Plant Closings, Job Cuts Loom at Ford
"Ford Motor Co., hurt by falling sales of sport utility vehicles, is expected to close plants and cut thousands of jobs in North America as part of a restructuring program to be announced Monday. Ford has refused to release details of the plan, dubbed the 'Way Forward,' which also is expected to include product changes and cuts to Ford's salaried ranks. Ford has about 87,000 hourly workers and 35,000 salaried workers in North America. (Forbes)
In both cases that means Ford gets equal work out of both groups. I suspect the union hourly guys work about 40% as hard as the salaried workers, overall. And Union guys, please no flames, it's a well known fact that many of you have no-work deals from previous work contractions. I wonder how many Americans know that Ford is required to continue paying workers nearly a full salary even after it shutters a plant.
If Ford can wait until all its Union workers are dead, it might have a chance at surviving as a car manufacturer. It needs to build a completely new automated plant with no workers. That's what Unions have achieved - they have bled American Industry so badly that we practically have no industry left and if we do produce anything it has to be completely, entirely, 100% without workers at all.
By the way, Ford makes money everywhere else in the world, but it reported that it lost over $1.4 billion in its North American operations in the first nine months of 2005. The company knows how to make cars and make money but not with the Teamsters.
This is what happens when thugs work in your company:
"In Ford’s case, Teamsters’ union officials are forcing non-member employees to pay fees at the extraordinary rate of 91.85% of full member dues, and they are doing so without a proper accounting and without providing an adequate process through which non-members can challenge the amount."
When the International Brotherhood of Thugs, I mean Teamsters, struck against UPS in 1997, the only reason they didn't kill the package carrier altogether was the explosion of Internet deliveries. Without the Internet, UPS concessions would certainly have destroyed the company.
The time to get rid of Unions is now. Just as they are shooting themselves in the foot.