Firm Moving to the D ~because~ it wants UAW Skilled Labor

**Lowell** · July-27-11, 10:23 AM

How about that? Growing amity between labor and management is putting the shoe on the other foot.

CEO Kousay Said has no qualms about ZeroBase Energy LLC being a union shop. He sees it as the key to a highly trained workforce.

"I've had advanced discussions with the UAW. I'm very interested in having a union shop," said Said. "We're going to have a run rate of 1,000 units a year by the end of this year, and the best way to do that is to have a highly trained workforce."

"Our strategy for production needs an automotive discipline. We don't need to educate that workforce. They can bring a lot of value to a production line. The union now is very interested in new ways of engaging management. This will yield benefits for both of us. I'm very excited about it," he said.

Link

**Scottathew** · July-27-11, 10:29 AM

Very interesting! I'm very anti-union and this is the first time I've ever seen an employer actually seek out a unionized work force.

This is good news for both the UAW and Detroit!

**Maof** · July-27-11, 11:34 AM

great news.....and i'm not anti-union

**canuck** · July-27-11, 12:11 PM

Being anti-union is like being anti-management. Either way, this does not make sense. Without dialogue and good work practices brought in by goodwill on either side of the divide, there would not exist health and safety laws, worker's compensation, and the laws that came about from evolving mentalities and yes; a lot of fighting. There are fewer accidents in the workplace, brighter and cleaner environments, and more education in use of equipment. There were no unions in the construction industry in the sixties in Quebec and that means they would hire unskilled workers who would be hurt, not be compensated, and were easily replaced by other unskilled laborers. Nowadays, people getting into the trades need some background to access these well paying and fulfilling jobs.

The big trade Unions now are investing in projects and companies in need of capital and that is a handshake worth preserving.

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · July-27-11, 12:14 PM

Hi-Tech, green energy, manufacturing jobs. What could be better for the area?

**JBMcB** · July-27-11, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by DetroiterOnTheWestCoast

Hi-Tech, green energy, manufacturing jobs. What could be better for the area?

Hi-Tech: Good, but depends on the level of skill required for these jobs. If these are standard assembly-line jobs, they could easily be moved overseas in the future.

Green Energy: Not so good, it's en vogue to fund these projects right now, but these startups usually depend on government largesse to survive. If the returns don't happen, or the money faucet shuts off for some reason, this place will evaporate.

Manufacturing: Good as long as they are highly skilled manufacturing jobs. Basic assembly-line stuff doesn't have a future in the US anymore. Otherwise this is just a stop-gap jobs program until production is either automated or moved overseas.

**Detroitnerd** · July-27-11, 12:35 PM

Yeah, we're just going to keep moving all our jobs overseas, so, what's the point of having jobs here?

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · July-27-11, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Yeah, we're just going to keep moving all our jobs overseas, so, what's the point of having jobs here?

JBMcB apparently is comfortable with our dependence on foreign oil too. Its such a wise move for our economic well being and security to send billions of dollars overseas to buy oil from people who hate us.

**JBMcB** · July-27-11, 02:20 PM

I'm being realistic. Look at the trends. Manufacturing isn't going to come back in any meaningful way. No more $20/hour for bolting seats into a chassis. Unless you have a somewhat unique skill, that's not going to happen anymore.

Ditto "Green Energy." Right now the government likes to fund these start-ups. That may change in the future. Every step of these ventures is subsidized, from investment and operating capital for the companies, to the sale and installation to the end-user. It's expensive, the results are questionable, and there are a lot of other technologies to be considering.

**Gianni** · July-27-11, 03:37 PM

You think that China, to mention just one, doesn't subsidize these industries? If we want to compete globally we have to do the same thing. It is funny how some complain that the government should not be in the business of trying to pick winners, but they forget about China. The Chinese government, because they have no qualms about government involvement in strategic planning for the economy, is investing heaviliy in green technology industries. If we don't do the same they are going to be doing all of these high tech, high skill jobs as well as the unskilled assembly that they already do for most of the world.

**Detroitnerd** · July-27-11, 04:44 PM

Shh, Gianni. Our business "experts" are of the la-z-faire, sit-back-and-let-the-market-rule variety. Anything that smacks of intelligent organization is COMMUNISM.

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · July-27-11, 04:58 PM

The government never should have subsidized the motor vehicle industry by building roads. If roads were needed, Henry Ford should have built them all.

**JBMcB** · July-27-11, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by DetroiterOnTheWestCoast

The government never should have subsidized the motor vehicle industry by building roads. If roads were needed, Henry Ford should have built them all.

Cars were around before paved roads. Besides, roads are pretty much the definition of a public good. That's what government *should* be subsidizing. PV, by most estimates, is still going to be several times more expensive per KW/hour than coal, and quite a bit more expensive than wind. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at PV with marginal gains in performance to show for it. Projections show it will continue to be that much more expensive. It's not an engineering problem, there's just not a lot of directly recoverable energy in sunlight. Yet we continue to dump billions of dollars into it's development. Meanwhile a company in Texas has invented a maintenance-free, meltdown-proof, sealed miniature nuclear battery that could safely power a small town for a decade with minimal nuclear waste. The department of energy hasn't even bothered to look at it for certification. But, hey, the all-knowing government knows what it's doing. They just put a PV installation in Yosemite. It will save the park $50,000 a year in energy costs. It cost around $4 million to install. They could have just put the $4 million in a 3% yield 20-year CD and made $130,000/year, but hey, it looks good in a press release.

**EL Jimbo** · July-27-11, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by JBMcB

Cars were around before paved roads. Besides, roads are pretty much the definition of a public good. That's what government *should* be subsidizing. PV, by most estimates, is still going to be several times more expensive per KW/hour than coal, and quite a bit more expensive than wind. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at PV with marginal gains in performance to show for it. Projections show it will continue to be that much more expensive. It's not an engineering problem, there's just not a lot of directly recoverable energy in sunlight. Yet we continue to dump billions of dollars into it's development. Meanwhile a company in Texas has invented a maintenance-free, meltdown-proof, sealed miniature nuclear battery that could safely power a small town for a decade with minimal nuclear waste. The department of energy hasn't even bothered to look at it for certification. But, hey, the all-knowing government knows what it's doing. They just put a PV installation in Yosemite. It will save the park $50,000 a year in energy costs. It cost around $4 million to install. They could have just put the $4 million in a 3% yield 20-year CD and made $130,000/year, but hey, it looks good in a press release.

I highly doubt we have spent trillions on photovoltaics. You make some decent points, but your argument gets severely damaged when you spout off hyperbole like that. Also, innovation doesn't happen overnight. There was 52 year between Ohm's discovery of his law that hypothesized the potential of a conductor in a circuit and Edison inventing the first incandescent light bulb and another 20-30 years after that until electrical power grids started to spread [[In some areas of the US it was closer to 50-60 years when the TVA brought power to much of the South). Compare that to the relatively short history of photovoltaic cells which first started appearing 45 years ago.

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · July-27-11, 07:24 PM

Besides, energy independence is a National Security Issue.

**JBMcB** · July-27-11, 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by EL Jimbo

Compare that to the relatively short history of photovoltaic cells which first started appearing 45 years ago.

You are misunderstanding. It's not an engineering problem. It's a physics problem. You just can't squeeze that much energy out of sunlight directly. Even if PV cells were 100% efficient and converted every photon of sunlight into electricity, you'd only get 5x more power than what we get now. That sounds like a large gain, but we don't get that much to start with. We need large amounts of cheap energy. PV will never make a large dent in that need. But we keep dumping gobs of money into it. Meanwhile there are very promising alternative energy technologies that are being ignored, mainly because they aren't politically fashionable right now.

**Scottathew** · July-28-11, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by DetroiterOnTheWestCoast

Besides, energy independence is a National Security Issue.

Exactly. Not only are we dependent on oil that comes from a part of the world that doesn't like us too much, we're also sending all our money over there.

Getting off oil will make us more secure and will be less expensive for us in the long run.