What choice does the United Auto Workers have ? They have driven a hard good bargain for their employees in the short run. In the long run their benefit packages are unsustainable. Do not give me this protectionism excuse. GM and Ford makes $15-20 billion in profits every year on their overseas operations which are being used to subsidize their inefficient domestic operations – UAW workforce and stupid management. When Chinese/Indian car makers target their sales in foreign countries and those profits evaporate. Look for complete meltdown of the auto industry.
” Convince everyone that union workers are lazy, incompetent and overpaid. Convince the sheeple that unions are ~~BAD!!!~~”
Unions do protect seniority over competence. It has the effect of keeping incompetent people on the payroll. Let us deal with it.
” Convince the sheeple that they, too, can be rich and famous, if only they try. We can — each and every one of us — be rich beyond our wildest dreams if we all work 60+ hour weeks and forego any personal time or enjoyment of life.”
You get paid for what you produce. You cannot work inefficiently for 35 hours and expect all the perks of a millionaire. A lot of people take jobs that pay lesser. lazy_union_guy is a good example. He chooses the lower pay of UC job in return for fixed working hours and more security.
” Convince the sheeple that we all need college degrees, even if we just flip burgers for a living. Denigrate blue-collar work and all that “dirty” sort of stuff. We can all become wealthy if we just sell debt and other financial “products” back-and-forth to one another. As long as we’re putting in 60+ hours, we’ve earned it!!! ”
I will say this – a good high school education is absolute pre-requiste for survival in this world. Anyone who can crunch a few numbers would have not bought a home during this bubble. For a lot of people vocational education is more relevant than college education.
” Convince the sheeple that competing with third-world wages will make them rich…somehow.”
Whether you like it or not you have to deal with China and India. They are big. They have 2.5 billion people. At least 20% of the population is smart. I may add – the use of the word “Third World” reflects a bias.
” Sure hope Americans wake up soon, and start focusing on what really matters — jobs (union jobs), and money flows. We desperately need to address the wealth disparity in this country — before it’s too late. We can’t do this without unions, IMHO. Hopefully, it’s not too late.”
I agree with what you say except for the unions. The end result of the union agenda is to divide the country into two halves – unions (govt employees, service workers, licensed professionals) and non-unions workforce. Look for two sets of benefits.
