A question about unions

[SpurNation]

Agree with you here. A contract is a contract and if you make a bad deal, that's on you.

On a side note that $74/hr figure is misunderstood by a lot of people. No one is getting paid $74/hr to install bolts. The $74/hr is a derived value taking the total cost of all labor and labor related benefits and dividing that number by manhours actually worked. Retiree benefits get added into the labor cost, yet the retirees are not working any hours. So cost per hour figure ends up being a lot higher than what the people actually working are actually getting paid.



That's what bankruptcy courts are for.

Many times these "contracts" are the best deal the manufacturers have to agree with. It's not like they can simply employ others to work in the plants who are not union because they are forced to hire union.

Now that GM is manufacturing outside of that realm in other countries...all of a sudden it's their fault because the union won't concede some of it's over burdoning economic demands?

From what I gather...Detroit's problem is with unemploymment. If the union were to concede many of the over burdoning demands it places on the manufacturers...unemployment issue solved.

Again...as pointed out earlier...
Also labor cost disparity comes from legacy pension and healthcare benefits to retired members... as well as ...unions have been accused of benefiting insider workers, those having secure jobs, at the cost of outsider workers, consumers of the goods or services produced, and the shareholders of the unionized business. Those who are likely to be disadvantaged most from unionization are the unemployed, those at risk of unemployment, or workers who are unable to get the job they want in a particular line of work.

[LnGrrrR]

Just out of curiousity, what labor laws do we have today that need to be fixed? Back when unions first cropped up and were interested in working conditions I agree the lack of labor laws had to be addressed. But between OSHA and all the other agencies/laws/regulations I think we've taken care of that. Union-company disputes these days are pretty much entirely over compensation.

I have no clue, to be honest.

[johnsmith]

Modern day Unions are redundant at this point in time. The first Unions (freight, docks, auto) were/are responsible for every federal law that protects workers, workman's comp and basically every facet of "fair"-ish employment standards practiced across the country.

For that, they should be thanked for their service and shelved for future use.

[SpurNation]

I'm not familiar with the rest of the country but...could unemployment in those areas where unemployment is high be due to having to be in a union to secure a job?