 
Ladyinabag
Member
Username: Ladyinabag
Post Number: 450
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 3:48 pm: |    |
I heard on the news today that they are bringing up axles from Mexico,and have threatened to close the plant for good and buy exclusively from Mexico. Sounds about right. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5497
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 5:40 pm: | |
It probably took some time to retool their foreign plants.
Their spokesman on WJR news stated that AAM's labor costs would have to be cut by 50% in order to stay competitive with Dana--its major competitor. [As to foreign plants, the spokesman used the word in its plural--meaning more than one plant or country.]
So, either the strikers wise up and go back to their jobs, or the work will go away from them. AAM is closing entirely two New York plants. |
Wash_man
Member
Username: Wash_man
Post Number: 668
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 6:32 pm: | |
"No sick days, no medical, no days off (even if your gravely ill), someone else will be hired to fill Your spot, (their waiting at the door)."
The jobs must be REALLY bad if people are waiting at the door to get them. Sounds to me like it is a step up for most of them. (I assume you meant THEY ARE waiting at the door when you used the incorrect "their") |
River_rat
Member
Username: River_rat
Post Number: 332
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 10:10 am: | |
Living_in_the_d obviously hasn't been out_of_the_d to a RTW state. The hoards he describes waiting to get the jobs are jobs from Michigan and Detroit. The next time you are in RTW states like VA, SC, etc., check out the prosperity compared to the about to be former home of American Axle.
Stop living in the past and get real. Unfortunately, it is too late for the thousands and thousands of jobs in our area lost forever, never to return. Very early in the thread it was said, "what do you want 60% of something, or 100% of nothing?" |
Living_in_the_d
Member
Username: Living_in_the_d
Post Number: 136
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 10:42 am: | |
Yeah, Like I said before, if You don't have first person experience in an RTW state, You will show a lack of wisdom supporting it, Or from what I am seeing, even commenting on it. |
_sj_
Member
Username: _sj_
Post Number: 2153
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 11:06 am: | |
As far as Cost-Of-Living, Michigan is in the middle (25th). It is closer to Bottom(Tennessee) than it is to the top. So there is not a large difference in your COL argument.
RTW arguments are mostly fear, no safety, no time-off etc. It is all a scare tactic just like the rest of the union rhetoric is. Scaring the members into believing that they have no other choice. |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 227
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 11:19 am: | |
"(True Story) - I have been offered jobs in RTW states making more than I do in Michigan. I have been actively recruited by companies in RTW states but Michigan has very few opportunities. Why is that?"
Jt1, Are the jobs you where offered better than what you have now? Are they still available?
"Living_in_the_d obviously hasn't been out_of_the_d to a RTW state. The hoards he describes waiting to get the jobs are jobs from Michigan and Detroit."
Michigan and Detroit where the first hit when the economy took a dump, so yes you are right the hoards left Michigan. But now that the economy is taking a dump else where the hoards are in for a world of shit.
"The next time you are in RTW states like VA, SC, etc., check out the prosperity compared to the about to be former home of American Axle."
See above, the prosperity isn't what it used to be.
"Stop living in the past and get real. Unfortunately, it is too late for the thousands and thousands of jobs in our area lost forever, never to return. Very early in the thread it was said, "what do you want 60% of something, or 100% of nothing?"
What part of any damn thing you buy is 40% less? A car? gas? grocerys? name it to for me.
So you are right AAM is on strike they probably will loose the jobs. But then again do you think AAM really worrys about this? It was the plan all along. They are not going to any stinking RTW state. They are going right the hell out of the country.
P.S.Oh yea I left a couple of words misspelled and one in the wrong context so you could have something to pick apart. |
_sj_
Member
Username: _sj_
Post Number: 2154
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 12:34 pm: | |
quote:What part of any damn thing you buy is 40% less? A car? gas? grocerys? name it to for me.
Here is a statement I see a lot. The problem is that people expect a 40% wage deduction to result in a 40% cost reduction. That is not possible. The 40% wage deduction is to keep the status quo or to prevent a large price increase.
Why are they moving out of the country becuase their competitors are doing it cheaper and maybe sometime better than them. |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 228
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 1:29 pm: | |
I see "More with Less" NOW I UNDERSTAND!•••
Steven P Jobs Apple $646,000,000
Ray R Irani Occidental Petroleum $321,000,000
Barry Diller IAC/InterActiveCorp $295,000,000
William P Foley II Fidelity National Finl $179,000,000
Terry S Semel Yahoo $175,000,000
Michael S Dell Dell $133,000,000
Angelo R Mozilo Countrywide Financial $141,000,000
Michael S Jeffries Abercrombie & Fitch $114,000,000
Kenneth D Lewis Bank of America $99,000,000
Henry C Duques First Data $98,000,000
Harold M Messmer Jr Robert Half Intl $74,000,000
Lawrence J Ellison Oracle $72,000,000
Bob R Simpson XTO Energy $72,000,000
Richard M Kovacevich Wells Fargo $72,000,000
John T Chambers Cisco Systems $71,000,000
Gregg L Engles Dean Foods $66,000,000
Lew Frankfort Coach $65,000,000
Joseph H Moglia TD Ameritrade Holding $62,000,000
James Dimon JPMorgan Chase $57,000,000
William R Berkley WR Berkley $54,000,000
Richard S Fuld Jr Lehman Bros Holdings $51,000,000
Edward E Whitacre Jr AT&T $49,000,000
Robert J Ulrich Target $48,000,000
L Patrick Hassey Allegheny Technologies $44,000,000
Edward H Linde Boston Properties $42,000,000 |
Oldredfordette
Member
Username: Oldredfordette
Post Number: 4102
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 2:00 pm: | |
Why do you righties hate American workers so much? Is it because they made more money than you?
Eliminate the health plans (which the UAW is doing for the car companies, a huge mistake in my opinion) and you bring down the the wage "burden" for the companies. It's one of the best reasons for universal health care.
The foreign auto companies are moving to the southern US states for the same reasons our auto companies are moving to China. They want third world workers to do the work. They view us as the Third World! Excellent! Way to go! |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5504
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 2:53 pm: | |
Considering that China alone graduates nearly twenty times each year the number of engineers as American engineers here, it's no wonder that China and others have been considering the US as being second or third-rate. In many ways, we most definitely are.
There are probably as many Chinese that can speak English as do Americans. The US has lost out in many areas, and we carry on as if it hadn't. The ORF types in Detroit are clueless. |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 229
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 6:18 pm: | |
No you don't have to be a ORF type to be clueless.
If you think that allowing American jobs to go overseas and buying the story that the unions are the sole fault you are truly clueless. Your Carhartts, Car parts, Named brand appliances and the majority of retail goods are all no longer made in the US. There are no textile people in the New England States or the South, hell they don't even hardly grow pineapples in Hawaii any more all because of the mean unions. Go to Macy's and look at the kitchen appliances, guess where they are made!
So You probably will no longer have american axles on automobiles either. But you will have less people to buy the toys that you belittled the American worker for spending his cash on. I guess these workers sending there kids to school don't count. Less well paying jobs less engineers. If we are second or third rate that you say we definitely are, I would have to say that the folks at the top making the real dough helped put us there. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5510
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 6:30 pm: | |
quote:Less well paying jobs less engineers. Tsk, tsk. You would have written "fewer" had you known better...
Where have you been? Engineers have been let go due to the global economy for at least a decade already. But engineers have a better chance of employment outside of the unionized "Rust Belt" states than in Michigan, for sure. Texas is one of the states that is a net exporting state in manufacturing and services. Much business in the global industry of semiconductors is centered there, especially around Austin and Dallas.
And there are engineering jobs going to waste there. Many firms there out of actual shortage of engineers in the US import their engineers or contract them via telecommute. I went that virtual employee route myself in the recent past for Motorola/Freescale Semiconductors.
(Message edited by livernoisyard on March 13, 2008) |
Karl_jr
Member
Username: Karl_jr
Post Number: 230
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 6:39 pm: | |
I'm glad you are gainfully employed Livernois, I hope you stay that way. What the hell, maybe I'll know better in a few years. Back to the HOF for a while for me, I'm tired of this crap. |
Living_in_the_d
Member
Username: Living_in_the_d
Post Number: 138
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 6:55 pm: | |
Yeah, Here here, Karl jr., well put and well said. |
_sj_
Member
Username: _sj_
Post Number: 2155
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:18 pm: | |
quote:Why do you righties hate American workers so much? Is it because they made more money than you?
What a shame, another unionism. War and hate.
Because in your eyes only union workers are real workers and word hard. And that physical labor is the only real labor.
The workers are not hated, their entitlement attitude which is ripping through the country is the problem. Jobs for life, pensions funded by the consumer and or the taxpayer.
You want health care fine, pay a portion of it. Problem is you fail to understand the cost of a 10,000 a year policy for a single person and how the price jumps when you add a spouse and children. But hey we are entitled to this shit and shit is what you have created.
You inability to eat your own dogfood has created this situation. You have no one to blame but yourselves.
Of course you will comeback with some sorry union rhetoric that we have all heard before, unions created this, they created that, they set the pay scale. It is a BS to drive the fear into you that you can not survive as a none union employee.
It is nothing more than being selfish. For example the American Axle strike has put numerous people out of work, workers who will not see a dime or any benefits from that contract. But yet no one seems to care about them. False claims of solidarity. Of course American Axle is just asking for the same deal you gave to their competitors but for strange reason they have decided to make a stand against this small company whos only option is to move or fold. Great job and you wonder why your jobs are leaving. |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 3803
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:28 pm: | |
Christ, sj, you sound like a hired union buster.
then again, maybe you are |
Oldredfordette
Member
Username: Oldredfordette
Post Number: 4115
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:33 pm: | |
Nah, no comeback. Solidarity with the American Axle strikers. |
Lowell
Board Administrator
Username: Lowell
Post Number: 4615
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 1:43 pm: | |
Amazing, isn't it, how those who howl and whine incessantly for "free market" competition howl and whine even more loudly when the working stiffs figure out how to make a middle class living by free market competition and ~legal~ contracts?
As I mentioned above those voices either reflect the jealous who think everybody should be reduced to their Walmart wage level or those who have got theirs, usually through daddy's inheritance, and have the luxury of saying 'screw you'.
The first group is particularly pathetic because they don't realize that if everyone is shoved down to their level, they will see their wages cut and their jobs gone. The second are simply heartless, finding themselves on third base thinking they hit a triple.
Ah jealousy, the highest compliment. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5520
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 2:57 pm: | |
Dana (AAM's competitor) just emerged from bankruptcy two months ago. So, Dana's labor rates are expected to follow the pattern of others, such as Rouge Steel after bankruptcy, where the resulting labor rates were around half of their former selves. If that is the case, AAM would reconsider Dana's rates when reentering into legal labor contracts with the UAW.
Shipping axles from Mexico or Asia is no big deal, as it would be for fully assembled vehicles. Much of what we import comes from Asia, so why not axles? That's pretty much the new game plan for the Lear Corporation for seats and instrument panels.
The end result obviously would be fewer US manufacturing jobs, or perhaps, no such jobs, and instead AAM would essentially have only in the US the warehouse, distribution, sales, and HQ jobs. |
_sj_
Member
Username: _sj_
Post Number: 2157
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 3:55 pm: | |
quote:Christ, sj, you sound like a hired union buster.
Try a union supporter once upon a time, a union skilled tradesman. A Manager of union employees and now am glad to be far away from that mess.
A group that allows one employee to threaten to kill another employee and then be told by the union steward to erase all incriminating evidence is a group I want nothing to do with and the sooner the rest of you apologists realize that the union lost your jobs and not the other way around the better off you will be.
quote:The first group is particularly pathetic because they don't realize that if everyone is shoved down to their level, they will see their wages cut and their jobs gone. The second are simply heartless, finding themselves on third base thinking they hit a triple.
Ah jealousy, the highest compliment.
That must be it, becuase their is no better worker than the American worker. What a load of horseshit. Sometimes it does not surprise me that we continue to get are asses handed to us due to this #1 mentality. It took a while for it to disappear and now it is right back in full force.
It will suck when you realize that the 8% of the workforce does not rule the roost. |
Steamaker
Member
Username: Steamaker
Post Number: 60
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 2:36 pm: | |
Wow, I just stumbled onto this thread. I have worked union and non union jobs as a power plant operator. I work in Nevada which is a RTW state. I am non union and they actually pay me more money plus benefits to be that way. Plus, I don't have to pay 3 hrs of pay every paycheck to the unions. Living in the D, the Wynn casino was one who took tips from the dealers to pay management. He has reversed his decision. But I might point out that the dealers out here get paid between 60 and 100K per year, even the non union ones. |
Steelworker
Member
Username: Steelworker
Post Number: 1078
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 3:18 pm: | |
Btw i do not pay 3 hours of pay a week to the union i pay apporx. 10 dollars a week. depending on how much OT its usually about 50 dollars a month. |
Steamaker
Member
Username: Steamaker
Post Number: 61
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 4:14 pm: | |
It is 3 hrs pay out here. I am not knocking unions. I am just pointing out that I am in a right to work state and I don't make minimum wage. I am paid well for my knowledge and skills. I was told by my father years ago that the more I learned, the more money I would make. I believe him. HE WAS RIGHT! He was a skilled tradesman and so am I. |
Steamaker
Member
Username: Steamaker
Post Number: 62
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 4:34 pm: | |
Lucky you. Here in Nevada we have the privelege of paying 3 hrs pay per paycheck and also more with OT. I am not bashing the unions, I was in the union back in Detroit. But, those who don't work in RTW states shouldn't bash what they don't know either. I am paid for what I know. Like a previous poster said. Go to school. I did what my father(who was a blue-collar worker) told me to do. I got an education. I learned a skill and get paid accordingly. |
Steamaker
Member
Username: Steamaker
Post Number: 63
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 4:35 pm: | |
Sorry for reposting, I thought my first post was lost |
Steelworker
Member
Username: Steelworker
Post Number: 1081
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 12:06 am: | |
Im a member of americas largest union. Anyone want to guess which one??? |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 5656
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 8:42 am: | |
If the union wants to do something worthwhile, perhaps they should go to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, et al. and drive labor prices there up, so the jobs come back here. |
East_detroit
Member
Username: East_detroit
Post Number: 1575
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 8:44 am: | |
I wonder what happens to union organizers in those countries. |
Oldredfordette
Member
Username: Oldredfordette
Post Number: 4140
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 9:11 am: | |
There are organizers in all of those countries. Sometimes they survive.
You can say the same about organizers in Alabama. |
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