[OnTheIce]

Yogi Yogi:

RUEZ RUEZ:

Yogi Yogi:

That's still $21.00 per hour starting wage!

No it's not. It's 12$ per hour plus benefits. I don't know about you but I can't make mortgage payments on 12$ per hour, or 9$ in benefits. That's a wage you pay young people starting out, not skilled workers building locomotives. This is a disgusting attempt at justifying moving the production to the U.S. or Brazil.

No matter 'how you slice it', it's still $21.00/hr.


Pay me $21.00 per hr and I can then go pay the dentist $1,700.00-(81 hrs pay) for a root canal and then go over to the drug store and fill the perscriptions and pay out of my pocket, or I can just hand over my medical card [i]which is paid by the company![/i]

I hit almost $4,000 in benefits used last year.

[dino_bobba_renno]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

It is for new hires only, but it wouldn't just be the starting wage that is rapidly raised, it would be the wage for the typical new worker:

$1:

In the past, a typical worker received a package that averaged about $25 an hour in pay; with benefits included the package was valued at $40 an hour. Under the new contract, new employees would receive $12 an hour and an additional $9 per hour in benefits.

While the benefits package sounds very rich, $12 is not much of a wage. And you can't buy groceries or pay the mortgage with benefits. The employees would be better off taking less benefits and more hourly wage.

First off, let's quit confusing CAT's American wages in 2006 to what's happening in London today.
The WAGE in LONDON will be about $16.50/hr, down from $35, if the production remains there.

But as Gunnair said, I also don't believe they intend to remain in London. Asking for concessions is one thing, demanding a 50% pay cut is an obvious attempt at shutting down the plant.

You're absolutely right, the actual wages aside moving this plant seems to be the intent. This is the oldest trick in the book, make an offer that you know will be refused and that way you don't have to lay anyone off or fire them. With the difference in wages between Ont. and the US it would be hard to argue not to on a corporate level but add to that the "buy American" thing and it's a no brainer why they want to move it. I think the union is in a no win situation on this one.

[Thanos]

Agreed. This is clearly union-busting combined with a plant shutdown/relocation. Amazing that it's still considered wrong for a skilled tradesworker to get paid $80K a year but it's perfectly OK for some ridiculous upper-class yuppie fratboy who took commerce or management at university to get paid a half-million or more per year when their only meaningfull accomplishments in life consist of financial market gambling, shutting down viable companies, and hollowing out the middle class by just a tad more every day.

Our society is well and truly fucked when these types of evil scavengers and carrion eaters are seen as the heroes of our economy.

[Gunnair]

Thanos Thanos:

Agreed. This is clearly union-busting combined with a plant shutdown/relocation. Amazing that it's still considered wrong for a skilled tradesworker to get paid $80K a year but it's perfectly OK for some ridiculous upper-class yuppie fratboy who took commerce or management at university to get paid a half-million or more per year when their only meaningfull accomplishments in life consist of financial market gambling, shutting down viable companies, and hollowing out the middle class by just a tad more every day.

Our society is well and truly fucked when these types of evil scavengers and carrion eaters are seen as the heroes of our economy.

Frankly, it' easy enough for these people to get aay with it because no one will take them to task with a product boycott.

They will move the plant, and if everyone is as angry as they say, one would hope they go to the employers that purchase CAT products and say - don't do that anymore.

[Thanos]

The sort of people who buy CAT products are usually huge mining and construction companies. All they care about is how much the CAT machinery costs them. Whether or not it's built by middle-class guys in Quebec, desperate workers in the US who'd take any crappy deal offered just to get a job, robots in Japan or Korea, or slaves in China, the buyer doesn't care and isn't going to do any sort of boycott. The only people likely to do a boycott would be the guys who'd wear a CAT ballcap or have CAT-brand steel toed boots on his feet, and that type of market is infinitesmaly tiny compared to what CAT gets from the big equipment buyers/leasers. CAT has no reason at all to fear any boycott at all, even if there was the tiniest reason to believe that one would even get off the ground.

It's another fait accompli for the financial sector bastards on this issue. Revised scoreboard time. Management/bankers/shareholders/other 1%-ers: 10 million and one, Workers/their families/everyone else: zippo. Same ol' fucking same ol', and nothing new to see here at all folks.

[andyt]

Well, that's all those workers deserve. How dare they want gadgets when at $12 they would still earn enough to have a roof over their heads and three squares. How dare they want more.

What I want to know is with this continual kicking of the middle class, who's going to buy all the crap that apparently our economy needs to maintain prosperity? People on here are glad when some working stiff gets a kick in the nuts, deride them for wanting toys, but don't explain how our economy will function with a few rich and many poor. Nor exactly why they seem to see themselves not getting kicked in the nuts. I mean with a falling tax base, the govt should be cutting back. Cut back civil service wages, you know, like the military and police. Oh, wait, I guess those jobs are safe because the rich will need them to defend them from the poor. Have to privatize them tho, since govt won't have the money for them.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

Well, that's all those workers deserve. How dare they want gadgets when at $12 they would still earn enough to have a roof over their heads and three squares. How dare they want more.

What I want to know is with this continual kicking of the middle class, who's going to buy all the crap that apparently our economy needs to maintain prosperity? People on here are glad when some working stiff gets a kick in the nuts, deride them for wanting toys, but don't explain how our economy will function with a few rich and many poor. Nor exactly why they seem to see themselves not getting kicked in the nuts. I mean with a falling tax base, the govt should be cutting back. Cut back civil service wages, you know, like the military and police. Oh, wait, I guess those jobs are safe because the rich will need them to defend them from the poor. Have to privatize them tho, since govt won't have the money for them.

Oh for Christ's sake andy, now yer making specious arguments about nothing. NO-ONE on this board has even remotely suggested that the diesel workers in London only deserve $12 an hour. Again, it's $16.50/hr and it's still bullshit expecting them to take a cut from $35/hr. I know London quite well and there's not really anyplace someone used to making $35/hr would want to live on half of that.
Yer trying to "cross-pollinate" two threads that have nothing to do with each other whilst trying to make a point that doesn't exist.

[OnTheIce]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

Well, that's all those workers deserve. How dare they want gadgets when at $12 they would still earn enough to have a roof over their heads and three squares. How dare they want more.

What I want to know is with this continual kicking of the middle class, who's going to buy all the crap that apparently our economy needs to maintain prosperity? People on here are glad when some working stiff gets a kick in the nuts, deride them for wanting toys, but don't explain how our economy will function with a few rich and many poor. Nor exactly why they seem to see themselves not getting kicked in the nuts. I mean with a falling tax base, the govt should be cutting back. Cut back civil service wages, you know, like the military and police. Oh, wait, I guess those jobs are safe because the rich will need them to defend them from the poor. Have to privatize them tho, since govt won't have the money for them.

Oh for Christ's sake andy, now yer making specious arguments about nothing. NO-ONE on this board has even remotely suggested that the diesel workers in London only deserve $12 an hour. Again, it's $16.50/hr and it's still bullshit expecting them to take a cut from $35/hr. I know London quite well and there's not really anyplace someone used to making $35/hr would want to live on half of that.
Yer trying to "cross-pollinate" two threads that have nothing to do with each other whilst trying to make a point that doesn't exist.

Doesn't take long for the 'agenda' to show up....

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

Well, that's all those workers deserve. How dare they want gadgets when at $12 they would still earn enough to have a roof over their heads and three squares. How dare they want more.

What I want to know is with this continual kicking of the middle class, who's going to buy all the crap that apparently our economy needs to maintain prosperity? People on here are glad when some working stiff gets a kick in the nuts, deride them for wanting toys, but don't explain how our economy will function with a few rich and many poor. Nor exactly why they seem to see themselves not getting kicked in the nuts. I mean with a falling tax base, the govt should be cutting back. Cut back civil service wages, you know, like the military and police. Oh, wait, I guess those jobs are safe because the rich will need them to defend them from the poor. Have to privatize them tho, since govt won't have the money for them.

Oh for Christ's sake andy, now yer making specious arguments about nothing. NO-ONE on this board has even remotely suggested that the diesel workers in London only deserve $12 an hour. Again, it's $16.50/hr and it's still bullshit expecting them to take a cut from $35/hr. I know London quite well and there's not really anyplace someone used to making $35/hr would want to live on half of that.
Yer trying to "cross-pollinate" two threads that have nothing to do with each other whilst trying to make a point that doesn't exist.

Sure, everything in isolation. Of course it's all connected, it's all part of the same bullshit that's going down. And I'm certainly not the first to ask with a shrinking middle class who's going to do all the consuming that we're told is needed to re-energize our economies? We exhortations to spend, because otherwise we'll enter a new recession, while at the same time more and more people earning a decent wage are being pushed to take less or just pushed out. And guys like you are gleeful about it, because those bastards shouldn't want all those gadgets, be thankful for what the job givers give them.

[EyeBrock]

More utter bollocks from the bollocks-master.

[RUEZ]

If American companies are going to continually buy up Canadian companies and move production, perhaps the governmnet should be reviewing all corporate takeovers. This also happened to Western Star in Kelowna. Frieghtliner bought them and within two years the factory was shuttered and move to Oregon with all it's high paying jobs.

[BartSimpson]

RUEZ RUEZ:

If American companies are going to continually buy up Canadian companies and move production, perhaps the governmnet should be reviewing all corporate takeovers.

Good. And then the USA will return the favor and in spades. Meanwhile, the Mexicans will sit back and profit while the US and Canada engage in a form of a trade war.

Note: It's not the Americans who are at fault for buying Candian firms, it's the Canadians who are profiting by selling out to Americans.

[Tricks]

$1:

Amazing that it's still considered wrong for a skilled tradesworker to get paid $80K a year

What is considered a skilled tradesworker?

[BartSimpson]

Tricks Tricks:

What is considered a skilled tradesworker?

Any layabout who can vote L

[RUEZ]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

RUEZ RUEZ:

If American companies are going to continually buy up Canadian companies and move production, perhaps the governmnet should be reviewing all corporate takeovers.

Good. And then the USA will return the favor and in spades. Meanwhile, the Mexicans will sit back and profit while the US and Canada engage in a form of a trade war.

Note: It's not the Americans who are at fault for buying Candian firms, it's the Canadians who are profiting by selling out to Americans.

Can you tell me the last Canadian company that bought up a US company and moved production to Canada?

Note: It may be the Canadians selling these companies but the Americans are the ones that summarily move production out of the country.

However in the case of Western Star Trucks, the last I heard the company had planned on shuttering the Oregon plant and moving production to an even more deserving place, Mexico.