That's basically what the auto companies are asking for. I realize that the trickle down effect on suppliers could be horrible and I'm very sorry that could happen. GM, Ford, and Chrysler have no one to blame but themselves for what has happened. They allowed their unions to take control of the companies and now they want the rest of us to pay for their excess.
Unions were first formed to protect the workers and somewhere along the road it lost its way. As a former member of the Teamsters and also United Steel Workers I can speak with some knowledge for the waste created by unions.
AB and the teamsters: I worked in the St Louis plant where waste of manpower is a way of life. Teamsters were paid for setting in a chair beside a conveyor of moving bottles and did nothing. They were making $21.00/hr (years ago) to do so. Another fine job was an "
Oiler" who twice in an eight our shift would oil five machines and that was it for an eight hour shift. The time to oil these machines was approx. 30 minutes each time. They worked 60 minutes and were paid for 8 hrs. This was normal and the Union Way. Is it any wonder our country is so messed up.
My last day working for AB was due to the Union not liking our (blue tabs) work habits. What I mean is the regular members didn't want to work for some reason and they had ALL "Blue Tabs" (newer union members) come in. An example of Union waste; Two union members were used to load a train boxcar with product from AB. The weekend the regular members didn't want to work, the company found ONE person could load the boxcar by themselves. I know this as a fact as I was the person who did the work. Where the Union Wanted two people doing this I performed the same work by myself and finished 30 minutes before the shift ended. I wasn't the only person loading boxcars, all of us finished early thus showing the company it didn't need two people to do this job. The next night I worked on a machine that stacks beer on pallet for storage and the same thing happened. The union had two people doing this job and then found one person could do both jobs with time to spare. Those were my last nights with AB as the union never allowed us (Blue Tabs) back as were showed the company how to reduce the workforce. It was never our intent to do that, we just worked and never realized we should have slowed down to keep our UNION JOB.
United Steel Workers were another story and the steel mill in Granite City worked us hard but paid us fairly. Some safety items could have been better but overall, the union did a good job of not wasting manpower as the teamsters did.
This is the same with GM and the nonsense they had. I understand union workers were paid to assist during bake sales and once the cutbacks started the pay for helping stopped and so did the help from the union workers. I've also heard that some laid off or furloughed employees would report to a certain room at the plant to play cards, watch TV for eight hours and receive their full pay and benefits. Paid to do nothing and we wonder what went wrong. The workers at all the car builders have had it great for all these years and now is the time to pay up. They have stuck it to the auto builders for a long time and now want a bailout for their greed.
If they want a bailout from me, throw the union contract out. No more free rides, no sweetheart deals. The union and company worked together to cause this and both need to get a grip on reality.
I know this will never happen as the Democratic leaders are beholden to the unions and will kiss their ass and spend OUR MONEY to bail them out.
Where is my bailout?????????????????
