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BLAZER PROPHET

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And, no braniac, I don't mean 15 year old boys to use, I'm talking about Hostess Company. They couldn't get the concessions they asked from by the striking union so they are starting the liquidation process. Close to 18,000 people will lose their jobs.

http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=6d7b095e-e558-4dc4-83e9-1859d177e676

I don't know how much the striking workers make, but a coworker has a brother who works for a union bakery for Nabisco and he makes about $43/hr. I also recall the Hostess bakers have already taken one hit on their wages (maybe two) and would rather be unemployed than take another pay hit. Well, they can receive unemployment for 4 years so something will turn up by then.

I have to say, leaving your job in a recession headed to a depression takes a lot of guts and conviction. More power to them. But as for me, I'd much rather have a $60-75,000 job over unemployment and food stamps- even if I am being underpaid.
 
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BLAZER PROPHET said:
And, no braniac, I don't mean 15 year old boys to use, I'm talking about Hostess Company. They couldn't get the concessions they asked from by the striking union so they are starting the liquidation process. Close to 18,000 people will lose their jobs.

http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=6d7b095e-e558-4dc4-83e9-1859d177e676

I don't know how much the striking workers make, but a coworker has a brother who works for a union bakery for Nabisco and he makes about $43/hr. I also recall the Hostess bakers have already taken one hit on their wages (maybe two) and would rather be unemployed than take another pay hit. Well, they can receive unemployment for 4 years so something will turn up by then.

I have to say, leaving your job in a recession headed to a depression takes a lot of guts and conviction. More power to them. But as for me, I'd much rather have a $60-75,000 job over unemployment and food stamps- even if I am being underpaid.
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60 to 75,000 a year MAKING CUPCAKES.... these people have no concept of reality. That's probably a job with very few college grads too. Meanwhile my fiancee is making like 30k out of college doing a job that should be making closer to 80k a year. Fucking unions.
 
Natebishop3 said:
60 to 75,000 a year MAKING CUPCAKES.... these people have no concept of reality. That's probably a job with very few college grads too. Meanwhile my fiancee is making like 30k out of college doing a job that should be making closer to 80k a year. Fucking unions.
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Again, I don't know what the Hostess union workers make after their recent concessions, but still isn't being gainfully employed with benefits better than unemployment, food stamps and Obabacare?

Isn't working better than being able to have 100% free time living off the government?

Wait...
 
I'm sad to see so many jobs gone, but I'm not sad to see the company of Hostess gone.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Again, I don't know what the Hostess union workers make after their recent concessions, but still isn't being gainfully employed with benefits better than unemployment, food stamps and Obabacare?

Isn't working better than being able to have 100% free time living off the government?

Wait...
Click to expand...

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you... I'm just saying that some of the wages that these union workers are getting are absurd for what they're doing.
 
Sorry to see people lose their well-paying jobs. Sucks. The brands will be bought up by non-union companies and workers will make a fraction of what they were making last week. Wages go down, profits go up. If you earn your living off of blue collar work, I feel sorry for you. It only gets worse from here. Figure out how to buy stock, because that's where all the money is going. It's not a Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, free market/protectionist, Non-Union/Union thing. It's just the way the world is.

Anyway, Twinkies are terrible. I mean really, really terrible.
 
Natebishop3 said:
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you... I'm just saying that some of the wages that these union workers are getting are absurd for what they're doing.
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It's amazing to me how auto makers stay in business with what UAW workers make. Why, one would think they'd need government money to get by...
 
mook said:
Sorry to see people lose their well-paying jobs. Sucks. The brands will be bought up by non-union companies and workers will make a fraction of what they were making last week. Wages go down, profits go up. If you earn your living off of blue collar work, I feel sorry for you. It only gets worse from here. Figure out how to buy stock, because that's where all the money is going. It's not a Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, free market/protectionist, Non-Union/Union thing. It's just the way the world is.
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In a recession, union companies aren't always a good investment.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
It's amazing to me how auto makers stay in business with what UAW workers make. Why, one would think they'd need government money to get by...
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Unions have driven most of manufacturing out of the US. Sad but true.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
That is a true statement. I know people on the far left will disagree because they have to, but it is simply true.
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Well, when a dude on a conveyer belt is making twice the money that someone who went to college is making, that says something. Unions were created to ensure that working conditions were safe, but that's not really a problem anymore. Hell, you don't need a union to sue the shit out of a company for negligence. They are an archaic system that is strangling this country.
 
mook said:
Not really. We're still the largest manufacturer in the world.

The problem is that where a job was once done by 20 blue collar guys, it's now done by one white collar guy with a robot and a database. Unions probably helped expedite that process, but it was going to happen anyway.
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How much longer will that last though? I wonder if that's because the rest of the world is spread between India, China, etc.
 
I Remember when they used to make transistor radios in the USA. And VCRs and cassette tapes and computers. And when you called a company for help with their product and you didn't reach a call center in India.

Those things were never made better elsewhere. Cheaper.
 
Natebishop3 said:
How much longer will that last though? I wonder if that's because the rest of the world is spread between India, China, etc.
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Well, increasingly that white collar guy with the database is outside the US. But that also means there are a lot of emerging markets for American products too.

But people get too hung up about unions. I think they can be a good thing or a pain in the ass, but that's not a uniquely American issue:

Union % of workforce by country

1101UNIONMEMBERS.JPG
 
Look at all these people trying to tell a private company what to pay it's employees...

Whatever wage structure they've utilized it's been negotiated and agreed upon by both sides.
 
mook said:
Not really. We're still the largest manufacturer in the world.

The problem is that where a job was once done by 20 blue collar guys, it's now done by one white collar guy with a robot and a database. Unions probably helped expedite that process, but it was going to happen anyway.
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Probably helped expedite?

I can't imagine why manufacturers would have invested BILLIONS in software and robots and new factories if they could have kept more of their payroll costs closer to market wages/benefits that match non-union shops.

In fact, I would guess this process was accelerated a generation.
 
BlazerCaravan said:
Corporations are net neutral. They are, however, often run by sociopaths.
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I don't know how some of those people can get to a place where they are willing to overlook the negative health concerns of their products to make a buck. Cigarettes, for example, I don't think I could ever work for a company like that. I worked for Gerber for a while, the knife/tool company, and I understand that their tools are used to kill people. But there are positive uses for their products as well. Survival, industrial, etc. I don't see any positive uses for cigarettes. Or Monsanto, for example, have ruined agriculture in America.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I don't know how some of those people can get to a place where they are willing to overlook the negative health concerns of their products to make a buck. Cigarettes, for example, I don't think I could ever work for a company like that. I worked for Gerber for a while, the knife/tool company, and I understand that their tools are used to kill people. But there are positive uses for their products as well. Survival, industrial, etc. I don't see any positive uses for cigarettes. Or Monsanto, for example, have ruined agriculture in America.
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Yeah it is interesting how you can easily overlook that stuff at a "ground troop" level when the factory is the only game in town and you need a job. But at the VP/C-level, that sort of Stockholm Syndrome has to go extra far. The CEO of the nice-to-employees company I work for is a former Monsanto VP; I like to think he's reformed.
 
BlazerCaravan said:
Yeah it is interesting how you can easily overlook that stuff at a "ground troop" level when the factory is the only game in town and you need a job. But at the VP/C-level, that sort of Stockholm Syndrome has to go extra far. The CEO of the nice-to-employees company I work for is a former Monsanto VP; I like to think he's reformed.
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One company that I can get behind is Google. The things they are doing with renewable energy and internet are amazing.

 
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