Interested
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/business/20wages.html
An interesting read
- Thread starter Interested
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They have come and gone before.
Can this be a telling tale for the decline in union bargining power?
You hear a lot of rah rah about unions with this present administration, but they're sucking up for pension fund bailouts for campaign contributions.
Can this be a telling tale for the decline in union bargining power?
You hear a lot of rah rah about unions with this present administration, but they're sucking up for pension fund bailouts for campaign contributions.
Kev3188
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Middle class America is it's own worst enemy.
WorldTraveler
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The article doesn't tell us how much manufacturing these companies have shipped overseas but the sad reality is that American workers cannot compete with foreign worker costs... companies have no choice but to demand lower wages if the "competition" is foreign labor.
Kev3188
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The companies in the article haven't had to... They've used the threat of moving to other US locations.
I saw something regarding the fact that its becoming cheaper now in some respects to produce or assemble foreign items here for companies like Toyota and such due maybe to shipping costs??
WorldTraveler
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The US has the most developed transportation system in the world, so, yes it is very efficient to export products from the US.
Keep in mind that Toyota is an automaker and auto manufacturing is a highly skilled process - or requires extensive automation. I don't know where Toyota manufactures cars outside of Japan, Europe, and the US for sales to those areas but if the choice is between bulilding a car in Japan or the US for sales in the US or Japan, it probably is cheaper to make that car in the US - and that is partly related to the weak dollar relative to other currencies, including the yen.
But, making faucets as Kohler does is a less skilledprocess than automaking and I am certain that there are Kohler products made in China or other low cost producers. Just as w/ other products, China produces alot of home improvement products....
I believe I read that Harley-Davidson is opening a plant in India to assemble kits of their motorcycles for the Indian market...in other words, the assembly jobs are being cut from the US and only component jobs remain here.
As such the threat of moving jobs from the US is very real and unions have very little power in the face of global competition...
specific to the airline industry, at least the pilots of some alliances have agreements that they will not allow jobs to be transferred unfairly between each other.
