General Motors goes non-union

[Detroitnerd]

Going Non-Union
GM's Northern Strategy

By AL BENCHICH

The “reinvention� of the “New GM� has begun with the opening of a lithium-ion battery plant in Brownstown, Michigan, near Detroit. The event was remarkable not only because the Brownstown plant signals GM’s return to the production of an electric vehicle but also because, for the first time in about 30 years, GM has opened a non-union plant in the U.S.

The new plant is funded in part by taxpayer dollars, and GM is not rehiring any of the thousands of UAW members who were laid off when their plants closed—despite union promises that workers’ concessions on pay, benefits, and speed of work would save GM and were their only chance for job security.

http://www.counterpunch.com/benchich02242010.html

[esp1986]

Going Non-Union
GM's Northern Strategy

By AL BENCHICH

The “reinvention� of the “New GM� has begun with the opening of a lithium-ion battery plant in Brownstown, Michigan, near Detroit. The event was remarkable not only because the Brownstown plant signals GM’s return to the production of an electric vehicle but also because, for the first time in about 30 years, GM has opened a non-union plant in the U.S.

The new plant is funded in part by taxpayer dollars, and GM is not rehiring any of the thousands of UAW members who were laid off when their plants closed—despite union promises that workers’ concessions on pay, benefits, and speed of work would save GM and were their only chance for job security.

http://www.counterpunch.com/benchich02242010.html

As I have understood it, working with other companies in the auto industry, there is a fine line that separates these from typical manufacturing jobs... these are more technologically advanced jobs, requiring more training and expertise than former GM workers with manufacturing experience have... that is the main justification, obviously there could be more reasons, but those ended up being side benefits... the main purpose of this was not to circumvent the unions, that was just a side benefit.

[Detroitnerd]

the main purpose of this was not to circumvent the unions, that was just a side benefit.

Your slip is showing.

[unclefrank]

As I have understood it, working with other companies in the auto industry, there is a fine line that separates these from typical manufacturing jobs... these are more technologically advanced jobs, requiring more training and expertise than former GM workers with manufacturing experience have... that is the main justification, obviously there could be more reasons, but those ended up being side benefits... the main purpose of this was not to circumvent the unions, that was just a side benefit.

The idea here is that GM will use contractors as much as possible for all types of work. In the end, most GM people will just be project managers. Now if they start contracting services to overseas companies like they are doing with their IT operations, that would be an outrage. When you take the American peoples money to build, and screw all the people that you barrowed from in their "controlled bankrupcy" so you can enrich a select few, that stinks.

[noggin]

And you guys wonder why no businesses want to locate in Michigan?

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "There is a Union lawsuit coming that will shut that scab plant down."

Yeah let's run these bastards right out of the state. "Lawsuit"? You are kidding right? Somebody opens a plant here, and you start building a case against them. With this mentality, Detroit and Michigan are doomed.

[DLife]

We continue to let corporations dominate and control the world as the standard of living and income disparity grows.

[hudkina]

How many people that post here know the definition of sarcasm?

[Hermod]

We continue to let corporations dominate and control the world as the standard of living and income disparity grows.

OK, you and your buds can build your own factory with a partnership instead of a corporation.

[Detroitnerd]

Unions allow employees to collectively bargain with their employers. It's an American institution. Why should management be the only ones with contracts and benefits and pensions? Like it or not, unions are the only way Americans have to democratize the workplace.

[Hermod]

Unions allow employees to collectively bargain with their employers. It's an American institution. Why should management be the only ones with contracts and benefits and pensions? Like it or not, unions are the only way Americans have to democratize the workplace.

The purpose of a union should not be to "democratize" the workplace. The purpose of a union is to be a labor cartel to push up the rental cost of labor.

[Melocoton]

The purpose of a union is to be a labor cartel to push up the rental cost of labor.

And the only cartels we allow here in America are corporate ones, by God.

[TKshreve]

Going Non-Union
GM's Northern Strategy

By AL BENCHICH

The “reinvention� of the “New GM� has begun with the opening of a lithium-ion battery plant in Brownstown, Michigan, near Detroit. The event was remarkable not only because the Brownstown plant signals GM’s return to the production of an electric vehicle but also because, for the first time in about 30 years, GM has opened a non-union plant in the U.S.

The new plant is funded in part by taxpayer dollars, and GM is not rehiring any of the thousands of UAW members who were laid off when their plants closed—despite union promises that workers’ concessions on pay, benefits, and speed of work would save GM and were their only chance for job security.

http://www.counterpunch.com/benchich02242010.html

Gee, and I thought they were kicking off the "New GM" by throwing Toyota to the wolves?

Now who here feels there is a correlation between The Fed's recent partial acquisistion of GM -and- the lightning fast depositions of Toyota's Executives?

While I give a full hat tilt to our Government for diligently following up on this matter regarding to safety; you still can not deny that Toyota's woes will help out goverments personal pocketbook. Slam dunk move. Sorry to hijack.

[TKshreve]

BTW - How many jobs did we add in Brownstown? 50? 100?

Roll out the confetti machines, this is gonna save the metro region. :shhh:

[wobbly]

Stash moos: "With this [pro-union] mentality, Detroit and Michigan are doomed."

The historically strong Michigan economy paired strong unions [[benefiting all, including non-union, workers) with a strong manufacturing base. The downward spiral in Michigan happened in a time of capital flight & weakened unions.

State government subsidies attracted the Detroit Three to southern states and the auto transplants to states from Ohio to Alabama. Sure they were running to greenfields, but Highland Park was a greenfield when Henry Ford built the Model T plant on Woodward. I'm just saying all the la-de-dah about "free" enterprise is a smokescreen.

What kind of mentality would you propose? The State could increase subsidies, maybe ban the union shop, weaken Michigan OSHA, quit enforcing wage and hours laws ... quicken our slide downward with low wages, weak labor & environmental enforcement & mimic conditions in the places capital flees to. Is that a plan you can endorse? I cannot.

I agree with Brother Benchich that "concessions will not solve this dilemma. There is no more to give." Despite the myth that autoworkers are lazy drunks the fact is autoworkers work hard. Productivity increases over the past decade or two are huge; the percentage increase in productivity pretty much matches job losses.

Al says "there has been a vacuum in leadership at the UAW" and that UAW members need "real discussion and debate about the way forward at the [upcoming union] convention". He knows as well as anyone there is no discussion and debate at UAW conventions; still I share his hope that the incoming leaders will do something more than "continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."

And to Hermod: I disagree. Part of the purpose of a union is to democratize the workplace. Corporate status is granted by government, sorta like the media licensing the airwaves, it should be pulled when the corporation is destructive of the people in whose name the status was given.

[Sstashmoo]

Quote: "The historically strong Michigan economy paired strong unions [[benefiting all, including non-union, workers) with a strong manufacturing base."

The fasts are: Detroit was already a mecca for industry with a strong manufacturing base at the introduction of labor unions, and has been in a steady decline ever since. If you think higher labor costs draw new business, I have a bridge or something..

The UAW ran off countless other businesses, simply because they could not match the wages of their automaker brethren. You folks talk about Detroit being a one industry town, you can thank the UAW for that.

Henry Ford was offering unheard of wages at the time, classic example of free market forces at work. Labor unions undermined those forces and created an artificial atmosphere where profit and loss did not play a part. It is an unsustainable model and easy for anyone that knows how to operate a calculator to figure out.

Detroit would be the largest city in the US right now had it not been corrupted by labor thugs. Instead, she lay in ruins.

[Detroitnerd]

Quote: "The historically strong Michigan economy paired strong unions [[benefiting all, including non-union, workers) with a strong manufacturing base."

The fasts are: Detroit was already a mecca for industry with a strong manufacturing base at the introduction of labor unions, and has been in a steady decline ever since. If you think higher labor costs draw new business, I have a bridge or something..

The UAW ran off countless other businesses, simply because they could not match the wages of their automaker brethren. You folks talk about Detroit being a one industry town, you can thank the UAW for that.

Henry Ford was offering unheard of wages at the time, classic example of free market forces at work. Labor unions undermined those forces and created an artificial atmosphere where profit and loss did not play a part. It is an unsustainable model and easy for anyone that knows how to operate a calculator to figure out.

Detroit would be the largest city in the US right now had it not been corrupted by labor thugs. Instead, she lay in ruins.

No offense, Sstashmoo, but that's a lot of crap. Or, rather than call it "crap," let's call it what it is: A little truth and a lot of revisionist history.

[Mikeg]

Productivity increases over the past decade or two are huge; the percentage increase in productivity pretty much matches job losses.

What nonsense! With companies like the Detroit-based automakers who have been experiencing continued loss of market share for decades [chart], there has been - and continues to be - absolutely no correlation between productivity gains and job losses.

The Reuther-era UAW leadership understood that productivity gains were a "golden goose" for both the company and the union. For many years they wisely made sure that the incremental labor and benefits costs in a new contract did not increase faster than the company's productivity gains. The "jobs bank" was negotiated in the early 1980s to address the problem of workers who were temporarily displaced when an assembly plant underwent a retooling that increased the level of automation. The jobs bank was intended to keep and compensate those displaced workers until normal attrition opened up a real job for them. The jobs bank served the needs of both the union and the company as long as the company's market share increased or remained stable. It became a noose around the company's neck when they began to lose market share and only served to delay the inevitable.

The jobs bank costs, along with union contract costs in recent decades that increased faster than productivity gains helped produce the Chapter 11 restructurings at GM and Chrysler and the massive borrowing by Ford after Allen Mulally came aboard that has kept them from the same fate.

[Sstashmoo]

"A little truth"?

Explain why no industry [[any that are left) moves here and we have been losing various industries for years. The infrastructure is here, access to sea commerce, commercial rail network and accessibility, close proximity to supporting industry, steel, chemical, plastics, etc. Labor quality, highways, on and on. Detroit should be the main industrial hub of the US and it isn't even close. If it is not high labor cost and their supporting organizations bending over industry at every juncture, then what is it? Please educate me. Yeah I want to open a business where I have to pay someone a hundred grand to leave [[buyouts). Anyone that thinks these issues aren't discussed or better yet laughed at for their absurdity in the board rooms of companies when discussing geographic location and possible new location, is clueless. You people are living in the past. Wayyy in the past. The UAW and it's power and greed is what has destroyed it, it destroyed itself by killing the host.

[Detroitnerd]

"A little truth"?

Explain why no industry [[any that are left) moves here and we have been losing various industries for years. The infrastructure is here, access to sea commerce, commercial rail network and accessibility, close proximity to supporting industry, steel, chemical, plastics, etc. Labor quality, highways, on and on. Detroit should be the main industrial hub of the US and it isn't even close. If it is not high labor cost and their supporting organizations bending over industry at every junction, then what is it? Please educate me. Yeah I want to open a business where I have to pay someone a hundred grand to leave [[buyouts). Anyone that thinks these issues aren't discussed or better yet laughed at for their absurdity in the board rooms of companies when discussing geographic location and possible new location, is clueless. You people are living in the past. Wayyy in the past. The UAW and it's power and greed is what has destroyed it, it destroyed itself by killing the host.

Have you seen statistics for manufacturing in the United States over the last 50 years? It ain't just Detroit, pal...

[noggin]

I have had some state business recruiters from other parts of the country in my office. The first thing that would come out their mouths was their's was a right to work state. They all have training, incentives, and other tax goodies like Michigan.

There is a major reason why there have been no non big 3 associated auto plant has come to this state. Wake up and smell the coffee.

[kryptonite]

OK, you and your buds can build your own factory with a partnership instead of a corporation.

A near perfect reply, Hemrod. But you could suggest that they open their own UNIONIZED factory, just to make their labor costs 3X higher and their productivity questionable. And let them see how much business they end up with in the long term.

[Sstashmoo]

I'd like to see a chart of the US, that depicts introduction of labor union by area and subsequent loss of industry as a result. There are many plants around the US that were shuttered and empty until this day because of that very thing.

[Detroitnerd]

I'd like to see a chart of the US, that depicts introduction of labor union by area and subsequent loss of industry as a result. There are many plants around the US that were shuttered and empty until this day because of that very thing.

Mostly, though, it's been because U.S. corporations would rather employ people in third world countries where brutal strongmen crush labor unions, drive down living standards, and companies can lock you inside, fire you when you're pregnant or old, etc. What a shame we don't have those wonders here, eh?

[econ expat]

A near perfect reply, Hemrod. But you could suggest that they open their own UNIONIZED factory, just to make their labor costs 3X higher and their productivity questionable. And let them see how much business they end up with in the long term.

Great Lakes Steel
employee ownership set up to avert corporate
abandonment a few years ago.

Lasted how long?