If anyone is interested, Home Depot is clearing out the "old" Emerson made Ridgid tools. I just picked up the 14 inch bandsaw for $349, down from $449, and the riser block set for $47, down from $59.
I also saw the cast-iron table saw (contractor's style) for $345, which is about $100 off.
I wouldn't put the Ridgid BS at the top of my list, but for a second saw, I won't have to switch between blades all the time, and it didn't put too much of a dent in my wallet.
Joe wrote: : One suggestion for all employers that are having lower sales primarily : due to higher prices for their goods....lower the end user price. Can : be done in several ways, drop executive pay(a small fraction of the : cost of production) eliminate dealings with unions(a much higher : added cost) : If there were no unions, peop;e would be free to make their own : decisions as to how much they would be willing to cut their own pay : rather than lose the job entirely................
: Joe
Back in the 70s and 80s I would agree with you about the unions pricing themselves out of the market. In todays global economy its hard to compete with labor that work for pennies an hour. What's the answer I don't know.
: :>When I heard this, I was disheartened. It just seems like yesterday :>that the Home Depot saved the jobs of the workers from Emerson :>Electric when Sears dumped the line. I wonder what they are going to :>do now. I have not heard any news from the human side of this, but I :>bet it is not pleasant. There is just too much of this, but I don't :>have a good answer. You are not going to stop people buying from the :>lowest cost source, and I can't agree that protective tariffs are the :>long term answer. :>
Much more complicated than that. A few years ago, our largest customer decided to do what you said, They chopped the executives first, most office staff next, engineering also, then held the line of an OK pay for the workers, squeezed the suppliers for everything they could. We dropped our prices to them 10%. They paid us 180 days after billing also. That saved them finance cost, but increased ours as the labor and materials wee paid by us in 30 days.
We walked away from over $1 million in business when they wanted another 25% reduction, plus a 6% rebate from the past year's billings. This was far more than the profit we made so we said goodbye. So, what happened? About
18 months later, they moved production off shore anyway. Ed
It _is_ a problem, and it's systemic. I don't have an answer either.
In my line of work, I'm watching it happen directly. It sucks to see people for the last time, knowing that they're all about to be unemployed.
There just isn't any way around it though, when there are people desperate enough to work for pennies a day. We haven't really gotten rid of slavery. We've just moved it off-shore.
Yep, god forbid those "uneducated" guys make a livable wage. All they do is stand around most of time right?
Sure wouldn't want the people who actually do the work to make enough money to buy the products they manufacture, better to use slave labor and let only those "educated" white collar folks buy it all. Like those hard working CEO's out there at Enron and GE and the like.
Companies invariably cry poor-mouth, extort wage and benefit concessions from workers, and use the money they save to finance their move to a cheaper locale.
Take a look at all of the businesses moving into Vietnam to take advantage of cheap labor and a cooperative government. Did "communism" win? What a joke. We should skip the invasion and war part, and just move the jobs there in the first place. Then, the soldiers will have less to come home to -- at least those who do come home.
This is not a criticism of you or your post, but rather a general rant. I don't know what the answer is either, but there has to be one. Everything flows from the economy, and as the economy for the poorest half of our country declines, so does crime, education, healthcare, care for the elderly, and so on.
Seems to me that Henry Ford paid these wages without pressure from a union. Are we to believe that the average American factory worker is unable to negotiate a fair wage for themselves? Or, that they cannot possibly do anything else other than factory work?
I find it interesting that teachers are unionized, but they still feel that they should be called professionals. Oxymoron, isn't it? How can anyone consider themselves a professional, yet allow some other entity to negotiate their compensation and benefit package? And then they sit back and complain when they aren't getting more than a 3-4% pay raise every year regardless of the economy or their performance.
I'm just glad my doctor, dentist, and lawyer isn't union.
Don't get me wrong - in the early 1900s, unions were important - mostly to fight for children, better working conditions, and shorter work days. With all the legislation out there today are you still saying unions are needed? I think not.
I agree with most of what is said above, but that last bit is nonsense. What would be poverty-level wages in the US are wonderfully good wages in, for example, sub-Saharan Africa. If creating jobs in such places amounts to exporting slavery, then most of the "slaves" seem to be saying: bring it on. They could use a little more "slavery"...
So you could control a class of youngsters better than a "professional" teacher, Rick? If you have kids, count yourself lucky that not everyone decided to seek monetary rewards by becoming a lawyer, dentist, or Dr. I've got nothing against good dentists or doctors, but if no one wanted the satisfaction of teaching children where would that leave YOU? Home schooling, perhaps. Then where would you find time to earn money to buy that fancy car, house, and computer you are sitting in front of today? Don't be such a snob! Teachers are plenty professional. Whether or not they are in a union is irrelevant to their credentials. At some facilities nurses are unionized. At others they aren't. Some non-union facilities pay the same wages to attract quality people. I know from where I speaketh on that one. In either case, the professionalism of the nurse employed is identical at either job; if nurse Betty takes a job at a non-union job site, she hasn't suddenly become inept or stupid, or "non-professional".
5 bucks a day. There are employers out there who would love to pay that today.
Yeah, well...I like teachers. Almost became one. But I do wonder why almost every teacher I know is rigidly against merit pay raises. There's always a screed against low pay, then another against merit pay.
Seems screwy to me.
Charlie Self
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls." Dan Quayle
Livable wage? You better do a little research on exactly how much they make. Laughable maybe.
Case -n- point. I had just graduated college (electronics), working for an aerospace company on Expendable Launch Vehicles. I worked with flight hardware for a living. The guys emptying my garbage can were union. They made up to 3 times more than I did. Granted, I was just starting out fulltime but already had 2 years of coop experience. Considering the importance of what I was doing for a living, it amazed me how much they made. It took many years before I made as much as them. By my 2nd year working there, I had the authority to sign the DD250, which paid the contract of General Dynamics for successfully reaching the required orbit ($178,000,000). Still, I made much less than someone emptying my garbage. I later found out that their starting salary was double what mine was. Competitive salary for the work performed, I don't think so! Standing around? Hell no! Most of them sat around! I'd have to ask them to leave our office when we got off the launch pad. They had to take their card game elsewhere. ;-)
Don't take my word for it, read for yourself:
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"thousands of laid-off employees are entitled to company-paid unemployment supplements that give them 95 percent of what they would earn if working. Moreover, in many factory occupations, autoworkers earn significantly more than their counterparts in other industries. In 2000, tool and die makers, for example, earned an average of $19.76 per hour in all industries, versus $25.76 an hour in auto plants, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "
"The bottom line is that the autoworkers union has made its membership into an expensive source of labor, so automakers are sending as many jobs as possible to less unionized contract houses or Mexico. "
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'm not saying all unions are bad, but I think many of them are a waste. My aunt worked for Saturn in TN. Since she lived in TN when the plant moved there, she wasn't part of the company beforehand, and had no union rights. Consequently, the union forced the company into hiring her only part time, for six years. She worked 36 hour weeks, had almost no benefits. Only after fighting the company and the union for years did she get a full time position. No, she never bought a Saturn and has since quit.
I have spent the better part of 19 years in the aerospace industry working with contractors and their unions. Never have I seen any benefit to any of the employees. The "rights" being protected by the union are laws we enforced anyway. I've seen General Dynamics in CA go on strike, which forced the company in FL to do so also. Other than the name, the two branches had nothing in common. 4 weeks without pay, they finally settled. The FL crowd did not receive back pay by the company or the union for the efforts. Furthermore, McDonnell Douglas employees at the same space center were paid to do their jobs while they were out. Way to go union! Oh, McD D is also union and had no problem filling in for the other company!
Just a few of my many encounters with unions first hand. Your experiences may vary.
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