The Michigan Economic Diaster Continues

[rpicardi1]

Michigan, First in unemployment, jobs lost, lost of income, and now, first in poverty.

Michigan was the only state where poverty rose and incomes fell last year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/incomes_fall_in_michigan_numbe.html

Thousands more in West Michigan hit 'extreme poverty' as state woes continue http://www.mlive.com/grpress/news/index.ssf/2008/08/thousands_more_in_west_michiga.html


http://blog.mlive.com/citpat/2008/08/census_more_in_county_living_i.html

http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2008/08/census_poverty_explodes_in_reg.html

It doesn't take much research to see what is the root cause of the state's economic mess - it is our dependence on the import of energy that has killed the state economy followed by taxes and bad decisions made by the domestic auto companies.

No other information can be posted as that would involve discussing the politics of the CAN'Ts

[xgsft]

This comes as no surprise.

Considering I am out of work at the moment due to the auto industrie's poor choices. Fortunately I am not tied to that industry, so I can go elsewhere. I do feel for all those who have nothing to go to once their plants are shutdown, it's by no means a good time to find one's self on the street.

[muskokaandtahoe]

> It doesn't take much research to see what is the root cause of the state's economic mess - it is our dependence on the import of energy that has killed the state economy ....

I don't follow your logic Ron... what has oil imports got to do with anything? Doesn't matter where the stuff comes from, only what price point is met when supply equals demand.

The auto industry, IMO, got into trouble by management and labor leaders thinking the 50's were going to go on for ever and ever. Nothing in industry goes on forever. Not railroads... not automobiles... not airliners... not steel, banks, computers, electronics, etc., etc. etc.

[rdamurphy]

That's exactly right, Dave. When the Japanese Automakers were building economy cars in the '70s and selling them like hotcakes, Big Iron in Detroit stuck with road barges and land yachts. When sales plumetted, and the handwriting was on the wall, Big Labor demanded more and better benefit packages. Even today, GM pays people to sit in break rooms for 8 hours a day because of concessions to the labor unions, they can't lay them off. And as a result, they can't compete against cheap Japanese labor in places like Huntsville, Alabama; Georgetown, Kentucky; Princeton, Indiana; San Antonio, Texas and Buffalo, West Virginia and a new one being built in Blue Springs, Mississippi.

One could make the argument that not only inept Corporate Leadership killed Big Auto, but that Big Labor brought the suicide weapon.

In a similar vein, Union Bosses watched EMD build a brand new factory across the border in Canada while letting their union members go on strike... They also got to watch the machinery, equipment, and supplies go across the border along with their jobs. Now LaGrange, IL is just a bump in a quickly fading road...

Robert

[pmcn]

Union mentality in traditional smoke stack areas is still rooted in the 50s, especially in the older workers. They think that the company has more than enough money laying around and it is their right to obtain as much of it as possable. The company I work for has been dealing with unions for many years. Recently (the past 6 years or so) the company has been taking a harder line during contract negotiations and winning. The younger union members (those who did not grow up working for the steel or auto industry) see the writining on the wall and know that there is not an infinite source of money. They see the loss of a specific product line to another plant in the US as a sign of uncompetativeness at their site while the older union employees see it as the company trying to put one over on the union.

While the new tactics have made some changes, the outcome is by no means certain. If the Union decides to strike, a number of the product lines at the Maryland facility will go elsewhere along with the jobs involved. Once this happens, the remaining facilities will most likely not be able to support the current plant infrastructure thus forcing future relocations and eventual plant closure. It has been interesting to watch the labor/management hostility spread to within the Union itself. A house divided against itself....

Paul

[rpicardi1]

Dave, The high price of Oil was the straw that broke the camel's back carrying the high cost of making domestic automobiles by the now not so big three domestic automakers. Why? Because their customers have now abandoned their only profitable product en mass for the foreign competition, the big gas guzzlers known as the full sized pickups and their close relatives, the SUVs

Example in Saginaw. We used to have 55,000 workers employed by the various GM factories and their suppliers in the 70s. Now, thanks to plant closings, outsourcing to Mexico and other states, that number is now below 5,000. GM sold Steering Gear, to Delphi, which soon went bankrupt and as a settlement, bought out its older high wage work force and replaced them with people making $14 an hour no benefits. Nodular Iron, Eaton, large segments of Steering Gear, Power Train, Maliable Iron, sent all work elsewhere and scrapped their infrastructure.

Needless to say, the UAW is heading for extinction as membership plummets due to the shrinking work force. Membership has been forced to swallow pay cuts, two tier wages, job transfers to locations hundreds of miles away from their homes, co pay for greatly reduced insurance, cuts in retirement, forced buyouts, and loss of the cushy perk of sitting home while being paid for not doing any work because none was available.

I had not included the United Auto Workers union as part of the cause of the Michigan economic mess because of their close ties to the Democrats. The past greed of their leaders is now crashing down around their remaining membership.

[jtr1962]

Funny thing is it seems the automakers still aren't getting it. 90% of the car commercials these days are still for trucks/SUVs. In fact, putting two and two together, in general you only need to heavily advertise a product people are on the fence about buying. That's probably what all the truck/SUV commercials over the last decade have been about. Detroit would rather try to get the public to buy the vehicles it makes the most profit on than make the vehicles the general public wants. It even worked for a while when everyone and his brother had to have either an SUV or a 300HP sedan. However, the reality of here-to-stay high gas prices has finally proved the folly of that strategy long-term. Like Dave said, nothing is forever. Dumbest thing Detroit ever did was kill the EV1 program. Had that continued the auto industry here might have been exporting quite a few vehicles in addition to cornering the US urban and fleet market.

IMHO we're in the midst of a major reshuffling in the transportation sector. Rail travel is enjoying somewhat of a resurgence, at least to the extent that Amtrak has excess capacity to provide it. Air and auto travel will likely see steep declines. With any luck we'll build a sorely needed national high-speed rail system in the coming decades. Perhaps that can save Detroit's butt. If they can build cars then they can certainly build high-speed trainsets. Either that, or we end up importing yet another thing.

Any bets on who will make the first mass-produced successful electric car? Hint-it won't be the Chevy Volt. Adding complexity and taking up space with a gas engine isn't the way to go here. My bets are either on Tesla Motors or one of the Japanese automakers (Toyota has actually made electrics one of their future priorities).

And the UAW certainly needs a reality check. They're as much responsible for the downfall of the US auto industry as Detroit's poor vehicle choices are.

[westerngy]

I don't feel one bit for the Big 3 as they had their chances yrs ago to make autos more fuel friendly.Now they come out and find themselves stuck behind the ball and its going to run over them again.
Do I fell sorry for the mess the US economy is in NO.Its greed thats got them there from the CORPS',Gov,and peoples own ideas that they all have to have what the Jone's have.
Housing if people I do feel sorry for those that have lost their homes but why buy a house you dam well know you can't afford then go and buy a new car on top of that.

WHy do we need Contractors building houses that are 4-5000 Sq.Ft. for a family of 4 when a house well designed of 2000 sq. ft. does the same job and costs less.

Greed and the flippin almighty buck,history repeats itself and it will again but do humans learn anything NO.

[cp5513]

Hey Robert, don’t get me wrong I agree with most of what is being said here, but I just wanted to clarify about some of your points on the GMD plant in London and the production shift from LaGrange. The plant was actually finished in 1951 (construction started in 1949) due to two factors; the diesel demand from Canadian roads was too great for LaGrange to meet (with all the domestic orders coming in), and free trade was decades away - meaning on top of currency exchange there were duties, taxes, and brokerage fees to pay. It made much more sense to build them in Canada to keep the costs in line, and for the same reason MLW began building ALCO designed locomotives in Montreal. The unions didn’t sit back and watch their job disappear in the 50’s, in fact they were increasing their membership and strength as General Motors in Canada has those same pesky unions as they do in the USA. Actually GMD London came upon very hard times from 1960-66 as the second generation loco market was very soft in Canada, the SD40 actually got it rolling again. The shift from La Grange to London occurred after the initial US-Canada free trade agreement was ratified in 1989, not long afterwards the announcement came about the switch. The reasons are many with some of the main ones being; a lower Canadian dollar (at that time) meant costs savings, lower sales numbers since GE’s Dash8/9 lines were introduced meant LaGrange was way oversized, also foreign orders were seen to be ‘friendlier’ to certain Asian, African & Middle Eastern nations if delivered from Canada. In fact only final assembly is done in London, though GMD can still build a unit from the ground up almost all components are shipped to London, including prime movers which for national security purposes must be built in the USA. The nasty thing is once NAFTA came about, EMD was making less and less of those components being shipped to London, now a lot of parts are being built in Mexico. Personally I’m waiting for the announcement that full loco production will be done in Mexico, I can see it happening.

You can ‘blame Canada’ (anyone here watch South Park? :)) but at least we are a first world nation with the same employee wage expectations, annoying unions, and environmental protection laws as found in the US. Expanding free trade agreements with third world nations is, at least in my opinion, not as wonderful an idea as our elected officials claim. The Ontario auto industry is suffering a lot now too, many great housing deals to be had in Windsor (across from Detroit), Oshawa, St Catharines and Oakville as the car plants close. Again a lot of blame should also be placed on GM/Ford/Chrysler leadership, as Toyota and Honda’s plants here seem to be doing OK …for now.

[rdamurphy]

Thanks for the clarification. As a matter of fact, a lot of brand new railcars are coming across the border, built in Mexico. Good for them, bad for us. I don't think Protectionism is the answer however, and neither is repealing NAFTA. Ever wonder why sugar is so expensive? It's almost impossible to import, and so it costs 10 times what it does outside the US. Same with Gasoline, we can't import it from Mexico and Canada, we can only "brew our own." It would be very helpful if we could just run trainloads of it across the borders.

How do we save American jobs? Ask the Irish. They know. They're the fastest growing economy in the world.

Robert

[westerngy]

NAFTA is or was it good for our 3 economies,noly the powers to be know.Have we lost all our jobs to Mexico,yes at first but then they went off shore to Asian countries that produce shoes,shirts,food and many other items we use each and everyday.
Whats in the plan book for the Amero that our 3 gov's have been talking about to give us one currency for CDN/USA/Mexico.How do we save jobs here for our countries to flourish,thats a topic and discussion on it's own.

[rdamurphy]

That's true, the American textile industry was devestated by Union wages and Union benefits. I guess the question people have to ask themselves, is do they want Big Labor benefits and pay and no jobs? There is certainly a huge difference between "protecting workers' rights" and outright legalized extortion. You can't steal from the stockholders to pay workers more than they deserve, or even more than the Company can afford. Companies can never exist without investment, regardless of what type they are. In a competitive environment, companies will pay what workers are willing to work for, and some industries have found that out the hard way, which is why some jobs pay way more than others, and why some job categories can't get anybody to work for them.

Unfortunately, as evidenced in a speech yesterday at the DNC, people have unreasonable demands, such as "not having to leave your hometown just to find a decent job." That isn't going to happen, as long as people like those running Michigan continue anti-business policies.

The major problem is that MOST people, especially low wage workers, don't understand business nor the free market economy, and want wages to reflect what they need, rather than what the job market is willing to pay.

BTW, in case nobody's noticed, the Economic numbers have started going back upwards - no recession... Also, I don't know about everyone else, but gas has dropped 30 cents a gallon this month.

Robert

[muskokaandtahoe]

Dave, The high price of Oil was the straw that broke the camel's back carrying the high cost of making domestic automobiles by the now not so big three domestic automakers. Why? Because their customers have now abandoned their only profitable product en mass for the foreign competition, the big gas guzzlers known as the full sized pickups and their close relatives, the SUVs

But Ron, that has nothing to do with the fact the oil is imported.

As for the big gas guzzlers... it's the same for resturant's: Every wonder why they serve you enough food for two on each plate? Because if they make 8% profit on the dollar, they're better off selling you $25 worth of food than $12.50. There are, after all, only so many customers that will come in each night.

Detroit has the same problem: they've got lots of factories and equipment to pay for and they're better off selling you a $30,000 SUV than a cheap $15,000 sedan. There are, after all, only so many customers that will come in each year.

The problem gets harder as your market share falls -- the same expenses but fewer cars sold is going to push you to depend more on high priced cars. GM has lost $68 BILLION in the last 2.5 years, mostly because they're paying for more stuff (including people) than they need.

What the Japanese do, among other things, is not to buy more factories and equipment than what they really need and to design their cars and assembly processes so they get plenty of profit, even on the entry level models.

In short, they're much better managed.

IMO, all the high price of oil has done is to reveal, again, how badly the US auto industry (mis)manages it's capacity.

[Jim Prower]

It's not all bad news...

People haven't been checking out the new product front. Here's what's coming to the U.S. from Domestics in the coming years. At least, two of them. Have no idea about Chrysler.

http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2008/08/2010-Chevy-Cruze.jpg

Chevy Cruze: Cobalt Replacement. Look for high levels of interior refinement.

http://www.carbuyersnotebook.com/archives/X07CC_CH058.jpg

Chevrolet Volt: (Concept shown) coming out in 2010. It's a plug-in hybrid car, slated to beat Toyota's next-gen Prius to the punch by a year or more. Also to be built in Flint, Michigan.

http://www.planetthoughts.org/images/cars/Opel-Corsa.jpg

Opel Corsa: A possible Saturn vehicle, even smaller than the Astra, likely to come when the new one comes out...and if...

http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/04/Ford-Fiesta-RS.jpg

This little guy does well
Ford Fiesta: One of Europe's most acclaimed new small cars is slated to come to the U.S. soon, unchanged. Smaller than a Focus...faster, too.

http://image.trucktrend.com/f/auto-shows/marks-second-day-at-the-naias-auto-show-part-one/8147703+w700+cr1+re0+ar1/ford-ecoboost.jpg

Ford's plan for the fuel efficient engine: Make the inline four a V6. Make the V6 a V8, and make the V8 unbelievably powerful. The solution? Turbocharging and Direct Fuel Injection.

Things ARE looking up for at least two makers. Chrysler? eh...they need to ditch all of their Dodge SUV range, Most of their Jeeps, and all of their Chrysler SUVs. Then build a decent small car.

[Baldwinbob]

Same with Gasoline, we can't import it from Mexico and Canada, we can only "brew our own." It would be very helpful if we could just run trainloads of it across the borders.


Robert


You've mentioned that a couple times. I think we do unless I'm reading this wrong.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mgfimusca1m.htm


Not much from Mexico though.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mgfimusmx1m.htm


Bob

[rdamurphy]

I stand corrected then. I'm surprised, considering the customized blends and EPA requirements - all of which cost us quite a bit...

Robert

[Baldwinbob]

My sister filled up in Duluth yesterday, $3.59 a gallon. She called this morning, it jumped to $3.75 Must be that storm that might come. Drives me crazy how that happens.

I don't mind too much though, half a tank probably lasts me a month or so. :)


Bob

[rdamurphy]

That's good. I buy a tank and a half a week, 25 miles one way to work, I work at night, the wife uses the Jeep during the day, my second car, a 30MPG Saturn is currently awaiting needed repairs.

An O2 sensor.

So, because of an emissions sensor failure, I have to drive the less economical car. Ironic, isn't it?

Robert

[rpicardi1]

My sister filled up in Duluth yesterday, $3.59 a gallon. She called this morning, it jumped to $3.75 Must be that storm that might come. Drives me crazy how that happens.

Bob, thats our famous "Price Gouge Thursday" that Marathon practices for the weekend. The real indicator is diesel which has been steady dropping from its absurd high of $4.89 to $4.29. Still expensive, but heading in the direction that the barrel price of crude is going.

I have noticed how suddenly that GM and Ford are now ramping up productions of cars they should have had in the showrooms years ago. The products are there, GM has a full sized cargo van using their Vortex engine that has plenty of power and gets 20mpg compared to a smaller Dodge model that got 15. I know that for a fact as I have driven both when working.

In reality, the big three should have been developing a modular concept car.

The concept;
1. A basic chassie that would be in several base sizes to fit the need for subcompact to small bus or delivery truck. Everything gets bolted to this basic chassie.
2. All wheel drive where each wheel contains an electric motor with regentrative braking all computer controlled and connected to the chassie at common mounting points and power plug. Each wheel can be sized to fit the chassie it would be mounted to but could easily share many of the components for control of handling and driving.
3. Basic power system which would currently be a small constant speed diesel keeping a drive battery charged and powering the accessories such as air conditioning, computers, and other driving aids. Later, it could be replaced with a fuel cell or high capacity battery pack as that technology gets perfected.
4. Electonic package. the brains of the system that controls steering, controls the power output of each wheel for the best handling regardless of road conditions, navagation, efficiency, and in the future, could drive the car safely without any human at the wheel.
5. Interchangable body packages. Each chassie can be outfitted for the needs of the customer from sports, to utility use. Best of all, those body packages can be exchanged for newer styles, or to convert from two passanger sport to four passanger or light truck when such a need arises.

Such a car could easily be assembled, upgraded, and repaired at your local dealer from its basic components, possibly while you wait. Any damaged, worn, or obsolete components would go back to the factory for upgrading, repair or recycling.

I've been told that GM has kicked the concept around, but remained addicted to the current throwaway concept so long as they were making a profit from tose inefficient gas guzzlers.

[westerngy]

Gas here is 1.32 to 1.36 a litre.If I drive just 46 blocks to the US I can buy it for 1.01 a litre and it srcews my GOV outta the tax money.

[cp5513]

Hey Dale, out here in central Ontario it's now at $1.28/Litre (about US $5.00/gallon), and it jumped 7 cents a few days ago because according to the gas companies here in Canuckistan, Hurricane Guztav may affect supply. Funny as Canada imports 0% of its oil. I think it has more to do with the long weekend, and I have to waste a tank & a half to get to Buffalo to screw the taxman. :mad:

[Jim Prower]

Here's a post from someone on GTPlanet who's a big-time GM fan and Michigan resident...things may be starting to look rosy for the future.

Everyone's first thought usually is "Hey! Lets build a factory in Michigan or Ohio!" But, reality sinks in and the UAW comes to mind, then it is usually a race to the South where labor is cheap and the unions are a no-fly issue. That's why Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota all ran there in the late '90s and early '00s.

We're seeing more and more come up to Michigan because in most cases they won't have to build a factory, and instead can use what they already have, or can outright buy them from GM/Ford/Chrysler. The desperation for jobs is making labor cheap, as I'm sure you'll find quite a few people who'd be happy to make $15 an hour, non-union, with small benefits. That, and there is a lot of "experience" around that they may want to tap.

Interesting outlook, as the collapse of the Unions and existing infrastructure is making Michigan attractive again. It's why Chevy's new super-hybrid will be built in Flint, anyway.

I do think there's problems with killing off models and swapping to new ones: it does cost money to make new toolings, and automakers also don't like losing money on models they've spent many dollars to develop and sell. Unfortunately, in Chrysler's case, it's probably a prudent thing to cut losses and trim the lineup down a great deal.

[pmcn]

Michigan is a forced-unionism state. Until it enacts a right to work law, any auto industry jobs are automatically unionized.

http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm

Maryland is the same, that's another reason my company is moving product lines to right-to-work states.

Paul

[CGW409]

We had some freinds move MI last January as he had a tech sector job offer,his wife on the other hand finally found work 3 months ago but pretty much Michigan has been in a one state recession for a bit as I've heard it.

As to the gas prices here in the Chicago area, for the last 3 weeks we've been hit on price gouge Thursday,all led by Speedway.

Three weeks ago Wednesday, oil at 119 per bbl,gas at 3.91, oil spikes up to 120 then falls to 118 the next day (Thursday) gas spikes to 4.05.
Following week: oil at 113, gas at 3.95, oil burps up and down a buck or two but falls back to 113,2 days later 4.09.
Last week: gas at 3.97, oil does a 1 1/2 day burp to 120 then drops back to the 113/114 range, whoa big surprise 4.09 on Friday afternoon and back to 3.99 Saturday morning.
This week: back down to 3.91 in Lake county in Mundeline IL (though stations actually closer to Cook County were as low as 3.85),oil goes up a couple bucks but still does not surpass the 119/120 = 3.91 to 4.05 mark.
Well shazam and golly,a holiday weekend coming up and 3.99 as this afternoon.

[geode]

I was born in Flint Mich in '38, and left there for Ariz. in '53. My father and a brother worked for Ford, and a few relatives worked for GM. I returned to the Detroit area in '63 thru '70. I didn't work in the auto industry, but by that age I was amazed at the affect on the wage scale that the auto industry influence had. I was making triple what I earned for the same work in Ariz., which wasn't auto, or union related. In the ensueing years I never belonged to a union, and worked in Cal., Ariz., Nev., Colo., and ILL. Now retired and able to look at the Michigan Auto Industry/UAW partnership crumbling, and taking the state of Michigan into the toilet with it, I am not amazed at the state of economical affairs in that state. My brother who worked for Ford for 36 years, non-union, has lost his familys' health insurance, and most of his Ford pension. OK, well being somewhat aware of the forces involved from the end of WW2 to the turn of the century, in the Auto Industry, and having some experience managing production line workers at places including HP, the answer is obvious to me. The auto unions perpetuated an adversarial relationship with the non-union management. And that runs 100% counter to my experience with worker/management production teams that I've had the pleasure of managing. I don't doubt for a moment that when workers are told by the union that company management is out to screw them, that has a huge impact on negotiations votes. But if production line workers are given a say in how the product is built, instead of management dictating the procedures, the adversarial relationship goes away, and everyone co-exists happily ever after, the company prospers, the workers are happy they have a say about the process, and the mangament guys are bewildered because they did'nt make it happen, but it works, so take a lesson, Detroit.
You wonder the difference between you and the foreign mfgrs? Get over yourselves, you're not leaders of anything anymore, and you're not ever going to catch the competitors with the same old tactics. Get on board, and get your act into this century.

George

[Hawk]

I guess unions were a benefit to the work force at one time, but through the years they've perverted themselves to the point that they're most assuredly detrimental to society, and the economy now.
That's why they're trying so hard to make secret voting a thing of the past because they know the work force is getting wise to them.

[westerngy]

Unions are still needed today.With the corporate greed and CEO's and board of directors only thinking of their own pockets along with shareholders most companies would be gleeful if they only had to pay min wage to employees.
They the Unions have to rethink their views as to the times we live in today though.Corp do need to make some profit as long as thats put back into R&D but lets look at what large Corps are doing.Going off shore to have a product made at 20cents on the buck then sold here for 2.00 bucks with all the profit to the shareholders and BoD.
Don't blame Unions for the trouble the economy is in. Blame them yes for the archaic ways that they hold onto.

[rdamurphy]

Ummm, riiggghht... The Armani 3 piece Suit climbs off the Corporate Leerjet to meet with the Armani 3 piece Suit that just climbed off the Union Leerjet to meet at a hotel (The company conference room doesn't serve a Continental Breakfast) and negotiate a contract between the two of them, The Union guy wants a raise for the "workers" then slips a raise in their dues into the contract, from 2 hours a week to 3, gotta pay those Lobbiests, ya'know? Then the Company lawyer slips in a no-continuance clause in case the Company gets sold, since the Company is up for sale and nobody wants that "Union Label" on the Bill of Sale.

Then the Union guy calls a meeting - at 3 o'clock on Friday Afternoon, for Sunday at 9 AM, the Union Toadys, er, sorry Stewarts only inform the people they want to show up (Hey it was posted on the Union Bulletin Board, too bad you went home four hours earlier...), and it gets a vote by the "rank and file" without any of them ever actually having read it.

Yeah. They got http://agentwill.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/screwed.jpg

I know, I just saw it happen. Glad I'm Management! Instead of the 25 cents an hour spread over 3 years they got, I got a 5% raise, and a twelve-hundred dollar profit-sharing check in my 401K.

Robert

[CGW409]

Robert
Don't forget about the Workplace Freedom Act(or a name thereabout) that would get rid of the secret ballot vote in order to unionize a shop, under this bill all that would be needed to go union would be a majority of signatures on a sign up sheet all in the name of protecting workers from the boss intimidating them from voting non union.

I've only worked in one shop where they tried to form a union and we had no intimidation from the company but we did have plenty of pressure from the union orginizers and the employees that stood to gain all sorts of perks from being shop stewards and such.
Just to keep peace we signed the cards to call for the vote (since the union was telling us we'd get the union starting wage of 8.50 per hour and I was already at 8.50 all the union would do is take money out of my pocket for dues rather than put more in.)and when the secret vote came the union lost.
Imagine that same scenario under the WFA.

[rdamurphy]

Oh, I understand completely, and so does Wal*Mart. That's why they're fighting it tooth and nail. A lot of people think that large corporations don't want Unions because they're out to screw over their own workers. The truth is that Unions take a LOT of money out of the bottom line. We spend $thousands every time some moron thinks he's been slightly "wronged" by Management and files a grievance. Everybody brings out the lawyers, it goes to arbitration even though it's a laughable grievance, and six months later, we win. We recently lost two arbitrations on opposite sides of exactly the same issue. In other words, we were wrong when we did it and we were wrong when we didn't...

And Unionized workers are a lot like some people that find an awful lot of things in the Constitution that aren't there. They find a lot of things in the contract that aren't there, or they take a clause on lunches and try to make it fit vacations or other such nonsense...

Robert

[rpicardi1]

An interesting positive in the Michigan economic mess. The neighbor across the road just bought a used loaded Suburban from a local dealership, blue book value, $11,995, for under $7,000. They even financed it at that price.

That's how depressed the market is for SUVs and other gas guzzlers in this state.

[rd4man]

They're still not "giving away" the H2 I want though !!