Well…have been thinking about this since Ford reported it’s quarterly profits in the last week or so, making it almost 6.5 billion dollars in profit through the third quarter; eclipsing all of the other automakers combined. And, guess what? They did it with union organized plants that pay a wage that keeps their workers solidly in the middle class. Take that you right wing union bashers….you that have done your best to destroy organized labor here in the US….saying that the only reason the automakers can’t or haven’t made money is the overpaid, lazy union workforce. But the question that immediately comes to my mind is: if Ford can do it, why can’t the rest? Why is it necessary for GM and Chrysler to have a two tiered wage scale that pays new workers half of what their old ones make? What is different that they can’t do what Ford does, especially when they have come through bankruptcy with little of the debt that Ford carries? I don’t think there is a difference other than, with the bad economic times, GM and Chrysler are still hanging on to the adversarial labor relationship that existed before the downturn and their management just doesn’t get that their workers are not the problem. But, with the return of the know nothing repubs…that is all we have to look forward to….they are going to keep their feet on the necks of the middle class as long as America stays so damn stupid and keeps electing them….
One other observation that just popped into my head…why are police and firefighters unions okay, but teachers and industrial unions are constant targets of the repubs. I’ve never heard them say one word about the police unions in any of the big cities that have them…so, again, if unions are so bad, why are police and firefighters given a pass by the repubs? Just asking….