Text 4666, 79 rader
Skriven 2007-07-17 08:29:22 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
   Kommentar till text 4559 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Labor laws
==================
16 Jul 07 22:00, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Monday July 16 2007 at 12:25:

 RB>>> This is one of the major differences between the US and German
 RB>>> labor practice, that in the US labor contracts are generally
 RB>>> negotiated for single companies between company management and one
 RB>>> or more labor unions, whereas in Germany there are "blanket" unions
 RB>>> for an entire industry...

 RW>> This happens here as well, although special needs may be addressed
 RW>> locally. While working at Boeing, in Seattle, the IAM (International
 RW>> Asscociation of Machinists) had a contract with Boeing and all of
 RW>> it's subsidiaries in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Georgia, California,
 RW>> Texas, etc..

 RB> Ah, but you're still talking about _one_ company, albeit a large one.
 RB> If you can imagine that one labor union, call it the "Aircraft
 RB> Workers' Association" would negotiate a contract with _all_ the
 RB> American aircraft manufacturers (represented by an "Aircraft
 RB> Employers Association"), not just Boeing, then you'd have something
 RB> similar to the situation in Germany.

Ahhh, we have such a situation here. It's called the UAW, United Auto
Workers. GM, Ford and Chrysler and all of their venders are included in
that one union. One difference is that each local still negotiates a
contract with the place where they work. Although they bring in the
union's negotiators to do that. I don't think you'll find much difference
in those contracts, if any.

 RB>>> It isn't for the reason that a majority of the German population,
 RB>>> and consequently the government, consider the employee to be the
 RB>>> weaker party, requiring legal protection, whereas the employer or
 RB>>> company is considered stronger. Without outside legal protection,
 RB>>> an employee would be at the mercy of the stronger party, i.e.
 RB>>> his/her company.

 RW>> And so, a real screw up can continue employment without fear of
 RW>> losing his job.

 RB> In practice it's not that bad, but you still occasionally see some
 RB> pretty breathtaking cases of system abuse. By and large, however,
 RB> peer pressure and the threat of being the first to be let go in an
 RB> economic downturn keep such temptations in check.

In San Diego, I worked for a company called Convair, where I joined the
IAM union as a tool and die maker. That was a short lived job, as they put
me on 2nd shift after I was there 3 months. I went down the street and got
a better paying job with a company that is called Solar Turbines. When the
economy began to go down hill, they layed off a lot of people, but asked
their support people (tool and die makers) to take a cut in pay in lieu of
a lay off. I went along with that and so did the union. Then they came
along and wanted us to work in production. I went along with that and
lasted one day. (I told the shop floor supervisor to take a hike while he
was watching me run two machines) I went back to the T&D shop, where my
boss told me I couldn't stay because I had agreed to work production. It
was nice of the union to step in and I stayed anyway. But, even the plan
to keep going wasn't enough to save jobs. Solar was run by a skeleten crew
while they rode out the downturn in the economy.

Meanwhile, I'm working as the machine shop forman in a job shop. One of my
friends who was one of the fortunate ones to keep his job at Solar came to
me and asked me to hire him as our fork lift driver, which is what he did
at Solar. This time, the union had gone too far and the company broke
their union by hiring 'scabs' to take their place and then told the union
workers that if they wanted their jobs back, they had to quit the union
and return to work by a certain date. I told my friend that he was way
over payed by Solar and that I couldn't hire him at those wages. He
resigned his union stewardship and went back to work. There is no union at
Solar anymore.

                R\%/itt


"Beware the lollipop of mediocrity! Lick it once and you'll suck
forever..."

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