Can "Made in America" and unions exist in todays financial markets?

Question

ANYTHING mad in America is more expensive due to unions. Can unions provide a skilled, marketable employee for manufacturing jobs?? Is 30 bucks an hour fair to someone who puts bolt A on part B? Or do unions have to realize that some of their jobs are grossly overpaid?

Answer 1

Is it fair to expect American consumers to buy unaffordable American products? Especially when they've thrown so many non-union American workers to the wolves, some after many years?

Labor costs are forcing manufacturers to outsource just to provide those profits to the shareholders. Other corporations are struggling to pay pension benefits that were negotiated in a completely different economic climate as part of collective bargaining agreements (so don't tell me we're no longer paying a lot of union-generated benefits. We are).

I understand the obligation to the shareholders (the bulk of which are pension plans), but what the shareholders want are short-term profits and they are basically hastening corporate meltdowns instead of long-term growth.

I intend to move to China to work when my husband passes away.

The opportunities here are gone. I will know Mandarin well enough and I speak English. I'll get a job 1-2-3.

Ni hao, y'all!

Answer 2

I am not very pro union, but I do understand why they exist.  Corporations like GM were extremely abusive to their work force years ago, still are to some extent.  The unions swing the opposite direction so much that being competitive is tough.  

Even doing things like renaming the Personnel department Human Resources shows the lack of care for their employees. Why not call it personnel, after all they are persons.  Instead they go for Human Resources, basically classifying them along with steel and glass.  I understand corporations have to look out for number one, but so do the employees since the company definately won't.

Answer 3

The "Made in America" scam is alive and well in the Northern Mariannas sweat shops that the pseudo-"Christian" wrong thing represent all that's good about America.

Answer 4

Or perhaps instead of pissing and moaning about Unions which built this freaking country we should make our trade treaties enforce human rights and living wage issues

bet the ba$tards overseas wouldn't take jobs if they had to play by the d**n rules

Answer 5

The unions are wonderful in theory. They abused their power an became corrupt and greedy. Some more than others. Politics and government agencies were used to destroy all unions except government sort of unions. There is the possibility of a middle ground.

Answer 6

Productivity matters most in the global economy. The other thing that matters is an unmanipulated foreign exchange rate.

The answer is yes they can co-exist if:

1) factory productivity is extremely high

2) currencies are not manipulated (by China, Japan, EU, India, etc)

3) unions don't make extreme demands.

Answer 7

Your hatred of Unions is misplaced.

anyway, republicans have been destroying them since the 80s to the point where they are a tiny % of working folk.

Sad that you didnt look up this info first, and resorted to GOP talking points

The minimum wage is all it take to kill production of anything in the USA. everywhere else, they pay workers pennies, and provide no  benefits, or occupational standards

Answer 8

1)  True, most things made by unions are more expensive.  They're also of lower quality.  Look no further than American automobiles.  That said, most states are "at will" with an increasing number of manufacturing jobs lacking union representation.  Furthmore, greater shares of manufactured goods are produced by automation.  Unions are a increasingly minute barrier to American competition overseas.

2)  I doubt unions do much to provide "skilled, marketable" employees. My understanding is that most unions are basically good ole' boys clubs that allow a few extremely privileged individuals, usually white males, to make more than they deserve by holding large corporations hostage.

3)  Why should unions realize that most of their jobs are "grossly overpaid"???  Top executives in America make more than execs anywhere else on Earth all the while failing. No one suggests that they should accept that they're "overpaid".  Heck, half the time these people don't even show any kind of sales gain and they STILL make millions.  They don't endure a fraction of the responsibility of those beneath them...rare is the frontline retail manager who still has a 35k/year job  after a year of sales losses.  Why are we so comfortable telling the working class that they're "overpaid" and forcing the middle class to live in constant terror of failure while the overclass sits around with their thumbs up their behinds?

4)  Ditto the previous paragraph on the issue of "obligation to stockholders".  These people don't feel a sincere obligation to anyone but themselves and their families!  The free market has failed us, it has been consumed by the greed of the wealthy and enabled by our own willingness to blame anyone but the wealthy so long as it isn't ourselves.  Thirty bucks an hour is a pittance to pay someone who fries their body and their mind putting tab A into slot B,showing up every day on time and willing to work in a world where those at the very top have no real notion of accountability.

5)  Lots of things help and hinder domestic industry.  The price of oil, infrastructure, health care costs and yes, executive pay.  I don't think its fair that we constantly focus on "overpaid" employees when there are so many obvious targets.            

BTW:  If you don't think the "grubbies" deserve 70k a year, why don't you do it?  It sounds like you're jealous.  If you make more, you're almost certainly overpayed yourself.

Answer 9

unions have ruined manufacturing in the us

Answer 10

Yes.

The disparaging of unions in The 80's by those who thought neo liberal economics, or Reaganomics were a good idea that lead to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

Like it or not, just look at the time line.

The abandoning and breakup of unions allowed companies to pay less.

Hey, why not move the operation out of the country?

We can pay foreign children even less.

Do not blame unions for this economy.

Blame Reagan, Thatcher, and other globalists, and those that would become The PNAC.