End of the line for Holden

[guye]

Originally Posted by LoBelly

NYTimes article on Harley Davidson, productivity and labour

worth a look when considering (if that's what you call it) the role of unions

LoBelly

Yes, interesting article. And great outcome. I'm promoted to ask, though, what remaining a union-workforce had to do with the outcome? Harley might have achieved that result regardless of their workers' union affiliations. Is the suggestion that the union actively participated in the restructuring and process changes, designing the new factory, etc?

I suppose the (valid) point the article is making is that unions need not be 'broken' to achieve a corporate turnaround.

[Jethrow]

from Grace Collier (The Australian):

TOYOTA is leaving Australia because it knows there is no hope of changing its terrible enterprise bargaining agreement. If you want to blame someone, blame the company and the union. Don’t blame Tony Abbott, the workers or the law…

Toyota locked itself into a substandard, expensive and restrictive agreement many years ago. It was a pay-off to the unions for getting it taxpayers’ money. In recent times, Toyota had to ask staff to downwards bargain and reduce conditions. The company was not asking for much and, in exchange for the concessions, jobs would be saved. However, the EBA says, “The parties agree they will not take any steps to terminate or replace this agreement without the consent of the other parties.”

Consent denied. Company closed.

[Towmaster]

England suffered this same fate back in the seventies. I only know this because of Top Gear...... Lost all their local manufacturing because of long term strikes from unions / employees over better wages etc or whatever.
They are back now..... I am guessing they waited till all the union members retired then started afresh...... Not a bad ides, like it has been said before, they will never back down once they have what they want. Until of course there is no jobs for them to protect.