The Kohler Co. goes on strike!

[askolover]

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.

 

[polkanut]

Vote ends strike

Here's the article.

Union OKs Kohler contract, ending strike

Over 2,000 Kohler Co. employees are heading back to work after ratifying new labor pact.

www.wausaudailyherald.com

 

[Practigal]

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?

 

[mattl]

Was wondering what the status was the other day.  glad to hear it was settled to everyone's satisfaction.

 

[askolover]

I'd love to see a robot TRY to do my job!  More so, I'd love to see a patient's expression when a robot rolled into their room to start their IV!

 

[carmine]

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.