Google to the rescue. The high court permits troubled firms to cancel union pacts More Related In most dictionaries, bankruptcy is a polite word for going belly up. But the Supreme Court handed down a decision last week that will enable corporations to use bankruptcy as a way to avoid going belly up. In a 9-to-0 opinion, the court ruled that a company that has filed for bankruptcy can cancel a union contract, cut wages and lay off workers without having to prove that the pact would cause the company to go completely broke. Declared AFL-CIO Special Counsel Laurence Gold: "The ruling obviously enhances the opportunity for union busting." http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952342,00.html
The unions have given up tons of concessions to the automakers. Aren't they taking on the medical insurance responsiblity from the automakers? The huge network legacy of dealerships and excessive production capacity is very costly. They haven't made much progress there. State Franchise laws keeps their hands tied. Idling plants still cost money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/28/AR2007012800676.html Here's a good timeline of a different airline's bankruptcy. Comair filed bankrutpcy. Judge tossed out union contract. Comair negotiates new contract with union. Union votes on it. -- Timeline for events tied to Comair's plan to emerge from bankruptcy. _Sept. 14, 2005: Delta Air Lines Inc., along with subsidiary Comair, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. July 21, 2006: Judge says Comair can toss out contract with flight attendants and impose concessions. _Dec. 21, 2006: Judge rules that Comair can impose wage cuts and changes in work rules for pilots. _Oct. 13, 2006: Comair and International Brotherhood of Teamsters reach tentative agreement on wage cuts and other concessions for flight attendants. _Nov. 14, 2006: Flight attendants vote to accept cuts in wages and other concessions.
I accidently pasted one even out of order that didn't have anything to do with the flight attendant's union contract. Please ignore this part. _Dec. 21, 2006: Judge rules that Comair can impose wage cuts and changes in work rules for pilots.
Uh, check my quote. I never said unions are a fraud. I said the UAW is. Were you and your wife in the UAW? I have been in a union (non-UAW) briefly and it was fine. The stuff I heard are from family members (matches validity of the statement about your wife) that are in the UAW. My neighbor during a Cat strike in late 80s or early 90s believed the same thing so he crossed the lines. Had his tires punctured at his home and threats to his family for his trouble. Your experience with the UAW is what, exactly?
I think this is a place that we can agree, glynch. While I think the UAW caused a lot of the trouble and has been a disservice to the members, the big three have agreed to those terms and should honor them as much as possible. It is a binding contract and the bigwigs in both the big three and UAW should lose their jets, bonuses, etc. long before low level employees lose health benefits or other compensation.
If the dealerships agree to close down, unions give further concessions on top of what they have given, and employees get laid off, then senior management needs to rework their employment contracts also. The contracts should be reworked to stop them from grabbing millions of dollars of tax payers money for bonuses. It's just pure greed, after all. When the fat cats give the bum's rush to 100 workers making $60k, so they can make a gold rush of $6 million in bonuses.
They aren't exactly "taking" the responsibility....GM paid them off to take it as no way the union could afford it...I believe the $ amount was a $45-$50B payment up front....Basically, it looks like GM exchanged insurance cost on their income statement for interest expense...So if that is the case (and I'm not sure it is), then bankruptcy wouldn't change the legacy medical benefits....I think someone said earlier that the pension was well funded, so if that is the case, then its hard to see pension benefits getting cut (don't think you can raid the pension fund in bankruptcy, just not have to put $ in). If the actual wage level of the new UAW contract isn't higher than competitors, the only way the cost structure of GM improves is if they wipe out a lot of bond holders in bankruptcy (assuming the medical trust/pension fund statements above are accurate)...
You've never said one deed that the UAW did alleging fraud. Your neighbor who tried to help break the strike that he was to benefit from, should not have been treated that way, but folks tend to get upset when someone tries to take free ride off of their sacrifice.
I have seen dozens of talking heads from finance, auto managment, journalists interviewing each other etc. talking about the auto comapany's problems or the bailout. Not once have I seen one union spokesperson. This omission is purposeful. Big media corporations naturally hate unions as they want to pay their own corporate employees as little as possible. This omission is the type of subtle progaganda that keeps Americans dumb.
Glynch, Unions are part of the problem........they are one of the main reasons that manufacturing jobs have left the USA. You can not sugar coat that, it is simply the truth. Unions and management are both culpable......for their mess. DD
The CEO of JAL Airlines took a pay cut, now makes $90,000. Less than the pilots. That's called leadership. Yet we have the CEO's GM, Ford, & Chrysler flying in private jets...
I think you are wrong to think so simplistically. It is true that regardless of the reason if an American worker is paid more, companies will try to outsource. We see it increasingly with programming jobs and law jobs and there have seldom been unions in these areas.
Question before you blame the autoworkers and unions. I assume that Germany, Japan, Italy and other advanced countries would NOT allow US auto makers to go to their country and set up non-union shops, hiring only younger workers and then sell cars to their populations who have good incomes and are heavily unionized. Why do we? Of course, since they all pay for their health care nationally and may very well have the government involved with pensions their is probably not the incentive to avoid older workers.
I find the last sentence hilarious when you blindly defend a union it seems that you know little about. Unions are in general a good thing and have made many contributions to society with labor laws, child labor, 8 hr days, etc. The UAW is not a typical union -- they became so strong that they pay people to play cards and watch movies (I'm sure you've run across those stories in the 'biased' media). I've also done some consultation with Delphi and the employees there told me they can't unplug a lamp because it's against union rules (must have qualified union electrician -- it was a damn lamp!), and another told me that they are intentionally unproductive due to job security...if they make their numbers before the shift is over, they just stop working. I assume that the last post from you is directed at someone else, since I believe that the blame is to be shared between management and UAW. I think management is at larger fault, but to say that the UAW is pure and blameless is naive.
Because if we didn't, those firms would just set up non-union shops somewhere else instead of insourcing jobs to the US. Then we could have the worst of both worlds!
We'd have to raise tariffs a lot if we wanted to match the costs faced by the big three because of union agreements. There's currently about a $29/hour gap in average compensation between workers at US-owned plants and those at "transplants" owned by foreign companies. Big tariff hikes come with a lot of drawbacks.
