Jobs vs Wages? Worker will have to decide what they want..
Posted in National stories
Dec. 12, 2008 at 14:43
by BrendaBee
The measure failed in dramatic fashion late Thursday after Senate Republicans balked at passing the bill without more wage and benefit concessions from autoworkers.Senate Republicans were able to block the passage of the $14 Billion bail out for the auto industry. Why did the measure get turned down by Congress? Because the United Auto Workers Union refused to make sufficient and meaningful concessions on their wages and benefits packages.
I have seen this happen before when Big Steel died in this country. And the reasons for its demise was very similar to what is happening with the auto industry. I watched it from a ring-side seat as my home town became a ghost town in a ghost river valley.
Weirton Steel Company, Weirton, West Virginia was one example where the workers greed closed the plant for good. The Weirton Steel Company was the "home" company for the Weir family and was really kept open and operating long past the point where a reasonable profit was being made. It was a matter of sentimental value to the family and that was all.
The workers in the Weirton Steel Mill were always as well paid as any other workers in the steel industry of the northern Ohio Valley until steel companies in the United States began loosing out to those overseas. Eventually all of the steel mills closed their doors and the northern Ohio Valley actually became a series of ghost towns. The Weirton plant was one of the first to go.
It was a bitter battle and difficult time as the company owners actually turned over their books to be examined to show the workers that they simply could not pay any higher wages or benefits. In fact, they were possibly going to have to cut back some to continue to break even. The workers refused to believe the company and so the doors were closed. No company, no jobs, no pay, period.
The workers bought out the Weir family in the early 1980's and tried to run the mill themselves but found they had to keep cutting wages and benefits until the plant eventual closed all together.
The other company I was close to was a tool factory in Athol, Mass. The workers demanded more money and more benefits and the company kept giving and giving until the workers were some of the highest paid in the area. The last time the workers went out on strike they were told there was no leeway for increased wages in the budget. Profits were not doing as well as they had in the past. The company owners said they would close the plant if the strike continued. The workers continued to walk outside the plant carrying signs and were still walking a month after the gates were locked for the last time. The company never did reopen. The greed of the workers closed the plant.
The reason the steel companies in the United States were closing was the demand for more wages and/or better benefits. This is the reason for the closure of most of industries that have died in the United States. Americans are the most productive and the most hard working population in the world, but they are also among the highest paid.
So it just may come down to the workers in the three big auto makers plants to agree to take a little less money and keep their jobs. t It is possible they are going to lose all if they do not bend. GM announced today that they are "temporarily" closing 20 of their plants. Is there anyone out there who would care to make a little wager with me that those plants will never open again? I'll even give you good odds. Those jobs are lost! Gone and never coming back.
Now I hope the remaining workers in the plants that are not closing get the message and perhaps keep the auto industry afloat and keep their jobs. We tax payers may be forced by our weak kneed Congress to bail them out this time but the measly $14 billion will be lapped up like so much water and they will be back for more. And if this recession doesn't get them then the elections coming up in two years certainly will, because someone making $28 an hour sure has no sympathy for nor desire to prop up the man making $84.
It is time perhaps for a tax payer strike in this country. BB
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