The jobs bank has come to symbolize whatever the general public thinks is wrong with the United Auto Workers and Detroit car
companies.
For many years, the UAW contract has stipulated that laid-off workers be paid nearly their entire compensation. Now, because the jobs bank has become such a lightning rod, the UAW says it will suspend the benefit in the hope of persuading Congress to OK a bailout.
Toyota made news this year when it treated its workers much the same. It continued to pay laid-off assembly line workers even through production slowed and they werenâ??t needed. Yet, the decision wasnâ??t met with disdain.
Why are Americans repulsed about the UAW jobs bank but nod approvingly when Toyota keeps its workers on the payroll during slow stretches? Is the difference that Toyota workers keep training during their layoffs?
For many years, the UAW contract has stipulated that laid-off workers be paid nearly their entire compensation. Now, because the jobs bank has become such a lightning rod, the UAW says it will suspend the benefit in the hope of persuading Congress to OK a bailout.
Toyota made news this year when it treated its workers much the same. It continued to pay laid-off assembly line workers even through production slowed and they werenâ??t needed. Yet, the decision wasnâ??t met with disdain.
Why are Americans repulsed about the UAW jobs bank but nod approvingly when Toyota keeps its workers on the payroll during slow stretches? Is the difference that Toyota workers keep training during their layoffs?
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The Big 3, while certainly not well-managed, implemented full-compensation because the Unions had much more negotiating leverage. A Job Bank program does not make sense if demand for a firm's product is declining and will stay down for the forseeable future. Generally, a firm that has to reduce its workforce is not doing well. The Union Job Bank plan takes a bad situation and makes it worse. The market told the Big 3 to change their operations and value proposition in order to be viable. The Job Bank makes that much harder to do by maintaining elevated costs. No one likes to see someone lose their job, but our system requires firms that do not provide what the public wants be allowed to fail. We benefit more as a society by focusing our resources and productive capacity on goods and services that best satisfy needs. The free market, while imperfect, is the best system to guide those choices. A Job Bank program runs counter to the tenets of the somewhat regulated free market economic system we employ. That bothers a lot of Americans.
This has been going for a long time and everytime you'd hear about it, it just infuriated you, especially if you were the kind of person who'd always go to work and get things done.
Yes, it does seems like a double standard, but the US unions have made a mockery of the system which galls most people
The unions have outlived their useful life. It's time they disappear, and our economy will be better off without them.