Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/30

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Central now union bashing/praising
From: Daniel Ridings <daniel.ridings@muspro.uio.no>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 13:58:06 +0200 (MEST)
References: <000001c38743$1fc468b0$6401a8c0@dorysrusp4>

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Don Dory wrote:

> Mark, I have some inside knowledge of why owners move/shut down.  In the
> late seventies the workers at the Bunn (coffee makers) plant in
> Springfield Illinois got itchy to follow their peers at the Fiat/Allis
> plant down the street into uniondom.  George Bunn paid above union
> scale, better vacation/medical, no strange work hour requirements.
> After the usual negotiations where it was apparent the union was voted
> in on promises of better wages/hours George Bunn closed the plant and
> moved production to Iowa. Oh, and the Fiat plant closed as well so all
> the happy union workers are doing what in Springfield?

Isn't there a bigger story? I've been gone from the US for almost 30
years. What you describe is the move of a business to greener pastures.
The union was perceived to be a threat so they moved. Reminds me a lot of
19th century Europe when crass capitalism was on the rise.

But what I'm getting at is that the unions don't really offer a threat to
businesses any more ... not on a large scale. The most threatening thing
to US business today, in particular manufacturing business, is pay scale,
vacations, medical benefits, regulated work hours. Not the magnitude of
any of these, just the simple fact that US workers want them.

Now, if you can pay $200 a month to a worker in another country and that
worker really feels he or she is getting a good salary, then why keep your
manufacturing in Chicago or Phoenix? You can get a bigger bang for your
buck in Mexico or Malaysia.

How many blue collar workers are left in the US? Not nearly as many as 30
years ago. The American middle class is disappearing. If you have an
industrial job, you better be ready to take crap and not ask for anything
like a dignified wage (dignified = being able to pay your rent and buy
your food). No, it's much better to take any job at all and the parents
put their kids to work to fill in the income gaps.

So just like the management didn't like unions, they don't like nice
standards of living either, particularly if you can get away with less
someplace else.

Volvo is a union shop, Ericsson is a union shop, Saab is, AstraZeneca is,
SKF, ... buy hey, they KNOW how to run a business and unions are part of
that equation. Bunn ... didn't.

Daniel

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In reply to: Message from "Don Dory" <dorysrus@mindspring.com> (RE: [Leica] Central now union bashing/praising)