PRC-UTE
5th March 2007, 01:02
I posted this as there's a few people here who wouldn't see unions as the way forward. the last paragraph or two of this I agree with though.
If Honda Ruled The World
by Todd M. Jordan/UAW Local 292
Kokomo, Indiana - Delphi Corporation
http://www.futureof theunion. com
New jobs and new opportunity, but at what cost? A generation of
temporary workers is the catalyst of a temporary nation.
There isn't much talk anymore about the Honda transplant or the "new
jobs" and the "opportunity" that Indiana was supposed to get from it.
Indiana gave $141.5 million in incentives to Honda, which included
tax credits and abatements, training assistance, and a promise to
expedite the long-sought interchange upgrade at U S 421 onto I-74.
The Indiana plant will be Honda's sixth North American plant.
Historically foreign companies, like Honda, often speculated about
building up North in States like Indiana then typically built down
South in the end. After stirring the pot a little with States that
are for sale to the highest bidder and spinning big business economic
rhetoric to the masses the majority almost always moved down to where
majority of all the other foreign corporations are, in the South. And
for good reason, there are no unions. Right To Work (for less) laws
have played a role in this too.
Nowadays though, it is not that much of an issue for foreign
companies as it was in the 1980s and the 1990s. When was the last
time you heard of a Toyota plant being organized into a union?
Indiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Michigan, it is no difference. In
2005, American Honda sold 1.5 million Honda and Acura cars and light
trucks, and North American counted for half Honda's annual global
sales. The ninth straight year of record annual sales.
To avoid unionization and to control wages and benefit levels these
transplants generally match the unionized Big Three production wages.
But they have a brutal policy of contracting out all the work that is
not directly tied to production. What we need to realize is not only
that but, nearly a quarter of all the transplant production workers
in 2006 are "temporary workers" who do the exact same job as the
old "permanent workers" but for half the pay and no benefits. This
number of wage and benefit tier structures are increasing every year
in industries around the United States as the unwavering desire for
more profit increases. One generation is being sacrificed on the
alter of capitalism for the other.
The pensions of workers at transplants are also similar to the Big
Three, but their legacy is immeasurable. Foreign companies moving to
the United States have no healthcare or standard retire costs due to
their government providing these services to its workers in their
home country. Here in America companies are not so fortunate and we
remain the only industrial nation without national healthcare making
them "uncompetitive" and millions of citizens without insurance.
What we must understand is that very few transplant workers in the
United States even last long enough to even collect a pension at
foreign companies like Honda. Without an organized work force and a
union contract they have a monstrous injury rate in the United
States. As a result of this injury rate these "temporary workers",
our neighbors, are simply fired for the injuries they received while
on their job.
Honda was hailed by Governor Daniels and business leaders as a great
opportunity for Indiana. Honda boasted about how they make the most
profits per vehicle in the auto industry. What they did not boast or
hail about was Honda's industry wide record for worker injuries.
Honda, according to reports from the United Auto Workers Union,
injured workers at four to ten times the rate of comparable union
represented plants.
According to another report in 2002 by UAW organizers, Honda
accounted for over one percent of all reported ergonomic injuries in
all industries in the United States from 1998-2000, peaking at 1.25
percent in 2000. Does that sound like a good "opportunity" for hard
working Hoosiers and their families? The dread of mommy clocking in
everyday not knowing if they will loose a limb in the factory or be
fired as a result of it does not sound like a company with Hoosier
values.
According to the same report, Honda produced one in 80 ergonomic
injuries while employing only one in every 7,500 workers. It is not
just Honda though, Nissan, Toyota and most over foreign auto makers
moving factories to the United States have similar reports on them.
As wages, experience and work rules decline at the Big Three through
buyouts and plant closures we can all expect these foreign
transplants to follow suite. Without union contracts and
representation in place workers like those that Honda will employ in
Indiana will suffer the blunt of these policies and changes.
Union leaders would tell us that we need to "buy American" as the
solution and that every foreign vehicle on the road is 10 lost
American jobs. Unfortunately the strategy of nationalism and
protectionism has failed. It has not only failed but, it continues to
hurt organized labor around the world from uniting together. Unionism
needs to reformulate our strategy if we are to ever organize
transplants or any workplace in the United States. Building a union
hall across the street from every foreign factories in the country
might be a good start. But we are going to need to first put people
in the ones we have built already.
The ultimate problem and challenge of organized labor isn't anti-
worker laws, foreign companies in the South, worker apathy, or big
business politicians. The ultimate problem, its own policies and
strategies.
Until workers begin to understand their collective interest in
organizing themselves then worker rights will obviously continue to
erode. As we have seen at Delphi Corporation it only takes a few
loops holes in the law and a 4 million dollar hit man to pillage a
company. Laws just like politicians serve only to divide and neither
one can unite workers to their common collective interests.
The first step must be for workers around the world to dismantle
their top down bureaucracies into real democratic organized bottom up
fighting machines.
If unions continue down the road they are on then Americans, injured
or not, like the rest of the world will continue to see foreign
companies like Honda and the means to which they build their
products as the only "opportunity" this generation has to offer to
their children.
If Honda Ruled The World
by Todd M. Jordan/UAW Local 292
Kokomo, Indiana - Delphi Corporation
http://www.futureof theunion. com
New jobs and new opportunity, but at what cost? A generation of
temporary workers is the catalyst of a temporary nation.
There isn't much talk anymore about the Honda transplant or the "new
jobs" and the "opportunity" that Indiana was supposed to get from it.
Indiana gave $141.5 million in incentives to Honda, which included
tax credits and abatements, training assistance, and a promise to
expedite the long-sought interchange upgrade at U S 421 onto I-74.
The Indiana plant will be Honda's sixth North American plant.
Historically foreign companies, like Honda, often speculated about
building up North in States like Indiana then typically built down
South in the end. After stirring the pot a little with States that
are for sale to the highest bidder and spinning big business economic
rhetoric to the masses the majority almost always moved down to where
majority of all the other foreign corporations are, in the South. And
for good reason, there are no unions. Right To Work (for less) laws
have played a role in this too.
Nowadays though, it is not that much of an issue for foreign
companies as it was in the 1980s and the 1990s. When was the last
time you heard of a Toyota plant being organized into a union?
Indiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Michigan, it is no difference. In
2005, American Honda sold 1.5 million Honda and Acura cars and light
trucks, and North American counted for half Honda's annual global
sales. The ninth straight year of record annual sales.
To avoid unionization and to control wages and benefit levels these
transplants generally match the unionized Big Three production wages.
But they have a brutal policy of contracting out all the work that is
not directly tied to production. What we need to realize is not only
that but, nearly a quarter of all the transplant production workers
in 2006 are "temporary workers" who do the exact same job as the
old "permanent workers" but for half the pay and no benefits. This
number of wage and benefit tier structures are increasing every year
in industries around the United States as the unwavering desire for
more profit increases. One generation is being sacrificed on the
alter of capitalism for the other.
The pensions of workers at transplants are also similar to the Big
Three, but their legacy is immeasurable. Foreign companies moving to
the United States have no healthcare or standard retire costs due to
their government providing these services to its workers in their
home country. Here in America companies are not so fortunate and we
remain the only industrial nation without national healthcare making
them "uncompetitive" and millions of citizens without insurance.
What we must understand is that very few transplant workers in the
United States even last long enough to even collect a pension at
foreign companies like Honda. Without an organized work force and a
union contract they have a monstrous injury rate in the United
States. As a result of this injury rate these "temporary workers",
our neighbors, are simply fired for the injuries they received while
on their job.
Honda was hailed by Governor Daniels and business leaders as a great
opportunity for Indiana. Honda boasted about how they make the most
profits per vehicle in the auto industry. What they did not boast or
hail about was Honda's industry wide record for worker injuries.
Honda, according to reports from the United Auto Workers Union,
injured workers at four to ten times the rate of comparable union
represented plants.
According to another report in 2002 by UAW organizers, Honda
accounted for over one percent of all reported ergonomic injuries in
all industries in the United States from 1998-2000, peaking at 1.25
percent in 2000. Does that sound like a good "opportunity" for hard
working Hoosiers and their families? The dread of mommy clocking in
everyday not knowing if they will loose a limb in the factory or be
fired as a result of it does not sound like a company with Hoosier
values.
According to the same report, Honda produced one in 80 ergonomic
injuries while employing only one in every 7,500 workers. It is not
just Honda though, Nissan, Toyota and most over foreign auto makers
moving factories to the United States have similar reports on them.
As wages, experience and work rules decline at the Big Three through
buyouts and plant closures we can all expect these foreign
transplants to follow suite. Without union contracts and
representation in place workers like those that Honda will employ in
Indiana will suffer the blunt of these policies and changes.
Union leaders would tell us that we need to "buy American" as the
solution and that every foreign vehicle on the road is 10 lost
American jobs. Unfortunately the strategy of nationalism and
protectionism has failed. It has not only failed but, it continues to
hurt organized labor around the world from uniting together. Unionism
needs to reformulate our strategy if we are to ever organize
transplants or any workplace in the United States. Building a union
hall across the street from every foreign factories in the country
might be a good start. But we are going to need to first put people
in the ones we have built already.
The ultimate problem and challenge of organized labor isn't anti-
worker laws, foreign companies in the South, worker apathy, or big
business politicians. The ultimate problem, its own policies and
strategies.
Until workers begin to understand their collective interest in
organizing themselves then worker rights will obviously continue to
erode. As we have seen at Delphi Corporation it only takes a few
loops holes in the law and a 4 million dollar hit man to pillage a
company. Laws just like politicians serve only to divide and neither
one can unite workers to their common collective interests.
The first step must be for workers around the world to dismantle
their top down bureaucracies into real democratic organized bottom up
fighting machines.
If unions continue down the road they are on then Americans, injured
or not, like the rest of the world will continue to see foreign
companies like Honda and the means to which they build their
products as the only "opportunity" this generation has to offer to
their children.