Sad Day in Baltimore...Bethlehem Steel

Part of your problem is the union just does not have anything to work with. A plant can be moved at a moments notice. These are not skilled workers. Across the river Indiana is trying to save the Pillsbury plant. They offered 7 million in incentives along with other concessions. Pillsbury will still pack up and go. The local GE is something to watch. Bought out recently, but being one of the union plants it will be toast as well, eventually. About the only thing we build in the US is new homes and cars. Even that is questionable.
 
We don't build cars anymore. Haven't for years. We assemble them...

And we dont build houses anymore pretty much. They too are simply assembled. No such thing as a Framer anymore. Mexicans raising trusses by number now. 4/12 pitch? WTF is that. They don't know...
 
A lot of unions are like slum lords, they want to shake envelopes and avoid fixing anything. They had a purpose but much like things that don't produce, they will disappear. Stan I'm glad guys like yourself and my father in law lasted to make it to retirement, I have 2 friends under the teamsters and either one could be out on their *** tomorrow. I don't know why the teamsters didn't adapt to changes in the transportation industry but they really lost their base and did nothing to recruit new blood following the template of the trade unions. They could have jumped in and provided training, selected good drug and problem free candidates that trucking companies could hire and keep instead of the constant turnover that plagues trucking and I think would have in turn weeded out some crap companies. Well I have bored everybody else with this truck stuff, I'll leave it at that.
 
I'm sad about something and this was a good example.
Every time a company or plant is closed, the discussion always becomes a pro & anti union debate. I truly wish people would refocus on why America as a who!e is being destroyed.
 
polara71 said:
And what about the non union blue collar labor pool, they have it harder still
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Yes they do, so keep in mid that every non union labor job and a lot of non labor jobs are still based off the wage the unions fought and bargained for. The unions keep everyone's standard of living up. As the unions fall so will EVERYONES standard of living. I have worked my *** to make a good union wage. How many of you bitching about the unions have been letting their families shop at Walmart for the last 20 years. That's no different than GM shopping in China for coils of steel, same bean counter mentality. Unfortunately Commando1 I agree with you. It's part of a master plan and were falling right in like sheep. When the unions do bust, folks will see the real picture. Good read: Maitwan massacre. Check it out
 
I was a member of the Teamsters and the Carpenters Unions, both like all the others are in it for the Union, not the members. We can have a debate all day about them and I will never change my view on them. Since I tried that Kool Aid and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
Taxes are high because of Unions, Contracts cant be given because they have to use prevailing wage. Do you know a municipality can get three times for their money if they dont use a Union or pay the prevailing wage, but on certain grants and Bonds, they have too.

Unions had their time, that time is over because of their greed, no different than a politician or a corporation.

Shopping at A WalMart is not like GM shopping in China, thats just silly.
 
patrick66 said:
Very sad, indeed. Think of all the activity that was there from the earliest part of the 20th Century, lasting a hundred years. Thousands of people employed directly and indirectly as a result of steel. American steel. You can even see the arteries (train tracks) have been removed from the corpse. All that steel and iron. Sold off, placed on ships, and sent to China. CHINA! Who will smelt the steel, keep the finest of their output for their domestic use, and sent their crap back to a grateful US consumer; who is happy to buy their cheap, unsafe garbage.

Sad. Pathetic. Yet, unnoticed and un-mourned by the majority of our citizens, who seem to care more about the size of Kim Kardashian's giant ***, versus the state of our own nation's economic health.
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I wonder if that's natural? Kims ***, that is.
 
polara71 said:
I was a member of the Teamsters and the Carpenters Unions, both like all the others are in it for the Union, not the members. We can have a debate all day about them and I will never change my view on them. Since I tried that Kool Aid and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
Taxes are high because of Unions, Contracts cant be given because they have to use prevailing wage. Do you know a municipality can get three times for their money if they dont use a Union or pay the prevailing wage, but on certain grants and Bonds, they have too.

Unions had their time, that time is over because of their greed, no different than a politician or a corporation.

Shopping at A WalMart is not like GM shopping in China, thats just silly.
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On another note about some unions is they get saddled with this guys brothers friend wants a job instead of someone who is better qualified or just a better person. Let's face it this guys brothers friend is a character from one of Stans Walmart rants and probably can't keep a job at Walmart, so he gets a job the more qualified guy is working at Walmart, this is part of the corruption that puts a black eye on all of them, and the worst offenders of the above is the govt on all levels. Don't even get me started on things like the Pa. Turnpike which if it wasn't part of the state govt would be under investigation like a north jersey or Chicago crime family.
 
I was just :poke: at Stan and not knocking unions or trying to start a debate.

Dave is 100% right about municipalities paying at least twice what they should for capital improvements, etc. though. I've been a contractor my whole life and it makes me wanna puke to see the idiotic specs that the architects write and then the unbelievable waste at every turn. I used to do a lot of work for a large city and we had to raise our prices by 30% or our bids would be rejected for being too low.
 
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