I just have one comment in regards to unions and benefits, I currently work fo AT&T and do not pay for my health care (we'll see after April '09 when we renegotiate our contract) and I can say that the norm may be paying part of your premium but when you work for a large corporation such as AT&T many of them are self insured so they don't pay as much per employee as you may think, add on to that the salery of our past CEO was in the area of 10 million dollors a year (not bad if you ask me) but then he was pulling between 75 and 90 million a year in bonuses all the while crying poor about rising health care cost. How much money does one man need? Also thats just the man at the top not including all his right hand men. The CWA has also gotten us restrictions on mandatory overtime so the company has to give us the option of not working if we have more than 9-12 hours per week overtime when before it was 10-15, not too hard to get that overtime and still have a Sunday off except when the company manipulates the workload so you can't work over all week so they have you all weekend. Big picture I'm a fan of unions, at least the CWA but will agree that the UAW may have pushed a bit too far
What could they have cried foul about? The Japanese have done nothing different than thousands of other companies from banks to manufacturers have done here for the past 200+ years: set up shop here. There is nothing wrong with it, illegal about it, or different that the Japanese did. To target them with the US government would have been illegal (against anti-monopoly laws), though that didn't stop Detroit from trying.
__________________ -Ken
If you need to get in touch with me email me at ftsservice at gmail dot com or via AOL IM: motorhavenken. The best is yet to come....
Many companies pay union wages and benefits and are non-union mainly to keep the unions out. Before I worked for myself I had to help pay for my insurance at the company I worked for and we were not union.
Are you paying $6k+ a year for a family insurance plan where you work? Are you shure you just don't Help pay your insurance? Also I'll add insurance is only part of whats considered "Benefits".
What could they have cried foul about? The Japanese have done nothing different than thousands of other companies from banks to manufacturers have done here for the past 200+ years: set up shop here. There is nothing wrong with it, illegal about it, or different that the Japanese did. To target them with the US government would have been illegal (against anti-monopoly laws), though that didn't stop Detroit from trying.
Consider how much clout the Big 3 and the UAW had at that time.
Monopoly laws not withstanding, if they had petitioned the US Gov't, I believe they could have unionized all those assembly plants.
But nothing was done, and now it's waaay to late.
__________________ Bill / Retired Ford Partsman (1962/97) / Part number research: Trucks: 1928/2000 // Cars: 1928/79.
When I started this post I had no idea it would gain a life of it's own.
It sounds like there is a lot of pent up anger at Ford and it's management and workers.
Myself I am neither pro or negative Union, but I do feel the blame for the current damaged state of the big three squarely sits at the feet of the management of past and present.
Ford GM and Chyrco Management from 30 and 40 years ago negotiated contracts with the rank and file hourly employees.
And I have to believe that the management at that time had all the acqutary numbers for health and pension obligations at their disposal and could see that those contracts were built on a house of cards and would or could one day come back to bite them in the @ss.
So now blaming the unionized employees for the poor or misguided past contracts is ridiculous at best and nasty at it's worse.
Plain and simple this was poor poor decisions on managements part that got these once proud companies in their current damaged state.
It had nothing to do with the Japanese or any other foreign country or the banking system or the price of Tulips in Denmark.
Rick.
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"I'm not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I've seen what it can do to skyscrapers." - William Gascoyne
ND, I'm going to leave off with simply respectfully agreeing to disagree.
__________________ -Ken
If you need to get in touch with me email me at ftsservice at gmail dot com or via AOL IM: motorhavenken. The best is yet to come....
Reguardless who is at fault, there's enough blame to go a round. The question is where do we go from here, do we have a plan. I believe ford does, in my opinion Alan has done a lot to turn ford around, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I don't like the japanese companies because I'm tired of having them shoved down my throat, like they can do no wrong. However, I don't want them to leave, I want to beat them at our own game, building better cars. The japanese will make ford and GM better companies or they won't make it. I have allready written chryler off as they are living on barrowed time in my opinion. Toyota made us look at our selfs in the mirror and we didn't like what we saw. We can cry and pout, or move forward with a new direction and show toyota and the world how to build a car.
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2009 FORD RANGER fx4 off/road, 5-speed manual, torson diff and rancho's!
The reason is the law. Other companies and the government cannot simply step in and say a competitor must be unionized. Its for the workers to decide and vote on. The UAW has not succeeded in organizing foreign auto assembly plants in the United States because the workers haven't wanted it.
Same thing WalMart says.
And I gotta go along with wendell's last post. There's certainly enough "blame" to go around.
As a toss-in comment, I fear my union will price me out of work. I realize there is only X amount of dollars to go around, and my complaint isn't that there ain't enough money to cover everything we want; my complaint is what they do with the money they have.
Seems that most everyone on this site understands what needs to be done, and it confuses me that none of the people in position to do what needs to be done know what to do. Howcome THEY ain't reading this stuff?????
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Love is a merry little elf that dances a jig and then turns on you with a machine gun.
All the unions have been able to do over the last 150 years is MAINTAIN our standard of living. You say that I fear my union will price me out of work. I realize there is only X amount of dollars to go around. What will price you and me out of work is the credit crunch and the lack of willingness of the business elite to invest. I work(ed) in the oil industry. Ever since mid July, crude oil prices havve been going down; from $147 per barrel on July 11/08 to $39 per barrel today. The major oil cos will not build the plants I used to do electrical installations in for much less than $100 per barrel. Whether I make about $55 an hour in the package or $25 an hour, those big cos will still not invest. The cost of producing a barrel of oil in CANADIAN DOLLARS is about $10 to $12 a barrel for conventional tar sands extraction; about $7 a barrel for Steam Injection. Suncor, the first co. to produce oil in the tar sands, HAD intended to build a steam injection operation, Voyageur, for $21 billion dollars. That project has been deferred until prices get back to about $100 a barrel. So the wages I would make has little to do with Suncor's investment decisions. I don't know what kind of work you do, nor do I know what you make an hour, but your employer more than likely would not make his investment decisions based on your wages. Of c ourse, he probably would have no serious objections to you or your union local volunteering to cut your standard of living, but wage cutting has NEVER produced more jobs. TEMPORARILY, wage cutting increases profits, but then the other employers would want more candy and the wage cutting would proceed merrily, even if your family doesn't mind eating beans and rice, instead of meat and potatoes.
I think this economic situation is serious, but I am sure that I am not going to give up my standard of living so some employer can get raich out of my paycheck.
Lucky
Rick, the problem you've had finding a manual transmission Ranger isn't just Ford. My wife likes having a 5-speed and also is a Honda fan. Each time we buy her a new Accord, it's an adventure finding a 5-speed with the color and equipment list she wants.
As a retail store owner, it doesn't bother me because I know that the dealer has to keep his inventory focused on what turns over most frequently. It's too expensive to have slow-moving items on hand. So we do the locater routine and the dealer always finds us what we're looking for.
I think you'll probably also find your experience won't change if you shop dealers other than Ford.
Hello 68Vert, how are you pal? Welcome to FTE!!!
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1999 FORD F-250, V10 4x4 4.30 LS
6 Inch Lift, 37 Inch Super Swampers, GIBSON Exhaust
1968 Mercury Cougar
Built FORD Tough with Edelbrock Stuff
Besides my F350, my daily driver is a 2008 Ford Focus. It's as good as any Honda my wife has ever owned and more fun to drive than her Accord. The car is quiet inside, handles the freeway interchange Grand Prix without drama, and gets 37 MPG. And you can buy that car now for around $10-11K, I believe.
After 8K miles, it hasn't so much as whimpered. The controls are pretty well laid out, the interior materials are better than I would have expected in an entry-level car, and the ride is pretty smooth.
All I can say is kudos to Ford. Of course, the ultimate proof is that my wife likes it, too, and may want one when we replace her Accord.
Hey there, I got the 2.0L PZEV engine in the 08 Focus and i'm averaging 26.3 mpg. What powerplant are you running?
Yes, the fit and finish on this car is top notch , the bluetooth sync is pretty cool stuff
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1999 FORD F-250, V10 4x4 4.30 LS
6 Inch Lift, 37 Inch Super Swampers, GIBSON Exhaust
1968 Mercury Cougar
Built FORD Tough with Edelbrock Stuff
Truth is that Ford has been building exactly what we've wanted for the last 30 years- pickup trucks and darn good ones at that. And we bought them in large numbers. If we would have been buying econo-box micro cars for the last 30 years like we should have (any one remember the '73 Oil Embargo?) Ford would surely have brought them to the North American market. The truth is that Ford has been doing quite well in the rest of the world with small cars and the World Ranger is a world class product. I just wish it were available here. We as consumers should step up to the plate and accept some responsibility here. When gas was cheap and the economy seemingly booming, Ford was producing exactly what we we were buying. In the year or so since the latest energy crisis struck and the economy tanked, we turned on Detroit because they magically couldn't immediately flood the showrooms with new models to meet our fickle tastes. Shame on us! If you want to bitch about something, bitch about our domestic mfg'ers not being able to market their products from other markets here.
Amen to that!!!!
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1999 FORD F-250, V10 4x4 4.30 LS
6 Inch Lift, 37 Inch Super Swampers, GIBSON Exhaust
1968 Mercury Cougar
Built FORD Tough with Edelbrock Stuff
Maybe you need to start your own site called "Ford Enthusiasts and positive Ford comments only" Forums. Then everyone can drink the koolaid without any dissenting views. It would be like preaching to the choir. Just think how much fun that would be.
This is why we have a fourm labeled FORD VS. COMPETITION. Go spew your negativity there and stop wasting comments on this forum.
Easier said than done!!!!!
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1999 FORD F-250, V10 4x4 4.30 LS
6 Inch Lift, 37 Inch Super Swampers, GIBSON Exhaust
1968 Mercury Cougar
Built FORD Tough with Edelbrock Stuff
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-Ken
, but you sir are correct.
