Smitty

BBsAcuraRacing

Navarro, trade unions and the uaw are two totaaly different worlds.

bnavarro

Still, unions are still unions.

bnavarro

But, what about this quote?? That's why i had to speak up.

SiGGy

too bad the only full pics that exist are of the Concept like you posted. Hard to tell what the production car will look like from the pic I posted.

I hope it looks close.

Smitty

thats what was sent to me.... he asked me to host it... beats me.. Ford is not my thing so I would not know...

SiGGy

Ohh!

LOL, so we waited this long to see the concept pics from him

Too bad they weren't some good spy shots

zeroday

lol. That thing's covered up like a muslim woman...won't be getting any rock chips though i guess.

Smitty

thats my old car, you sons of bishes, quit making fun of it... I did not want anyone to Ding my badarse whip..


LOL.....

SiGGy

Hopefully they take the cladding off of it, and someone in detroit or wherever they are testing it snaggs a pic.

LOL, ya it's really covered up. Not much worse and some of the BMW and Mercedes pics gavriil posts in his area.

scalbert

Refer to this thread for debates on the usefulness of unions and why I feel the way I do:

http://www.acura-cl.com/forums/showt...93#post1332493

This is not meant to be a knock against you, just a statement in general. But the amount quoted as annual income might be great for you but does everyone deserve the same amount which is what many unions stipulate?? Does this stifle competition and breed and air of arrogance (and quite often corruption)??

What outfits do I support??

To include a response to Steve's statement and the above; it does suck but there are good and bad angles to everything. What strikes me as interesting is the angle that a company owes the employee's the world. Quite often companies have to make decisions which impact a portion of the employees in order to help the majority. No board member consciously decides to hurt the workers (excluding some recent fiascos); but some decisions appear this way. Many decisions are made which will allow a company stay competitive and keep most of the employees.

Unions can often hurt this with demands for higher wages. If the competition is able to sell a product for less due to lower labor costs how can a company stay viable and not put people out of work?? They have to reduce costs in some way. First thing is reduced wages and then next is increased efficiency. Both of these items would be rejected by many unions as infringing upon workers established rights. In the end the company is forced to either get out of this market or move production to a less costly. This could have been avoided if concessions were made. The doors swings both ways and often employees need to make sacrifices; 80% of the money is better than 0%.

JRock

I don't need to work somewhere 40 years to know that place can put together some half-assed cars. All I have to do is drive one.

eclipse23

9,500 miles on my Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited and not one problem.

Funny, my CL-S was in for a moonroof adjustment & Seat bracket fix.

Stop pissing on domestics when your CLS sucks just as bad.

bnavarro

What rebeltruce said about local 3 is BS. Were not trying to scare anyone. We just want people to join the union. Work with us,not against us. And true, there are a couple of bad apples that spoil the bunch and don't deserve the same rate, but that happens everywhere, just not in unions. Just think, you have Arnold S running for governer in CA. The thing we don't want is the owners making billions of dollars, and the employees making shit and can't retire with money in the bank. There are local 3 guys retireing getting 6g's a month from the pension, that's not including your 401k. I guess this is the way i feel because of personal experience. My father was basicaly forced out of his job, after 30 with a company. They gave him a years severence pay, and a shitty pension, that you can't even live off of. Now what is he to do? Almost 55, and who is gonna hire a 55 year old? People would opt for a youger gentlmen who will do anything to get ahead. Meanwhile, my father has about 5 years left before he gets SS. So when you get laided off and have no place to go, you
'll understand my point of view.

scalbert

Regardless of desire, we are a global economy. This is the reason why most unions are outdated. They look out for themselves only and not the benefit of the company. And when I say company, I mean the management and employees. If the company cannot compete, everyone is out of a job.

Job security should not be about only knowing a single trade. It should be working for the collective good even if that involves adadpting to an ever changing market. Unions do not allow for this.

scalbert

I am on a fence about the owners making money; they are the ones who invest their money which is at stake. They have to make decisions which impact lives on a daily basis. But I do understand the other side though and the perceptions. As a small business owner, I have reduced my salary to help employees in slow times but I certainly make a good margin more than them.

On a simple basis, if you invent a product shouldn't you make the majority of the money?? Or should a local retailer make nearly the same??

The question I have is if those 3 retirees deserve that amount through hard work or through loyalty to the union?? Couldn't this large amount weaken the infrastructure?? By this I mean that it is no longer profitable to use this group and contractors go elsewhere for labor loosing everything for future generations.

Zapata

Unions look out for the workers and management looks out for the company....that is the way it is and should be!

You seem to want to rely on the good will of people who are out for one single reason and one reason only.....maximze profit.

Global economy = Maximization of profits and nothing else.


Small business is a completely different animal unto itself. SBs are the backbone of this country.

bnavarro

Very true about the owners should be making more money. They should have the majority of the money. But when non-union contractors pay people 5.50 an hour, and the owners make millions of dollars, that's more then a majority, that's a killing.

Shawn S

I hate unions. They’re totally worthless in this day and age.
They’re just a bunch of money hording people who bitch and moan about everything or threaten to walk.
I have to deal with these people all the time on system installs and it pisses me off.

I can get a perfectly good contractor to install a small system for 2,000-dollars, but NO. If it’s a union site I need to spend 8-10 grand to make everyone happy.

I was once on an install in Texas and some union rep saw me gluing two pieces of PVC pipe together.
He freaked out and threatened to have the entire shop walk off in protest.
So the next piece had to be assembled by their guys at a cost off 500-dollars to our company while I stood there and watched.
God forbid I drill a hole in the floor. NOPE, gotta get the electrical guys to do that.
There goes another 500-bucks.
And don’t forget those 20-minute breaks every 2-hours.

My monthly health co-pay went up 300% this year and I just had to live with it.
When this is proposed at a union site they all pick up their sign’s and start crying.
Nope, can’t do that to a UNION worker.

Unions were a good thing back in the 30’s & 40’s when factory work conditions were horrible and people were dying every day. Now they just bitch & moan and demand 8-weeks vacation.

And don’t even get me started on TEACHERS. Testing proves that our kids are the worst educated in the WORLD, yet the pay and benefits for these people that only work 9-months a year keeps going higher and higher.
Try and bring them into line and look out, they’re gonna strike.

RANT MODE OFF………

Shawn S

bnavarro

Shawn, i don't know your businnes your in or what, but i'm an electrican. I don't pick up a piece of sheetrock and put up walls. That's not my job. If you ever come with me to work, i'll show you the difference between Union work and non-union shit. When you pay for union, you are paying for a higher quality of product an a higher quality of install. Do you aways get it, unfortunatly not. Just like when you buy a car, the transmission could go with in the first 10,000 miles. Now that's fucking bullshit!!! I'll try to post some pix of some nonunion stuff and some union stuff.

mc222

I agree and I can dig up some pics and stories as well....Sorry Shawn that you ran into some prick guy....Not all unions are like that - I dont go around saying all engineers that design reactors are dorks that have nothing better to do with their life then to wax their cars I can't judge all of you dorks, I mean PE's by just one or two encounters.

scalbert

Unions were meant to look out for the workers but often look out for their own self feeding and exploiting agenda. If they were always looking out for the workers they would realize that often the company has no choice but to cut back in order to survive. Once established, unions are a not-for-profit organization which only provides services. Yet the CEOs of many unions often live very comfortable lives; well beyond those workers they represent. Isn’t that ironic and contrary to what is being stated.

I'm not relying on any good, that is preposterous to mention and irrelevant here. It is management’s responsibility to look out for the workers and the board members. Why is it that everyone seems to characterize the higher ups in the company as evil men who wallow in their money? Quite often it is the contrary, particularly in heavy manufacturing.

Maximizing profits is certainly not at the forefront for most companies. Steady growth and revenue are the main concerns with employee satisfaction up there. Profits will come when everything is operating as planned. Most companies don't want too large of profits as they get taxed significantly.

Some of these ideas are so far off base in the true business perspective.

Without globalization of our economy we become stagnant. Without growth business stifles and jobs are lost. So by your train of though we should sit on our laurels and not grow and expect a company to pay our bills even though they have no money?? Once again, profits are not the main point’s companies look at; talk to any CFO and revenue growth is more important even if margins are less.

scalbert

That is called competition and allows people to either change or start their own business. There are options...

scalbert

This lack of deviation is why many union jobs are lost. We adapt as a species and so does business. But unions often stipulate pre-defined jobs without deviation. This limits growth and the future of many businesses.

IMO, and I have been around many union people and companies, being union or non-union does not guarantee quality work. I find it to be irrelevant in terms of quality. This has more to do with proper management. But as with Shawn, I have been seriously hampered in my job costing me money due to union stipulations. Non-union plants are more flexible and if I need to stay late to get some work done I can. Union plants don't allow this in most cases also impeding my ability to get the job done.

Based on the responses I am hearing it has confirmed my thoughts; if you are not union you are the enemy. :P

bnavarro

What do you mean by lack of devation? I'm an electrican. I specialize in running pipe, pulling bx, and anything to do with the electrical industy. There is so much to know, it is impossible to know the whole construction industry. Do engineers go out and run pipe? Not the engineers in my shop. They leave it to us cause were the experts. Do you call up a hvac company to fix your AC in your car? Of couse not. Just because they fix AC units, doesn't mean they are specialest in cars too. I'll be back later to disscus more.

scalbert

I think it is safe to say we are in two different world.

In the manufacturing industry, not exclusive to non-union automotive, an electrical engineer will also do mechanical design and even work a lathe. So yes, people adapt to varied duties even if it is not the trade they are specifically trained on.

In order stay competitive this is often a requirement. Also, it limits outside contractor abilities, such as with Shawn and my own examples; the inability to be flexible.

Aquineas

Well, because they are. Here's just one example of many.

Earlier this year, AMR (parent company of American Airlines) CEO Donald Carty used the threat of bankruptcy and a continual slump in the airline industry to get 3 key unions to make concessions (paycuts, basically), immediately following a quarter where they lost $1 Billion. Two of the unions agreed to the concessions, with the 3rd set to vote:

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/030403/3/v858.html

Right before the third union (the flight attendants) was scheduled to vote, it was disclosed that AMR funded a supplemental pension trust to protect the retirement income of the top 45 executives in the case of bankruptcy (a guarantee that their pensions would still be safe even if they ran the company into the ground).

It was also disclosed that the six top executives would receive retention bonuses (basically, they were to be paid twice their base salary just for continuing to come to work. I don't know about you, but I'd love to be paid 2x my salary one day out of the blue just for showing up at the job):

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...ss/5659769.htm

The CEO ultimately resigned after this..

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in551037.shtml

Admittedly, the total amount of that executive compensation was just a drop in the bucket with respect to their mounting financial losses. I must say htough, if giving yourself a 2x base salary bonus and insuring that your long-term pensions are secure aren't evidence of "being evil and wallowing in your money", then I'm not sure if you're naive or in denial.

scalbert

They are, as in everyone?? And there is no corruption of similar accounts within unions?? Please, top level corporate scandals are nothing new. But this is normally at the cheif level to the board and is often found and called ou by peers.

Regardless, I was refering to management which was obvoius if the whole post was quoted. Plant managers normally care about the moral of the workers as much as with plant productivity.

1killercls

where are the pics?

Aquineas

Well, clearly one can't make such a definitive generalization. There are bound to be exceptions (the CEO of SAS comes to mind). However, off the top of my head, I can come up with a dozen more examples supporting my point.

You used a generalization to support your point, I'm using evidence to support a counterpoint. Neither is mutually inclusive or exclusive over the other. I'm not saying that unions are the answer. I'm not saying that there's not corruption. But if one were to use a financial scale to determine accountability, one only needs to look at Enron to see the real potential corporate corruption.

That doesn't give them free entitlement to get away with what they want, nor does it dismiss the relevance of the issue. And regardless of how new or old they are, they've been happening um.. well.. a lot more frequently lately.

I disagree. If anything, there's evidence to suggest they've gone out of their way to protect each other. Many of them serve on each others' boards, and it's in their best interest to keep their little "cliques" protected.

Uh, the executive team is management.

This is a generalization. The truth is, it would depend on the plant and the company. Reasonably thinking it would be in a plant manager's best interest to consider the workers' well-being, but whether or not it's the default or accepted behavior is not a foregone conclusion.

bnavarro

I guess trade unions and many other unions are different in their own ways.

BBsAcuraRacing

UAW = U Aint Workin


I guess I should have named this thread Union Debate

JRock

GEE ERN, WHERE WAS YOUR CLS BUILT? OH SHIT THAT'S RIGHT, OHIO.

How about YOU stop using domestic-built cars as examples of imports? ;P

Joe5.0

Some shots I took of a masked up 05 Mustang

Nicky Pass

HMMMMMMM......leapord spots