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« Opinion
Let the union take initiative
Let the union take initiative
EDITOR:
The real problem with the closing of Hubbard’s IGA remains unsolved. Those who lost their jobs when Patton’s IGA closed remain unemployed, according to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880 and pickets representing that organization. In addition, those who worked for the more recent Nemenz IGA have lost their jobs. Unemployment in Hubbard’s grocery community increased rather than decreased.
It is apparent the pickets and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880 are devoted to employment for all union brothers and sisters; there is a solution. Local 880 and its parent organization should consider entering the grocery business. Local 880 could establish one or more stores staffed with unemployed union members.
There would be no labor-management problems, no strikes or picketing because Local 880 would be the management. Unemployed union members become productive, dues-paying citizens. Employees would be cooperative and content because they would receive high wages, excellent health care benefits, pensions and opportunity for retirement.
Local 880 would benefit from membership dues, plus all the profit normally retained by traditional management. Imagine, a union making a profit.
There may be naysayers who scoff at this plan. They may say unions are not qualified to operate a real business. Not so. Unions have been advising businesses for decades — free of charge.
WERNER VERCH
Hubbard
McCain missed chance to support post 9/11 veterans
EDITOR:
I am sick and tired of seeing John McCain appear at events wearing his Navy ball cap. Is he going to be just another “photo op president” like the one who currently occupies the White House?
McCain may have served his country once, but he has NOT served those brave men and women who he and the current White House occupant sent to a war of choice in Iraq.
What I am referring to is the fact that Sen. McCain opposed the Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 which President Bush reluctantly signed into law. The bill, which Barack Obama supported, provides, among other benefits, “four academic years of educational benefits for an approved program up to the cost of the most expensive in-state undergraduate public tuition in the veteran’s state of residence,” a monthly living stipend and $1,000 annually for books and supplies to those who began serving on active duty after Sept. 11, 2001.
This bill passed in the United States Senate on June 26, 2008, by a vote of 92-6. Sen. Obama voted in favor of the bill’s passage. Sen. McCain did not vote on the bill, which he opposed. He was campaigning in Ohio that day.
JOHN T. DeFAZIO
Lisbon
Who is playing race card?
EDITOR:
Republicans have been very cautious about bringing up race in the presidential election, but the Democrats keep playing the race card.
State representatives Letson and Hagan are guilty.
Racism works both ways. According to MSM polls, 98 percent of African Americans will vote for Obama. That is reverse racism to an extreme.
There is not such a lopsided voting pattern among white voters. So quit whining.
C.J. IVAN
Canfield
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Comments
Hey Old Man Grump, if you are as old as you are dumb, you must be six hundred years old.
Maybe the Union would like to make up the taxes that the City of Hubbard is now NOT getting from this store closing. A lawsuit by Hubbard seems to be a good idea. Having been a member of the AFL-CIO, US Steel Workers, and the old Retail Clerks International, I can assure you that for the most part, unions are much more the problem than the solution. It's the dumb leading the dumber.
I'm confused...you talk about lost revenue for the city yet you'd advocate Hubbard spending lots of money to file a suit that they would have virtually no chance of winning? What would the grounds for suing even be? Perhaps the city can sue the owner for failing to work with organized laborers.
The day the valley loses its union mentality is the day its largest employer bails and the area becomes more of a popcorn-fart than it already is.
States in the south are right to work so its easier for illegals to work undocumented...sounds like a great solution to the tax issue, doesn't it? If true immigration reform would ever be enforced right to work states would absolutely hemorrhage cash as a result of losing 10% or more of its workforce and businesses.
Hey Old Man Grump, I take it back. You aren't six hundred years old. You've got to be older than dirt. That makes you
Union and non-union businesses will come and go, and many other things will evolve, but you my friend will always be
Great suggestion, but there is only one problem, where are they going to get the money to travel to Las Vegas and spend all those UFCW Union Dues on fancy dinners, show tickets, and placing bets on the Pass Line of the Craps Table if they have to invest those UFCW dues into a legitimate business, and actually have to make a profit? That would force the Local Union to hire people that REALLY know how to manage money instead of just spending it. GREAT LETTER, poor Hubbard residents, though....they lost out on a local grocery store.
Jeff,
I would think GM would love to have a non-union shop here in the valley. It might even attract other automakers (toyota, hyundai, honda, etc).
That would most certainly be good for GM but regardless ousting the UAW is not a possibility for a domestic automaker in Youngstown or anyplace else. Because autoworkers in the valley are used to making quite a bit more than the foreign companies are willing to pay them new plants are set up in areas like rural Tennessee and the like...only way you'll see another automaker set up shop in greater Youngstown is if GM totally bails and sells the plant to one of them. And yes, this is a distinct possibility for the future.
Jeff,
What are they paying out at Lordstown now? What is taken out of the check for Union dues?
I am sure if another automaker set up shop in the Valley somewhere, even if they were three quarters of what Lordstown pays, you would get more than enough applicants to apply.
Not sure, Woody -- don't work there and am not a member. Your notions are based on a shaky foundation: no other automaker would ever come to the valley for fear that their shop would go union after opening its doors. Large companies like these don't want to deal with labor unions and thus set up shop where they are less likely to form. I honestly dig what you are saying but its predicated on something that will never happen unless GM bails.
Jeff,
I said that if Ohio were a right to work state, and the unions were not going to be involved, we might be able to get another auto manufacturer here. We have the people that would be interested in those jobs, even if they were to pay less then what Lordstown currently pays. GM could stay (they might even be inticed to build anotjer plant here), do away with the unions, and also there would be room for another auot manufacturer. It is not like we do not have the land, there is ton out in the Lordstown and the shop would be convient to the Turnpike.
I think maybe what we should do is set up pickets to protest the union shops. Let them know, that thanks to their efforts they have done harm to the economy of the Mahoning Valley. They have driven away jobs, they have made it a business climate that is unappealing to companies o relocate to the Valley, and that their time has come, they served a good purpose, but they are not welcome anymore.
So you want to picket the area's major employer and get rid of labor unions? That seems like a pretty ambitious list...
I truly don't think people realize what would happen if GM left your area: literally every type of business would suffer from the absence of tax revenue from the company and income taxes and expendable income from the employees. Schools would likewise suffer. Like it or not GM is the hand that feeds the area.
Jeff,
I was being sarcastic.
I do not want GM to leave. But what I have been saying is that if the Valley were not so Pro-Union, we could possibly attract new jobs. It has a lot going for it.
When the steel mills closed from 77-82 over 30,000 people lost jobs.
When the van plant was open at Lordstown in the early 90's, there were over 12,000 employees between the 3 plants. Today there are roughly 3,000 - many contract employees (in former salary positions) and all the hourly employees who come in now to replace retirements and buy outs are all lower tier wages.
And the state and local government had to agree to obscene tax abatements for GM to even agree to build the paint shop and keep the plant open when the Cobalt came into production.
GM is hardly sustaining the life of the valley. Just ask the Lordstown schools who are broke what all that "GM tax money" is doing for the economy here.
You know, the writer doesn't have such a bad idea. Let the union folk run the business. It's a free market, right? So I say give it your best shot. If your way works, it is a win for all. Personally I don't believe all of the rosy-colored stories (aka loads of dung) that the unions spew, but I say give them a chance - try it out. If you can make it, more power to you. Let the free market decide! (which by the way is something that unions don't usually want to do - but hey, they may actually LEARN somehting from an experiment like this?)