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Look For The Union Label

This topics is where I get to directly step on a lot of toes, but keep in mind I look at things from a common sense perspective. Ford said on Monday that 25,000 factory workers had left its payroll after taking buyout offers, and it announced plans to close a Cleveland casting plant and idle a nearby engine plant for a year. Many people don’t truly understand why Ford and GM are having the current problems they are having in their industry.

There is a truly common sense answer and it can be found at the UAW website. Toyota has been taking over the automobile market. They are able to do so because they can offer cheaper cars to the consumer. This is great and its how the market was intended to work. Unfortunately, if you read that list on the UAW website, you will not see only two Toyota vehicles on that list and both of those cars are sourced from the United States and another country which also help keep the cost down on those particular makes of vehicles.

It may sound as though I’m complaining about Toyota having an unfair advantage because most of their vehicles are not made by Union Labor, but it is exactly the opposite. I am a Ford customer. Every vehicle I own is a Ford. I like the vehicles and I like the fact that they are made by American owned companies. That’s why you’ll never see me buy a Toyota. Ford and GM are both held back by their high cost from health care and pension benefits that they have to pay because they were forced years ago into hiring UAW workers.

That means, in order for Ford and GM to stay competitive with their pricing, they have to take a loss on profits. Toyota doesn’t currently have this problem. I propose, in order to fix this problem, that we dissolve the UAW and forgive Ford and GM from the benefits and pensions they are currently paying. I understand this is bad for those individuals, but at some point we have to decide what is good for the total job market and the U.S. economy.

I hope that one day I will live in a country in which I never have to look for the union label.

This entry was posted on May 8, 2007 at 10:13 am and is filed under Workers Unions, Jeremy, Coherent Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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5 Responses to “Look For The Union Label”

  1. Craig Betts says:
    May 8, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    I personally have seen the UAW kill several car plants in california. The GM F body (Camaro and Firebird) used to be built at a plant in Van Nuys. I also knew several employees that would talk about how they were always “underpaid”, but also talked a lot about how they always took the first two hours of work to read the newspaper.

    Unions have overpriced themselves. There are other foreign manufactures in the US that produce a fine car without union labor. Yes, Toyota and Honda are on the top. The 1980 Honda Civic I owned a few years back was more American than most GMs or Fords. The only parts from outside the US were all electronic components. The Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe are built in the same plant in Fremont, California.

    While I am very anti-union, I still think they have a place. Even after the grocery union pulled their little prank a few years ago.

    Eventually, greed gets the best of them though. They never seem to be around when the employers close shop simply because labor has gotten too expensive.

  2. RBuffordTJ says:
    May 8, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Unions are organized, legalized criminal enterprise. Anyone with half a brain cell can see who runs these groups and why they are so powerful, I say shut them down. Outlaw them.

    Unions are good financially for the people forced under their control by contracts, however they also tell you how you will vote on issues, on political officials and when and where you can speak. Um, didn’t I just wake up in America? Tell these Socialist bastards to take their jobs and shove them. A business should be able to hire whoever they want, whenever they want and offer whatever benefits and salary they want…much like happens in Japan and China. Those countries are watching us wipe ourselves out financially and picking up the change in the carnage.

    Wake up America!
    Bufford

  3. Jeremy says:
    May 8, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    Craig, that was a Coherent Thought if I ever heard one!

  4. DangerousNate says:
    April 21, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    I think unions should wake up and smell the coffee, they’re destroying Ford and GM, abolish them completely…I’m not so sure about though…

  5. Jeremy says:
    April 21, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    I totally agree about the Ford & GM thing. I really wish people would realize that!

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