View Full Version : What do you make of this?
lspencer534
08-05-2017, 8:02pm
Workers at Nissan Motor Co Ltd's plant in Canton, Mississippi, voted nearly two to one against union representation, the company and the United Auto Workers (UAW) said late on Friday.
The vote at the end of a bitterly contested campaign extended a decades-long record of failure by the union to organize a major automaker's plant in the U.S. South.
The vote at the Canton plant could leave the UAW weakened ahead of contract negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers in 2019, when many analysts are predicting a cyclical slump for U.S. auto sales.
The last failed UAW vote in the U.S. South, at a Volkswagen AG plant in Chattanooga in 2014, was far closer than the tally in Mississippi.
Pro-union workers say the Nissan plant - which builds Nissan Murano sport utility vehicles, commercial vans, and Titan and Frontier pickup trucks - has a poor safety record and the automaker moved them to a 401(k) defined retirement plan from a traditional pension fund.
The UAW had put 10 years of groundwork into the vote at the Japanese automaker's Mississippi facility, after two unsuccessful attempts at a Nissan plant in Tennessee, only to fall well short in a bitterly contested campaign that the union maintained was a continuation of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s.
Nissan said the tally of votes, which was overseen by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), was 2,244 votes against unionization to 1,307 in favor.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uaw-mississippi-nissan-idUSKBN1AL02O
Black94lt1
08-05-2017, 8:21pm
My guess is that the workers don't see the benefits of the UAW. Many years ago the benefits were clear, things like safety were a real issue and the unions helped improve that, I'm just not sure those types of issues are as significant these days.
The article says the plant has a poor safety record, but what are the issues and are they employer issues that a union can help fix or are they employee issue. Those of us that work in the safety world know sometimes the employees are next to impossible to make safe.
Too many promised pensions turned into nothing.
OddBall
08-05-2017, 8:52pm
Well, if it weren't for unions evolving (or devolving) into racketeering and all that...
Employer comes to town, hires a bunch of people at above market wages. People are smart enough not to upset the apple cart. I'm not surprised.
Employer comes to town, hires a bunch of people at above market wages. People are smart enough not to upset the apple cart. I'm not surprised.
There is a finite amount of money for salaries. Either you get it, the govt gets it, or the union gets it. Employer doesn't care where it goes, but more won't appear with a union in place.
JRD77VET
08-05-2017, 9:12pm
Employer comes to town, hires a bunch of people at above market wages. People are smart enough not to upset the apple cart. I'm not surprised.
:iagree: Why pay extra ( union dues ) to be strong armed into what they want?
Millenium Vette
08-05-2017, 9:17pm
What do you make of this?
That by a large margin, Nissan workers are content without union representation. The workers have spoken.
The foreign auto companies didn't choose the south by accident when they built plants in the USA. They all learned from VW's failed first venture in manufacturing here.
markids77
08-05-2017, 9:20pm
The workers will probably be better served with a 401K than a company provided benefit. Companies can miscalculate the future requirements, or market forces can lead to shortages at critical times. A 401k is pretty much recession proof and allows each individual employee to choose his/her path to the future. You know; like making adult choices for yourself like the norm used to be.
Working in a union plant has opened my eyes to a good and a bad union. I've seen many a union. I grew up with my father keeping the books for a company with workers represented by the Teamsters. There was a whole bunch of stuff I saw as a teenage boy. Fast forward to my stint in the Navy. I saw a bunch of different unions working on the ships I was stationed on. I was impressed with how they took care of business and got the job done. If there was an under performer they didn't go crying to other members, they took care of the person themselves.
After retirement and starting a new chapter in life, I've experienced a union environment which reminds me how much I dislike unions. It is next to impossible to hold any of them accountable for stuff they do. We scrapped over $80K of metal because they were not following directions and guess what. No one received discipline because it always falls back on management didn't instruct us to do this or I was tied up doing other stuff. Amazing since they actually started doing their job we haven't had an excursion in 3 weeks. We averaged 1-2 a week before we saw what was going on. I actually had a mechanic complain because we had him do "work" other than wait around for a assistance call from the line. I mean he had to help unload a truck for all of 30 minutes with a fork truck.
The culture is extremely difficult to change in a union environment. I still hear shit about having 10 weeks vacations back in the 60's. I hear stories of how we used to manage ourselves without supervision. Yeah and nothing got done until day shift when the supervisor was there. Amazingly, none of them received discipline for not getting the assigned work done. At times the leadership paints the picture of a company within a company. They need the membership of the union to maintain the monetary funds to support the local and national union leaders.
lspencer534
08-06-2017, 9:16am
My guess is that the workers don't see the benefits of the UAW. Many years ago the benefits were clear, things like safety were a real issue and the unions helped improve that, I'm just not sure those types of issues are as significant these days.
The article says the plant has a poor safety record, but what are the issues and are they employer issues that a union can help fix or are they employee issue. Those of us that work in the safety world know sometimes the employees are next to impossible to make safe.
Since I live only 15 miles from the plant in question, perhaps I'm qualified to answer some you questions: Safety was an issue when the plant first opened, but it was entirely employee-caused. Workers simply couldn't get it through their heads that loose-fitting clothes are a no-no on an assembly line: They wanted to wear their street clothes of do-rags, loose, too-long pants, slick leather-soled shoes, etc. In fairness, perhaps many of them had to earn a few pay checks to afford new clothes.
The workers' excessive and heavy "bling" was also a safety hazard, as well as it damaging paint and interiors. Finally, the workers weren't a paragon of reliability, which caused the other workers to work long hours while being tired. The plant has been operational for 10 years now, and I understand it has a good record of safety and of building reliable vehicles.
Kerrmudgeon
08-06-2017, 10:28am
:clap:.....it's about time. Union bosses live like kings on the back of the worker. They strike with regularity to justify their own existence. Unions were developed when workers were treated like slaves and had no rights. Government now dictates all of those things for employers, hence, unions aren't necessary in this day and age. Get rid of them all and get back to being competitive with the rest of the world. IMHO! :D
:clap:.....it's about time. Union bosses live like kings on the back of the worker. They strike with regularity to justify their own existence. Unions were developed when workers were treated like slaves and had no rights. Government now dictates all of those things for employers, hence, unions aren't necessary in this day and age. Get rid of them all and get back to being competitive with the rest of the world. IMHO! :D
Why can't we just get governments out of the dictating business instead?
Thunder22
08-06-2017, 10:53am
What do you make of this?
I can make a broach, or a hat or a pterodactyl.
https://uaw.org/dues-faq/
$50/month x 12 months = $600/ year
or 1.44% of salary if not paid by the hour.
so let's say you are moderately skilled and well paid, and you draw a salary of $65,000/year (pretty good pay in many parts). 1.44% = $936/year.
that's real money. and it adds up when it's all put in one pile.
and as the union learned in wisconsin, once the state stopped doing withholding, and the union had to send out bills, a lot of folks didn't pay up. oops.
Black94lt1
08-06-2017, 11:16pm
Since I live only 15 miles from the plant in question, perhaps I'm qualified to answer some you questions: Safety was an issue when the plant first opened, but it was entirely employee-caused. Workers simply couldn't get it through their heads that loose-fitting clothes are a no-no on an assembly line: They wanted to wear their street clothes of do-rags, loose, too-long pants, slick leather-soled shoes, etc. In fairness, perhaps many of them had to earn a few pay checks to afford new clothes.
The workers' excessive and heavy "bling" was also a safety hazard, as well as it damaging paint and interiors. Finally, the workers weren't a paragon of reliability, which caused the other workers to work long hours while being tired. The plant has been operational for 10 years now, and I understand it has a good record of safety and of building reliable vehicles.
Thanks, while not specifically the details I would have imagined, it is the same general idea, employees create safety issues that you can't engineer or train away. New plants with new equipment are inherently safe from my experience
VatorMan
08-07-2017, 7:05am
401K means you can have control over your retirement. Pension means you are HOPING someone will control your retirement.
Unions never discipline employees-only management. Unions force management to write procedures on how to walk safely, how to turn on and off light switches. Then when someone trips, it was because management didn't adequately train and document the training. Unions exist for the bottom 10% of the work force.
Two primary reasons.
Employers got smarter. They found that by paying a slightly better wage and with some better benefits they did not have to deal with Unions.
In the south the Textile industry was primarily destroyed by thier unions. The working poor down thier suffered for decades due to the lies they were told by the Unions.
Which vehicles are produced at this plant?
Not that it matters - I have no desire to ever buy a Datsun.
Black94lt1
08-08-2017, 8:45am
Which vehicles are produced at this plant?
Not that it matters - I have no desire to ever buy a Datsun.
Reading is fundamental :D lol
"Pro-union workers say the Nissan plant - which builds Nissan Murano sport utility vehicles, commercial vans, and Titan and Frontier pickup trucks"
Mike Mercury
08-08-2017, 8:59am
there are quite a few unions that cover auto workers. The UAW is the worse of them.
Reading is fundamental :D lol
"Pro-union workers say the Nissan plant - which builds Nissan Murano sport utility vehicles, commercial vans, and Titan and Frontier pickup trucks"
See how much I actually care? :D
:cheers:
Mike Mercury
08-08-2017, 9:06am
What do you make of this?
a hat, or a brooch... or a terodactyl
http://i.imgur.com/VfgCWMs.gif
OddBall
08-08-2017, 9:28am
Two primary reasons.
Employers got smarter. They found that by paying a slightly better wage and with some better benefits they did not have to deal with Unions.
In the south the Textile industry was primarily destroyed by thier unions. The working poor down thier suffered for decades due to the lies they were told by the Unions.
This in a nutshell.
Unions came about because of some horrid work conditions. They did some good at first, but then the mobs got involved with them and they haven't been worth a damn since. Even when the unions were rid of the mobsters, they had still learned from them and continue to function the same way. They don't give a damn about their members, it's just racket that is forced on workers. And a racket that has been made legal in a lot of states.
What really sucks is when the unions and the company get into a pissing match and the company shuts down because of it. Take Eastern Airlines for example. The only losers in that fiasco were the employee's. Unions got what they wanted, Lorenzo got what he wanted, and everyone got canned.
Still, at least the threat of unions keeps industry paying and treating their people like human beings.
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