Mercury Marine To Close And Move All Production From Fond du Lac, Wisconsin......

[MacGyver]

Unless the machinists union agrees to concession to its current contract to help Mercury in this tough economic times. Unfortunately the union in it's bullheaded way said absolutely not, no way to any concessions.

We all know anyone in the boating industry is hurting right now. It just blows my mind that the union would rather have 2,000 jobs lost to selfishness, rather then take concessions for awhile until the economy recovers.

2,000 lost jobs would be a huge hit for Fond du Lac. I hope the union leaders pull their heads out of there ass and realize Mercury would rather stay, but in the current economy, they need their help. Otherwise, the unemployment lines in Fond du Lac are gonna get really, really long

[Pete]

Crazy, a friend works @ Kennedy Space Center, they went on strike last year and the union held out. They ended up going back to work under the old contract. Only thing they gained was losing a half years salary

[catastrophe]

Crazy, a friend works @ Kennedy Space Center, they went on strike last year and the union held out. They ended up going back to work under the old contract. Only thing they gained was losing a half years salary

The union inside LEVER BROS. here ( national soap brand ) went on strike for 14 months.
Two days ago the company announced it was closing its Canadian facility and sold the land.

All the union guys were on the 6 oclock news sayin " they cant do that"

Guess they just did PHUCKO

[THEJOKER]

http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlan...1/daily32.html

" Mercury Marine Moves to Georgia" I can see the headlines now!

[BraceYourself]

My only interaction with Mercury was through High Performance.

I think Mercury needs a wakeup.

[Pro1]

Go collect money from all the boat builders who left them hanging. If they did that bankruptcy would be inevitable.

[2112]

Add Boeing to the list who have had it with labor Unions.

They pay pretty dang well but it is never enough. The machinists (term loosely applied to assemblers) go on strike about every 4-5 years.

Boening just bought land and sub contractor in South Carolina, a right to work state. Look to see a lot of production moved there.

[Ratickle]

Almost all new facilities and modernized facilities, not subsidized by the government, are moving or have moved to right to work states. States like ours answer, add an excise tax to the businesses that are left. Morons......

[32storm]

If you start adding names to this list, it's going to get really long. Unfortunately, too many companies have gone thru the same situation: they want cheaper costs, including labor cost, and the union won't budge. Union assumes they won't move..and the next thing the trucks are showing up to haul stuff out of the plant, and ends up being another empty building.

With Mexico, China, India, Phillipines, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc, etc, there are too many places now that have lower labor costs. Ridiculous with state of US Economy not to try to come to some concession and still have jobs!

[Bobcat]

they can avoid paying a fair wage by moving to china, non union , nickel a day, and after they bust that union they can go after the cops and the fire dept. you can fight crime and fires for 5 bucks an hour with no bennies ! bring back 7 day work weeks and child labor! woo hoo! if the unions go it will happen.

[Dude! Sweet!]

they can avoid paying a fair wage by moving to china, non union , nickel a day, and after they bust that union they can go after the cops and the fire dept. you can fight crime and fires for 5 bucks an hour with no bennies ! bring back 7 day work weeks and child labor! woo hoo! if the unions go it will happen.

I'm with Bob on this one... There's abuse on either side of the coin. Unions go nuts, get greedy and squeeze business out the door, or business goes nuts, gets greedy and puts all their customers (either direct or indirect) out of a job and out of a position to inject cash back into the economy.

You know the expression, hogs get fat, pigs get slaughtered.

[Bgchuby01]

I'm all for banning unions, Who needs them anymore, with Obama we are going into a socalist state anyway.

[Chris]

Unions have always been aided by incompetent management. During and after WW II, no one could do any wrong. But then the Japanese learned how to build cars, then produce steel and our industrial dominance skidded to a halt. The real culprit was OUR avoidance of recognition of the inevitable- that our world was going to change. We kept concentrating on building terrible autos and expensive steel- and management was willing to keep giving in to the unions rather than lose the massive profits in a strike. And then it ground to a halt. Since then, unions have begrudgingly given little back. The steel industry just went belly-up and left their labor force unemployed and with lost pensions. The auto industry came close, but now all those working people with significantly less in pension benefit get to contribute to make sure the auto workers are fully protected. Can you say irony?

The next big bubble- public sector. We just don't have it to spread around anymore. We can't afford to pay people 30 years of full retirement income after only 30 years of work contribution- not to mention zero-contribution benefits.

The boys at Merc will relent. But most likely after the decision has been made and the trucks are there to pick up the machines. They'll be running after management saying "we'll negotiate", but it'll be too late.

[Geronimo36]

Seems no one took notes when steel and manufacturing left the country. same ole same ole.... it'll go overseas.....

Funny thing about unions. My buddy is in the electical union and hasn't seen much work for about a year now... catch 22 is he cant work in the real world unless he leaves the union or does it under the table.. meanwhile his sitting around waiting to be called and doing odd jobs to support a family of 6. so much good the union is doing!

[stainless]

...

[Ratickle]

It's all a tough call but, when our government gave the right to other countries to sell in our country. And, they don't have to meet any of the mandated labor, pollution, tax, or worker safety laws that companies here do. It did, and does, keep inflation very low here though.
It was an easyconclusion we would have a very prosperous time with a very decisive fallout. There were many articles, and campaigns, which discussed it then, and have come true now.

Until the Unions stop electing officials who think it's okay to save money by sending jobs out of the country, it will continue, and the standard of living here will continue to drop.

It will not get any better until that stops through legislation, or the standard of living around the world evens out. There are no other options.

Since 1994 NAFTA, and 2000 China Most Favored Nation Status were both signed by Clinton, over 10 Trillion net dollars of US value has been transferred to just Mexico and China. But at least he received 10's of millions of dollars from China for his charities, which he gets paid by, as soon as he left office.

[Ratickle]

Seems no one took notes when steel and manufacturing left the country. same ole same ole.... it'll go overseas.....

Funny thing about unions. My buddy is in the electical union and hasn't seen much work for about a year now... catch 22 is he cant work in the real world unless he leaves the union or does it under the table.. meanwhile his sitting around waiting to be called and doing odd jobs to support a family of 6. so much good the union is doing!

My Dad was a Steel Mill employee his entire career.

[OldSchool]

The next big bubble- public sector. We just don't have it to spread around anymore. We can't afford to pay people 30 years of full retirement income after only 30 years of work contribution- not to mention zero-contribution benefits.

.

Shame on you for even thinking that!!!!!!!

[Ratickle]

The next big bubble- public sector. We just don't have it to spread around anymore. We can't afford to pay people 30 years of full retirement income after only 30 years of work contribution- not to mention zero-contribution benefits.

I hope you are correct, but I doubt it will happen until the country is completely bankrupt. If you take government jobs out of the job creation numbers, this recession is much worse.

The powers that be are so out of touch with reality, they actually think that by taking over half your money and distributing it to someone else, they are creating wealth.

That is because they are one of the receivers of those funds and they do really well, so it must be the right thing to do.........

[JupiterSunsation]

The next big bubble- public sector. We just don't have it to spread around anymore. We can't afford to pay people 30 years of full retirement income after only 30 years of work contribution- not to mention zero-contribution benefits.

Local reporter has a hard on about this issue and profiled a retiring Ft Lauderdale cop in her column last week. Cop makes 125K +/- a year and retired after 27 years with a sign off bonus of 285K and a monthly pension of 7K a month for life. She figured this guy will cost the city 4mm for his 27 years of service after his benefits are added up over his lifetime.

The story ruffled a lot of feathers with the public and the cops. She was blasted by the cop for outlining his finances for the public to see and the public was outraged he was making so much money both on and off the job. He only had one point to stand on being that was the package offered to him and he did his job so he expects to be paid the package he earned. This guy worked many nights, weekends, holidays, hurricanes over the years but 4mm is a lot of money to spend on a cop for 27 years service (salary working, sign off bonus and pension over another 30 years all added up).