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[hard10]

Multimillion dollar pay and perks up the wazoo for the executives are perfectly acceptable, but decent pay and benefits for the working stiff is somehow causing the downfall of America?  ...

Jerry, you can't tell me that one, two, or 100 executives getting "Multimillion dollar pay and perks up the wazoo" can compare to what the unions get in perks & privileges. I know of one member here who gets a new GM truck every year at a fraction of what it costs to build it (not the sales price). Work for 20 years and retire with 80% of your pay plus medical benefits for the rest of your life? How can any company afford to pay that extortion? Simple, add it to the cost of the product and cut corners somewhere else to still make a profit. That why companies are in business: to make a profit. Not to make people feel good and put them to work but to make a profit. Toyota has moved to a non-union state for that very reason. There are not enough younger workers entering the workforce to help pay for the pensions and healthcare of those retiring. It's that simple.

AJ

[Joelgonia]

Here's my $.02 - w/o taking either side, just a few comments:  I depend on the manufacturing community for my welfare, so any development concerning manufacturing - new business, closing, or moving - I am interested.  Here in Louisville Ford and UPS are the big union employers.  GE pulled out many years ago and moved partly to Indiana, and mostly to Mexico.  As with any negotiation, there's gotta be some compromise.  However, our economic conditions today are not what they were in 1990, nor 1970, nor anytime in the past.  Also, since the industrial revolution after WWII, we are now manufacturing less (as a nation) than anytime in the past 50 years, and much of what is lost, will not return.  So when I hear companies closing and or moving due to union issues, I gotta ask "Why?"  Both sides lose if the talks fail.  Yes, I think the general premise or rationale of an employee union is antiquated, but workers have to be treated, and compensated, well.  Yes, I agree management has to run lean and mean without exorbitant bonuses and/or outrageous salaries, and they must make a reasonable profit.  We as a nation, as a business, and each individual need to adopt a "long term" vision.  Otherwise, we better learn Chinese....

[muddypaws]

Lazy union workers. I watched as they destroyed Eastern Airlines. Yes there are great union workers but they end up carrying all the crap workers who think the company owes them everything.

[BigLew55]

Lazy union workers. I watched as they destroyed Eastern Airlines. Yes there are great union workers but they end up carrying all the crap workers who think the company owes them everything.

It's not just a union plague!

[muddypaws]

I agree. I let two people go this year because they blame all their problems on someone else. Get of your lazy a$# and do something.

[FNGw/08SERK]

It's not just a union plague!

It sure isn't!! There's a "perfect storm" that's been hovering for many years. Union leadership, Greedy corporate officers and share holders, customer base with dwindling incomes demanding cheaper products, and many others I'm sure. But as long as folks dig their heels in and blame one side or the other, as we have for decades now, rather than formulating a creative solution together the jobs will either pay less and/or move to Asia. Either way the fatcats will have to slim down because the folks discretionary $$$ will be hard to acquire. Just my .02 (and too much  )

Howie

[tazmun]

 My point, it doesn't matter who wins.......People just can't afford $20k plus toys
in this day & age. Some of us are fortunate, most are not. Look at Government Motors,
they want to buy a credit company for $3.5 billion so they can sell cars to people who
can't afford them. Does that make ANY sense at all? I think the MoCo, has to drop prices
big time to get people to buy, but until America gets back on it's feet, "Free" won't help.

Just my 2 cents.

[iski]

If HD chooses to move it's Milwaukee plant operations to improve their bottom line, that is just a basic business decision.  There are many factors that affect the bottom line & believe it or not, without a healthy bottom line, HD becomes just another ex-manufacturing company.  Nothing wrong with a profit motive or the capitalist system in my opinion.  Doubt they will move off shore, since they have the "American made" deal down now as the last one standing of any real size. 

As to why the MoCo chooses to move or not move, you can point fingers at whatever you wish but for YEARS companies have moved across state lines and have managed to survive very well.  It's the companies that moved over seas that have caused the great decline in American manufacturing. To say that is ALL the unions fault is an over simplification but no doubt for many companies it was a major, if not the deciding factor. Labor costs drive the sales price up or down & are a VARIABLE expense.  Minimizing expenses (to the extent it does not adversely affect quality) is the name of the game in keeping companies healthy. Frankly, HD may be looking at a move to also improve overall quality of their product, which is certainly needed. 

Companies that are publicly held, as HD is, answer to stockholders as well, so they MUST pay attention to their bottom line or their investors will seek out other companies that do. Heard on the radio this week that Louisiana & Alabama are going to try for this factory & certain other states will as well.

[moscooter]

 

Check this out and then get back to me about......exec pay

http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2008/11/let_gm_ford_and_chrysler_die.html


Detroit News, 17 Oct 2005, Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work

Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.

"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

 

Yup,  That's what I want to pay for..........Union employees without work getting $31 an hour to play crossword puzzles. 

[tjstreetglide]

Jerry, you can't tell me that one, two, or 100 executives getting "Multimillion dollar pay and perks up the wazoo" can compare to what the unions get in perks & privileges. I know of one member here who gets a new GM truck every year at a fraction of what it costs to build it (not the sales price). Work for 20 years and retire with 80% of your pay plus medical benefits for the rest of your life? How can any company afford to pay that extortion? Simple, add it to the cost of the product and cut corners somewhere else to still make a profit. That why companies are in business: to make a profit. Not to make people feel good and put them to work but to make a profit. Toyota has moved to a non-union state for that very reason. There are not enough younger workers entering the workforce to help pay for the pensions and healthcare of those retiring. It's that simple.

AJ

Don't forget that the workers pay most of the money that goes into their retirement. The company then decide where to invest that money. The different retirement options that were closed and are fully funded and have an excess of money are what H-D. The excesses of that money are to go to the employee's are kept in the fund and grow to the point that the company's want to get their hands on. That is most probably one of the sticking points of the negotiations. We out here are having the same problems. The newer retirement funds that we pay for in the current are designed so that the company's have they can get the excess. The problem is that the funds were hit so hard that they are in debit because the investment's made and they have to make up the diffrence. The Xe's however are not asked to give back part of the sweet deals that they "negotiated". So why should the workers give back there's in the form of lower wages and benefits.

[bbrown]

Multimillion dollar pay and perks up the wazoo for the executives are perfectly acceptable, but decent pay and benefits for the working stiff is somehow causing the downfall of America?  I don't think so.  The middle class worker created the economy that was the envy of the world, and the privileged few are destroying it quite rapidly thanks to the "greed is good" philosophy and the morons in Washington who let it happen.

H-D management is looking out strictly for H-D management.  Just like at York, if they can intimidate the folks in Milwaukee into giving up everything they've worked for over the past 30 years then management can just pat themselves on the back as they increase their own pay and benefits.  And don't forget, their ultimatums at York and now in Milwaukee also included targeting the local politicians, as in give us all kinds of abatements and other goodies or we'll leave your economy high and dry.  So not only are the union workers getting the shaft, the local taxpayers who have to make up the difference will also get to grab their ankles.  Harley has a history of expecting others to fix their self induced problems.  Look at the 1980's for instance.  Can't build a competitive product, so talk the government into slapping import duties on the much better bikes from overseas.  Didn't help the quality of the bikes, but it cost those of us who bought bikes from other companies that actually had a clue a lot of extra money.

As far as I'm concerned they can take their greedy no quality butts over to China.  And not just manufacturing but the whole corporation.  That way they could save on the shipping costs for all the cheap Chinese parts, and they would have a huge domestic market that is used to getting junk for products.  Should be a perfect match.


Jerry

This does not necessarily mean they are leaving the USA.  Thanks to the tax laws in Wisconsin such as something called Combined Reporting and other factores HD has no choice but to follow the lead of others like Polaris (Osceola plant) who can not handle anymore WI taxes.    Estimates  had it the  new taxes imposed would cost Harley 27 mill per year.  YUP its a dam shame

[grc]

Why dredge up an old outdated story(2005)?  Why not mention that the Jobs Bank was eliminated in collective bargaining back in late 2008 by the UAW in response to industry problems?

The Jobs Bank was a ridiculous response to the Japanese industry's so-called lifetime employment.  Like many benefits, it was agreed to back when times were good and the companies didn't want to argue too much at contract time.  I don't blame the Union for asking for it, I blame the Management who agreed to it.  Never forget, the Union doesn't run the company and it can't set up these programs on it's own.

There is no argument that there has been massive waste created by programs like this particular one over the years.  But there should also be no argument that the current union leadership has been working diligently to help reduce costs and eliminate counterproductive perks and programs to help keep companies viable and to protect the remaining jobs that haven't already fled overseas or to nonunion farming areas in the south. 

I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that many people on a site dedicated to highly overpriced toys would tend to be less worried about the hourly workforce than the privileged folks a little higher up the food chain.  Please excuse me if I don't join you in laying all of Harley's problems off on the little guys.


Jerry

[moscooter]

 

Why "dredge up" an old situation with the unions........how about current stuff.......keep up the (denials),  I can keep quoting FACTS that throw your arguments into the dirt.

To do that California needs to take on its public employee unions.

Approximately 85% of the state's 235,000 employees (not including higher education employees) are unionized. As the governor noted during his $83 billion budget roll-out, over the past decade pension costs for public employees increased 2,000%. State revenues increased only 24% over the same period. A Schwarzenegger adviser wrote in the San Jose Mercury News in the past few days that, "This year alone, $3 billion was diverted to pension costs from other programs." There are now more than 15,000 government retirees statewide who receive pensions that exceed $100,000 a year, according to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

Many of these retirees are former police officers, firefighters, and prison guards who can retire at age 50 with a pension that equals 90% of their final year's pay. The pensions for these (and all other retirees) increase each year with inflation and are guaranteed by taxpayers forever—regardless of what happens in the economy or whether the state's pensions funds have been fully funded (which they haven't been).

[skreminegul07]

Don't forget that the workers pay most of the money that goes into their retirement. The company then decide where to invest that money. The different retirement options that were closed and are fully funded and have an excess of money are what H-D. The excesses of that money are to go to the employee's are kept in the fund and grow to the point that the company's want to get their hands on. That is most probably one of the sticking points of the negotiations. We out here are having the same problems. The newer retirement funds that we pay for in the current are designed so that the company's have they can get the excess. The problem is that the funds were hit so hard that they are in debit because the investment's made and they have to make up the diffrence. The Xe's however are not asked to give back part of the sweet deals that they "negotiated". So why should the workers give back there's in the form of lower wages and benefits.

That is absolutely not true.  There is no way you can take a percentage of a pay check for 30 years and then turn it into 30 or more years of 90% salary with medical benefits.  It's voodoo economics.
The governor of NJ made a speech that said this 49 year old state worker was retiring.  He put 149, 000 into the system, but was going to take out $3.4 million.  How does that work?
It doesn't.  These entitlement programs are destroying this country period.

[tjstreetglide]

Average age of retirement for 80% pay-65.
Average male life expectancy 70
Just sayin