Hope you got my message on AOL...im still laughing my **** off over reading this thread

I can tell you straight from the Construction world where my dad has his own business doing residential construction. He never went to college. Worked for a guy and learned most of what he knows today from being on the job and being taught while he was working. We can hire guys that come from college after being "educated" about construction work and they are total dumbarses and cant be taught on the job. This, came straight from a college professor that teaches the carpentry program as well. I, myself, went for a business degree of which i can do alot with and have learned an abundence from working with my dad over the years.

I might not know everything in a book about carpentry but i sure hells didnt have to go to hammering 101 to learn how to pound nails.

 

where else can an "auto mechanic" lecture someone they never met about a job they have never done about "quality" and pay structures. Please just change my oil, check my brakes and top off the washer fluid.

 

Moderator???????????????

 

From my own experience in business, I can expand my business a little by hiring at the lowest wage possible, and when I include the headaches of dealing with unmotivated employees, high turnover etc, I wouldn't increase
my profits enough to make it worth my time.

Or I can wait until I can afford to pay a bit higher wage, attract a better quality of applicant, make an investment in them and get back a bit of motivation and loyalty.

The problem is, you say entry level jobs aren't meant to raise families on, I know people who work their *** off and don't move up simply because there ain't no room to move up.

And trying to raise a family and afford college at the same time ain't easy in case you haven't noticed the daily tuition increases lately so it's not like people can just grab a degree if they find their circumstances suck.

You want to pay execs multi-million dollars severance packages, great.

Just don't try to tell me the janitor is over paid at the same time. Gurantee you no Ford exec has had a toilet brush in his or her hand for many years and would probably quit before they'd pick one up.

 

That is an excuse, anybody who wishes can move up it just takes motivation. Few people have motivation and that’s why few people move up. The majority of people do not have motivation and that is why they stay stagnate at their jobs and then use an excuse of ”there is no room to move up”

That is a personal choice and not the responsibility of an employer to make sure someone that made bad decisions gets enough pay to compensate their poor decisions. If someone has a family and can not afford both a family AND college then they will just have to forego college. An employer did not make those poor decisions that caused an employee not to be able to afford both college and a family, again just another excuse…

 

Hmm, since no ones leaving in my company anytime soon, I guess I should find another job and start over and hope someone leaves there to create a space to move up into.

As for bad decisions, a man finds a decent paying job, works hard and starts a family.

Oops, layoff.

So you're saying a good decision would be to plan your life out as if you're going to see your job go south at any given hour?

Better forget a family. But then that would decrease the population a bit.

 

If that’s the only option you have of advancing yourself pay wise then yes, its all about how much motivation someone has. It is not the governments nor businesses responsibility to take care of people or insure they are making the money they believe they should be making, it’s the individual’s responsibility.


Again, it’s about an individuals personal responsibility and nobody else’s

Again, personal responsibility, it’s nobody else’s responsibility to plan out your life and what may happen during your life, and it’s nobody else’s responsibility to insure your financially sound.

Well, that could help reduce gasoline consumption in America and bring lower gas prices…

But, if that’s not your goal then personal responsibility and personal choice…

 

Where else can an unskilled flunky get paid well to poorly assemble vehicles, without fear of punishment or termination. I guess I must have hit a nerve with my comments.

No, Ford ain't innocent. No, overpaid paid CEOs ain't innocent. No, an assembly line worker ain't innocent. No, the guy at the dealer ain't innocent.

I'm in the unique position that I get to see these mistakes before the buying public does. Granted, yes, quite a few vehicles come off the line just fine, built well and ready to sell. But too many come off the line that are completely unacceptable, with errors that should have been caught and corrected before leaving the plant. And no matter what you think or say, there's no way you can deny that.

 

It's your decision. Since in this case you'd be the market you decide what you can bear. If you have no problem paying the lower wage and having the headaches go for it. If you'd rather wait to grow your business to hire someone who has seen the light and wants to move up then go for it.

I worked for an agency like that. In police work when you go from one agency to another you typically are starting at the bottom. Rarely do you go from a Sgt at one place to a Sgt at another. So yes if you want to move up, but your company does not have the room, then leave for a larger company. typically the larger companies have more people leaving and more possibilities for advancement.

College is a luxury. It is only recently that the lower income earners have been able to go to college. Historically only the rich could go. I could not afford to go to college and raise a family, but some how I did it. Don't tell me people can't afford it. There were no scholarships or grants for me. It's amazing what happens when people are motivated. They find a way to succeed.

As a shareholder I don't want to pay the CEO any severance package. I want them to stay put, do their jobs to the best of their ability, and make the company successful. That doesn't happen often anymore.

To this I'll fall back on the old union response. "It ain't is job. By doing the job of the janitor you are taking that job away from him." The company has hired a person to be the janitor. At a janitor's wage. As a shareholder I expect the CEO to be doing his job, not being the highest paid toilet scrubber around. My brother-in-law was a janitor for a school system. Now he's a janitor for himself and makes a damed good living doing it. It's amazing what happens when people are motivated and take responsibility for their own success.

 

First off, unions had their place in the 1920's, 30's and 40's when working conditions were horrible. But, just like everything, money has become the all powerful bargaining tool.

I am a college graduate with 13 years of experience making low 40's. I am happy with that and proud of what I do. I have a friend who works in a union shop running a spring machine. He makes mid 60's to almost 80 depending on his overtime for the year. He jacks me all the time about how much money he makes. He is done in 2 weeks. The plant is closing due to labor relations and cost of doing business. The plant operations will be absorbed by other plants they have in the US.

I'll still be here making my lowly 40's with a solid job that I can support my family with.

He has a wife, one kid, a large home, 2 trucks, 1 car, boat, 3 four wheelers, trailer, cottage on Chautauqua Lake, more guns than I can count and he goes on a cruise every year. All gone.

Everyone is to blame from the top to the bottom and it has all to do with money.

 

Gees, guys. It's getting really deep in here, and I am not talking about emotions...........

 

Well you can't help that some like me and others argue with facts and reality while the others argue with emotions...

 

At least we're on the same page about something.........

 

It also doesn't change the fact that you're neither a UAW member, nor a Ford employee.

Comment all you want about the demise of the UAW, but it doesn't change the fact that, for the most part, big-3's US plants are unionized and, for the forseeable future anyways, will remain so. None of the big-3 want to be seen as the anti-union company. It would be industrial suicide to bite the hands that built the company.

-Joe
(4th generation Ford employee, member UAW Local 600)

 

Good work union brother. I'm in the IAM&AW (international association of machinists and aerospace workers) local 776.

The only TRUE union comments come from a UNION worker. The rest is, well............ B-Something.