l******a
发帖数: 3803 | 1 Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems
By JERRY HIRSCH
Los Angeles Times
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Deric Golden has what he calls his dream job, fixing
small flaws on the sedans being churned out at the Hyundai factory here.
So when two organizers from the United Auto Workers knocked on his apartment
door one day, hoping to get him to sign a union card, he quickly sent them
packing.
"I told them I didn't work at the plant," said Golden, 29. "I just wasn't
interested."
It's the same story in town after town along the southern tier of Auto
Alley, a corridor that runs north-south along interstates 75 and 65 from
Lexington, Ky., to Montgomery.
Foreign automakers - including Honda, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and
Volkswagen - are placing their U.S. factories in this region because of
generous state and local incentives and a workforce famously resistant to
unions.
Still, this is the region that Bob King, president of the UAW, calls a key
battleground that could alter the future of the industry's labor movement.
And it's workers like Golden whom the union must win over.
"It is critically important for our membership to organize those facilities
to keep the companies where we already represent workers competitive," King
said. "We need to make sure that companies compete on the basis of
engineering, design, quality and innovation - not on who can pay their
workers the least."
The Southern battle is shaping up at a time when the labor movement is
facing new assaults from anti-labor governors and legislatures in
traditionally friendly environs such as Wisconsin and the industrial
Midwest. King is hoping his pitch - that the union is the defender of
middle-class jobs and upward mobility - will resonate with the rank and
file.
"We keep putting more taxes and lower wages on the people who are working in
this nation and keep giving tax breaks to the wealthy," he said. "And that
will destroy our democracy."
The union's membership has been shrinking across the country, hurt by the
recession, bankruptcies by General Motors and Chrysler and an industrywide
restructuring that has closed dozens of factories with UAW contracts.
Since 2007, the number of auto industry workers belonging to the union has
plunged 46 percent to just 185,522 from more than 345,407.
Plants in the South are churning out more of the nation's supply of new
vehicles. They now account for about half of all vehicle manufacturing in
the U.S., yet none of the factories operated by the foreign automakers in
the region have union workers.
The Detroit-based UAW could see its role in setting wages and benefits for
the industry severely diminish unless it gains members at those plants, King
said.
Wages vary by company and geographic region, making exact comparisons
difficult. Average labor costs - wages and benefits - for the unionized
Detroit automakers and nonunion Toyota's U.S. plants are about the same at
$55 an hour, according to the Center for Automotive Research. But the rest
pay less; nonunion Honda pays about $50 an hour. Nissan, Hyundai and Kia are
at about $45.
Since the 1950s, the UAW has "played a central role in producing a growing
and vibrant American middle class," said Harley Shaiken, the University of
California-Berkeley professor and labor expert. The wages and benefits it
exacted from the Detroit automakers in the second half of the 20th century
set a pattern for manufacturing wages nationwide, he said.
Though much smaller now, the union remains a force - and King has moved to
expand its reach by courting new political constituencies such as
environmentalists and human-rights activists as well as new industries.
But the UAW is having trouble making its case to workers who have an intense
loyalty to the automakers who brought high-paying blue-collar employment to
these small towns and cities starved for jobs.
"I don't want to give any more pieces of the pie to anyone else. I need it
for myself," said Kevin Carroll of La Grange, Ga., who was unemployed when
hired by Kia Motors Manufacturing last year.
The West Point, Ga., Kia plant, which opened in 2009, has had more than
100,000 applications for just 2,100 positions.
Before he joined Kia in August, Charles Miller of Powder Springs, Ga., had
worked for an industrial parts manufacturer that for 18 months had put its
workers on a one-week furlough every month. He said the factory job he
landed painting Kia Sorrento SUVs had better pay and benefits even without
the furloughs, greatly improving his finances.
"We have good communication with management here. Why would you need a
union?" he asked. "The only time a union shows up is to collect dues or at
election time."
Sentiments like these emphasize the magnitude of the challenge the UAW
faces.
"It is pretty hard to see the union breaking through," said James
Rubenstein, an auto industry analyst and geography professor at Miami
University in Oxford, Ohio.
"It would have to be a plant where the working conditions have gotten so bad
that people are up in arms and furious with management. There really aren't
any bad factories anymore. These plants are now warm and fuzzy."
King's organizers have been hitting the pavement as he tries to persuade
companies to allow the union to make its case directly to the workers.
King wants Hyundai and the other foreign companies making cars in the South
to agree to a set of organizing principles for "fair elections" that will
allow the union to make its pitch to employees in a setting that's free of
workplace "tension, fear and discord."
His proposal includes the union and management agreeing to address workers
at the same time and in the same manner regardless of whether it is posting
notices at the same location in the factories or having meetings of similar
length and similar location.
"All we want is a fair process, and whatever the workers decide will be the
decision. If they decide they don't want to be in the union, we will accept
that and move on," King said.
The automakers haven't responded publicly to the UAW's proposal for a set of
principles outside of what is already required by labor law. And they were
reluctant to talk about the union's efforts.
"Our employees will have a voice in the company and our people will decide
for themselves what their representation looks like," said Hans-Herbert
Jagla, the executive vice president of human resources at Volkswagen's
factory in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Similarly, J. Randy Jackson, the director of human resources at the Kia
plant, said union representation was for "our team members to decide."
So far, the UAW has had little success. The union lost elections at the
Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn.
"The UAW has to have a reason to come inside the company. Nissan doesn't
give them one," said Nish Peters, who has built cars at Nissan's factory for
the past 17 years. "I don't need someone talking to the boss for me."
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/01/2767735/who-wants-a-union-
not-southern.html#ixzz1IHR249Es | y****t
发帖数: 10233 | 2 They knew they are blessed they took jobs from northern scumbags union thugs.
【在 l******a 的大作中提到】
: Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems
: By JERRY HIRSCH
: Los Angeles Times
: Related:
: http://www.latimes.com/
: More News
: Carmakers scramble to hire electric engineers
: Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems
: Change your job-hunting strategy to better your odds
: Canyon Ranch founder practices what he preaches
| l******a
发帖数: 3803 | 3
thugs.
Only when they had great sufferings did they start to realize that under
current economy, a decent job is best gift that you will never afford to get
messed up like northern rusty belts.
In a perspective, human nature is inherently lazy dragging ass. Nobody
voluntarily adapts to change until it is really late. In a way, unions live
in the 1960s-70s when jobs were plenty and employers were willing to pay
more to hire. That has long gone, buddy, however people living on that
haven't.
How many legacies do we have to tackle to solve our problems?
So, in the times of complacent politicians steering away from risks at cost
of this country's future, the move in Wisconsin is truly a gem even tho
hated and undercut by leftist media. Sanity, welcome back!
I have as much respect for audacious sexual orientation, mobs, ACORNs, long-
term welfare takes, and shady politicians as for other human beings, but,
for god's sake, please don't let them run this country!
I'm not saying that, they aren't good at anything. That much said, I've
never been short of impression about the myriads of ways damnocrap people
exploiting sexuality. If there were Nobel in that category, Obama would have
been double-Nobel prizer in one single damned calendar year. In evolutionary
context, Darwin should be appalled to learn what had taken millions to
achieve now has been done in human weirdo in just a few decades.
【在 y****t 的大作中提到】
: They knew they are blessed they took jobs from northern scumbags union thugs.
| p*****e
发帖数: 7299 | 4 why onions are better than unions?
'cause unions can't make their ends meet. |
|
