Cry Baby UAW Appeals Volkswagen Workers Rejection!

[sigh]

No union adds quality to the final product, GM is tossing away their union system daily. They have already closed union plants and reopened them elsewhere under new names and no union.

I prefer union electricians to non-union because I'm assured their apprenticeship training system will turn out someone qualified to wire my home without frying me while I shower. You can't say they don't add quality to the final product in all cases, k.

I'm with you, though, in that I'm not sure of their value to the final product when representing those on the line in manufacturing plants. But then I'm far removed from that world. I'd like to hear from somebody who works there. remy, I don't know what you do. Can you shed light on this?



I'll have to catch up later. Hospitals never close and it's nearing my time to take a turn at weekend evenings. I'm off to work. Take care, all.

 

[koalabear]

I prefer union electricians to non-union because I'm assured their apprenticeship training system will turn out someone qualified to wire my home without frying me while I shower. You can't say they don't add quality to the final product in all cases, k.

I'm with you, though, in that I'm not sure of their value to the final product when representing those on the line in manufacturing plants. But then I'm far removed from that world. I'd like to hear from somebody who works there. remy, I don't know what you do. Can you shed light on this?



I'll have to catch up later. Hospitals never close and it's nearing my time to take a turn at weekend evenings. I'm off to work. Take care, all.

Two different worlds. UAW apprentices get full pay before they finish their training. So they stop training because they won't get any higher on the pay scale.
There are now better trained electricians than the IBEW. ABC http://www.abcsocal.org/Electrical_Certification.aspx
Any one that finishes the course at ABC is a Master Electrician, master meaning the have passed all code tests and can become a contractor. Not so with the IBEW.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The primary purpose of a union isn't to add quality to the final product but to ensure high pay for it's members. Any quality they do provide is at best a side effect of them trying to justify their existence.

 

[koalabear]

The primary purpose of a union isn't to add quality to the final product but to ensure high pay for it's members. Any quality they do provide is at best a side effect of them trying to justify their existence.

The purpose of a union is to survive, so that those at the top do not have to get real jobs.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Let's talk about MD idgits who cant diagnose medical problems. Its depressing how many there are, and you gotta wonder how they pass their internships.

 

[koalabear]

Let's talk about MD idgits who cant diagnose medical problems. Its depressing how many there are, and you gotta wonder how they pass their internships.

Plus they can't change their own tires.

 

[remy_lebeau8]

I prefer union elecitsricians to non-union because I'm assured their apprenticeship training system will turn out someone qualified to wire my home without frying me while I shower. You can't say they don't add quality to the final product in all cases, k.

I'm with you, though, in that I'm not sure of their value to the final product when representing those on the line in manufacturing plants. But then I'm far removed from that world. I'd like to hear from somebody who works there. remy, I don't know what you do. Can you shed light on this?



I'll have to catch up later. Hospitals never close and it's nearing my time to take a turn at weekend evenings. I'm off to work. Take care, all.

I cant say much about what I do because Its R&D but ive been uaw sense 2008. Ive been in both plants and offices. I dont know if there is a quality difference between union amd non when itcomes to quality but there's a huge difference in safety. Union shops are above and beyond osha requirements.

Two different worlds. UAW apprentices get full pay before they finish their training. So they stop training because they won't get any higher on the pay scale.
There are now better trained electricians than the IBEW. ABC http://www.abcsocal.org/Electrical_Certification.aspx
Any one that finishes the course at ABC is a Master Electrician, master meaning the have passed all code tests and can become a contractor. Not so with the IBEW.

Im actually on an ibew waiting list. As far as apprenticeships the uaw apprentices dont start at max. Im not sure the percent they start at but they get raises as they get further along

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Plus they can't change their own tires.

After investigating so many hospital deaths I wondered how such people qualified for the MD diploma....seriously stupid fucks. And after they kill people they look for scape-goats. It finally dawned on me that they don't learn to diagnose, they learn to depend on tests, and succumb to false positives and false negatives.

I had one helluva brawl with an arrogant VIP bastard over his supposition for a toddler who appeared with a saddle injury. The kid had serious bruising of his penis, testicles, and crack of his ass. The MD says, SOMEONE KICKED THE CHILDS GROIN. I said, HE'S A CLIMBER AND JUMPED, STRADDLING A PORCH RAIL.

I challenged the doc to show me how it is you can kick a kid like a football, show me, perfesser wizard. You cant do it without injuring the thigh skin. The kid had no marks on his thighs near the groin. I also had a witness who saw the kid climb a ladder and jump.

 

[koalabear]

I cant say much about what I do because Its R&D but ive been uaw sense 2008. Ive been in both plants and offices. I dont know if there is a quality difference between union amd non when itcomes to quality but there's a huge difference in safety. Union shops are above and beyond osha requirements.



Im actually on an ibew waiting list. As far as apprenticeships the uaw apprentices dont start at max. Im not sure the percent they start at but they get raises as they get further along

No apprenticeship starts at max.

 

[Dazzle1]

The UAW had high hopes for the vote because VW at the prodding of IG Metall, the powerful German union that has several representatives on VW's supervisory board, had maintained what it calls a "neutral" stance toward the UAW and did not campaign against the union. It had even permitted UAW representatives limited access to the plant to address workers.

Workers at Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant may have voted against joining the United Auto Workers union last week but they may still gain some representation in the company through the formation of a works council.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/16/us-autos-vw-council-analysis-idUSBREA1F0VV20140216

The only problem is that there is no alternative to the UAW.

 

[koalabear]

The only problem is that there is no alternative to the UAW.

Why is one needed?

 

[Sean Renaud]

The only problem is that there is no alternative to the UAW.

Wouldn't an alternate to the UAW just complicate everything even further?

 

[remy_lebeau8]

No apprenticeship starts at max.

Might depend on the trade. If you leave the line for an apprenticeship and the line paid 21 but the trade pays 25 then they might give it to you. If the journeyman gets 35 I doubt they give that much of a raise. The facility I work in has 3 levels. Apprentice, journeyman in training, and journeyman. Each is paid different

 

[Ajax_Prime]

The UAW vote in Chattanooga was supposed to be a cakewalk for those guys. The fact that it wasn't, SHOULD be a big wakeup call. But it won't be.

http://http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/guest-post-anonymous-on-the-battle-of-chattanooga/#more-746169

Sit down with me, children, and let me tell you about some of the great things labor unions have done for this country. The forty-hour week, safer working conditions, the defeat of the Pinkerton “bulls”, and, well, that’s probably about it. Many of the advances credited to labor unions by people who never bothered to read a history book are actually due to legislation. That’s okay. History, as the man who once doubled the wages he paid his employees without the pressure of a union to make him do it said, is bunk.

Now let’s talk about what the UAW has done for American workers. It created the “job banks”, where people were paid to do nothing. It created the seniority system that paid people $100,000 a year to sweep floors while young people were mercilessly shuffled off into a low-wage “tier”. It ensured that every automobile built by its employees during a time when American automakers were in the fight of their lives came out of the factory at the highest possible labor cost while simultaneously offering the lowest possible quality, often because the cars were sabotaged by overpaid workers who were encouraged to despise their employer, their product, and their customer.

Not satisfied yet? Don’t forget the best part of all.

The UAW was so powerful, so successful, so brilliantly adept at crippling the corporate hosts to which it parasitically clung that those corporations risked everything to gamble on Mexican assembly. The all-American HEMI motor? Built in Saltillo, Mexico. The Ford Fusion, America’s last hope against the Camcords and Sonoptimas? Hecho in Mexico, amigo. The only way America can effectively compete in the automotive market is to build American cars somewhere besides America. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs were whisked away to Mexico and Korea because General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler realized that UAW labor was a luxury item that benefited no one but the folks snoozing away peaceful afternoons at the job bank.

Every time the UAW won, America lost. It lost jobs. It lost skills. It lost the manufacturing floor space, the tooling, the machinery it needs to compete. And let’s get this straight: the problem isn’t the American worker. If you don’t believe me, then let’s take a ride to Greensburg, Indiana, so you can see for yourself.

Greensburg is where the Honda Civic and Acura ILX sedans are built. These vehicles are among the highest-quality manufactured products money can buy anywhere in the world. They are built by workers who have never held a union card. The majority of these workers earn a wage that allows them and their families to enjoy the middle-class lifestyle that some would have you believe is the sole province of the pampered union saboteurs in Detroit factories. Most of them started as “temps”, earning ten bucks an hour to do simple labor, but now they earn twenty-five or thirty dollars an hour or more. Their managers are often recruited from the factory floor, not from a fancy Michigan MBA system that perpetuates an officer/enlisted division between management and labor. Seniority is irrelevant. Excellence matters and leaders of teams are often chosen by those teams.

Of course, Greensburg, Indiana isn’t the only place you can find Americans living the American Dream by assembling “Japanese” or “German” cars. Non-UAW labor assembles some of the most popular vehicles in the country, and, to be frank, it assembles most of the higher-quality ones. These workers have rejected the UAW time and again ever since the first Accord rolled off the Ohio assembly lines, and they continue to do so every chance they get.

What can the UAW offer them? Nothing except thuggish intimidation. It is a parasite that destroys the host. Don’t believe the canard, often proffered by left-wing professor types who would weep self-pitying tears of pain and sorrow an hour into their first shift on an assembly line, that the existence of the UAW is all that keeps the “transplants” from turning their plants into Upton-Sinclair-esque halls of horror and workplace mutilation. To begin with, the right of American workers to safe conditions and dignity is guaranteed by the government, not the UAW.

But let’s say they’re right. What if the UAW is all that protects American workers in transplant factories from being forced to paint the cars using leaded paint and a brush? If the UAW dissolved permanently and the evil, slant-eyed Japanese Tojos started whipping the workers with steel-barbed instruments of torture while comically exchanging the letters “r” and “l” in their broken speech, how hard would it be to start a new union to which those abused workers would eagerly flock? You know the answer: it would happen in a heartbeat, and our beloved Chairman Obama would be the princeps among the resurgent Red tide.

(Before you start enjoying the idea of the above scenario too much, it should be mentioned that the senior managers at most transplant factories are homegrown Americans, by which we mean “white people” and “black people”. In the case of Honda, the major plants have been under “American” control for decades now. If Japanese psuedo-samurai were required to beat the workers and make them do calisthenics, they would have to be imported.)

Yes, a union would arise, were one needed, but that does nothing for the UAW itself, which has long since become a twisted, perverse organization devoted only to its own survival, a maggot of unimaginable proportions gnawing the flesh of a dying man, a factory in its own right, chewing its younger members into bloody pap so that its senior parasites can be richly fed. Why else would it fight so hard against the secret ballot and the established NLRB procedures? Why else would it openly intimidate men and women who simply want to work? Why else would it intimidate their families and their communities? If the UAW was anything besides an organized racket, preying on the young and the weak even while it destroys the factories in which they work, couldn’t it rely on the workers themselves to ask for it?

You know the answer to that, and so do the workers, and so does the UAW. Thankfully, the men and women who work for Volkswagen in Chattanooga have resisted the intimidation, the pressure, the baying of a blue-lapdog media, and they’ve voted for themselves. For their families. For their futures. And wherever the standard of bravery is raised, others will see it. The Volkswagen vote was a vote against corruption, against parasitical blood-sucking, against intimidation. Make no mistake: we may always need unions in this country. But we no longer need the UAW. If, indeed, we ever did.

 

[koalabear]

Might depend on the trade. If you leave the line for an apprenticeship and the line paid 21 but the trade pays 25 then they might give it to you. If the journeyman gets 35 I doubt they give that much of a raise. The facility I work in has 3 levels. Apprentice, journeyman in training, and journeyman. Each is paid different

IBEW cubs around here get a 5% raise every six months. There is no journeyman in training around here. I am talking outside construction.

 

[Ajax_Prime]

Older news:

http://http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/10/workers-at-chattanooga-start-anti-uaw-petition/#more-532769

A group of workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant is circulating a petition aimed at stopping the UAW’s attempt to organize the plant.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, paint shop employee Mike Burton, the man behind the petition, said

“We’ll report the percentage of team members who are with us. I have no doubt it will be over 50%,”

A group of workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant is circulating a petition aimed at stopping the UAW’s attempt to organize the plant.

Burton is one of seven Chattanooga employees who launched a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over the UAW’s “card check” process, where workers sign cards claiming that they want the UAW to represent them. However, this has been controversial, as some workers, including Burton, allege that the card process was misrepresented to them. They say that the cards were pitched as a way to get more information about the UAW, not a way to approve of the UAW representing them. Workers also reported that those who asked for their cars back were directed to a UAW office to recover them.

Labor representatives in Germany are pushing for Volkswagen to establish a works council at Chattanooga, however US law would require union representation for this to happen. Along with the United States Volkswagen plants in China and Russia do not have works councils at all, or in the case of Russia, they are not integrated with Volkswagen’s global labor organization.

Labor representatives in Germany are pushing for Volkswagen to establish a works council at Chattanooga, however US law would require union representation for this to happen. Along with the United States Volkswagen plants in China and Russia do not have works councils at all, or in the case of Russia, they are not integrated with Volkswagen’s global labor organization.

http://http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/10/uaw-not-welcome-in-the-south/#more-415908

“I see no need for union representation,” says Adrian Leslie, line worker at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant. “We are being treated fairly here.”

If it would be him alone to decide, then any plans of the UAW to unionize Volkswagen Chattanooga are doomed. Leslie is not alone in his opinion, and the plans are doomed.

Leslie had given up a 7 ½ year job at a distribution company in Chattanooga, because “the job I had before was considered a job, but I was actually looking for was a career.” He is 1 ½ year into his career at Volkswagen and thinks that “the working conditions here are excellent. This company is going a long way.”

Colleague Kristy Hill, who is fitting suspensions of the new Passat with Leslie, would be a tough target for union organizers: ”I haven’t heard a lot about the unions, I’d have to make a lot of research before I would make a decision,” says the resolute lady who held part time jobs before she was hired by Volkswagen 1 ½ years ago. “I love it,” Ms. Hill says. “This is it – this will be my last job.”

The two, randomly interviewed at our visit to Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, echo the sentiment at the bright, airy and clean Volkswagen plant in a wooded valley in the outskirts of Chattanooga. When the two signed on 1 ½ years ago, they were paid $14.50 per hour, even during training. Now they are on their way to $19.50 per hour. A Detroit tier two UAW worker makes $15.50 per hour at Ford. After the labor deal with the UAW, the tier two wage will rise to $19.28, the same as at GM.

After 36 months at Volkswagen, the hourly wage does not only exceed the future tier two wage in Detroit. There is additional shift pay, there are quarterly performance bonuses, a choice of medical plans, and a host of other benefits. Visits to the on-site doctor are free, a gym is open 24/7. A company lease program is so attractive that half of the cars on the employee parking lot are already Volkswagens, coexisting in harmony with Detroit iron.

In July, UAW President Bob King said that organizing foreign auto plants is a matter of life and death of the union. Without a union victory in the south, “I don’t think there’s a long-term future for the UAW, I really don’t,” said King.

After touring transplant plants in the south, we predict that any forays by the UAW will get bogged down in the red mud of Dixie. If it indeed is a matter of life and death as advertised, then the UAW is dead.

Southern workers seem to be largely ambivalent towards the UAW. The management of southern transplants usually does not speak out against the UAW as openly as Honda did. It does not have to, the words and actions of the workers speak for themselves.

The few times the UAW tried to unionize a transplant factory in the south ended in a debacle.

In 2001, Nissan workers in Smyrna rejected U.A.W. representation by a 2-to-1 vote, a result branded as a “devastating defeat” by the World Socialist Website. Back then, the New York Times called the results “no better than in the union’s failed attempt to organize the same plant in 1989.” Now, the entrance to Nissan’s U.S. HQ is guarded by grim polar bears.

The UAW can’t even count on the solidarity of its union brothers in Germany.

A little later after the life and death announcement, the UAW revealed that it had targeted Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, and had meetings with the German metal workers union in order to drum up support. Those meetings were not highly successful. Soon thereafter, Bernd Osterloh, head of Volkswagen’s works council who represents labor of VW’s supervisory board, told Reuters he would not actively promote efforts by the United Auto Workers to broaden its membership in Chattanooga

Really sounds like VW is truly, truly, screwing these people. If they only KNEW, right?

 

[remy_lebeau8]

IBEW cubs around here get a 5% raise every six months. There is no journeyman in training around here. I am talking outside construction.

Ya. Like I said im on a list waiting for orintation from the ibew. Passed the test and two seperate interviews. Apprentices for them in my area start at 16 and change (inside wireman) and cap at 35 after a 5 year apprenticeship

 

[Dazzle1]

Why is one needed?

Because the workers wisely decided against paying extortion.

Becasue of U.S law a workers advisory group has to be union base or at least that was what Nissan was told when they tried to do it.

workers should have input especially on safety but they don't need some parasitic union boss to do it for them

 

[koalabear]

Because the workers wisely decided against paying extortion.

Becasue of U.S law a workers advisory group has to be union base or at least that was what Nissan was told when they tried to do it.

workers should have input especially on safety but they don't need some parasitic union boss to do it for them

Honda and Toyota must be breaking the law then.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Because the workers wisely decided against paying extortion.

Becasue of U.S law a workers advisory group has to be union base or at least that was what Nissan was told when they tried to do it.

workers should have input especially on safety but they don't need some parasitic union boss to do it for them

Then how would they do it without a Union Boss? American Idol style?

 

[Dazzle1]

Then how would they do it without a Union Boss? American Idol style?

You could ask a experienced group of workers, aka you don't want a 6 month worker on the board. Or you could have the worker in the plant vote one their own in.

as an example, I serve on advisory boards for some of the companies I am involved in.

Now lets have a Right to work vote in all Union shops. And let Right to Work advocates free access to counter the lies of Union Stewards

 

[sigh]

Two different worlds. UAW apprentices get full pay before they finish their training. So they stop training because they won't get any higher on the pay scale.
There are now better trained electricians than the IBEW. ABC http://www.abcsocal.org/Electrical_Certification.aspx
Any one that finishes the course at ABC is a Master Electrician, master meaning the have passed all code tests and can become a contractor. Not so with the IBEW.

Yes they're different but that's not what I was responding to. You said that no union adds value to the final product and I noted the apprenticeship programs of skilled trade unions which clearly DO add value to the final product.

And yes, it's possible to get that training elsewhere, but that too doesn't change the fact that the apprenticeship program for electricians adds value to the final products. You make a point, I respond to it, and then you change the parameters of your original point. If you want to keep the discussion to the UAW only, don't refer to all unions. It ain't fair, darn it (stamping my foot in agitation).

 

[sigh]

Honda and Toyota must be breaking the law then.

I was confused by that too because you suggested that VW should copy the Honda and Toyota models, but the article you posted from Reuters mentioned what Dazzle said about it being illegal and that VW would be breaking new ground. We need a labor law lawyer.

On the other hand, maybe not.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I prefer union electricians to non-union because I'm assured their apprenticeship training system will turn out someone qualified to wire my home without frying me while I shower. You can't say they don't add quality to the final product in all cases, k.

I'm with you, though, in that I'm not sure of their value to the final product when representing those on the line in manufacturing plants. But then I'm far removed from that world. I'd like to hear from somebody who works there. remy, I don't know what you do. Can you shed light on this?



I'll have to catch up later. Hospitals never close and it's nearing my time to take a turn at weekend evenings. I'm off to work. Take care, all.

You have electricity in your shower???




Was it a Union Plumber???

 

[sigh]

You have electricity in your shower???




Was it a Union Plumber???

It helps with the music and light show. And I need to plug in my Hitachi Magic Wand somewhere. You should see my shower. It's pretty cool.