There are many ways to jerk around foreign companies on both sides.
I used to design equipment for emergency use and we were marketing
our products in Germany and Holland. In Germany, they have an organization that
"tests" your product for being safe and suitable for their market.
Think along the lines of the "UL" approval on items.
Submit your product and wait. Then get the report that your product failed.
They never give a clue what it was that didn't pass, bless their hearts !
You go home and try to figure it out... or give up and go away. They hope.
I had to leave the Youngstown area to find work when the steel industry collapsed.
Don't start on Unions or the Coal or Steel industry unless you've been through it.
This is my only input on the topic and then back to happier Forward-Look things.
I have been on both sides of it. I have been blackballed as a union agitator when
I was a young college student and then I have been president of a local union
at three different times. Each time during a contract negotiating year.
Safety was usually a much more important issue among industry workers than wages.
You rarely regained the wages you lose by striking against employers that didn't care
if you were alive or dead. They could always hire another worker. Safety and Security.
The contracts are a package deal. You usually give up some wages in return for
better benefits, safety, insurance, retirement, etc. When the companiy agrees to the contract,
they should be putting aside money for those benefits during the good times.
Accounting methods should be watched very closely. Where engineers had a huge say
in auto companies indays gone by, the bean counters rule today. Very little future vision.
If they don't set aside funds, they later cry how foul and awful the situation is. GM is guilty of this.
Screw the upper management at GM. The workers deserve better. GM especially.
On the other hand, healthy workers do not need to retire at 50 and 55 and expect to live well.
Try to be realistic. It takes both sides to work together to be successful.
Tom S
southern Ohio
From: Forward Look Mopar Discussion List on behalf of David Homstad
Sent: Tue 11/18/2008 2:28 AM
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] Import vs. export
Lou,
The point was that many other countries already have tariffs and quotas on imports from the USA. By creating a system to reflect their own tariffs back in their faces, with them determining the tariff, it would encourage them to reduce them. If they don’t want a US tariff all they need to do is eliminate their own and the US tariff automatically goes away.
Dave Homstad
=1
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