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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[XXSockXX]

German strikes tend to be short and tame, they also tend to only happen after failed negotiations or as a 1 day warning strike. It's sort of the workers walking with their signs, on a route that has been cleared with authorities in the morning, and then having a barbecue in the afternoon.  French strikes seem to happen every day for all kinds of reasons, and they can last for months too. They start with building barricades and collecting stuff to throw at the police, then it's revolution time.

[wierd]

Here's a recent, and typical example of our lovely machinist's union in action

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA0801J20140109?irpc=932

(I'm not in the seattle supply chain area, but where boeing decides to manufacture something should be up to boeing, no? Apparently, the unions don't agree. Boeing has big production systems in place in seattle washington, wichita kansas, and tulsa oklahoma. Which plant? Better make sure the union won't shit a bloody turd-- ask them first. Oh, oop, they can't even decided amongs themselves! Wheeee!)

[Lord Shonus]

Case #1) Hostess foods.

Company says "look, we can't afford to raise your pay yet again. People aren't buying junkfood like they used to, and we just can't do those numbers. We will go bankrupt."

Union says "Fuck you! We'll strike until we get our annual payraise, and get paid 35$+/hr!"

Company "We have filed the chapter 13 forms."

Really, that really *IS* the portrait of most production unions in this country.

Another poingant example, is the yellow cab union in NYC. Whooo boy. That's a wild ride.

Bull. Shit.

My dad was the highest paid worker at that plant. He made $15 per hour.  The line workers got $8. They wanted a raise to 12, which they were supposed to already have, except that the company deliberately put itself into a "financial emergency" for the sole purpose of freezing wages and allowing them to schedule 90 hour weeks. 

The entire Hostess fiasco was nothing more than a deliberate attempt by the company to break the union, as part of the larger corporate strategy of exterminating them.

[wierd]

my apologies.

I am so used to seeing the machinists union in action. (Seriously, JANITORS get paid 20/hr in machinist union controlled shops. It's the minimum required by the union contract.)

[Sheb]

And honestly wierd your second exemple looked bad as well. Seriously, Boeing offer was to implant the plant there only in exchange for stopping payment to pension funds. Seems like the kind of stuff a union is supposed to stand to.

Unions do improve pay and worker's well-being, even in the US. Just look at the decline in work quality in the meatpacking industry after they bust the unions there. Pay went down 50% in a few years.

[wierd]

... sheb, NOBODY gets pensions here anymore.

Do the unions need to stand up to the corporate overlords? Oh hell yes.

Do they need to not ask for all that and a box of chocolates, and instead focus on fair (not high payong) wages and extras? YES.

Should they be demanding a minimum baseline pay that is 20% above baseline pay in the surrounding region (like mine?) NO.

Should they be demanding a retirement package that basically works out to still getting paid 100k+ a year, in an area where the average yearly pay is closer to 50k? NO.

I can't speak definitavely for seattle, but here in the wichita production hub, what I just described above prfectly describes the machinist union negotiation points.

[Bauglir]

... And that's a good thing?

[wierd]

Bauglir:

 In my local area, the average "good paying job" pays about 30 to 50k/year. Costs of living are adjusted to this pricing point. 50k is 'living large, with the 3 car garage, hummerH3 in the driveway, and a speedboat." 100k+ is "doctor" type wages. 30k is "normal family home, 2 cars and some kids". 20k and less is impoverished.

This works out, roughly, to about 15-17$/hr, give or take, for the 30k figure.

The machinists union demands baseline pay at 23$/hr, to start-- that's before any bonuses or pay raises-- with mandatory raises that quickly push this above 40$/hr as the base rate of pay, with hiring restrictions forbidding aircraft companies from hiring nonunion members, even if they apply, if a union member is in the employment application database, and on top of this demanding pensions that rival the retirement packages of doctors.

No, I don't think its a good thing that nobody gets pensions anymore.

I think its a bad thing for unions to inflate local economies by demanding pay greatly exceeding the median income, driving local inflation, and making non union people suddenly hit the poverty line.


To clarify further-- the typical US resident does not receive a pension from their employer for retirement. Instead, the vast majority of people now use a tax sheltered 401k savings plan, managed by a retirement investment firm, which the employer does "payment matching" for.

Eg, if I pay 300/mo into my 401k, and my employer does 30% matching, they pay 100$ into my 401k as well. So, basically I get 400$ put in my retirement savings, instead of 300$.

My employer matches to 100%, up to 4% of my monthly pay.

If I were to get paid 1000/month, and pay in exactly 4%, that would be 40$/mo put in the retirement investment account. My employer will match that 100%, and put another 40$ in, out of its own pocket, netting me 80$/mo actual investment per month.

Greater than 4%, they cap what the supplimentation would be at the 4% figure.

That's pretty standard on how retirement savings works these days, and is why bernie maddoff's investment scandal was so egregious. (Those were retirement investment accounts he was defrauding.)

BOEING does not want to liquidate pensions, and provide no alternative. They want the switch exclusively to 401k plans. 

The machinists union wants the 401k plan AND the pension plan to be in their contracts.

[Lord Shonus]

23-40 dollars an hour is not even remotely excessive for skilled labor. The problem there isn't the union wages being high, it is the non-union workplaces that try to get their labor at an extremely low rate, ignoring the inevitable drops in quality, workflow, and reliability under the assumption that people will see workers that are properly compensated for their labor as "obscenely wealthy", and thus can be tricked into thinking that unions are bad for the economy. There are always more people above the poverty line in largely unionized areas, unless an entire industry collapses.

[wierd]

I am a cnc programmer sir.  I am also an industrial draftsman.

I am non-union. I get paid about 17/hr. Granted, this is underpaid for my vocation-- the going rate for non-union is closer to 25/hr. (This used to be a privately, family owned company, and there were other intangibles to working here that offset the pay rate. We were purchased by a fortune 500 company 2 months ago. Naturally, they have not raised our pay, but have instead increased our hours. Naturally I am pissed.)



A person at boeing who installs rivets gets paid more than I do. Said riveter gets paid... 23/hr to start.

My position at boeing gets closer to 60/hr.

That is 3x the typical non union rate, and is approaching "doctor" pay. I can assure you, that the labor is NOT worth that level of compensation.

[Max White]

$17 an hour... Bro, I got paid more than that an hour when I worked at subway.

[wierd]

Max:

The united states is not a homogenous economy. The rate I get paid is far higher than the rate paid one state eastward, and retardedly below poverty in say, california.

The local economy and local cost of living is important to consider. Not the actual dollar ammount. You need to look at it as the percentage above median income.

For comparison, "subway" pays around 10$/hr here, and is part time with no insurance.


You can see this clearly just by shopping for realestate.

In my area, the "typical family home" is in the 75k to 120k range.
In Missouri, one state easward where my friend lives, it's closer to 50 to 90k.
In california, it's closer to 700k to 1.2 million.

Here, my 30 to 50k income (overtime) is enough for me to own 2 vehicles, and a home, an hdtv, several computers, and several game consoles, while still keeping a positive bank account, and saving for retirement.

In california, I couldn't afford to live undeneath a bridge.

in total dollars, I get paid less, but those dollars are more powerful here.
Inflated wages in such areas inflate those dollars, reducing their buying power.
This causes local economies to charge more for essential services, making people that WERE doing just fine, now strugge to pay the rent and keep their kids fed.

Consistent demands to increase wages above the standard inflation rate for cost of living will do this 100% of the time. This is because it then directly drives the inflation rate.

Demanding pay that is unreasonable for your area is gross.

[Lord Shonus]

Around here, $50,000 a year is a princely salary. Large, comfortable houses on multiple lots can be had for 40,000 or less.


A zero-experience CNC programmer or draftsman straight out of engineering school (I went to an industrial high school, and thus most of my acquaintances work in the industry) would reply to an offer of 17/hour or even 25/hour with "Go fuck yourself".

Your low wages aren't the union's fault. Companies view non-union labor as disposable, interchangeable cogs, and would pay minimum wage if they could afford it.

[Bauglir]

I agree, wierd, that working conditions for a lot of non-unionized people are not what they should be, but I don't understand why that justifies making things harder on people who are in unions while corporate profits continue their usual skyward climb. It seems to me that the right way to react is to demand those benefits get spread around, not rescinded entirely. It's like an apartment with a broken AC unit shutting them all down to be fair. I'd also like to point out that your pay rate shouldn't be based on how hard you work, but how much money you make your employer, and that being a mechanic isn't exactly unskilled labor.

[wierd]

Around here, $50,000 a year is a princely salary. Large, comfortable houses on multiple lots can be had for 40,000 or less.


A zero-experience CNC programmer or draftsman straight out of engineering school (I went to an industrial high school, and thus most of my acquaintances work in the industry) would reply to an offer of 17/hour or even 25/hour with "Go fuck yourself".

Your low wages aren't the union's fault. Companies view non-union labor as disposable, interchangeable cogs, and would pay minimum wage if they could afford it.

You are missing the important part I stated-- up until 2 months ago, this was a private, family company with intangible perks.

1) no supervision
2) quiet environment
3) low stress
4) highly flexible work schedules.


In the past 2 months, since the corporate fortune 500 vampires bought us out, we now are working mandatory 45hr minimum work weeks with strict worktime requirements, constant productivity metrics assessments, and other "welcome to hell fuckers@1 hahahahah!" Type things.

Note, I said I was most certainly not happy about this.

Prior to 2 months ago, I actually did have free time off work, and I was better able to arrange vacations when I needed to take them.

I am certainly not a fan of corporations. 

The error you are making is that every employer for highly trained people is a money grubbing corporation. The aren't.


Bauglier:

Machinist =! Mechanic.

In this case, the majority of the "machinists" in the union are actually CNC operators. --not exactly true machinists. (A machinist, in the traditional sense, is somebody that can operate a traditional milling machine to produce a milled machine component. That is a very skilled job. Not very many people can do that.) A cnc operator, in comparison, checks tools in the NC machine to ensure that they are in the correct toolchanger slots and don't show signs of wear, loads and unloads material and finished part, and watches the CNC machine mill the part for them. There is some skill involved in ensuring that feeds and speeds are reasonable, and that fixtures are properly used, material is properly seated and indicated into position, and things of that nature.

It is a very far cry from doing what I do, or doing mechanic work.