The U.S.: Where Europe Comes To Slum

[quote]ephrem wrote:
The approach to jobs and work in general in the US is vastly different from how it’s perceived in Europe.

Is the way your company deals with its employees an exception in your county/state, or is the impression i/we get over here on the current jobmarket situation in the US skewed?[/quote]

The areas where there is massive unemployment are the states where “protection” has been enacted to “protect” workers — resulting in shuttered plants as smart employers get the heck out of dodge.

Texas and other right-to-work states have booming economies.

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
The approach to jobs and work in general in the US is vastly different from how it’s perceived in Europe.

Is the way your company deals with its employees an exception in your county/state, or is the impression i/we get over here on the current jobmarket situation in the US skewed?[/quote]

The areas where there is massive unemployment are the states where “protection” has been enacted to “protect” workers — resulting in shuttered plants as smart employers get the heck out of dodge.

Texas and other right-to-work states have booming economies.[/quote]

Looks like smart employers wont be able to do that for much longer:

Something had to be done. Boeing tried to address the problem with the machinists, asking for a long-term no-strike agreement, but the union showed no interest, and the idea died.

End of story? Not quite. In 2009, the company had to decide where to open a second production line for its 787 Dreamliner. It could have put it where labor troubles were practically guaranteed. Instead, it built a plant in South Carolina, which is scheduled to go on line this summer with 1,000 non-union workers.

The state offered tax incentives and a hospitable commercial environment. But a Boeing executive said at the time, “The overriding factor was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we’re paying today. It was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.”

That may strike you as a blinding flash of the obviousâ??not to mention a choice fully within the discretion of any company functioning in a competitive marketplace, which penalizes idleness. But apparently not.

Last month, the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency, filed a complaint arguing that Boeing broke the law by taking account of possible strikes in making its decision. This, it said, amounted to illegal retaliation against the machinists union.

Orion, you argued that since the industrial boom in China, inspite of often horrid working conditions, people benefitted from the increase in job opportunities.

I find it ironic that the same principle is in effect in the US at the moment.

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Orion, you argued that since the industrial boom in China, inspite of often horrid working conditions, people benefitted from the increase in job opportunities.

I find it ironic that the same principle is in effect in the US at the moment. [/quote]

What is ironic about it?

Explaining it ruins the joke. Besides, if you don’t get irony you may have more in common with americans than you’d like to admit, lol.

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Explaining it ruins the joke. Besides, if you don’t get irony you may have more in common with americans than you’d like to admit, lol.[/quote]

Irony is the gap between what you say and what you mean.

There is nothing ironic about this.

[quote]ephrem wrote:

America as the beacon for the workers of the world? No more. If anything, our relationship with Europe has become a latter-day version of the one that characterized the years leading up to the Civil War, when our Southern states provided cheap, slave-produced cotton to the mills of Manchester. (That’s why British and French business favored the Confederacy.) Once again, we’re where Europe comes to slum in the low-wage factories of the South and the run-down houses of South Los Angeles.[/quote]

We should have let the Nazis keep it. England wouldn’t have been conquered. Let the Germans and Russians kill each other. Without a second front, who knows who would have won. Anyway, they’re all evil.

Not one American life is worth the whole continent, except for England.

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Ofcourse it doesn’t surprise me that foreign companies take advantage of local market’s labor opportunities, but you have to wonder if it’s a good sign that it’s apparently cheaper to have a factory in the south opposed to a factory in Mexico [for instance].[/quote]

LOL at assuming there aren’t other differences to labor besides cost. So, is ignorance actually bliss?[/quote]

Educate me. Right to work, minimum wage, no unions. Did i leave anything out?
[/quote]

The reason the mercedes plant was built was because 75% of all R class cars are sold in the US, also, the plant is conviently located 20 miles from Nucor and US Steel plants (which also share a railway) so shipping raw materials is cheap. In addition, Alabama and the mercedes plant has access to waterways which allow for shipping the other 25% of the cars overseas… Also, the state of Alabama gave them a huge tax break to get the plant because it means a lot of great jobs…

Now, I an also talk about the Hyundia and Honda plants if you want also. They employee 10* and 20* the people the mercedes plant does, because, lets face it, they sell a crap load more cars. Those jobs are also really nice with nice benefits…

Also, no one at those plants is making minimum wage, starting is 15-20 an hour, the more skilled labor like machinists and welders make 2-3 times that…

plus, I’ll neglect to mention all the other companies that are built when one of these car plants go in… cause ya know, seats, wheels, tires, suspension components and electrical all appear out of no where…

US is notoriously bad at protecting it’s own auto manufacturers, however there are certain measures in place that make it more cost effective for foreign automakers to produce their cars here than to import cars that are 100% foreign made.
Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes ended up down south because Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee gave out incentives packages to attract them.
Nissan, for example, wanted to build offices in MI but ended up going to TN instead because MI lawmakers refused to give them incentives.

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
US is notoriously bad at protecting it’s own auto manufacturers, however there are certain measures in place that make it more cost effective for foreign automakers to produce their cars here than to import cars that are 100% foreign made.
Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes ended up down south because Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee gave out incentives packages to attract them.
Nissan, for example, wanted to build offices in MI but ended up going to TN instead because MI lawmakers refused to give them incentives.
[/quote]

And the Nissan headquaters is a beautiful building if I say so myself.

[quote]Ratchet wrote:
As someone living in the south, ima call BS on this…

the car factories the europeans brought over (mercedes and BMW), are great high paying jobs… hell, when i finish my PhD id be happy to work for mercedes, they have great benifits and as an engineer i get a company car… winning!

go figure this was printed in a california newspaper…[/quote]

They are converting a Ford factory in to a Porsche factory…I am giddy, I want that company car… 911 turbo S convertible? Sounds reasonable to me…