also understand the mistrust they have. Do you remember the bonuses Delco execs gave themselves after the unions gave back compensation already promised?

Originally Posted by 7thsfsniper

Yes my dad gave me a car i was lucky. In fact my family is/was wealthy. They also believed the little birdie that didn't want to go to college should fly on his own

Can I assume here that they would have paid for your college if you had went but you didn't want to so they "cut you off" so to speak. Not meaning to pry but it may be something I like about you

It wasn't the mess that offended my Employer it was it was the percieved time spent drinking soda over an 8 hr day if i had 4 bottles behind me. In truth i couldn't afford any soda.
So why did you have so much of it?

I don't resent anyone that struggles and needs help though. Thats good to hear
If every business were run in a benevolent manner I would say we wouldn't have a need for Unionism but. that's as pie in the sky thinking as the thinking behind communism. I believe more are than not.

I am a pragmatist.
Then you are going to have a hard time arguing with SHEKs stats, since reality is truth, pragmatically.

They don't 'extort'. It is not illegal to replace every single striker and NEVER settle with a Union case in point Colt in CT. If a company would rather agree on a contract well...they agreed. That is another thing that depends on which side you are on. Colt mfg happens to be a company that is near and dear to me. I actually talked to thier cust serv today in a regards to a sweet 1911 I recently purchased. Coincidentally, Colt is one of the most expensive firearms of any type you can buy. Hmmm. I will pay more money to buy American, but there is a limit. I recently bought a taurus 1911 clone, made in Brazil. It had a serious manuf defect. Thier repair process was so invloved, for a weapon that i never got a chance to fire, that i lost my patience, returned the pistol to the dealer and bought a Colt 1911. It had nearly the same defect! the point here is the initial quality, in my case, was not much better for the union made more expensive pistol, than the Brazilian non union made gun. The difference was that Colt will send me a new part and let me install it. That was Colts policy, not the union, btw. Taurus required 6 hoops to jump through and depriving me of my weapon for 6-8 weeks. The only thing the union did here? Made my Colt more expensive. Colt is a company with a VERY large military contract, of course they cannot fire everyone, it probably would have killed the company. I probably would have buckled to union demands in the interest of my business and support of our military. I'm glad you mentioned this one. excellent example of what I refer to as extortion.

I am also glad i am enjoying the fruits of our Country! I think we disagree only on how best to ensure future generations enjoy them.

Originally Posted by 7thsfsniper

Yes my dad gave me a car i was lucky. In fact my family is/was wealthy. They also believed the little birdie that didn't want to go to college should fly on his own

Can I assume here that they would have paid for your college if you had went but you didn't want to so they "cut you off" so to speak. Not meaning to pry but it may be something I like about you

It wasn't the mess that offended my Employer it was it was the percieved time spent drinking soda over an 8 hr day if i had 4 bottles behind me. In truth i couldn't afford any soda.
So why did you have so much of it?

I don't resent anyone that struggles and needs help though. Thats good to hear
If every business were run in a benevolent manner I would say we wouldn't have a need for Unionism but. that's as pie in the sky thinking as the thinking behind communism. I believe more are than not.

I am a pragmatist.
Then you are going to have a hard time arguing with SHEKs stats, since reality is truth, pragmatically.

They don't 'extort'. It is not illegal to replace every single striker and NEVER settle with a Union case in point Colt in CT. If a company would rather agree on a contract well...they agreed. That is another thing that depends on which side you are on. Colt mfg happens to be a company that is near and dear to me. I actually talked to thier cust serv today in a regards to a sweet 1911 I recently purchased. Coincidentally, Colt is one of the most expensive firearms of any type you can buy. Hmmm. I will pay more money to buy American, but there is a limit. I recently bought a taurus 1911 clone, made in Brazil. It had a serious manuf defect. Thier repair process was so invloved, for a weapon that i never got a chance to fire, that i lost my patience, returned the pistol to the dealer and bought a Colt 1911. It had nearly the same defect! the point here is the initial quality, in my case, was not much better for the union made more expensive pistol, than the Brazilian non union made gun. The difference was that Colt will send me a new part and let me install it. That was Colts policy, not the union, btw. Taurus required 6 hoops to jump through and depriving me of my weapon for 6-8 weeks. The only thing the union did here? Made my Colt more expensive. Colt is a company with a VERY large military contract, of course they cannot fire everyone, it probably would have killed the company. I probably would have buckled to union demands in the interest of my business and support of our military. I'm glad you mentioned this one. excellent example of what I refer to as extortion.

I am also glad i am enjoying the fruits of our Country! I think we disagree only on how best to ensure future generations enjoy them.

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

But there is also no dispute that organized labor has helped improve the livelihood of all American workers. Do we need it as much today? I don't know as we move from production to service industries that we do and they still have a place. Perhaps like the 40 hour work week we may end up seeing the unions lead the way in helping to solve the health care mess we are in.

Originally Posted by ba1025

I'm glad you are enjoying the fruits of this country, but your story is hardly appalling. Everyone has a hardship story but few know actual hardship. Honestly, do you think taking a butt chewing for having a mess in your area is unheard of or bad treatment. Your dad gave you a car! How fortunate. I apologize if this offends you but I think you need to look around a little and re-examine things in comparison to the rest of the world.



Once again I don't think you've seen the really bad side of the coin and the real Capitolist IMO would be the one that doesn't get railed by a union and gets to do it his way. I absolutely agree there are some real down and dirty greedy jerks who will take advantage of you if they can, but on the flipside you don't have to be like them.

Respectfully, Sniper

Originally Posted by 7thsfsniper

Good points all around. As I said before, unions had a time, place, and purpose at one time and you make a point saying that they may be needed again. Absolutely. My question for you now is, in what way would you envision unions having a role in solving the healthcare problem?

IMHO personal responsibility would should be the basis of reform. Healthier living, watching weight, smoking, alcohol abuse, drugs abuse should all be factors. Proper maintenance of a machine keeps it running longer with less problems. Prevention is often the best cure.

I guess my main dispute with the whole idea of organized labor is it removes a certain amount of individual responsibilty, and btwn that and political correctness, those two things are a cancer that is weakening our society.

Originally Posted by Shek

Here's the profit data for Ford. Up and down.

FORTUNE 500 2007: Ford Motor Company
F - Ford Motor - Fortune 500 2006 - CNNMoney
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor
FORTUNE 500: Ford Motor

Here's the status of the pension plan for 2002.

Ford pension plan deep in red - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks and Cars

It appears that the downturn in the stock market along with some weaker/volatile performance (see above) has made it difficult to make sure that the pension liabilities are fully funded. As of 2002, their cash position could cover the liabilities, but it was a good move to keep it in cash so they could react to emergencies. I have no idea where they stand today.

As far as Delco/Delphi executive pay goes, I don't know enough of the specifics beyond that the bankruptcy court approved the plan to comment smartly on it. On the face of it, it does seem excessive, but without specifics, I can fall on either side.