theunionisforever

You must be the same idiot that posed as Gary on Facebook. What you are doing is slanderous and criminal (not to mention desperate) so I would be very concerned if I were you. You might have a defense if you hadn't used his picture but that was a huge mistake. Do you really think anything you do is anonymous on the internet?

Are you bored or just feel stupid because you know I'm right?

It's NOT a popularity contest, last time I checked we don't get to vote on our IUAW reps. You might be able to get a position at the plant level on popularity but if you want to get to Settle's level forget it. Unless you are a relative or in the "In crowd" you will never go any further. And don't even THINK about having an opposing view from the IUAW. If you do, you will be publicly lynched and black listed.

I assure you I have NEVER had the opportunities that Settles has had. Anyone who has been a member of the UAW for more than 10 minutes knows that people do not move up the UAW ladder based on intelligence or drive. Cronyism and nepotism have always been rule of thumb so who are you trying to kid?

http://www.freep.com/article/20111008/BUSINESS0104/110080330/GM-delays-plans-2nd-shift-Chevy-Volt-plant

So Settles publicly threw Gary under the bus for pushing for a better contract and getting our concessions back? Way to support the freedom of speech and democracy! The funny thing here is that Settles thinks we need Gary's permission to Vote No. That is as big of insult as him calling people who vote no unintelligent. All Gary did was to present an opposing opinion for the membership to think about and for that he gets crucified by the IUAW. Whether you are voting Yes or No on this contract, you should be embarrassed by the tactics being used by the IUAW to push this contract through.. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!

I'm sorry to say it but that attitude is exactly how we play in to the hands of those who wish to destroy ALL of us and our way of life. We shouldn't worry about the micro issues like "My neighbor is a teacher and she drives a Toyota so I'm not getting involved in her fight for collective bargaining". This attack on the middle class is against ALL of us and we need to put aside our differences and fight together. We need to recognize that the enemy is not our neighbor who gets better health care or a few more dollars an hour. The enemy is the Republican party who is launching an aggressive and blatant assault on the middle class and the Unions that have made a middle class possible.

You are hideous, and the negotiations haven't even started. I personally put in a resolution not to lift the 20%. I know we cant get away from entry level but the IUAW should be able to hold the line on 20% BTW Chicken Little to go over 20% the company would have to hire 8,000 new people above the 3,000 in ACH, an 11,000 new jobs swing, merely impossible in a 4 year agreement. I am only being fair to the others on this board when you are called out on your supposition and rumors. If the negotiators did lift the 20% (doubt it) I will stand by your side on this board and agree it is wrong. But now it is supposition and rumor to a negotiation process that hasn't even started yet. If you want to contact a Negotiator, contact your Chairman or President. They should know at least one of the negotiators and they can pass on your support of not lifting the 20% Wow! If you take everything out of context it does sound like supposition and rumor BUT if you read it as I wrote it AS A POSSIBLE SCENARIO then you would understand what I meant.

If you call raising awareness of a potentially fatal pitfall in the contract negotiations starting a rumor then I am guilty as charged. If you are so concerned about the well being of our 40,000 union brothers and sisters then stop trying to censor the discussion board. I'm not even sure why you are being defensive about it? I've been at Ford long enough to see a steady decline in our way of life and I'm not willing to stand by and watch the rest slip away without a fight. Part of that fight is making sure people are aware of what can and will happen if that 20% cap is lifted in this contract. Bob King and the rest of the negotiators need to know that we are aware and watching their every move on this. Excuse me if I don't have 100% confidence in Bob King but when he pushed for more concessions including giving up the right to strike over wages and benefits, that did it for me. You would be hard pressed to find anyone on the floor that didn't lose some respect on that move.

You hope I'm not a elected official? Why? Because I don't want to see what's left of our pay and benefits to go down the toilet? What good is job security for a crap job with low pay and benefits? If you kill someone and then confess, you can be secure in the fact that they will hold a prison cell for you but that doesn't mean you want to be there! The real question is how low will you go? The company will keep chipping away at our pay and benefits in the name of job security as long as we are willing to play that game! I don't expect to double our wages or get a million dollar bonus in this contract and I won't vote no when it's not offered. All I'm saying is vote NO on any suggestion of lifting the 2nd tier hiring restrictions. I firmly believe that lifting that 20% limit will spell the end of what we have left. The article you posted here is just a article and not some hand written blue print on Bob Kings intentions on this contract. I would be shocked to read an article where King states that he would love to give the company wage and benefits cuts. In other words, He's not going to lay his cards out on the table for a newspaper or anyone else. What he does say in the article is that he wants wage increases for 2nd tier (possibly to make it more reasonable when they make their move to equalize the wages of 1st tier?) Ask yourself why is he so concerned about the wages of the 2nd tier new hires and not restoring the concessions of the 1st tier? Both cost the company money and by their logic, make them less competitive. The article also DOES NOT state that they won't seek to remove the 20% clause. Why do you assume that he would consider that a concession? They will just claim that it will allow additional hiring and therefore JOB SECURITY that King thinks is the only thing the membership will strike over. (He's wrong on that) I hope to God you are right and they don't attempt to do what they are, in my opinion, obviously shooting for.. Lifting the 20% cap, flooding the system with 2nd tier and then equalizing our pay and benefits in the not so distant future. I will be watching the language closely and sounding the alarm bells if and when they try it. I will vote NO and go on strike if I have to. Let's hope it doesn't have to come to that.

The only way you can call our wages and benefits 'Golden' is if you compare them to the other blue collar wages that have hit bottom. I would call them "tarnished wages and benefits" in comparison to what we once had. I would agree with you that we won't get our concessions back in the contract. The alarm bell that I'm trying to ring (and will continue to ring for anyone that will listen) is that we need to throw a wrench into the company's plan to destroy what we have left. By no means should we accept a contract that sets us up to be crushed a few years down the road. Here's how I see this playing out.. The Union started playing a psychological game with the membership by filing a bogus and worthless grievance against the company, claiming to be trying to get our concessions back. This was triggered by the company giving back bonuses to salaried employees along with other perks that they "temporarily suspended" when they suckered the UAW membership into accepting needless concessions right before announcing massive and record profits. The IUAW knows full well that when we signed on to having an 'arbitrator' settle any violation of the 'Parity of Sacrifice' clause in the concessions agreement that we lost any legal footing and that they will always side with the company. This is all just a BS head game that they are playing with the membership. Now comes the contract negotiations.. We already know that the company spit in our face by violating the 'Parity of Sacrifice' clause that we ALL agreed to when we 'pretended' to save our dieing company. Ideally, the concessions should not be used as any part of the contract negotiations, Why? Because by all accounts Ford is a healthy, profitable and thriving company and our concessions should be returned to us before any contract negotiations begin BUT reality tells us that this is not what will happen. Bob King will emerge from contract 'negotiations' with a big smile and a breathtaking announcement: "Not only have we been able to preserve your current wages and benefits but we even got back a couple of the more affordable concessions that you gave up! (10 minutes of break time, dependent ETAP maybe?) PLUS instead of raises, that you would see in each and every pay check, we came up with a profit sharing scheme that you will never be able to figure out and the company can manipulate at will. This profit sharing scam will be based in part on the following.. PRODUCTIVITY: Productivity = Profits = More money in your pockets! This means you should NEVER complain about any unreasonable request to add more work to your job station. If you complain or refuse any additional tasks you are in effect "stealing" money from the pockets of your fellow Union brothers and sisters. QUALITY: Quality = Better Product = Happy Customers = Increased Sales = More money in your pockets! Even though 99% of quality issues in our final product come from things out of our control such as over loaded jobs, non-conforming parts, bad engineering, ergonomics etc. You will still be penalized on your profit sharing. ATTENDANCE: Poor Attendance = Down Time = Less Productivity = Less money in your pockets! Profit sharing will be effected by our collective attendance records. Even though our aging 1st tier workers are being herded into assembly plants and forced to work on over loaded jobs (see productivity above) Don't let those aches and pains get in your way of making it to work! What will you have to sacrifice for all this?? Nothing really.. All You have to do is agree to lifting that pesky little 20% limitation on 2nd tier hiring. Hell! The company even sweetened the deal with a (((SIGNING BONUS)))!! This is a great day for our membership and I encourage everyone to get behind this agreement and vote YES!" FAST FORWARD TO THE NEXT CONTRACT IF NOT SOONER: "Unfortunately, due to lackluster sales and a general down turn in the American economy, profit sharing has turned out to be.. "not so profitable" for our membership. The good news is that our willingness to allow the company to hire an unlimited amount of 2nd tier workers has lead to a massive hiring spree! In fact, 2nd tier workers now outnumber our 1st tier "legacy cost" workers. Unfortunately the company can no longer afford the burden of paying these higher wages and benefits to these "legacy cost workers" and our new majority of 2nd tier workers can no longer tolerate working next to people making more money to do the same jobs. SO, we will be offering a pay increase of $2/per hour to our 2nd tier workers. All you have to do is vote to "EQUALIZE" the pay and benefits of the "legacy cost" 1st tier workers. Unloading this financial burden from the company could also lead to an increase in the profit sharing scheme (That you have never been able to figure out and have never profited from). SO VOTE YES! IT'S A NO BRAINER!! :D Am I painted a pessimistic picture? Is that the reality that we are facing? Do I have a crystal ball?? No I do not BUT I don't think it takes a Nostradamus to see the direction this is heading. I am asking, begging, PLEADING with my Union Brothers and Sisters. If you draw the line in the sand on nothing else, draw it on lifting the 2nd tier hiring restrictions! I believe that anything else that can be offered to you at contract time is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The company will always look at the long term effects of any contract agreement and push for what is in the share holders best interest. It's time for our membership to do the same!

I'll say it again...even if we get everything back that we lost, raises, some great sounding profit sharing scheme and a fat signing bonus, any mention of LIFTING THE NUMBER OF THE 2ND TIER EMPLOYEES THE COMPANY CAN HIRE WILL EQUAL DISASTER FOR 1ST TIER EMPLOYEES. If we don't stand firm and fight against a flood of 2nd tier employees in the system then we are doomed to lose everything we have. All the company and Bob King will have to do is open the flood gates of hiring, out number us and then either reopen the contract or just wait out this one and then EQUALIZE our pay and benefits. If you look at the big picture of what's going on you will see what their master plan has been all along. BRING US ALL DOWN TO THIRD WORLD POVERTY WAGES AND BENEFITS! 1. Divide our ranks by splitting the parts plants from Ford and calling it Visteon. (This was sold by the UAW as a great idea) Visteon has since shifted nearly all of it's production to China. 2. Divided our ranks further by selling everyone on 2nd Tier (again sold as the only alternative by the UAW) The BIG selling point here was that 2nd Tier would be limited to only 20% and that they would have a chance to move up to 2nd tier as people retired. 3. Progressively weaker buy out packages that reduced the number of 1st tier employees on pay roll. 3. Massive concession to bring the 1st tier workers closer to entry level employees wages and benefits package. 4. VEBA that unloaded retiree medical benefits. 5. THE FINAL PIECE OF THE PUZZLE.. LIFT THE NUMBER OF 2ND TIER EMPLOYEES THAT CAN BE HIRED, OVERWHELM THE RANKS WITH 2ND TIER EMPLOYEES AND THEN EQUALIZE PAY AND BENEFITS FOR THOSE THAT REMAIN. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN! VOTE NO ON ANY LANGUAGE THAT LIFTS THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE NUMBER OF 2ND TIER EMPLOYEES FORD CAN HIRE.

To me this sounds like a warning shot from King to not expect to get anything back that we lost. If all we are going to be offered is a new profit share scam that can be manipulated at will by the company, then he can count on a big fat NO vote from me. I don't think contract talks should even begin until our grievance is settled and we get back what we lost (at least to the point of parity with what salary got back) http://www.detnews.com/article/20110718/AUTO01/107180342/UAW-chief-endorses-profit-sharing MAJOR PROVISIONS THAT SHOULD TRIGGER AN AUTOMATIC NO VOTE: 1. ANY LANGUAGE THAT SO MUCH AS SUGGESTS AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF 2ND TIER EMPLOYEES ALLOWED IN THE SYSTEM! The writing is on the wall for this one. We have stood back and allowed ourselves to be divided and conquered. First Visteon, then ACH, orange employees, light blue employees, etc.. The only strength a Union has is in solidarity by numbers. When they successfully outnumber the 1st tier with the 2nd tier then they will take away anything we have left. All they have to do is offer the 2nd tier people a raise to equalize our pay and benefits with theirs and they will jump all over it. Why wouldn't they?? 2. BUY DOWN OFFER: Any offer to give us money to lower ourselves to 2nd tier wages and benefits is a slap in the face. Just like the buy out offers, any time the company is willing to cough up a big check to get rid of you or to get something from you, it is going to be in their favor. A lot of people jumped on the buy out offers and are now jobless and living in poverty. Think long term and realize that you will make more on higher wages and benefits in the long run. These are not the only concerns but these are my top two to watch out for. Feel free to add to the list..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100310/ap_on_bi_ge/us_runaway_prius

Please keep us updated on the situation. If, God forbid, you do have to go on strike, we will do all we can to assist our brothers and sisters in KC. We can all pressure our locals to set up collection drives for money, food, etc. Whatever it takes to make your strike a success. Good Luck!