GM to invest $200 million in Saginaw plant, add 250 jobs

Good news for a change!

General Motors plans to announce an investment on Friday in Saginaw worth more than 250 jobs at the casting plant there, people familiar with the situation said.

The automaker will put more than $200 million into the plant to add the jobs, one of the people said. The new positions are part of the hiring commitments in GM’s new contract with the UAW, in which the automaker said it planned to create or retain about 6,400 U.S. jobs.

The UAW had said Saginaw would get 255 jobs after an investment of $215 million toward casting for a new engine. The work was originally slated for Mexico, the UAW said last month when it was promoting the new labor agreement with GM.

That would be at Saginaw Grey Iron I would assume.   Great news but a drop in the bucket compared to the jobs lost there since the 1970s.  Yet a step in the right direction.  My grandfathers both worked there, all my uncles, my father, brother and many cousins…for my generation we missed out for the most part as that plant was shedding jobs at an alarming rate rather than adding any at that time.  My brother was lucky to get in but then took a buyout and moved to Florida as his job was being eliminated.

http://www.freep.com/article/20111026/BUSINESS0101/111026059/

Tainted Chocolate

You are a child in Mali – twelve, maybe thirteen. Yours is one of the poorest countries in Africa, one of the poorest in the world. Children here have always worked. They work alongside their parents, or work in the village to help support them. Sometimes, they are even sent off to other families, other villages, if it gives them a chance to learn a trade. They do not wrestle with the choice of school or work – all too often, there is no school to choose.

One day a locateur comes to you and says you can go work in the rich plantations in Cote d’Ivoire. He says you can make over a hundred dollars to help your family. You will be educated. You will get a bicycle. Maybe he finds you as one of the homeless street children in the markets. Maybe he comes to your family and offers a small “good faith” payment to let you go. Either way, the offer is made. History and culture and simple desperation tells you to say yes, and the locateur takes you the few hundred miles to one of the cocoa farms of the Cote d’Ivoire.

There is no money. There is no bicycle.

You work a hundred hours a week. You carry bags of cocoa beans that weigh more than you do. If you don’t work hard enough or fast enough, you are beaten with tree branches, or bicycle chains. You live on corn paste, or burnt bananas. You sleep in a single room, with almost twenty other boys like yourself. Your toilet is a bucket. To keep you from running away, you are locked in every night.

Read more about where chocolate comes from: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/27/1027941/-Did-You-Hear-About-the-Tainted-Candy?detail=hide

It’s a heartbreaking story about the children that harvest the cocoa beans that make chocolate.  I don’t eat chocolate that often but if you needed a a good reason to cut back, this would be a good one.

 

Target Employee Stories

Target workers tell their stories:

http://gawker.com/5851344/the-sketchiest-place-i-ever-worked-more-target-workers-speak

Pretty much the usual perils of retail…working through breaks, being locked in the store and store policies that just don’t make much sense.  Quite tame compared to the stories the Walmart employees tell.  I’ve never worked for Target or Walmart but retail I have done.  UFCW at Meijer’s Inc in the late 80s till their scanners gave me a bad case of carpel tunnel and tendonitis, my condition wasn’t uncommon among cashiers using that particular kind of scanner.  It did set you up with nerve damage for life.

Yeah, I was a unionized retail worker at a store that was a Super Walmart before there were Walmarts in the area (Meijer, Inc).  We had our share of troubles like our wages cut in half for new employees because Walmart was coming then the push to be rid of the older employees that fell under the old higher paying contract.  You had to punch out for break at the front of the store then walk all the way to the back of the store to the employee breakroom and restrooms which was the only place you were allowed to be during breaks.  If a customer stopped you along the way for help, you were told you had to help them or risk being fired, if you passed anything on the floor on your way -clean that up or be fired..etc.  To actually get a break, you had to walk very fast, avoid all eye contact with anyone and avoid certain departments like Toys during the Christmas season.  This made no sense to me because there were time clocks in the back of the store and as part of the central system we could use them only we were forbidden to.  We also got regular lectures about how you were to never work off the clock because that was illegal yet hmmm…store policy encouraged it.

My ex sister-in-law worked as a department manager at Walmart, seems whenever the two of us were together we often talked about retail.  Her horror stories could always top mine so I think unionized retail stores are still the way to go even if they are limited now having to compete with Walmart’s poor treatment of their employees and their race to the bottom.

Get Fired Up!

Together we will stand!  Solidarity!

Right to Work for Less Not So Rosy in SC

Nineteen years ago, when BMW announced a new factory off Interstate 85 in Spartanburg, South Carolina looked like the king of smokestack recruiting.

The world’s biggest manufacturer of luxury vehicles would make the city a “Mecca of foreign investment in the United States,” The Independent of London predicted. It would see a rush of industry chasing Munich-based Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. (BMW) Downtown would spring to life. I-85 would be America’s Autobahn.

“Oh, they were going to solve all of our problems,” said Cynthia Lounds, director of community economic development at Piedmont Community Actions Inc., a social-service agency.

Today, South Carolina is one of the most impoverished states in the nation, becoming the seventh poorest in 2010 from 11th in 2007, according to recent U.S. Census data. Its percentage of residents living in poverty shot to 18.2 percent from 15 percent in that period. In downtown Spartanburg, near-empty Morgan Square features a used clothing store and two pawn shops.

South Carolina and other southern U.S. states topped the nation’s poverty rankings, a sign of trouble in the so-called New South known for its growth and ability to lure employers with laws restricting union organizing. The South was the country’s only region with an increase from 2009 to 2010 in both the number of poor and their proportion of the population, the census said.

Read more at:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-11/new-south-battles-old-poverty-as-right-to-work-promises-fade.html

It’s part of the race to the bottom.  It’s remarkable that people want to be at the bottom and will support failed policies like this one.

President Obama Challenges Republicans

The President urged passage of the $447 billion American Jobs Act and warned Republicans who oppose the measure that they will have to explain their opposition “to me, and more importantly, to their constituencies” at a time of mounting economic uncertainty. He also endorsed a proposal from Senate Democrats for a surtax on incomes of more than $1 million a year to fund the jobs package, an idea that has already drawn opposition from the GOP.

“It’s fair to say that I have gone out of my way in every instance — sometimes at my own political peril and to the frustration of Democrats — to work with Republicans to find common ground to move this country forward,” Obama said. “Each time, what we’ve seen is games-playing, a preference to try to score political points rather than actually get something done.”

Read more:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-challenges-republicans-to-explain-opposition-to-jobs-bill/2011/10/06/gIQAhueMQL_story.html?wprss=rss_politics

All they want to do is oppose the President despite Americans needing those jobs that are being held hostage.  1 in 5 Americans are now unemployed, that’s sobering.  This is a condition that can’t be allowed to continue.  A remedy is needed NOW!

 

I am a Union Thug

I AM A UNION THUG—

I believe in fair trade not free trade—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe in regulatory agencies—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe in human equality—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe Government has been bought—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe in the right to health care for all—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe corporations are not people—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe in fair and equitable wages—–
I am a union thug—–
I believe in taking care of the most vulnerable—–
I am a union thug
I believe when I touch the skin of a high rise downtown, I touch the blood, sweat and soul
of my brother union thugs—–
I took offense at the term “union thug” at first, now
I wear the moniker “UNION THUG” with pride

— John Spinelli

U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms

American cities hire Chinese instead of American workers for building projects.  Video from ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513#.To0o7Lxa_ob.facebook

We need better enforcement of our labor laws and new ones to make sure this doesn’t continue. Our unemployment rates are so high because we aren’t looking after our own people.  When offshoring jobs is more important than the folks here in the states suffer with each new layoff or plant closure.  It’s also a matter of National Security that we don’t make anything here anymore.  During the World Wars, plants retooled to support the war effort yet we would be very hard pressed to do that now.  There has to be a tipping point, are we there yet?  Perhaps the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations say we have reached that tipping point now.

Herman Cain Blames The Unemployed For Being Unemployed

Conservatives have made the claim that unemployed Americans only have themselves to blame for not having jobs, and now Herman Cain is joining the fray. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cain claimed that Occupy Wall Street is a distraction to help President Obama and said that the unemployed only have themselves to blame for being jobless and not rich.

CAIN: I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.

Cain is ignoring the fact that the unemployed did not become unemployed all by themselves. Millions of Americans are out of work because of mass layoffs by corporations that send the jobs to workers overseas. The big banks are also to blame. Because of their irresponsibility, an economic recession occurred that wiped out a lot of jobs as well. New job openings are also scarce, with one new opening for every 4.32 people unemployed. As for not being richer, people wouldn’t be complaining about money so much if Wall Street hadn’t stole it all in the first place. And then there’s the Republican Party to which Mr. Cain affiliates himself. Republicans have made it their mission to destroy the American jobs and defend corporations and the wealthy to the point to where they are now waging war against the poor on a daily basis in an effort to make the rich even richer. If Mr. Cain’s political party would stop catering to the top 1% in this country, and actually created jobs like they promised to do, the unemployed would no longer be unemployed.

See the video at http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/05/herman-cain-blames-the-unemployed-for-being-unemployed/

UAW President Bob King: New contracts help auto industry honor intent of bailouts, create jobs

UAW President Bob King expects recent contract negotiations with General Motors and Ford will directly create or save up to 18,000 jobs in the United States, and he believes the ripple effect could result in up to 180,000 jobs industry-wide.

GM workers ratified their new contract earlier this week, and union members at Ford are expected to vote on a similar package some time in the next week.

“It’s a good deal for the company, it’s a good deal for our membership, but what we’re really proud of is that it’s a good deal for the United State of America,” King told host Paul W. Smith this morning on WJR-AM 760. “More jobs, which we need desparately.”

Read more at: http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2011/10/uaw_president_bob_king_says_ne.html

As a daughter of a Autoworker, sister, cousin, granddaughter, god daughter, niece etc etc….I know how important Auto Industry jobs are and how they create still more jobs in a supply chain as well as support local businesses as diverse as restaurants, bait shops, gas stations and grocery stores.  It’s all interconnected as can easily been seen by the examples of Flint and Detroit Michigan, when a community loses it’s auto foundries and assembly plants… the whole community loses.