[Ducati] Strike at Harley (NDC)

[Bruce Bellm]

Do yourself a favor and don't buy into this pro-corporate spin. There are 
plenty of reasons for the decline of US manufacturing that have nothing to 
do with worker's unions and everything to do with greed and the influence of 
corporate money in D.C.

bruce19
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Taylor" <DucatiScott at comcast.net>
To: "Ducati Owners Group" <ducati at ducati.net>
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Ducati] Strike at Harley (NDC)


> There was definitely a time when unions were absolutely necessary to 
> protect workers from robber-barrons whose jobs killed the workers, both 
> literally and figuratively.  When there's 100 guys at the door looking for 
> your job because it's a job anybody can do with minimal OTJ training you 
> have to protect your job and fight for fair compensation.  Times have 
> changed. Especially in the trades/manufacturing jobs.  Workers, especially 
> skilled workers, are hard to come by these days, and they command premium 
> wages and benefits because the competition for them is so high.  That's 
> why unions in general, and particularly trades/manufacturing unions are on 
> the decline. Workers no longer need to hand significant chunks of their 
> pay over to fat-cat union bureaucracies in order to ensure themselves a 
> fair standard of living.  In the 80s I watched the union strike 
> International Harvester out of business where I lived in Illinois, and in 
> the 90s I saw the union do the same thing to the Caterpillar plant five 
> minutes down the street from Harley here in York.  That complex is still 
> largely abandoned to this day.  That's thousands of union workers out of 
> work in two small towns.  Now the autoworkers are looking down the barrel 
> of big trouble because of the contracts they've won for themselves.  Lost 
> jobs, lost benefits, forced early retirements and buyouts, and communities 
> that can no longer support themselves because the jobs have disappeared. 
> You'll have to explain to me how that's in the best interest of the 
> workers.  Since the union workers are demanding their 'fair share' of the 
> pie today because profits are up does that also mean that they'll take 
> their 'fair share' of cuts when the company falls again on hard times? 
> This grab what you can when you can attitude is irresponsible and hurts 
> workers in the long run.  Striking or bargaining your job out of existence 
> seems like the 'dumb' thing to me.
>
> *****
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