The Kohler Co. goes on strike!

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I wish the Kohler workers all the best. I am surprised Kohler has not already moved their manufacturing plants overseas. A
 
You gotta admit if a company like this is one of the relatively few who's entire manufacturing headquarters stays in America, that there's going to be something like this going on, as in a strike or arbitration by a Local American Federation of Labor, as in Union...

 

 

-- Dave
 
I believe this strike affects the kitchen & bath, and engine (power) divisions.  They are represented by the UAW (United Auto Workers) union.
 
I'm just about to cross the picket line when I go out for lunch. My company locked out one of the unions on Sat. morning after failing to negotiate a contract. The union has about 350 members of which 3 of the 4 sections (about 150 members) have reached an agreement but the other section (200 members) have not. They have been without a contract for 2 years. Companies for which we are trying to get contract work do not want to give it to us unless we have all of our union contracts in place thus the reason for negotiations to be settled urgently. So far it has been pretty calm....the picketers just hold up each car for 5-10 minutes.

Gary
 
Best wishes for the workers.

I'm pretty sure I've seen Kohler urinals in men's rooms around here. Next time I use one, I will have to pretend it's actually the heartless high level management of a certain plumbing fixtures company I'm peeing on...
 
I must disagree.

Unions in and of themselves are not a bad thing, it's most often the bull headed leaders that give them a bad reputation.  Quite a few of those union leaders only want to line their pockets on the backs of the rank & file membership with the dues they pay.
 
I agree...

Unions are not in themselves a bad thing, and quite honestly they are a big reason we had the prosperity we did from the 50's till the 70's. I really feel there needs to be a counterweight to all the power Wall Street and corporations have. Just as there are bad greedy corporate types, there are bad greedy Union types, but personally I'd think we'd be in a better shape economically if unions had more sway today. Anything that Wall Street and corporate heads oppose can't be bad.

For a long time I was very anti Union, I grew up in Flint Mi and saw some of the stupid things the UAW did back in the 70's. But as I grew older my attitude has changed, now I see a real need for workers to organize. The simple fact is management was as complicit in those stupid work rules as the UAW - they thought they were invincible. Corporations and the media have made "union" a dirty word, and I think for any type of revival they will have to be called associations, or even guilds to gain any traction.

This is really not the right section for this discussion but I had to get that off my chest...
 
Well said MattL, My late Dad worked GM and was UAW. We had a great lifestyle my Mom did not work outside the home. The manufacturing sector has been hard hit by globalization. Jobs that cannot be exported comes to mind as being right for organizing. Healthcare/nursing comes to mind. To be fair I look at the teachers union as an organization that protects not all but some very unproductive people.
Art
 
my Dad too

He retired from Reynolds Aluminum Company in Sheffield, Alabama...aka Reynolds wrap and many other aluminum products.  They were represented by ABG (aluminum, brick, and glass workers).  My mother also was a stay at home mom.  He retired when Alcoa bought Reynolds out.  He'd been there 30 years anyway so he took his retirement and ran at 55 years old!  Wish I could do that!  He had eye problems anyway that were becoming more troublesome.  He built houses when he married my mother...and one day a nail popped him in the eye.  They didn't have replacement lenses back then so they just took out the lens.  When I was in kindergarten in '76-77 he had a cataract on his good eye...again, no replacement lenses still so they took out that lens too.  My entire life he's had to wear contacts just to see and glasses on top of them to read.  He will be 73 next month.  

 

There are pro's and con's to union representation.  I was UAW myself at the Murray bicycle and lawnmower plant before I became a nurse....but they didn't do anything for us.

 

 

[this post was last edited: 11/18/2015-04:30]
 
unions are not baaaaaad. everyone deserves legal representation and the right to organize. don't forget the history of American manufacturing included child labor in factories and dangerous working conditions not unlike what is going on in these third world countries today. cognitive dissonance holds no merit over common sense.
 
I can certainly understand

their position. Problem is they have been sold out by politicos in Washington who just happen to work, incognito, for Wall Street.

When bass ackwards trade deals were signed where we basically gave away the store in the interest of trying to promote butter over guns, it put the average working person in a factory at a severe disadvantage come wage negotiations. That being said, companies could very well make good on a threat to move the entire plant to Mexico or wherever, thus the 2 tier wage agreement. That was a sop in a way that by the time the old line guys died or retired, the company would have a new crop of workers at far less wage expesnse. This makes Wall Stree dance a jig as they envision all kinds of freed up funds to buy stock back, increase the dividend, and reward shareholders.

As surely as night follows day, imports flooded in. And most American sheeple buy cheap instead of quality so the shoppers ate this up like hungry lumberjacks at an all you can eat buffet. More cheap stuff followed and in order to compete with slave wages, companies had to force concessions. Thus the two tiered wage setup. Reduced or eliminated benefits. Cheaper products. Et cetera. Or let's reduce competition by purchasing our competitor (electrosux digesting GE appliance for instance)

Rheen, Lennox, trane, for example all have HVAC operations in Mexico. You can buy an Ameristar made in China too! But always remember, we really want quality but just can't seem to figure out how to pay for it.
 
I just wish

Tennessee had a stronger union mentality in the healthcare sector.  Nurses up North and out West make a fortune more than we do here (look up California's wonderful nursing laws), and they keep taking more and more benefits from us, as well as sick time and vacation time.  I mean, Hello, I take care of sick people all the time, do you really think I'm not gonna get sick myself?  Do they not realize that without us, there is NO healthcare?  If just ONE hospital in Nashville would unionize, it would benefit all nurses in the city and surrounding areas...and perhaps our turnover would reduce as well because everyone would want to work at the unionized hospital.  I mean, mandatory overtime gets old, REAL OLD real quick when it's nonstop and everyone is tired anyway...and they wonder why we have such a high turnover.  Magnet status hospital?  Hah, VUMC must have bought that title.  Problem is, it's no better anywhere else.  I've worked in 5 hospitals within 50 miles of my house over the past 17 years...SSDD!

 

Rant over.....sorry, off on a tangent.
 
Union busting

For over 35 years business has waged a relentless war against unions. They have pretty much won. There are fewer and much less powerful unions left and there are also many fewer people in the "middle class", for all of you who insist on a right to work state, see the link. The big issue originally was that business did not want to pay union wages they wanted everyone to just earn the minimum wage and they wanted to get rid of that too. Today we are all being replaced by robots, no matter what you do, algorithms can replace white-collar workers. So it's not just about getting minimum-wage it's about getting paid at all. Thank you Koch Brothers and the rest of the right wingers. You wipe out the need for humanity and then tell us we are all lazy and should be thankful we get to work at all. Eventually when only one person has all of the money. Money will be completely worthless. Don't these idiots understand that it is the constant movement of money that makes us all better off?
 
Being in this situation 1st hand, Washman gets it:

"When bass ackwards trade deals were signed where we basically gave away the store in the interest of trying to promote butter over guns, it put the average working person in a factory at a severe disadvantage come wage negotiations."

And...

"As surely as night follows day, imports flooded in. And most American sheeple buy cheap instead of quality so the shoppers ate this up like hungry lumberjacks at an all you can eat buffet. More cheap stuff followed and in order to compete with slave wages, companies had to force concessions."

One problem is that we the people often look up just one level and assess blame to the "evil" management level above us. The truth is, do you really believe the CEO level wants to duplicate all the capital required to build something in China, or would they just as soon export it from here? The problem is, we offer a nation like China most-favored-nation status to our enormous free market and ignore the 100%+ tariff they impose on goods imported from North America.

To use the example just given by one of our most talented (and blunt) VP's (Ralph Giles); a $40,000 Jeep Grand Cherokee built in Detroit retails for $120,000 in China and sells at a trickle to a few wealthy Chinese. If it's built in China, the cost goes back to $40k. When your competitors are building (and selling) in what is soon to be the world's largest market, you can ignore it and go bankrupt, or you build a duplicate factory in China. The fact that the UAW exists probably keeps the redundant Detroit factory around for a few years, but ultimately another resession hits and somebody gets closed.

So you wonder why a candidate like Trump gets huge approval numbers? Perhaps because he's the only person who dare mention these trade agreements that both Reps and Dems cannot sign fast enough? (Google TPP trade deal... Opposed by the US automakers AND the UAW.) It's not because we're all horrible racists, it's because he at least gives the "apperance" of putting US interests first while his Rep and Dem opposition can't wait to get more unskilled labor into the workforce AND reward Wall Street.

Please don't think healthcare isn't touched by this... Who do you think buys more health coverage than anyone else in the US, by a huge margin? GM/Ford/Chrysler. Yet look at the employee parking lots in a hospital. Nothing but non-US/non-union products.

In a huge hospital setting, this really isn't possible; but I was recently selecting a new dentist. With no other factor to judge one vs. another, I pulled up to the office and noted a Lincoln hybrid in the parking space closest to the door. I asked the receptionist if that was the doctor's car and she replied "yes". I went ahead and made the appointment. I told the doctor his car was a factor in my decision where to spend my healthcare $$$. He told me his father worked 35 years at Ford, enabling him to go to dental college and he'd damn well never but a Ford, or at least another UAW/US-made car. So I told him "drill baby, drill" (well not really... Never had a cavity in my life, lol.
 

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