AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Like I said earlier. If the American worker (greedy buncha bastards) would just learn to work 50 - 60 hour weeks and take 75 cents an hour for pay....there would be no problem.

Bleeding heart liberals just don't get it!

The conservative here are doing their best to 'splain it to youse.

How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

A BMW assembly plant in Leipzig, Germany.

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.

How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5184979)
Quote:
Like I said earlier. If the American worker (greedy buncha bastards) would just learn to work 50 - 60 hour weeks and take 75 cents an hour for pay....there would be no problem.


Quote:
Bleeding heart liberals just don't get it!

The conservative here are doing their best to 'splain it to youse.



I think that I could better understand it if we could try and implement this idea towards all the conservatives and then we can study it and see how well it worked out.

You wrote,

Quote:

The fact is that the demands of labor unions do often prevent management from taking sensible actions that might save their companies.

is a contradiction in terms. Unions have to negotiate with management, otherwise it's the unions running the company. We all know without unions, companies abuse their workers with lower pay and benefits.

It's up to the management to control costs, produce quality products, and provide for the welfare of all concerned. That is their mandate as managers.

You can't blame the unions for destroying companies. They are the workers; not the ones who establish what products are produced.

Quote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

It's up to the management to control costs, produce quality products, and provide for the welfare of all concerned.

That is their mandate as managers.
I fully agree. That also includes optimizing labor productivity and controlling work processes so that the best quality product is produced at the lowest possible cost. Unfortunately unions prevent that.

It ought to disgust anyone with any sense of balance to fault unions for trying to prevent labor from being used at its "lowest possible cost"...unless there is another way for those providing labor to have enough to live a decent life.

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5186107)
Hey Frank, has george told you he's put you on Ignore?

If not, why not respond directly to him?

If so, why do you care what someone who is ignoring you writes? (Somewhat pathetic, no?)

Guess what Frank, no one in America is chained to their job, and slavery is long, long gone in this country.

If you don't like the conditions of your job, move on.

If a company tells a worker he must stick his arm in a furnace to keep his job, the government should only get involved if the employee is obviously someone of diminished capacity.

Anyone else who complies is a normal idiot.

The government should also get involved if the company is putting it's employees in peril through disinformation. For instance, assuring a worker that is told to clean out a chemical vat that the toxic fumes will not harm him.

The rest of it is pure power play, and this sanctimonious crap about the poor oppressed Union worker is just that.

This is 2012, not 1912.

Corporations should try and cut Labor cost but all of the workers should see the benefits as well.

I fully agree with that. Indeed a surly and resentful workforce is a major deterrant to the success, and indeed survival, of any company. The successful companies I know have all very seriously considered the compensation and working environments oftheir employees, if, for nothing else to attract and retain the best and most able workers they can find. Most also work hard to engage the willing engagment of their employees in achieving the goals of the company. Labor unions deliberately breed a hostile attitude towards the corporations they infest, making all of that impossible. I know of no more effective way to destroy the interest of management in the welfare of their workers, or, as the evidence clearly shows, to eventually destroy the company and all the jobs that go with it.

My strong impression is that companies like Google and even Apple have no difficulty attracting and retaining very bright and otherwise mobile employees, and paying them very well - all without the aid of labor unions.

Frank tends to roll out 19th century images and rhetoric regarding corporations and labor relations. Most of what 19th and early 20th century labor unions fought for is in the law now and applies to everyone.

My strong impression is that companies like Google and even Apple have no difficulty attracting and retaining very bright and otherwise mobile employees, and paying them very well - all without the aid of labor unions.

It's up to the management to control costs, produce quality products, and provide for the welfare of all concerned. That is their mandate as managers.

Re: cicerone imposter (Post 5184968)
Quote:
It's up to the management to control costs, produce quality products, and provide for the welfare of all concerned. That is their mandate as managers.



provide for the welfare of all concerned? That's not what I learned in business school. I thought it was the shareholders.[/quote]

Quite correct, IRFRANK.

That is all a company is supposed to concern itself with...making as much profit for the shareholders as possible.

That is one of the reasons workers try to form unions to protect themselves from exploitation. Of course, if the workers had the decency to just work for peon wages...or leave the companies and go starve in the streets, none of this would be a problem.

Well, Google and Apple's employees aren't exactly performing 'labor' in the traditional sense, nor are these employees the traditional sort who form unions. Their workforce consists almost exclusively of highly educated younger workers - whose tasks are most assuredly not connected with physical labor or production of goods, and who in many cases could be replaced (to a certain extent) by lower-cost labor overseas. In the cases where these companies do produce physical goods, they outsource the work to third-parties to do so.

You're also describing two of the richest companies in the world, who have scads of cash to throw at compensation. This just isn't the case for the vast majority of workers out there.

Cycloptichorn