MCG, When you go to bed tonight you will lie there concerned about your family's welfare and future. When I hit the sheets I'll be concerned about my family as well. And the families of my 16 employees. I'm one of those bad guys you like to pull out of the air when you need a patsy.
I can tell you this: I have had two jobs where I was forced to join a union. The first one was E. I. DuPont De Nemours & Co. on Old Hickory, Tennessee. The second one was Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. in LaVergne, Tennessee. In 1976, as a 18 year old, right out of high school, DuPont hired me and 75 others. Each and every one was a graduate of DuPont Sr. High class of '76. Three months into our employment, word came down from Wilmington that approval was never granted for this hire. All 76 of us were laid off at our four month anniversary date and the union was powerless to do anything about it. In 1978, I landed a quality control job with a non-union plant for Firestone. A little over six months into my employment, two people were fired for smoking dope in the rafters of the facility. Friends and drug sympathizers were used by the union as a rallying point to gather enough signatures for a union vote. Two months later, the union was voted in by the slimmest of margins. Three days after the union vote, we were out on strike. The plant was strangled for over 90 days. It lost contracts. The union ran scared and agreed to pay and benefits that were LESS than what we had before going on strike. Two weeks after going back to work, 42% of the plant workforce was laid off due to the lost contracts. Unions care about the money that go into their pockets. They don't care about the employees or the company. They will drive companies into bankruptcy!
I'm not saying unions have always been right.....or that they are the way to go now. I just think that given the leverage exorcised over the employees by management during this long recessionary period that there will be some hard feelings and disloyalty to management going forward. And that phenomenon runs company wide in non-union sectors as well and probably varies in severity depending on what has transpired at individual companies. Even in a case like George's where he has made tough decisions.....and lived with tough consequences it doesn't insure that his employees view everything the way he does. I have heard stories from people in my former industry that are quite an example of the negative, self-serving ways that management in some companies dealt with the situation up in Michigan with regard to treatment of employees and you have to wonder the damage done in the long run when the employment makets return to good health........if they ever do. Like a long time employee I recently spoke with who groused that he was working 30% harder for 30% less and I remarked that I thought he actually had a pretty good deal if it was only 30% less.
Sounds like you're describing the unions.....see the planned Boeing plant expansion in Charleston......see the poor Special Olympians after that disgusting negative, self-serving trick.....please Mr. Union Rep, tell us about negative and self-serving
Here is a list of America's best public high schools. The list was put together by the liberal Washington Post. Please note that most of the top schools are in no-tax, right-to-work states like Texas and Florida. Another interesting finding was that southern states like South Carolina and Alabama have much better public schools than northern states like Massachusetts or New York. The only school from my local area in the Top 200 was Troy HS, which is located across the street from Cal State Fullerton and has access to resources that most schools can only dream about. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/highschoolchallenge/schools/2011/list/national/
How can that be Krebsie? You are not only management but owner as well......so you have the dual dubious distinction of being negative and self-serving and a greedy shylock to boot - who are you kidding?
:idea: Another list of America's top high schools was compiled by Newsweek, with identical results... http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/20/best-american-high-schools-how-we-compiled-the-list.html
Let's see BT.......just like in union membership....average working Americans....upper class professionals.....college educated salespeople ( me? ).....lawyers....risk taking high stress entrepreneurs ( you? )........there are all kinds out there good and bad. I never threw Krebsie in with the bad but you do tend to generalize quite a bit......maybe more than I sometimes do. Make no mistake there are negative self-serving employees and employers out there but usually it's the employers that hold the cards.
Jim, 73% of my outrageous property taxes go to the local public school system. Of course, they are not represented on either list. Buck T, Yep, that's me. First one here in the morning, last one out at night. Normal work week is roughly 55-60 hours. Do my business reading and create marketing themes at home. Have taken less out of the business personally each of the last five years. Shop health insurance like fiend every year so my employees do not get unduly hammered. Have cut expenses at every turn to avoid laying anyone off. I am the heartless bastard capitalist pig that Dave likes to describe. And most business owners are just like me. I don't know who he's talking about.
Never said you were one of those guys George. You guys in Jersey must be all a bunch of nice, humane.....generous individuals. Not so in Detroit.
Ditto that.....I have yet to meet a competent and sustainably successful management team who believes in treating their employees in the manner and adheres to the principles that our Gator friend describes......imho, I don't believe it possible over any reasonable period of time.
Dave thinks that any action taken by management with which he doesn't agree is wrong... period. He does not understand that it is management's job to make tough decisions that are in the best interest of the company as a whole. I have had exemplary reviews every six months over the past three years. I have received a raise once, in the last review period, that amounted to 2.5 %. My company is now doing well in this economy and is paying out a profit sharing bonus that will be in my 1-July check. A union would have gone on strike for six months to get little to no benefit from the strike and caused the company to lose money that would have resulted in lower market share and loss of jobs. Dave would have been cursing a company that gave him no raise in 2.5 years. The ironic part is that he would also curse the same company that would have given him 8% raises every six months and then laid him off at the end of that same period.
Just passed my two year milestone last week. Last year I received a very nice thank you note praising/thanking me.....no money... no raise. This year another very nice note.....$500.00 bonus check.......no raise. If this should continue when it does appear we are making money by leaps and bounds I would begin to have a problem with the no raise part......and that should be understandable. I was always salary/commission based before and essentially created my own raises. Now....I am still having good success but no monetary reward to speak of. A sign of the times......tough times.
Dave, Why do you think that we described a very similar situation and I put a positive spin on it while you took another path?
Think you missed a key part of what I said. Because things are still tough in the economy.....yes improving but yet uncertain.....I am a little bit disappointed in no raise but understanding of the situation and patient. I said .....IF.....we were making money by leaps and bounds that might change my whole outlook. If your company were prospering wildly and you were left behind with no raise would you still put a positive spin on it?
It appears to me at least that the industry still has a very long way to go before they begin to find their way back to prosperity.....retail boat sales volumes have hit rock bottom in 2010, down 50% from as recently as 06 and 07 and only 1/3 of what they averaged in the 20 years prior...times are tough. Nice that you got a bonus from the cheap bastards...... Beneteau I know is down over 30% from 08 and does not anticipate getting back to 06 levels until at least 2015 from what they've suggested in their investor presentations....Brunswick tells a similar story......I can't imagine anybody "making money by leaps and bounds" for quite some time.....
You do seem to know the industry well BT. I came in at the worst of times......and I have been an integral part in a growth for our company and we have benefitted as well certainly from an uptick in the industry as a whole. The summer of 2009 was so slow in the business it made me wonder if I jumped from the frying pan into the fire but things have progressed nicely and it wouldn't be all that bad if the industry held present levels at least for awhile. However....you are also correct in that we still are not seeing the numbers brought about by the glory days of 10-15 years ago and who knows if this country will ever support that again in my lifetime.. But there are not many if any industries seeing that sort of rebound just yet. Hopefully this industry will see something close to those days again but in the interim we are holding our own and the people I work for do appreciate my efforts and that is objective one for me and I like working for them as well.
Unions made sense at one time. However they never really changed with the time and thus have rendered themselves as barriers and are thus expendable. Especially the ons representing government employees. Retirement packages like JO'Co posted are far to common and as, we can see happening, will contribute to the existing structure collapsing. Of course there are other forces in play that want that to happen.
:cry: at least you got a 500 bonus check Jim hasnt had a raise in 3.5 years just empty promises he even got the administrators bonus cause he was No 1 in his BEnchmark tests. in his district. but all he got was another increase in his dues for the union to reelect Obama . oh and he has to join 3 unions not just 1
Diane, that is incredible not getting any raises. Yet they have that high percentage for retirement pay. Somehow that doesn't make sense. It does seem that Jim gets a lot of satisfaction out of teaching the kids and that is worth a lot.