Total unionized worker compensation (wages, pension, severance, paid leave, health care, etc) is at least 1/3 more than that given to non-union autoworkers.

The union’s position to simply blame management (and government) for the Big Three’s financial difficulties is absurd.

To refresh my belief in humanity, it is no wonder i donate free work for charities. At least they respect the right to human existance beyond their dollar value. I love to donate my time to charities. I only hope people on this blog can understand giving is better than getting. It is not a business model, but it is most certainly a human model. Thanks from Ron.

Why just today the Conference Board of Canada put out its economic warning for Canada….prepare for a 9-month recession. And to prove it, a nearby coal mine, where lumber workers went to get new jobs in our region, is now laying off, with another virtually closing down. Even the Alberta oil industry has put its hand out for some bail-out package from government.

I suspect that this economic situation is bigger and more complex than most people on here might want to realize. And probably more complex than I can understand. Debating union versus non-union will not solve our economic woes.

Our laws would defend the workers. The only thing unions do now is agitate for more money and benefits in exchange for working fewer hours.

As a general rule, companies rot from the top down.

It’s been widespread mismanagement, lack of planning and irresponsible business practices that have been the major contributors to the threatened collapse of the big three. Unions play a role, certainly, but it’s the wrong focus in this case.

Simply saying ‘the workers make too much’ creates a scapegoat… conveniently at the bottom of the pile.

The problem with fully electric cars is that they might have zero emissions from the tailpipe, but what about the emissions from generating the electricity that charges the batteries?

Even with electric vehicles widely used, to address climate disruption we will still need to reduce the use of fossil fuels for electrical generation and we will still need to reduce sinlge occupancy vehicle use by walking, cycling, carpooling or taking public transit.

And another goodie:
Since our lumber is not leaving our millsites, it is totally irrelevant as to what wage they pay us. Dude, if your product is not moving, stop making product!

The only businesses that I know of who do really well without unions, are those in China. I only hope the terrible working conditions those workers must endure will change as their employers profit. But there is nothing to guarantee that. Why don’t you investigate what kind of awful conditions many Chinese workers have in their workplaces. Get back to us on that please, and thank you.

Our management IS NOT demanding lower wages. Instead they are struggling with a concept of how to make our Company survive when there is no need for the product we produce. Lord have mercy if you can’t understand the drying up of the American housing market is the root of the employment problem in the Canadian forest industry. It is time you all relegated yourselves to solving economic issues rather than picking on unions. I seem to recall all the highly educated economic thinkers are non-union, yet they still have no idea how to get us out of this mess…..Go Figure! Maybe lower wages on their part would help them off their keisters to provide a real solution?

The primary technological reasons holding back the electric car is the size and weight of batteries large enough for the car to travel a significant distance. That is why all electric cars also have gasoline engines.

Even the Chevy Volt will fall back to a gasoline motor.

Have you not noticed this obvious fact? Once the battery is depleted, you cannot just pop into a service station and fill it up on a matter of minutes! So if you like getting stuck halfway to where you are going, then go ahead and find yourself an electric car.

And, to top it off, where do you think the electicity is coming from? In many places, the electricity in your electric car is coming from fossil fuels, including coal and natural gas! In a hybrid, the electricity is coming from the gasoline in the tank!

So, unless the car can run on electricity efficiently (which they cannot), you are consuming more fossil fuels than you would be consuming from a gasoline car.

The UAW allows retirees to vote as well as current workers and there are 4.6 retirees for each worker now employed (at GM at least). It is why it can be accurately claimed that GM is now basically a health care provider that also happens to produce vehicles.

Frankly, the only reason I care about what goes on inside these companies is because they are taking taxpayer money, even though their employees are paid far beyond what others are paid. Why on earth should the rest of Canada be paying these employees’ inflated salaries? The unions think this is perfectly fine.

Management salaries should be cut as well.

And I agree with myl, unions almost always seek to improve the benefits of existing workers at the expense of newly arriving workers, so if there is any snobbery involved you should be talking to the unions themselves.

You are absolutely correct that I am no fan of unions at the best of times, so feel free to view any of my bloviating through that filter. But when even the unions want to eat their young in favour of protecting the ill-gotten gains of existing members (yes, yes, collective agreement, management didn’t have to sign, etc.), trust me, I’ve had it with ‘em. Now they show up, cap in hand to the taxpayer to protect this insanity from a well-deserved death? Please do not expect me to be quiet, or polite. Let management, the unions, and the shareholders suffer for this stupidity. The taxpayer will be on the hook enough in the social safety net we’ve built. The taxpayers of the future should not be forced to build bad cars nobody wants.

American Honda workers in Ohio are not that much faster than their counterparts at GM in Michigan. It all comes down to the workplace rules and regs the unions love to impose on company/workers.

There is also a movie out there – “who killed the electric car?” It gives plenty of info about how the auto makers decided to kill the electric car even after it was developed. Ford once made the electric car and there was a two-year backlog of orders. then, it suddenly stopped production and withdrew the product from the market.

Sure, there are limitations to electric cars. But even within those limitations, there is a good market for daily commuting etc. I’m suggesting the car companies should exploit this market and stop making gas-guzzlers.

Kill off every CEO, Vice President, and regional and local manager of every department. Go ahead, do it. Let the UAW and CAW run GM, Ford & Chrysler. Keep the fat undeserved pension and health care packages, don’t surrender a penny in hourly wages, and for heaven’s sake don’t lay off a single worker without paying them full price for staying in some pool of idle workers playing Sudoku on their Nintendo DS.

Just don’t come crying to the taxpayer to bail out this mess, ‘cuz the taxpayer is only too happy to buy Hondas and Toyotas built in North America and elsewhere, and will be forgiven for not looking too kindly on keeping the UAW Impala, Neon and Taurus in the showrooms. OK?

With regards to your example, I think that it’s likely the big 3 has improved productivity, but have failed to match the productivity of the foreign auto companies. This is due to substantially higher legacy costs such as pensions and excessive dealerships, higher wages, inferior quality and reliability.

They have simply failed to compete.

The forestry industry, which is shrinking, has not failed to compete.

So I don’t see these two things as the same.

Or something like that.

To be sure some forest industry workers are working elsewhere, some for more wages, as in the mines, and some for less wages, as in the service industry. But that was months ago. Word is out that hiring of workers who are “free to work elsewhere” is drying up. Hmmmm…..go figure. Maybe even these jobs don’t have low enough wages?