It's been enjoyable this weekend watching conservatives break out their best "boo unions!" arguments after workers at Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac rejected a new contract offer from their employer. Be mindful, of course, that the workers have a contract through 2012, and the company came to them asking to reopen an agreement they just negotiated a year ago.
Why? Well, probably so that they could lowball the employees and set about on their merry way to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Conservatives gnash their teeth and moan. "Isn't some job better than no job?" they say, as though for workers, capitalism is one giant race to the bottom and they should all be thankful for whatever scraps the bourgeoisie is willing to throw in their direction.
But as Steve Jagler explains on the BizTimes website today, many of Mercury's employees are likely better off to continue under the terms of their present contract and walk off into the sunset in 2012.
To the workers, I say look out for your own best interest, whatever that is. It's clear that your company doesn't have your back, and your community doesn't either. Outside your families, you don't owe anyone anything.
Why? Well, probably so that they could lowball the employees and set about on their merry way to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Conservatives gnash their teeth and moan. "Isn't some job better than no job?" they say, as though for workers, capitalism is one giant race to the bottom and they should all be thankful for whatever scraps the bourgeoisie is willing to throw in their direction.
But as Steve Jagler explains on the BizTimes website today, many of Mercury's employees are likely better off to continue under the terms of their present contract and walk off into the sunset in 2012.
In recent years, Mercury Marine had laid off about 600 people from the Fond du Lac plant and shifted production to China. The laid off employees could not participate in Sunday's contract vote.Seems like the answer here is logical. Community members can talk all they want about how much they support these workers, but the fact is that those people aren't going to be ponying up squat to help Mercury workers with their lost pay or their pension cuts. They just think the Mercury workers should suck it up for them, so their own non-union jobs aren't on the line. Watching them attempt to conceal their own greed and selfishness in the banner of community is hilarious.
The layoffs left the Fond du Lac plant with a senior-laden workforce. Most of the employees who still have jobs there have 25 to 30 years of experience at the plant. For many of them, retirement is on the near horizon.
Put yourself in their shoes. You are very near retirement. You are making a fine living wage. You have negotiated health care and pension benefits. The company is proposing a new contract that will slash your pay and eliminate most of your benefits, including severance pay for outgoing workers. The contract will cut benefits for retirees and will cut wages for new hires.
Even if the contract is rejected by the union, the company will need two to three years to move all of its production out of Fond du Lac to Oklahoma. If you can ride that time out, you'll walk away with the severance pay from the current contract. And then you can retire.
Or, you could take the figurative kick in the teeth - a pay cut and loss of benefits, including severance - and retire with less.
To the workers, I say look out for your own best interest, whatever that is. It's clear that your company doesn't have your back, and your community doesn't either. Outside your families, you don't owe anyone anything.
9 comments:
Yeah, there's plenty of outrage about this. Amazing how many people think everyone else makes too much money, and should be happy at the bottom of the crap heap. Personally, I think they would be pulling out of Wisconsin anyway.
Agreed that they are setting up to leave WI anyway, plus they are setting up to offshore the majority of their manufacturing eventually. Union just did the heavy lifting for them on the negative PR. In the meantime, they get a $$ boost from the government in OK. Who says unions are a bad thing?
Interesting how some of those "conservatives" are now big advocates of the "wage multiplier" effect. What is the figure thrown out - 4,000 jobs, 11,000 jobs to be lost because of the hit that the aggregate payroll will take (never mind that oodles of these people live in other communities - like West Bend-Jackson-Slinger)? Even then, the job figure is overstated because if MM got the wage concessions, there would be fewer employees making less wage (about 30% less) & that wage base would be frozen for 7 years to boot.
Getting back to these new believers in the wage multiplier effect, they are the first ones to sniff their noses at the concept that one of the reasons WI ranks lower on wages is that as a whole, not much Federal money is expended in WI (look at the big boost that Oshkosh Truck got).
And to me personally, anytime I have gone to the mall in FDL in the past year, it has looked pretty "sleepy" to me, so I suspect the decline in those 11,000 jobs started before the MM issue.
The current company President is doing exactly what I believe he was brought here for. Get ready to move the operation to a nonunion facility and strip as many benefits from the current employees before leaving town. Its a farce that people in the community would support the company instead of their class neighbors. And what those local politicians? Bending over backwards to accommodate the company, but why weren't they standing with their constituents demanding better treatment of the workforce along with offering the tax incentives. A large part of the "community" expected these union members to just take the
crumbs they were offered while management is still eating caviar.
The company played it all out in the media, trying to lay the blame for not reaching an agreement on the union. The company got the exact vote they wanted. Now they'll sit back, with their big salaries untouched, start packing their bags and laugh all the way to Stillwater. Corporate greed has played itself out in Fond du Lac, WI. Now the Fond du Lac community needs to stand by these union members.
Why if Mercury Marine cares so much about Fond du Lac does it have to move its corporate headquarters and its 900 jobs? What does it have to do with its claim of too high of wages for its manufacturing workers in Fond du Lac?
For an article trying to show the economic 'upside' to job outsourcing, it's horribly scant on numbers. What % of the workers are 3 years from retirement? What % of the workers are even over age 50? How much money is being 'cut' in wages and benefits (note that wages aren't being cut for this apparently aging workforce, which would have made staying in FDL much more pallatable once the current workers retire)?
How much do these workers even make? The reason they leave that out is obvious, since I suspect that 25-30 years of union representation has priced this workforce well above a "living wage."
There's a reason that manufacturing jobs are steadily trickling out of Wisconsin. The same reason why it's now ironic to hear union members clamoring about self-interest. I can't vouch for the math, because there's scant coverage of the actual details of the offer, but I'm quite skeptical.
Since when is a company required to "have the workers' back". I'm really tired of this mentality that people have some kind of constitutional right to be employed.
I apologize if you didn't like my phrasing. I wasn't implying that the company should have its workers' backs, although I do think there's something to be said for loyalty and motivation being paid back in terms of consistency and productivity.
I was simply pointing out that workers are foolish to ever trust a word their company says or to believe that their own loyalty to their employer will always be paid off.
At least around here, the only mentality about a right to employment is the kind you're inventing.
Oh really? I'm inventing it? Perhaps you should read some of the propoganda being spewed by SEIU...now that's inventing!
Haha, I'm not saying that mentality doesn't exist among some. Just that I'm not among them.
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