Toyota announced plans to invest $400 million in manufacturing cars in the United States – and guess what state they’re investing in…Indiana. Last week – Indiana became the 23rd right-to-work FOR LESS state in the nation – meaning the state is willing to compete in the global race to the bottom for cheap labor. On average, workers make more than $5,000 less a year in right-to-work FOR LESS states.
Of course – any profits from this Toyota manufacturing plant won’t be re-invested in America – but instead will go back to Japan. Thanks to union busting and free trade over the last thirty years – we’ve gone from being a nation with a strong middle class and good high-paying jobs, to a nation of working poor being exploited by foreign manufacturers who know they can pay Americans less than what they pay their own citizens. Hear that sucking sound?
Comments
I'd say that the Right To Work proponents have been conclusively shown to be correct. Right to Work states are doing much better than other states, by almost any measure. A half a billion dollar plant is a pretty emphatic statement. This is really good news for Indiana!
Right. Just as the establishment of large plantations worked by slaves was good for So. Carolina. Not so good for the slave labor.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
The plant is already built. I worked on it back in 1996/97 when it was being built. This is a retool for the stamping process nothing more. All their equipment comes from japan too. Nothing that runs that place was built in this country. I covered every square inch of that place many times and seen it first hand. The computers that run the paint process will have to be reprogramed for the vehichle that is getting painted and that's about it. Putting another shift on his where the jobs come in. Nothing this state has done brought the jobs here regardless of what you hear. Us taxpayers built the plant for toyota and they started paying us back when the manufacturing of trucks began there. Pretty nice way to do business....HuH?
BTW.....That plant was built by all UNION Trades like the one in Georgetown, Ky was. Been in there too along with the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky. Then there's the two Ford plants in Louisville, been in both of them too.
I suggest you dig a little deeper in your take on right to work for less states.
I'd say that the Right To Work proponents have been conclusively shown to be correct. Right to Work states are doing much better than other states, by almost any measure. A half a billion dollar plant is a pretty emphatic statement. This is really good news for Indiana!
Here's some great reading for you..........
I was having a conversation with some friends over the weekend and they brought up the fact that they live in a neighborhood with a Home Owners Association. I asked them what their fees gave them that the neighborhood down the street didn't offer.
They told me that they get snow removal on all side streets, a playground for their kids, a walking path and are in the planning stages of building a swimming pool. The said that the neighborhood had rules about parking, minimum house sized requirements etc.
They went on to tell me that all these amenities helped keep the property values higher than their neighbors and that for those reasons they didn’t mind paying their Home Owners Association Fees. That they looked at those fees as ways to protect their investment (their home).
I went on to ask them what happens if someone moves into the subdivision, uses the amenities that all their HOA fees cover but refuses to pay those fees? They told me that the HOA puts a mechanic’s lien against their property and when the HOA publishes the list of non HOA dues paying residents when they send out their quarterly statements. They went on to tell me that most of the time when the names are published the residents start paying something to avoid the embarrassment of having their names published to the whole neighborhood.
I asked them what they thought about Right to Work. They told me that no one should be forced to pay union dues if they didn’t want to. I then explained to them that the union dues that the members pay helped give them things like job safety, higher wages, medical insurance, vacation pay, holiday pay, sick pay etc. I went on to tell them that those benefits helped maintain a higher standard of living than the factory down the street that didn’t have a union.
Suddenly their eyes lit up and they exclaimed; “Hey, the union dues are like our Home Owners Association Fees!” They provide a higher standard of living and our HOA fees help provide higher property values. I went on to tell them that Federal Law forces the union to represent the non dues paying members the same as the dues paying members.
Thanks sprinkler, I have been quoting this example ever since you posted it. It is the perfect retort to the right to work for less union haters. And Martin, Poly is absolutely right about his analogy with slavery. Wages in "right to work for less" states are lower than in other states. Look at the social conditions and tell me that prosperity is flowing to the low tax states. It is the other way around and always has been. High taxes and prosperity go together for reasons that make perfect sense once you get your nose out of the booze the Right peddles.
I think that the minimum wage after you turn 18 should be a living wage.The Union's in the country should combine their resorce's to give the company's a all-out wage war.They should also start organizing everywhere possible.I tried organizing two different place's I worked before I became disabled.If the employer's with 10 worker's or less can't afford Insurance for their employee's then they shouldn't have it for themselve's and look at combining other small bussiness's into one plan to spread the cost.That way the republican's can't complain about Obama Care.The one percent has practically wiped out the middle class along with the tax base of our country,so now it's time for the rich to pay the piper and raise their taxe's to pre-Regan level's and out-law off shore Tax haven's the one percent love so much.That's just for starter's.How much wealth does an individial need?
If we had a national healthcare program, nobody would lose it when they lose a job. Couldn't agree more about the tax the rich. It is only Say's Law about unproductive capital. It is our money even if they have a first shot at investing it where it is needed. But that is asking way to much of the rich. They are not up to the job of job creation, much less the rest of the management of the economy so it works for all.
DRC wrote: They are not up to the job of job creation, much less the rest of the management of the economy so it works for all.
poly replies: or, as FDR put it so eloquently::
"And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.
Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried. But their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstinaugural.html
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
hmm...
Has anyone mentioned the obvious regarding the effects of "free and open" market?
May be it's too obvious.
Here it is:
When we do not have trade restrictions between wealthy/high wage economy and poor/low wage economy is that the there will be capital flow from the wealthy to the poor to bring the two economies into a common equilibrium. It raises the living standard of the poor economy (China) and depress the living standard of the wealthy (US). This is self explanatory wink wink.
this is the "dirty secret" of free and open market. There is more to this but it would be too long to explain all its effects and why the actual equilibrium is weighed toward the poor economy.
When labor arbitrage is the real meaning of 'free trade,' it is the slave owners who pocket the difference, not the workers of the Third World. This is corporate fraud and completely sells out the theories of the utopian free market it relies upon to sell it in the first place. Neither Smith nor Ricardo would stand for this crap.
I go back to Korten and the indigenous, artisanal model of successful development in a post-Wall St. world. Real economy, not phantom wealth. Green bottom lines, not utopianism redone with cynicism. Money does not make money without destroying value.