Grey Goose

Sorry but i would argue that the phrase " They want a check like anyone else" misses the point. Everyone wants a bloody check afterall. But my point is yes they are scabs and bottom feeders, skillfull one's I'll admit simply because THEY HAVE REPEATEDLY REJECTED THE UAW WHILE DIRECTLY PROFITING FROM UAW'S EFFORTS. Now where I come from...thats cowardly bullshit period. Thats getting a free ride because as the recently leaked Toyota company document clearly showed...now that the UAW is on it's collective heels fighting against an almost inconceivable set of obstacles, Toyota seems to think it "prudent" to start paying wages commesurate with the local economy, and since those plants are often in BUMFUCK USA...those comparable wages are of course CONSIDERABLY LOWER THEN WHAT THEY'RE MAKING NOW! It's laughable and completely predictable at the same time. For years I have said that when the UAW is busted...watch how fast those Japanese uhummm...."Associates" I believe they like to call themselves, stick a slimy Japanese dick up their collective asses. Now all that said yes my logical side agrees. It makes sense to have as many UAW members as possible from as many Companies as possible especially Toyota since talk about your proverbial 900 lb gorilla in the room....but then......then.......well then the fucking hillbilly in me comes out and I JUST WANT TO SAY FUCK 'EM AND THE RAT BASTARDS THEY WORK FOR. :happy feet: Just this hillbillies opinion

AMEN Brother. I say Fuck those Toyota scabs. They have lived off our hard won bargaining from the beginning with their bullshit "teamwork" preaching and their scab commercials of Americans standing there lauding the virtues of their Japanese "partners" Partners my ass ! Robber barons is a more appropriate term for Toyota and SCAB COWARDS is a more appropriate term for the workers. That American Toyota worker looks into my TV screen on their commercials and says "Pride, its all about pride" Pride my ASS. Fuck You asshole. You and your entire family are nothing but freeloading SCAB COWARDS if you ask me. Now those cowards are about to get what they deserve. I say fuck 'em. Make them wait and twist in the wind. On any given night you can turn on the history or military channel and see NISSAN trucks hauling away the bodies of dead American GI's in the thousands thrown in the back of the pickup beds like so much garbage, my ancestors, YOUR ancestors and these people want to work for them? Mitsubishi engines powered the planes who snuck up on Pearl Harbor whats next? Al Qaida Motor Company? I SAY FUCK THEM AND THE RAT BASTARD SLANT EYED SUBHUMAN FUCKS THEY WORK FOR. And that goes for any American Senator who is willing to put a fucking Japanese dick in his mouth to get a scab Jap plant in their state as well. Now You want the UAW's help? You want my dues to go to helping Toyota workers? FUCK OFF! Toyota would NOT be what they are today without the ability to produce and sell their bullshit products in this country with an almost unbelievable set of advantages. The same applies to Nissan, Honda Mitsubishi all of them. Those companies and their American workers MAKE ME FUCKING SICK ! Just this American hillbillies opinion...but I SAY FUCK THEM ! Better that between the two of us , the Union and the companies, Ford GM and Chrysler, we fix our problems, let the Japanese fucktards begin to start paying their legacy costs in the coming years...and let them all get what they deserve. Let them go scurrying back to their shitty little rock of an island that can't support or sustain itself without leaching off the rest of the worlds resources and LET THEM FUCKING DIE A SLOW PAINFUL DEATH WHICH IS WHAT THEY ALL DESERVE. Again, just this hillbillies opinion.

gary, I hate to tell you this...but cleveland plant 2 before our recent rebalance produced from 900 to 1100 engines on either a 8 or 9 hour schedule consitantly and more than that before the previous rebalance. so an engine plant can fly dude it can fly and the line doesn't have to run perfect for it to do it. Anyway I like Lima's odds of winning on this one because The Union and Compnay brass probably wouldn't be coming there to give you bad news. They may or may not be coming to Cleveland as well I don't know but thats what I'm thinking now. Besides per the inplant leaflet the other day regarding the Casting Plant...THAT told you all you needed to know about the future of Cleveland in my opinion. To wit, The Company informed the Union that it no longer considered casting a "core business" Where have we heard that phrase before? All together now....at the begining of "The Way Forward" Case closed Brothers and Sisters ...let us all pack our bags for Lima. :happy feet:

In my opinion the Toyota and Honda workers are nothing more than freeloading scab bastards. They consistantly reject the UAW even though clearly they top out at $24 an hour only because of what the UAW has negotiated for us in wages. If the Big Three successfully break the UAW. and God knows they're working on it, watch how fast Toyota and Honda cut the pay of their vaunted "associates" to $9 or $10 an hour. They only pay them what they do to keep the union out of their damn jap plants, and the stupid scabs fall for it, but if the UAW goes....look out all you cowardly assholes who work for Honda and Toyota and who freeload off of our union dues....the shit is going to hit the fan for you schmucks too because some asshole in China will work for 2 bucks a week. Just this hillbillies opinion....

I quite agree. The fact of the matter is we could work for free and the Company will always come back wanting more crying poverty. Thats because the more we give them, the more these incompetant bastards in management will throw out the window with their useless programs and paperwork and needless complexity built into the process and the system. Hey Mulally, lets stop spending money on bullshit paperwork and measurables, floral arrangement classes and all the other fluff that we throw cash out the window for and get real pal. Oh hell I could go on and on but I'm just gonna get pissed off and I don't want to so the hell with it.

Well so far at Cleveland Engine Plant 2 anyway, and as far as I know at Plant 1 as well, team coordinators are still production and not filled by skilled trades. I know this for a fact as I am a team coordinator and have no recollection at all of ever taking the skilled trades tests. :happy feet: However, since you say you're being told at your plant that we are doing it in Cleveland, my guess is that we soon will be and just don't know it yet. :bandance: I'm quite certain that the old "official" UAW response when we question it will be that old faithful " Well....you voted for it " as if anyone of us had any idea whatsoever what it was that we were voting on. The details were buried in the vague "corporate speak " deeper than Saddams WMD's :happy feet: So I hope that answers your question, no, in Cleveland Plant 2 or 1 currently skilled trades are not acting as team coordinators and those jobs are still filled by production hillbillies like me. However, your question has made me want to ...want to... well damn it , it makes me want to duck ! :bandance:

What a complete joke. My guess is Wall street is gonna be pretty pissed off when they hear this because it means Ford either isn't serious, or as most of us already know Ford doesn't have a clue ! Conventional wisdom along with The Wizard was that Ford wanted to get a higher "take rate" on the 0-19 yr seniority people and being that their workforce is younger than GM's, again conventional wisdom, ( "wisdom" now there's a word you don't hear to often in the same topic with Ford ) it was felt Ford would have to sweeten the pot from GM's offer of 140 k . Instead they go BACKWARD ! It would seem to mean one of three things to me at first glance, that being either , 1) Ford Management is stupid and has no clue or... 2) The Union is stupid and has no clue or..... 3) Ford thinks WE are stupid and have no clue.... and that .... 4) All of the above means we all better duck Sadly I think whatever is behind door number 4 has already been chosen for us. Also, I couldn't agree more that this seems to benefit primarily higher seniority people who are ready to retire anyway. It makes no sense because with the unsavory changes coming to our futures as UAW autoworkers both in pay benefits and work rules, hell a majority of high seniority people would retire anyway at 30 years so this all just plain makes no sense. Oh well, I work at Ford, ( for now anyway ) I should be used to things not making sense by now. For the record and to answer the question, I have 14 years seniority and no I won't be taking a buyout. I work at Cleveland Engine plant 2 and they'll need an act of congress or a pink slip to get me out of there. Just this hillbillies opinion....

Thank you my friend, seems there might still be some brainwave activity left in the rank and file afterall Tad is beyond helping out my union brother. The best we can hope for is to get HIM OUT OF THIS UNION AND NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The followup posts here have restored my faith in the rank and file and gives me hope, albeit slight for our futures

Just to let you know, we at Cleveland Engine Plant 2 were told THE EXACT SAME THING and had the same contract forced down our throats, with an absolute promise that IF and only IF it passed we would get new work in our case a "power improvement package" which would also then allow us to stay open. If we passed it, and we didn't get the new work, then the agreements would be void and we would revert back to our original local contract. You guessed it. It passed. Now this was in March, don't hold me to that but it's been sometime now, the jobs we gave up are gone, eliminated, new work rules in effect, but as of this date no new work. Nothing. When pressed the local union say's over and over again that " It's before the board and we've been assured that it will be approved" but still no new work and the rumors are of course flying around. Yesterday the company put an immediate hold on the new MACT program for two weeks due to "cost and timing over runs" in the Casting Plant putting that plants future very much in doubt after they had approved a similar agreement with all the same promises of new work to follow. Now maybe the company will clear all this up in it's announcement this Thursday but I doubt it. The point is that the company IS just plain lying and whipsawing it's way up our collective asses and the International is allowing it to happen. :shrug: Maybe those guys at The Rouge are on to something here. Maybe it's time to stand up to these fucks , The Company and The International both and let them know enough is enough. :kissass: I also hear the local in Chicago is playing hardball so maybe the sentiment is spreading. When you give them what they say they need to get new work....they string you along and play one plant against another over and over with no end in sight. :kissass: Also another consequence of opening up the contract is just that. You've opened up the contract and everything is fair game from The Companies standpoint. We found that out the hard way here in Cleveland. Ford is so fucking broke, I have to give up all this shit, yet our new CEO can make 2 million dollars this year with an 18 yes that's right 18 million dollar fucking signing bonus making his first years salary a tidy 20 million bucks ?!? Does anyone besides me see something wrong with this picture? :shrug: I don't know. You guys up there have to do what you think is best but from our standpoint here in Cleveland going along with them in the end gets you nothing at least so far from our experience. Of course not going along with them could get you closed yesterday. It is a bitch isn't it ? :shrug: Good luck to you all up there in Michigan, cause we're all going to need it. Just this hillbillies two cents worth

Nice post 1974. Its true this country is in a world of shit. It's not true that its only this country however. All of the major industrialized societies of the past, The Brits the Germans, the French are struggling with this new concept of Globalization. German workers make more than we do as UAW members, the French and the Germans both have more time off or vacation time than we do and they too are faced with the question of how to deal with societies like China and Korea who do not value the individual, but the "collective good as a whole". As I said Nafta was supposed to bring the world up to our standards not the other way around and until the people in the street rise up and demand that this bullshit stop, ( as the french did last summer ) then it will surely continue and our standards of living will continue to recede into oblivion. To my old friend Tad who I am quite sure is a republican and a Bush supporter, who would rather vote on issues like "God" or "flag burning" or "gay marrage" let me remind him the the last time we in this industry and indeed this country went through an energy crisis, We in America had a president named Jimmy Carter who HAD an energy policy, who gave you incentives to buy and drive more fuel efficient cars, to insulate our homes and a direction to rid us of our oil addictions to Allah and his asshole minions in the Middle East, people like Tad laughed mocked and voted him out of office along with that energy policy to vote in a 'feel good republican " mullah named Ronald Reagan and his "shining city on a hill" bullshit mantra. Energy conservation went out the door with President Carter and was followed to the extreme when GW Bush proclaimed early in his joke of an administration that Americans had a right to drive gas guzzlers. Now you can't blame Ford or GM for selling big SUV's when thats what the public wanted. And the public wanted that because their republican leaders gave them no direction, no leadership or no incentive to change. If Ford had continued to make small cars while eschewing large gas guzzling SUV's we would have already been out of business. We simply gave the customer, those vast hordes of uneducated and ignorant fucks who vote republican what they wanted and those inconvenient environmentalist democrats be damned. So 1974, thats the only flaw in your argument. The auto companies DO NOT make national policy, they are simply in the business of selling the customer what he wants. Now I can almost hear Tad and his like yelling " Yeah well what about Clinton?" Well Tad old boy....President Clinton as his first order of business after taking office, ( you remember those days don't you Tad, the ones where we all made money and were'nt at war with half the world) proposed a national health care system one very much like Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner are begging for now, but Tad along with his buddy Rush Limbaugh ( you know Tad the drug addict Rush Limbaugh? ) laughed it out of congress and shot it down. Seems Tad would rather spend time debating flag burning and gays in the military and whether Bill Clinton is getting a blow job somewhere than take care of the real business at hand. The simple fact is , and even you with your limited ability to reason Tad you can understand this I'm sure, SOMEONE is going to have to pay for the health care of the aging population. Either it will be the companies through union negotiated health care benefits, or its gonna be you Tad and your republican fuck buddies through higher taxes and government health care. Take your pic old buddy. Because Tad when your inbred children show up at the doctors office with cancer or an arm growing out of its head, that doctor is going to want to get paid Tad don't you agree? Now the Chinese don't give a damn if you or your child survive Tad, even if you're Chinese because they ALWAYS have another disposable individual to take your place and who'll work for 25 cents an hour with no health care. The greater good remember that phrase Tad. Remember that phrase when your child is sick and needs health care and you have nowhere to turn, certainly not to the union which you Tad have helped to dismantle and hold in such disdain. So again to my old buddy Tad and his like I say, take the check, it'll come out of any of my future profit sharing I know, ( profit sharing Tad another foolish union negotiated benefit in your mind I know ) take that check, pull it out of your ass to make room for Mark Fields dick, and GO AWAY. We in the UAW neither need fucks like you nor do we want you. GO ! Just this hillbillies opinion

Tadmonster, You are exactly the kind of person I'm talking about. Do me a favor Tad, get on your knees, suck Mark Fields balls , take your check and go. Please go. Neither the union nor the company needs ya. In fact, you take that check, and go get yourself a job at Radio Shack . My guess is the first time you open your email you and your family will appreciate the union a little more. ( In case you're not aware Tad ole boy, Radio Shack just fired a shitload of workers 400 if I'm not mistaken by email ). The day of reckoning for the Toyota scabs is coming to be sure, because Tad ole chap, they only pay those people roughly what we make to entice, bribe if you will, the employees not to accept UAW representation thus keeping that "pesky union" that you have such disdain for yet benefit so greatly from out of their scab plants. Assuming the UAW survives ( and thats very much in doubt as it is infected with far to many "viruses" like you Tad ) then as their scab workers age, their health or "legacy costs" will increase as well. It's clear Tad that you fancy yourself somewhat of an historian though for the life of me I can't see why. In reality Tad ole chap, no, companies as a rule did not at all offer benefits to people before the coming of the union. In fact Tad, you and your little wife would be up shitcreek if either of you got deathly ill, or didn't make a decent living wage to pay for those Nikes I'm SURE your darling little children run around in. In fact Tad, I'm pretty sure that you have no idea how Henry Ford used to hire company goon squads to enforce his rather bizzare to say the least quirks. Do you know Tad that Ole Henry, uh that would be Bill's great great grandfather Tad , mandated, ( that means you had no choice Tad if you wanted to keep your job ) that you and your cozy little family sleep with your windows opened exactly 2" every night. Seems Henry felt fresh air was good for you, even if it was 20 degrees outside. Hard to believe Tad but its true buddy. You had to go to church, couldn't cheat on your wife, I could go on and on Tad but even someone as far gone up the companies corporate ass as you can see how ridiculous that is. It gets better Tad . Old Henry actually PAID those goons to sneak around his employees houses at night to make sure the windows were indeed open 2" Its true Tad that non union companies now offer benefits. But Tad that's because in the post WW2 boom period they had no choice in order to compete for a finite supply of workers. You really shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth Tad. Now with globalization there is an infinte amount of workers all competing for the same jobs Tad and those pesky Mexicans and Chinese will work a hell of a lot cheaper than even your kiss ass will Tad. You see Tad , NAFTA on paper was supposed to bring the world up to American standards, to bring poorer countries up to our levels so to speak, not the other way around old chap. Now Tad . As far as spilling blood. You and your entire family benefit from the blood and I do mean quite literally blood spilled by the founders of this union during it's battles with company goon squads. People fought, bled, and even died Tad, many people died Tad, so that you and your family can have what you have today. Now where I come from Tad, if someone is benefiting from something , and you are Tad you are old chum, yet they are unwilling to make a commitment to the very entity responsible for what they have, well, you know the best I can say again Tad is just please...take that check please and go. Tell all the guys at Radio Shack I said hi ! And finally Tad old buddy. Uh ...yeah dude...the company does owe me health care and gen protection and a good hourly wage and transfer rights ( for when people like you take the money and go Tad remember? ) and sub and gis and to be treated like a human being and ya wanna know why Tad? Because....because.... BECAUSE IT SAYS SO IN THE FUCKING CONTRACT THAT THE UAW NEGOTIATED FAIRLY LEGALLY AND IN GOOD FAITH WITH THE COMPANY ON YOUR LAME SCAB COMPANY KISS ASS BEHALF Tad. Just this hillbillies opinion

Thank you sir for taking the time to read it. I for one would be proud to walk the picket line with you brother.

Dude I want to thank you for saying what needs to be said. For untold months now I've sat back quietly and listened to far to many people bash this union. Yeah it isn't perfect. Yeah it's full of assholes from top to bottom. Yeah it's grown fat and lazy over the decades. But anybody with a brain the size of a pea would KILL to be a member of the UAW. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. Don't talk to me about the Toyota and Honda workers not accepting the UAW into their plants. The truth is they make what they make , BECAUSE the UAW has bargained over the years to make sure YOU make what you make. They are in my opinion nothing more than SCABS feeloading off our union dues. If and when this union is ever broken, watch how fast their "partners" in Toyota management cut their pay to 10 bucks an hour ! The ONLY reason anyone on this board can even THINK about a buyout or "Cutting that check" which seems to be a favorite by line amongst some of the people here is BECAUSE of the UAW. Does any nitwit think Steve Miller at Delphi got up in the morning one day and simply decided because he was a nice guy to buy his employees out? He did it because Rick Wagoner at GM called him and said "HEY ASSHOLE, I can't afford to have the UAW shut you down now get your head out of your ass and deal with them!" Without this union, which seems to be falling apart from within and believe me the company knows this, none of us have ANYTHING. Fields gives us whatever size boot up the ass he wants. No buyouts, no SUB pay, no GEN pool, no GIS protection, no transfer rights NOTHING. You people need to start reading more than the sports pages and the comic strips. If you did you would know that there is a CONCERTED REPUBLICAN ORAGANIZED AND WELL FINANCED movement underway to bust ALL unions. That was what was behind the disgusting and misguided post on here recently where the salaries of the international union were posted. Is anyone on here telling me that officers of the union should work for free? Do any of us? The same group responsible for that posting also buys full page ads in USA Today ( a non union scab paper by the way ) with dark and forboding outright lies and innuendo about unions under the heading "What the unions don't want you to know" and then fills those ads with half truths slanted "Fox News" commentary and opinion along with assorterd twisted facts all designed to do nothing more than alienate the rank and file union membership at a time when we are all A} Under an all out assault on our very existence and B} when the rank and file are anxious about their futures and their very ability to survive. The union isn't telling you anything because THEY DON"T KNOW YET EITHER ! The company wants it that way to increase the stress and anxiety and to foster dissent in the rank and file knowing you'll accept anything if they make you sweat enough ! Divide and conquer remember? Negotiation 101 . You have a paid vacation? Thank the union. Health care? Thank the union. Make a good wage? Thank the union. Not have to give a shit whether your supervisor got laid last night and is in a good mood? Thank the union. Wondering if your plant will stay open or what you'll do with your buyout? Thank the union. No they can't make it perfect and all warm and fuzzy for every hillbilly like me who works the assembly line. Some of us will get screwed. But the fact is, now more than ever we ALL need this union. The fact of the matter is " The Ford giveth and the Ford taketh away". The union makes sure its all distributed as fairly as possible. For a lot of the young people on here who diss this union, who have what 3 years or 4 years seniority, and all you do is bitch about this or that and say '" Cut the check cut the check" I say take the damn check and go dude. I for one don't want to EVER have to stand on a picket line with your sorry ass anyway. Because let me tell you something....I'm the hillbilly that the scab is going to have to come over around and through to take mine and the guy walking the line next to me's job. And dude, I'm here to tell ya, that ain't going to happen. Now before you all start your shit blasting me, understand this. I am not an officer in the union. I am simply one more hillbilly working the assembly line in Cleveland Engine Plant Two in Local 1250. I'm a coordinator on J line 3rd shift in case anyone wants to come by and argue this point. But dude, if I can't trust you to walk that picket line with me and spill your blood for me like I would mine for you, then please by all means TAKE THE DAMN CHECK and GO ! Kiss Mark Fields balls for me on your way out the door will ya ? Just one hillbillies opinion.....

Thanks Wizard for the specifics. Now that's something I can buy and work with. I also can't dispute it that's for sure. Your apology isn't needed as I understand that you are sometimes overwhelmed with info requests on this board so no offense taken on this end it's simply as I stated earlier that tempers are short all around and my frustrations were simply a byproduct of that. In retrospect I guess that's what I get for letting the Browns beat the Lion's last night . :happy feet: Thanks again Wiz and please do by all means keep up the good work.

Hey jrod I have no intention of bashing you at all brother. First in defense of Wizard , he did indeed specifically mention Cleveland, and also he further stated that 'The Big Hit" would not be in assembly or stamping, so that pretty much leaves us at the Cleveland site. :titanic: I just wanted to set the record straight that the Wiz did indeed refer to our site , though by default I admit, but it's quite clear he/she was talking about us. Thus my frustration at his vagueness. :shrug: As for your point about how shitty Plant 2 has been running since shutdown, it's true, and I've read posts here about KCAP being on 8 hours due to what they referred to as an "engine problem" ( uh, yeah....there aren't any ) and have been told in meetings that we're dangerously close to shuting down Mexico as well thus giving our Mexican "friends" an unexpected siesta. :happy feet: I think that because we all feel so vulnerable about our futures we tend to blame ourselves for our current production problems , but the fact is we've been through many a rebalance and reduction before and never come anywhere close to it being this bad. As I recall in fact they were quite literally seamless. :bandance: So if everything is the same except the management...then I think it's fair to look there for fault and I certainly hope the company does. We in Cleveland have lost our way in an insufferable pile of paperwork,SQDME boards, FTPM,QPS,CAP Sheets, TIMMS tickets, as McCluen said in the 60's, " The medium is the message" The enigine can have bad cranks, bad cams, bad pistons and be laying in twelve pieces on the pallet but if the paperwork is filled out, then damn it to hell that's a good build. Conversely it can run like a charm but if some meaningless piece of toilet paper is not filled out we'll spend a fortune putting it on hold and tearing it down. It has quite literally reached the point of being surreal. :shrug: The management now in Plant 2 is more interested in looking good than in being good. What can I say it's just my opinion. Yes, there are plenty of deadbeats that never work, the same ones year after year and I'm sure you know them by name jrod and yes something should certainly be done about them. But 5 lazy and useless workers per shift should not in and of itself bring a major powertrain operation like us to a standstill. So again I would say to Mark Fields, look towards our current management. This workforce has never let you down before so look to your current managers. And lastly jrod I spoke to our building chairman this afternoon personally, he told me the BOD has approved our new power program, they also approved the 35 to PLant 1, Casting I don't know anything about other than he said it wasn't going anywhere. Take it for what it's worth I believe him. He did say that because of the production cuts Ford announced today, we might see 2 or so down weeks due to a cut in Escape production and nothing more. :happy feet: At any rate jrod it was nice " meeting " you so to speak. If you ever want to talk stop and see me, I work afternoon shift as the Coordinator on the ever shrinking and increasingly outsourced J 1 area :bandance: till then.....

Wizard I want to choose my words carefully here. You seem on the one hand to be a compassionate person with some very inside information on company wide plans that you wish to share with the hope of keeping everyone informed and empowered and I appreciate that and do not want to diss you in any way as some others on this forum have done. :blah: Yet on the other hand you seem to very much enjoy being coy and insensitive to people in Cleveland. May I ask why ? You have no problem at all with being very specific about NAP or STP or KTP or Wixom yet when it comes to Cleveland Sir or Maam whichever you are you are repeatedly vague, coy and insensitive, almost gleefully leaving us here in Cleveland twisting in the wind with your innuendo about us taking "BIG HITS" (your words not mine) yet never providing specifics as you do with other plants despite your having seen 'the new plans" (again your words not mine). I mean if you can say things like "NAP you're going to one shift on 11/06/06" what the hell is so difficult about telling us here in Cleveland what you know? My purpose of course is not to analyze or prejudge you or to make you the story here, my purpose like everyone else's on this board is to find out what is really going on. Why must I repeatedly and quite literally pull the information from your keyboard? What is up with that? :shrug: I'm quite aware that tempers are short all around and you have taken some shots here of late but hell not from me. And so Mr Wizard I am going to try again. Trizzle Trazzle Dazzle Bone time for this one to come home. What do you know specifically about Cleveland? I work in Engine Plant 2 and would love to know as you might imagine. Can you at all reach down into your increasingly antagonistic heart and get specific about CLEVELAND or is that to much to ask? What takes "the big hit" ? Casting Plant? Engine Plant 1 ? Engine Plant 2 ? All three? None of the above? Forgive me please if I sound a little on edge but there are oh I don't know roughly 4000 hillbillies here working at these three plants that just might have a slight vested interest in your answer. If you don't have an answer Mr Wizard, then I would ask you to please stop dropping vague and inflamatory innuendo about Cleveland's impending demise. If you do indeed know the specifics, then I'm also quite sure we would all love to hear it. Can you feel our pain Wiz ? We can I assure you. Tell you what. I'll make you a deal here. You tell us here in Cleveland what you know specifically....and I will make sure that Your Detroit Lions beat our Cleveland Browns tonight in the football game. That shouldn't be to hard for me to pull off. :happy feet: Deal? :bandance:

Well Wizard I for one anyway thank you for your reply and your efforts to keep us all as informed as possible based on the facts as you know them. Its quite clear that tempers are short all around and the stress is getting to us all. You're quite correct as to Cleveland being promised an infusion of new work, some substantial some not in return for our opening the local contract and basically gutting it along with God only knows how many jobs . As of yet official announcements have not been made," It has to go before the BOD" says the local union so even though we've gutted our local contract and given Ford what it said it needed, we still have received nothing in return except promises. As to your statement about our being inefficient, I take no offense, but both AAP and GM's Oshiwa Ontario Plant prove that being efficient isn't a gaurantee of staying open. :titanic: I did however take your advice and speak to some local UAW people who I trust,( a contradiction in terms I know :happy feet: ) and they were and I believe them unaware of 2012 and alarmed enough to start making some calls. They were told that we could expect the announcement of our new work in short order,for whatever thats worth, still I want to start a full court press with Congressmen Senators and whoever I can enlist to do what we can to stay alive. It's gonna take more than a hillbilly like me who works on the assembly line to prevent this looming massacre in Cleveland but I assure you we'll do whatever we can and have to. Hell we were under the impression we already had when we approved the company's proposals earlier this year. Cleaners eliminated, retiree's not replaced, relaxed work rules in the company's favor of course, for a net loss of only God knows how many jobs so if it sounds like I am one confused hillbilly, I am. When I ask how much is that doggy in the window and the clerk says $50, I expect the SOB to give me the f**king dog when I give him my 50 dollar bill. Know what I mean? Mark Fields....dude.... :shrug: I gave you what you asked for ....NOW GIVE ME MY GOD DAMNED DOG YOU MF'ER

Wizard I have to ask you . What have You heard about cleveland? You mentioned something about 2012 ? Any idea which plant or plants? Engine Plant 1, Plant 2 or the Casting plant ? Or some horrific combination of the 3 plants ? :shrug: