GM UAW workers on strike

David Halberstam's The Reckoning is as timely today as the day it was written.

I don't really have a dog in this fight but I know guys who work at the huge Chrysler plant here in town and guys who build trucks for Ford in Oakville (not far from here) and they've all got stories of drunk and stoned guys on the line, fights and all sorts of goofy shit.

I know a guy who works at the non-union Honda plant in Alliston (about an hour or so from here) and it sounds like night and day.

 

If heard similar stuff, Huggy. My buddy's brother was a pipefighter for Ford here in Detroit. He would go in on Sundays getting double time and slept half the god damn shift away.

 

Things tend to change once a strike actually happens.

 

Just a brutal indictment of the UAW back in their heyday, from a union member at the time.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=ab9U67cQvQBk

 

I love how they show these bozos on the picket line, yucking it up, waiving to passing cars with big grins on their faces.

"Howdy Maw! Look at me. I'm on the telly-vision and I don't have to go to work today. Yeeee hawww!"

 

GM is a massive clusterfuck. My dad was a manager there and the things upper management and the union both did was beyond stupid. They are using a business model that worked in the 50's and 60's and trying to keep it alive.

To be competitive, GM has to cut the fat and that's where the pain comes in. That means less benefits and less money for the union workers. No more triple-time for working holidays, even if you weren't tiered in.

 

Deal apparently reached.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/BUSINESS01/70926007

 

Albom reported this 2 days ago!

 

"The retirees will be very pleased," Gettlefinger says, but he refuses to release details of the contract.

Sounds like he's getting ready for a firestorm.

 

Now comes the tough part -- getting a contract with huge concessions approved by the membership. Part of me thinks the strike was necessary to demonstrate to the rank-and-file that they got the best possible deal under the circumstances.