[catwoman]

I don't have a clue what Busy B said, but I, on the most part, think unions are no longer needed. I never wanted to be a part of one. I think they breed an air of "it's not in my job description" attitude and allow people to be lazy. JMHO.

[Steve]

No, labor unions are not all corrupt but the more money there is involved the greater the possibility that organized crime or other forms of corruption. I think (addressing catwoman) that the laziness factor can definitely be a part of unions, but not necessarily. Most of the engineers I work with (and we are all unionized) are hard workers because we are geeks that enjoy our work and don't really think because we are part of a union that we are safe (as we all have seen we are not safe anyway).

[Newt]

I agree that where there's big money there will be corruption in the Union or the Company. It's called Greed. Look at Wall Street. The lazieness factor will be found in union and non-union jobs. I would think that if there's lazieness then it would either be in their nature or they are bored stiff and dissatisfied with their job. I think if you look back you will find that the unions helped get you a 40 hr work week instead of 50-60. Helped get you paided vacations, holidays, medical care and overtime pay tho this is not the case on every job. I think that todays jobs have changed considerably. A lot of good companies are non union but have benefits that are similar. Do you think Boeing, Microsoft or any other company would pay their full time employes what they do if they didn't have too? Probably not. Good companies will treat their employees as real people. They will treat them as they would like to be treated themselves. Temps and PTers generally are used to fill in the gaps that are needed rather than hiring and then laying off employees. Temps and PTers know that they are such when they hire on. Sure they don't receive the same benefites as FT. When it comes to layoffs, economics are economics. Bottom line is profit. What sucks is when a company wants to make $x profit and they fall a little short and call it a loss. They still made profit. As for the *not my department*, any decent company has a *misc* in the job description. That can cover a lot of crap, and toilets too. Wanna clean toilets? or get laidoff? I'm just thinkin now so please don't quote me on any of this NN.

[Allison]

Would I rather clean toilets or get laid off? I would rather get laid off. I bet I'm not the only person who feels that way.

[Newt]

You're right Allison, you're not the only one. Being that we white Americans are too damn good to do any dirty work, we let the illegals and immigrants do it for us. And at a super duper cut rate low price at that. Not even asking for a green card. Then we piss and moan about them taking our jobs here. I'm sure that there are some that are too good to wipe there own butts too. Blah. Just doin some more thinkin. NN

[Allison]

Well, considering some of the nasty S#!+ I have to do as part of my work day, no, I guess I'm not above doing a little dirty work now and again, but....well, even if they pay me scale, I'm not cleaning out no dirty toities. Paid my dues, not gonna do it.

[B Average]

Unions have won us alot and we shouldn't discount it. Some people get into union leadership for the power and glory instead of for the chance to do well for others by leading well. We have to be careful in how much we workers demand as there are alot of people in other countries that can do our jobs for alot less money. I notice that the people that clean our building at night, including the toilets seem to have lower levels of stress than those trying to get project-x out the door by November 24. There are some merits to doing that kind of work. And don't tell me the people that put in new rolls of tp aren't important. Of course the CEO's and VP's never use the restroom, at least they don't seem to, but everyone else would be screaming if they ran out of tp.

[Allison]

Now, now, I never meant to imply that there is no merit to janitorial work. All I said is that I know I won't be cleaning the toilets after I get done coiling 800 feet of vomit-covered front-of-house cable at 4AM. I did serve in positions of union leadership for many years. Most of the work I did was successful, leading to better contracts AND better relationships with our signatories. I had to stop after a while though because it is for many a high burnout job, and no matter how big a pay raise people get, it could be a little bigger. I've always considered the mark of a good negotiator to be the ability to leave a little on the table, and that is what I did. People made money, and all of those employers are still successfully in business.

[Smokey]

Addressing the original question, unless they are keeping orders under wraps, always a possibility, there is no denying Boeing is in deep trouble. However they have not made any attempts to mitigate the layoffs with a little creative thinking. In fact, the focus seems to be on not hiring these people back in the future. That means only one thing, that the work will be done elsewhere and their number one priority is NOT a happy, smiling workforce. It is "shareholder value." On the subject of unions, belonging to any union at Boeing is not going to give you license to be lazy, stupid, irresponsible etc. It just doesn't work that way. For a little union education read the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. For fun listen to "Fellow Workers," a collaboration CD between Ani DiFranco and U. Utah Phillips. I think he talks about the Everett Massacre on that one. Or any U. Utah Phillips recording. And lastly, for those crooked union executives of who there are, alas, surely plenty, cast them in the next sports megacenter we build.

[Allison]

Thanks, Smokey for saying it well. Now I'm going to retire to my caviar-lined featherbed, and count my money.

[polarbear]

So I guess the question is, is it still possible to do manufacturing in the U.S., or is shipping all manufacturing jobs overseas inevitable?

[Erik the Nav]

Hey, PB - I think it is entirely possible. I'm not sure it's very likely that the greatest successes will be at huge dinosaur corporations, however. Wasn't it while US Steel was falling apart that mini-mills took off around the country? Am I thinking of the right place when I think of Precision Cast Parts, Portland company doing well, high speed low drag custom/small run parts work? Amazing stuff happens in the US in manufacturing - laser sintering and other rapid prototyping technologies, and cripes, friction stir welding, I still want to see that happen 'cause 'til I do, I'm not really going to believe in it. "Stirring" two pieces of metal together? I dunno, I don't keep up on all this stuff that well, let my Forbes subscription lapse, y'know, but it sure seems to me like smaller, tighter, more flexible outfits have some big advantages. I do know something that helped me understand Boeing better: Boeing is bigger than the United States Marine Corps. Well, OK, I just checked, and Boeing now has fewer employees than there are active duty Marines, but they had more just a few years ago, and the Marines' annual budget is around 12B$, Boeing grosses on the order of 50-60B. The Marines might have more $ in physical plant, but I wouldn't count on it. Well, anyway. It's a huge subject. I find the 5 to 20 years from now outlook really fascinating, in terms a whole batch of factors, here's a few: - people's changing valuation of time vs. $, especially in terms of more and more people have more $ than they have time - the boomer retirement wave - biotech maturation - nanotech adolescence - or maybe just crawling out of the crib - continuing improvement in information technology and the integration of it into culture (e.g., technologically supported autodidacticism & the erosion of centralized educational establishments, peer & select editorialship of news vs. centralized news outlets (see the blogging boom & the newslinks sent to you by friends and posted on special interest sites, like this one), improved search engines, and jeez, I just read about some guys working on getting a million different books online.. When I look at all that stuff in my prognosticato-scope, I just want to throw up my hands at "is shipping all manufacturing jobs overseas inevitable." Well, OK, except in the sense that we're talking about human action, and in that realm, nothing is -inevitable-.

[Allison]

Sorry for the thread drift, once again. The ideer of all of our manufacturing going overseas is not a new one by any stretch, but if it happens, we essentially become a nation of managers. Sure, there's a service industry, but it's probably a smaller part. So we become a nation of managers. Not only are there not enough jobs for all of us, but also not all people have what it takes to be managers. What is to become of all of those Americans?

[Newt]

Unemployed? NN

[Dante]

For as long as I've had kids (5 1/2 years) I've joked that I was going to encourage them to become plumbers. Maybe it's not such a bad idea. I hear the trades are having trouble recruiting and I recently heard an ad on a local FM radio station for Journeyman Plumbers. It said compensation could run to six figures with overtime . . .