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A lot of people have no clue what it is like to work in an auto manufacturing plant. They see a few news clips and assume that the jobs are easy. Nothing can be further from the truth. Many people quit after a few days of working there. You can go ahead and believe that people can build better cars at lower pay if you want. But the fact remains that GM Ford and DC all top out the same $26 per hour, Toyota and Honda both tops out at $25. As far as being considered upper middle class, if they lose their jobs, they will be in the rapidly growing lower class. The point of this is it is not easy work that everyone is capable of doing. Does the term “repetitive strain injury” mean anything? Building several hundred cars per day, year in and out eventually something is going to give, and it is usually the worker. That is why autoworkers have the health care benefits that are currently under attack. At a time when the big 3 did not offer any raises, they countered with the offer of paid healthcare, and profit sharing. Now decades later with the out of control costs of healthcare, is it the workers fault that these companies are in the situation that they are in? Everyone is quick to blame the workers and call them greedy, when all that the workers want is for the companies to stand by the agreements that they have already made.
As far as Delta reneging on the pilot’s contract, they have already taken several pay cuts, and now the company wants to throw out their contract?? When ever you enter a contract regardless if it is for a car, house, or labor, you are bound by that agreement for its duration. If you agree to hire someone at a set pay scale, and then 2 years into a four year contract you want to make changes in that contract because you aren’t meeting your sales projections then you need to change your sales projections. A contract signed in good faith is bound by law.
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