Weaver95:

You can automate to a point but you still need someone running the show. That's my job - basically, automation allows me to do the jobs previously handled by an entire department a decade ago.

No, but we could find someone to do it cheaper. Hell, outsource the whole thing to another company (overseas or domestic).

As we all know, Weaver95 is Ayn Rand's wet dream and would feed grandma to the shredder if he thought that was the efficient thing to do economically. But unions in their current incarnation are just as bad for the nation as a complete lack of unions was 100 years ago.

God forbid the unions went back to doing what they were formed to do: protecting employees from abuse and harrassment and ensuring a fair wage. Now they make it impossible to fire even the most incompetant asshat and are basically weighing down our economic ship as it sinks.

Somewhere between "screw the workers" and "down with the corporation" is the answer. You people are looking in the wrong place.

It actually costs MORE to outsource.

Keep telling yourself that. :)

I agree, Weaver's company would save lots of money by outsourcing his job. This too much fun.

Weaver95:

heheh....you don't work much with outsourced folks, do you? It actually costs MORE to outsource.

Oh, I guess you make about 5 times less than what I thought you did.

Everybody needs to take a break and go read Rivethead Great book by a guy on the line whose job it was to bolt on tailgates in Detroit. Picture of what goes on in Detroit.

/Why I'll never buy a Detroit-built car.
//'course, there may be a Gewindenietkopf book out there I need to read.

what is wrong with people being paid to do nothing? I think that is a good thing. How about all the rich people who inherited their money from ancestors who owned slaves, and now they sit around and do nothing? I say better to have some working people sit around and do nothing, and pay them the money taken from the rich people. Make the rich people work for a while.

Steve French,

Bring on the leisure state

That would be Socialist Europe I think, where at 35 hours a workweek and stifling taxes to support innumerable government handouts they can't manage to add a single job to the economy.

/can't imagine how it got that way

Actually, you didn't address ANY of my points. Hmm...nobody here has, now that I think about it. Which is par for the course when talking to the fark leftie contingent.

You had a point?

Most of us can admit Unions have problems. However your whoring for the coming robocracy and your disdain for workers is as much worth commenting on as anything else.

Weaver95:

1) automation always brings cost effeciencies - shot down
2) efficient workers are suicidal - nada
3) switch to theory of crazy union subsegment - ?

Actually, you didn't address ANY of my points. Hmm...nobody here has, now that I think about it. Which is par for the course when talking to the fark leftie contingent.

Actually yes I did.

#1&2 can be refuted with a documented example of American union employee achieving more efficiencies than hundreds of millions of dollars of automation (as opposed your, "my company has less people now so it must be cost efficient" arguement).

#3 is an attempt by you to switch to an even more subjective arguement where facts are non-existant (which is a good move for you, since you seem to be unsuccessful with factual arguements).

I think I've been transported to Bizzaro world. I'm agreeing with most of Weaver's points.

I personally cant stand your average union member. I was watching the news the other day and they were interviewing some GE employee biatching because he wanted to retire at like 50 or somthing instead of whenever they normally retire, basically they were protesting wanting their retirement age lowered. What killed me was when they interviewed the guy he said "I've been working for the factory for almost 30 years and it's about time they did somthing for me for a change" I wanted to call him and say "Hey jackass, paying you over 20 dollars an hour to do work that a trained monkey could do is doing somthing for you. Talk about ungrateful, shiat

re: 'That would be Socialist Europe I think, where at 35 hours a workweek and stifling taxes to support innumerable government handouts they can't manage to add a single job to the economy.'

That's nice.
Do you have an answer for any of my questions or did you just want to drool forth more Libertarian economic theory based on Ayns little romance novel?

Here again in case you got confused: In an automated economy, what do we do with the obsolete workforce?

Weaver95:

The HR folks tried. GOD, how they tried! Turns out tho that they needed us and couldn't find anyone to do it cheaper. The best part? Their cost/benefit analysis indicated that our HR department could be run more efficently if it was oursourced. They got fired two months ago. It was funny as hell!

LOL!!! TEH FIRING RULZ! my god man i can't wait until you've been out of school more than two years and have some understanding of how the world works.

That's an unfortunate state of mind you've got yourself in there, Weaver. I'll leave you to it.

I think we're having the wrong discussion here. It's not "should unions stay or should they go," but rather it should be, "when's enough enough?"

In NY, some of the most powerful people in the state are union heads for public employees. Being employed in the private sector, yeah, I get a little ticked when I hear them complaining about a raise in their med. insurance co-pay from $10 to $15. Or a cut in their exorbitant vacations time, or the fact that someone who does nothing but type-set letters makes more than I do, but still complains about being underpaid. Hey, I'll trade with them any day. I get especially angry when I hear stories, from friends who are in the unions, about incompetent workers who are given "promotions," where they earn more money to sit in a chair and do nothing because they screwed up so badly at their prior position, but yet they cannot be fired.

On the other hand, unionizing could probably do wonders at a place like Cablevision in NY, where workers are habitually fired under the pretense of "we have no money and need to make cuts," meanwhile Cablevision has money to spend millions on over-the-hill, underperforming athletes on the Knicks and Rangers.

The biggest problem here is that the parties in this debate are the businesses, who obviously want to do away with unions so that they can crap all over the workers; and the union heads, who are trying to protect their power and political clout. So the argument consistently turns into "Give me more!" "No, you should get nothing!" instead of an honest discussion on ensuring that unions keep things fair, but not by making over-the-top demands that raise the cost of living for everyone else in the state/country/etc.

Look at the plumbers unions. They'll harrass and sabotage non union workers for taking their jobs, and cut back-alley agreements to ensure that non-union workers can't get future jobs, but isn't this the exact type of blacklisting that the unions were intended to prevent? We don't need to do away with unions - doing so would spell disaster for all workers in America: union or not. But we need to remember why they're there, and bring them back to their intended purpose.

Who has skills that a sufficiently advanced machine couldn't do?

Uhh...whoa that's a tough one, let's see: lawyers, doctors, poets, artists, writers, journalists, computer programmers, taxi drivers, airline pilots (for taking off and landing), sailors, legislators, social workers, nurses, librarians, bankers, psychologists, people who do research of any kind, historians, physicists, race car drivers, athletes...I think the list could go on ad infinitum...IDIOT.

Wow, with the exception of cab drivers, and athletes, looks like pretty much everyone who bothered to go to school and learn a trade that would enrich society as a whole.

NOT UNION AUTO WORKERS.

mark12A

Unless you all want to live your lives in "Office Space"?

Most of the people biatching in this thread are in that exact position.. like another poster pointed out, that's why the whiners are so bitter.

Good for the union workers.. and if people here don't like it then just don't buy a farking car morans. simple.

cry0fan,

...Make the rich people work for a while.

Considering that the overwhelming number of millionaires in the US are 'new money', you obviously will never be rich. You think it's all wine and roses and sitting on your ass. It isn't. Go ask any small business owner if it's easy trying to build wealth and be rich and he/she will laugh on your face or look at you as if you were speaking Klingon. I work more I one week and get more done than any 3 other people I know and I'm ont even rich...yet.

Go pass judgement on someone else. Better yet, go learn what it takes to make yourself rich, follow through on it, and make the world a better place/give a fellow citizen a job instead of sitting on your ass and bleating socialist diatribe about the 'rich' when you don't have a clue other than to know how to spell the word.

If you work for an American auto maker...you want to retire Hourly. It's much, much better than a salaried workers pension.

"Yeah, THOSE guys are why unions are going to fail. "

Unions are never going to fail. These guys are in the position they are in because of a barganing agreement that was he work of both sides. If this is a problem,then it can be fixed .. at the barganing table.

Weaver95:

#1&2 can be refuted with a documented example of American union employee achieving more efficiencies than hundreds of millions of dollars of automation (as opposed your, "my company has less people now so it must be cost efficient" arguement).

'cept that hasn't happened. That's why automation has been obsoleting workers all over the place.

Specific example of union workers in the automotice industry completely on topic (vs your "automation is better in every instance" arguement) http://www.nummi.com/co_info.html

#3 is an attempt by you to switch to an even more subjective arguement where facts are non-existant (which is a good move for you, since you seem to be unsuccessful with factual arguements).

*sigh* you make a subjective and unprovable/unmeasurable statement (japanese workers are better) then change the subject to a straw man argument while blaming me for the whole mess. You were beat, you knew it and were hoping nobody noticed.

LOL

Face it - automation (if done correctly) is the best way to replace inefficent workers like these guys. Remember these guys? The ones in the article? Yeah, THOSE guys are why unions are going to fail.

Sure, as long as correctly done automation includes the possibility of no automation. Agreed.

Wow, looking back over the thread, modernhamlet said everything I wanted to say in about a quarter of the space. Now that's efficiency. Good job.

I was going to refrain from commenting, but I feel the need to say a few things. First, not everyone can go to college. That's right remember way back to your youth when you learned that people are different and that different people have different gifts. Second, people who make cars should be able to afford the product that they make. That's not my idea, Henry Ford was the first one to say that and make it reality. Third, cars are not expensive JUST because of what the workers make. They are expensive because of what management makes and because WE yes WE are willing to pay for them. Supply and demand some of you may have heard of it.
I don't understand why some people think that just because a person does not have an education that they are lazy and stupid. I'm a professional and I know lots and lots of REALLY stupid Lawyers, accountants, teachers, doctors etc...
I grew up in a suburb of Flint Michigan. Most of my friends parents work for GM. They are good people and don't deserve the disrespect that most of you here on fark are giving them. Most of us, even professionals have benefited from the work of the unions. So next time you get that paid sick day think about it. Companies don't care about one thing and one thing only; MONEY. Don't forget it, because when you do, you'll wish that there was a union there to save your sorry behind.

Weaver95:

I've only been doing this particular job for about a decade now. nah, why would I have any understanding of how to troubleshoot automation across three continents while keeping the supply chain moving AND patching our production environment?

Nice, so you make 5x less than what I thought and act 8 years less mature than what I thought. Damn, I gave you too much respect in the beginning.

Weaver95:

Specific example of union workers in the automotice industry completely on topic (vs your "automation is better in every instance" arguement) http://www.nummi.com/co_info.html

You know, repeating a nonsequiter argument still dosen't make it relveant. Either i'm not explaining myself very well or you're being willfully stupid.

or the other possibility is that you are NOT ADDRESSING IT.

I think Weaver95 is hung over.
I get cocky when I am hung over too.
Nothing you can say to me will be the right thing.

Damn that alcohol ALL TO HELL!

Steve French:
Here again in case you got confused: In an automated economy, what do we do with the obsolete workforce?

In the debate over illegal immigration, we keep hearing about all "the jobs Americans won't do", which is used as justification for not enforcing immigration laws. Why not have the obsolete workforce do those jobs?

Steve French,

Do you have an answer for any of my questions or did you just want to drool forth more Libertarian economic theory based on Ayns little romance novel?

Hate to be ignorant, but who the hell is 'Ayn'?

Here again in case you got confused: In an automated economy, what do we do with the obsolete workforce?

You find something new. You make something new. Those people have to be ready to move on their feet, to retrain, to make themsleves more versatile and master new parts of the economy. There's a reason we have the most productive workforce in the world, it's because we outsource the 'yawn' jobs like textiles and have forced our workers to strive to be more skilled.

Did you know they still have caboosemen in the railroads? Used to be you needed one to hit the brakes in the caboose incase you had to stop. Thanks to the unions, we still have them and they still get paid by the railroads...but we have no cabooses and all the brakes are hydraulic/electric. They literally do nothing but sit on the train and maybe do odd jobs. Those guys could be used in a much better way.

That's an extreme example, but that's all I'm saying. If you get phased out, hit the books, learn/do/be more, and the workforce gets to be that much more of a potent collection of producers.

"If Delphi's cost per worker is near the average - about $130,000 per person for full wages and benefits - then Detroit's three automakers and Delphi are paying those 10,000 workers about $1.3 billion in a year."

Um, WTF, their average cost is $130,000 per person? How much money are they paying these *uneducated* people? Even when you take away benefits they're paying these people an obscene amount of money!!

I get cocky when I am hung over too.

Really? Maybe before I'm hung over, but I get overly self-critical during:
"I'm such a farking idiot! I HAD to do those last two shots of tequila, right? Stupid! Stupid! God, this sucks!"

Make this real simple for ya: People who rant and rave against the evils of socialism and taxes are all poor, lower class working stiffs who resent paying taxes because they barely make a living themselves and they have to work for it.
Simple as that.

No one actually believes that Rand corp crappola except taxicab drivers and other uneducated half-lifes.

How sweet of you to accuse me of non sequitur arguments, Weaver. It seems to prove my theory that you cannot fathom having any type of nuance in your own.

And with that, I'm off to grab some stuff from Sams Club. I'll be back in an hour or so to answer any replies.

/Ah, 60 degrees and sunny in beautiful and non-union South Carolina!

10,000 Detroit auto workers are being paid full wages and benefits--to sit on their asses and not work

Where do I sign up?

/didnt rtft or rtfa, don't care

the0ther:

Who the fark do you think builds and installs all that automation equipment? More machines?

It's not like the jobs are disappearing. They're just moving somewhere else.

Well Newmoonpuppyhead,

Please explain why someone who doesn't even have a high school diploma and does a job a typical person could learn in an hour deserves to be paid $130K a year in wages and benefits?

Let's hear how your delusional socialist infused brain answers that question.

Please tell me that was Sarcasm Steve French. I cant tell sometimes.

Steve French
People who rant and rave against the evils of socialism and taxes are all poor, lower class working stiffs who resent paying taxes because they barely make a living themselves and they have to work for it.
Simple as that.

I think those people would be more inclined to argue for socialism, no?

Everytime drew greenlights one of these stories, a demon gets his pitchfork.

Eponymous:

Please explain why someone who doesn't even have a high school diploma and does a job a typical person could learn in an hour deserves to be paid $130K a year in wages and benefits?
Let's hear how your delusional socialist infused brain answers that question.

Because there are jobs that people don't want to do? The actual pay is probably half of the $130K, so $65K a year for a manual labor, repetitive job with no career advancement sounds about right. Would you take a job shoveling dead animal carcasses off the highway and disposing them for less than $60K a year?

You know, Weaver just admitted to abusing his position by reading email not addressed to him. I wonder what other email he reads? I wonder if his boss would care.

re: 'Who the fark do you think builds and installs all that automation equipment? '

Right, but we aren't talking about the cotton gin here.
We're talking about ALL manufacturing jobs.
Sounds good to me, but what do we do with all the workers?
Retraining?
To do what?
What about those who can't be retrained?
The Soylent Green factory?

newmoonpuppyhead:

Congrats, man. That's great. But you fell into the trap that Weaver and others like him like to set. It's called subjectivity. You need to look beyond what you have done and realize not everyone can.

Why can't everyone? Are you referring to the disabled? I live in the ghetto right now, and I see tricked out caddies everyday. Know what I ride to work? Public transportation. Is the system abused? Like a virgin on prom night. Notice what I was doing while getting benefits......I was working. So I was paying taxes. So MY money went toward helping ME and MY family. Makes me feel all warm and snuggly. Socialism/communism does NOT work. Ask Gorbachev. Small potatoes, around 100 people, maybe. Socialized medicine? Against it. Not feasible to support. Also note that I'm not agreeing with EVERYTHING he says. Things like re-educate. Been doing every year of my life. WORK HARD and SMART. Have you ever been threatened with bodily harm for simply doing your job? I have.
Ask yourselves some questions:
Have YOU ever been homeless?
If you haven't can't really compare apples to oranges, but I'm rambling now.

Gist of all this: NO ONE supported me. I used programs designed in the fashion they were implemented: TO HELP ME. I never have and NEVER will live off of welfare. SOMEONE will always have a job for me. I think it's asinine that the unions protect the stupid and the lazy. It's darwinism in reverse

Yakuzaru

Amen.

/raised by a union.