[Ducati] Strike at Harley (NDC)

[Bob Marren]

Living in South Florida where airlines once were king I remember what 
the unions did to Eastern, National and Pan Am. Thousands of workers
lost their jobs. Now Delta is almost there. The lost job filter down 
effect really hurt this area for years.
 Some people still need unions to protect them from greed and arogance 
but for the most part they are a thing of the past down here.
 Bob M

Scott Taylor wrote:

> 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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