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  #341  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2012, 9:27 PM
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Why?

You are confusing education with ability. The two are very different.

The first one says that you spent some time in a post-secondary environment.

The second one says that you are good at something that people will pay you well to perform and that you work well with others in order to help an organization move forward.

Sometimes the two go together, sometimes they do not.

I've met more than my share of university grads whom I wouldn't hire to mow my lawn. I know more than a few high school-only grads who could build an entire house with only the most rudimentary of plans. I have of course, seen the opposite as well - but that is just my point. The two are not necessarily linked.

The market will determine who gets $35/hour based on who it needs, not a coronation in purple robes and mortarboard hats.
And of course, some companies hire people based on who they know or family connections, regardless of ability. My university degree was of no help to me until I started looking for jobs abroad.

Last edited by manny_santos; Jan 21, 2012 at 10:40 PM.
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  #342  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2012, 10:13 PM
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What was Fontana thinking today, did he think he was back in parliament or something? Bashing the PM probably isn't the best thing to do if you want the feds to pay attention to the city in the future.
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  #343  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2012, 10:31 PM
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What was Fontana thinking today, did he think he was back in parliament or something? Bashing the PM probably isn't the best thing to do if you want the feds to pay attention to the city in the future.
It's a catch-22. If Fontana praises Harper, Harper is going to act like all is well in London.
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  #344  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2012, 10:37 PM
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I'm getting really tired of the argument regarding the Electro-Motive lockout that Caterpillar is an immensely profitable company. Yes, that is true. But, just because the company is profitable doesn't mean that the London plant is profitable. It might be profitable, it might also be bleeding money. For all we know the company profits could be $300 million higher if the London plant shut down tomorrow. Likewise they could be $300 million less. We don't know.

So far in this lockout, between the London Free Press and AM980, the media coverage has been poor and somewhat lacking in intelligent discussion. I do give the Free Press credit for some of its discussion on what has been going on in Muncie, and the fact that GE workers in Erie, PA make $30/hour. But at least the London media could ask questions about the profitability of the London plant, even if the company isn't going to comment. It would at least show responsible reporting instead of falling back on irrelevant arguments designed to inflame the so-called 99% and sell newspapers.

As someone with an accounting background, in this dispute I don't care about how the whole company is doing financially, I care about how much revenue the London plant brings in compared with how much the plant costs to operate.
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  #345  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2012, 4:45 PM
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What was Fontana thinking today, did he think he was back in parliament or something? Bashing the PM probably isn't the best thing to do if you want the feds to pay attention to the city in the future.
If we just sit around and say nothing, what exactly will that accomplish? Harper has two ridings to lose here. He ought to be concerned about London and would do well to keep us happy.

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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
And of course, some companies hire people based on who they know or family connections, regardless of ability. My university degree was of no help to me until I started looking for jobs abroad.
It's really a double-edged sword. Managers can hurt their career prospects by hiring incompetant boobs, so they will often try to balance trustworthiness and ability when hiring. If you take on someone you already know, chances are you've already found out more about them than anyone could in a 10-minute interview. Irritating, but look at it from their perspective: risk is drastically reduced.

That being said I don't rule out nepotism completely, and I've heard of many cases where daddy's little girl/mommy's little boy was in way over his/her head. Instead of demoting or firing them, the parent will instead opt to use employee time to cover up their offspring's mistakes. In my personal experience the absolute worst perpetrators of this are public-sector managers. I've seen many cases where taxpayer-funded positions are created by the managers for their family members, often paying far higher than private-sector equivalents.

One example: one of my friends was employed by the CBC for the summer, and was working in a position that did not exist before her mom (a manager of sorts) deemed it necessary. She was basically paid $19.50 per hour to fetch coffee and pastries for other employees (compare that to Caterpillar, who is demanding workers be paid less than that for downright back-breaking work).

(By the way, if you browse SSP, I'm sorry for disclosing this )
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  #346  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2012, 7:52 PM
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A link has been posted in the comments sections on the LFP website and on CBC.ca, that is a VERY interesting read. It is the final offer from Electro-Motive to its employees on December 27th, before the lockout began.

http://www.emcupdate.ca/wp-content/u...ec-27-2011.pdf

The most earth-shattering item in this document is that skilled labourers are being offered $34/hour.

Nobody is reporting this. Instead, we are hearing a sob story from the CAW about how all their employees are being asked to take a massive pay cut. One comment on the LFP website suggests that 30-40% of employees are in the "skilled" category where $34/hour is being offered.

At first I did not support the workers because of the high unemployment rate in London. In recent days my support for them grew tremendously as more information came out about the Muncie plant, and what American competitors are paying their employees.

Now that I have seen this, I have lost most of the support I had for the London EMD workers, and I have completely lost any support of the CAW. The CAW has blatently lied to the media and to their members, and the media, not questioning what the CAW has been saying, has been inadvertently lying. The only support I still have for the workers is sympathy for the ones that have been duped by the CAW and think they are getting a pay cut when they really aren't.

Furthermore, although this has not been substantiated, several people claiming to work for EMD have posted on various news websites that the London plant is losing money, even though Caterpillar as a whole is very profitable. We don't know for sure, but this could very well be the case.
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  #347  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2012, 7:58 PM
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It's really a double-edged sword. Managers can hurt their career prospects by hiring incompetant boobs, so they will often try to balance trustworthiness and ability when hiring. If you take on someone you already know, chances are you've already found out more about them than anyone could in a 10-minute interview. Irritating, but look at it from their perspective: risk is drastically reduced.
This is not fair to those people who are interested in a certain career path and have high marks in university, and none of their family works in the industry. I always go back to my original career path, which was accounting. It was something I was very interested in, but unlike most of my classmates at Western, I did not have family who were partners in accounting firms, or worked in the financial industry. All those students had an instant "in" with these firms and were essentially hired before recruiting even took place. Some of these people were far from qualified to work in accounting.
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  #348  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2012, 10:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Wharn
If we just sit around and say nothing, what exactly will that accomplish? Harper has two ridings to lose here. He ought to be concerned about London and would do well to keep us happy.
There are better ways of saying it. For a mayor of a city to tell the prime minister to "get his ass down here" is unprofessional and completely out of line. He's not a Liberal MP anymore.
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  #349  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2012, 11:50 PM
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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
A link has been posted in the comments sections on the LFP website and on CBC.ca, that is a VERY interesting read. It is the final offer from Electro-Motive to its employees on December 27th, before the lockout began.

http://www.emcupdate.ca/wp-content/u...ec-27-2011.pdf

The most earth-shattering item in this document is that skilled labourers are being offered $34/hour.

Nobody is reporting this. Instead, we are hearing a sob story from the CAW about how all their employees are being asked to take a massive pay cut. One comment on the LFP website suggests that 30-40% of employees are in the "skilled" category where $34/hour is being offered.

At first I did not support the workers because of the high unemployment rate in London. In recent days my support for them grew tremendously as more information came out about the Muncie plant, and what American competitors are paying their employees.

Now that I have seen this, I have lost most of the support I had for the London EMD workers, and I have completely lost any support of the CAW. The CAW has blatently lied to the media and to their members, and the media, not questioning what the CAW has been saying, has been inadvertently lying. The only support I still have for the workers is sympathy for the ones that have been duped by the CAW and think they are getting a pay cut when they really aren't.

Furthermore, although this has not been substantiated, several people claiming to work for EMD have posted on various news websites that the London plant is losing money, even though Caterpillar as a whole is very profitable. We don't know for sure, but this could very well be the case.
I would certainly hope that they were offering their skilled trades something in the neighbourhood of $34/hr previously. If they paid less before and this is a pay raise then so what? They are now willing to pay their skilled trades the same that most other places either start at or pay.
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  #350  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 12:43 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
A link has been posted in the comments sections on the LFP website and on CBC.ca, that is a VERY interesting read. It is the final offer from Electro-Motive to its employees on December 27th, before the lockout began.

http://www.emcupdate.ca/wp-content/u...ec-27-2011.pdf

The most earth-shattering item in this document is that skilled labourers are being offered $34/hour.

Nobody is reporting this. Instead, we are hearing a sob story from the CAW about how all their employees are being asked to take a massive pay cut. One comment on the LFP website suggests that 30-40% of employees are in the "skilled" category where $34/hour is being offered.

At first I did not support the workers because of the high unemployment rate in London. In recent days my support for them grew tremendously as more information came out about the Muncie plant, and what American competitors are paying their employees.

Now that I have seen this, I have lost most of the support I had for the London EMD workers, and I have completely lost any support of the CAW. The CAW has blatently lied to the media and to their members, and the media, not questioning what the CAW has been saying, has been inadvertently lying. The only support I still have for the workers is sympathy for the ones that have been duped by the CAW and think they are getting a pay cut when they really aren't.

Furthermore, although this has not been substantiated, several people claiming to work for EMD have posted on various news websites that the London plant is losing money, even though Caterpillar as a whole is very profitable. We don't know for sure, but this could very well be the case.
I seen this too somewhere in recent days, and how things were worded was that those getting paid 30+ bucks an hour were being forced to go down to 16.50 an hour. Now, I'd love to know the percentages of who gets paid what previously, and what they're being offered, but $34 for the majority of the "Skilled" workers certainly sounds reasonable.
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  #351  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 10:21 AM
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If we just sit around and say nothing, what exactly will that accomplish? Harper has two ridings to lose here. He ought to be concerned about London and would do well to keep us happy.
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
There are better ways of saying it. For a mayor of a city to tell the prime minister to "get his ass down here" is unprofessional and completely out of line. He's not a Liberal MP anymore.
As much as the unions and partisan politicians want to blame Harper and CPC its not their responsibility. It's been mis-attributed that Harper "gave Caterpillar $1 billion", that was the entire industry credit, instead of $4 million. Even that its a fair point people argue that it was money poorly spent given the current situation.

However the fact is most labour disputes are provincial jurisdiction, not the feds to usurp at the whims of some protesters and union activists. McGuinty, who is the real government power in this, has only "offered mediation" not ordered it or forced it as his government could potentially do. But no ones scream their tits off about McGuinty doing next to nothing, rather the lockout has turned into another blame Harper political exercise.

Simple fact is Harper can't do shit in this case, McGuinty can, yet because Harper gave them a tax credit, people think he should/can somehow strike back at EMD?! Yet the same people would've been upset if EMD got no tax break 3 years ago, and had moved to Indiana or Mexico. Lose-lose, either way.

I do wish the workers the best though, but it doesn't look very promising
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  #352  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 3:58 PM
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I find it VERY interesting that even though I have contacted the CBC, the Free Press, and AM980 about my findings about the Electro-Motive contract offer, none of them have either acknowledged the facts to me or published anything on the matter.

It just shows how biased our media is. They don't care about the facts, they just want to be mouthpieces for the CAW.
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  #353  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 5:13 PM
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London, Ont. mayor to PM: 'Get your ass down here!'



http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/22...-ass-down-here
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  #354  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 5:20 PM
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I heard the clip on AM980 this morning of Fontana, and man, how unprofessional was he during that speech.

Wasn't impressed one bit with how he handled himself.
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  #355  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 5:22 PM
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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
I find it VERY interesting that even though I have contacted the CBC, the Free Press, and AM980 about my findings about the Electro-Motive contract offer, none of them have either acknowledged the facts to me or published anything on the matter.

It just shows how biased our media is. They don't care about the facts, they just want to be mouthpieces for the CAW.
Keep trying. It's bound to get through. I think if you could get actual employee numbers, and figure out who's getting a pay cut, a pay increase, then that would help.

If all "Skilled" workers were offered $34.00 an hour, then my support for this cause has completely disappeared.

Now, it depends on the other people working who may be getting drastic pay cuts, but really, I wonder how many $30.00+ an hour are getting dropped $10.00+ an hour in their wages. Before, I thought it was everyone, now I wonder who it exactly is.
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  #356  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 8:08 PM
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This is not fair to those people who are interested in a certain career path and have high marks in university, and none of their family works in the industry. I always go back to my original career path, which was accounting. It was something I was very interested in, but unlike most of my classmates at Western, I did not have family who were partners in accounting firms, or worked in the financial industry. All those students had an instant "in" with these firms and were essentially hired before recruiting even took place. Some of these people were far from qualified to work in accounting.
Sure it isn't fair. But you can't force them to hire solely on merit, because in business trustworthiness is also a huge factor. I used to complain about that system back in my first and second years, because it put me at a disadvantage. What you really need to do is go to every networking event you can find and get to know the people there. Follow up with them afterwards. Offer to meet for lunch, coffee, anything, they will usually accept because firms are always on the prowl for talent. Just by having a few contacts, my chances of getting a job have improved dramatically- I already have a few interview offers for positions that are not publically advertised. It's tough work but there really isn't much of an alternative.

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Keep trying. It's bound to get through. I think if you could get actual employee numbers, and figure out who's getting a pay cut, a pay increase, then that would help.

If all "Skilled" workers were offered $34.00 an hour, then my support for this cause has completely disappeared.

Now, it depends on the other people working who may be getting drastic pay cuts, but really, I wonder how many $30.00+ an hour are getting dropped $10.00+ an hour in their wages. Before, I thought it was everyone, now I wonder who it exactly is.
I just assumed everyone was taking a 55% wage cut, so if you're making $50 per hour right now, you'd be down to $25 or so. But if this is not the case, I will be extremely disappointed in the media for putting such a biased spin on the matter.

Something tells me that it's still a hardball contract, though.
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  #357  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2012, 10:38 PM
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Well, got the list of what everyone was getting paid, versus what the new proposal is:

General/assembly all products: $34.64 ($18)
Machinist/production/ special: $34.98 ($18)
Burning/hand and machine: $34.84 ($18)
Machinist/special setup: $36.17 ($20)
Fabrication machine operator/special: $34.84 ($18)
Painter, locomotive: $34.98 ($18)
Welder, locomotive: $34.98 ($20)
Governor and injector repair and inspection: $34.98 ($18)
Inspection process layout: $37.96 ($20)
Quality audit, all vehicles: $35.28 ($20)
Test and repair/locomotive: $37.78 ($22)
Crane operator: $34.98 ($18)
Crane operator mobile (licensed): $35.25 ($22)
Material control utility: $34.85 ($18)
Oiler: $34.75 ($18)
Cleaning, production parts: $34.47 ($16.50)
Machine operator, tool room: $34.62 ($16.50)
Labourer: $34.62 ($16.50)
Stationary engineer, second class: $40.70 ($34)
Plumber: $40.70 ($34)
Electrician: $41.01 ($34)
Industrial truck repair/gas, electrical and diesel: $41.01 ($34)
Machine repair machinist: $40.89 ($34)
Welder, tool and die maintenance: $40.93 ($34)

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2...-19280481.html

Those making the biggest paycheques are facing a loss of $7.01, but some of the "unskilled" workers will be dropping down big time. $35 an hour last year to work as a "Cleaner of Production Parts"
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  #358  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2012, 2:36 AM
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These are still some pretty big cuts, but they aren't quite as bad as the CAW and the media were making them out to be.

I really resent how this has been misrepresented, to an extent. Sure, the workers still have a right to protest the cuts, and yes they are very deep, but by the same token most of the offers are not exactly apocalyptic. I think Fontana might have over-reacted.
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  #359  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2012, 4:07 AM
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I'm on the fence here.

The vast majority of these jobs scream as OVERPAID. however, being OVERPAID is rarely the employees fault. Of course they're going to take advantage of whatever they can in terms of a good offer. I can't see how being a Painter is worth $35 an hour, and the new wages proposed are alot more reasonable to me.

however, if you've been working for a certain period of time, at a certain wage rate, your lifestyle will be impacted in a way that you likely can't afford things you easily were to before. That's extremely tough to deal with, and certainly is not a workers fault. Imagine if you purchased a 400K home recently, and with the previous wages, affording a mortgage with that pay would be easy to do. now, imagine your income has been slashed by 40% - how on earth can you afford/pay down your mortgage on the terms you agreed to?

The problem is that the unions previously made practically ordinary jobs that anyone could do give pay out to exorbitant levels. Of course if you're applying and get a job that pays you $35 an hour with a high school diploma, you're going to take it and take advantage of the system within it's limits. That's how we work.

Basically, it's a tough call now, I fully support the proposed pay grades, but I have some sympathy to union members who suddenly will have to fully adjust their lifestyle because of what existed beforehand.
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  #360  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2012, 4:36 PM
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Keep trying. It's bound to get through. I think if you could get actual employee numbers, and figure out who's getting a pay cut, a pay increase, then that would help.

If all "Skilled" workers were offered $34.00 an hour, then my support for this cause has completely disappeared.

Now, it depends on the other people working who may be getting drastic pay cuts, but really, I wonder how many $30.00+ an hour are getting dropped $10.00+ an hour in their wages. Before, I thought it was everyone, now I wonder who it exactly is.
I guess the LFP's What's At Issue piece was the answer. I am glad to see that any media outlet is reporting this, and it is interesting reading the comments. "London Vitali", who I think is the wife of an EMD worker, went as far as telling us that what the workers make is "none of our business". The Free Press is only reporting the facts, and this comment smacks of desperation by the union. I can imagine today that the CAW is royally pissed that their lies have been exposed in the media.

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I'm on the fence here.
I'm very much on the fence too. Honestly, though, I am a believer that if an unskilled worker wants to make good money in a skilled trade, he or she should go to college - as anyone who reads my posts know I am a big believer in education. As much as I feel badly for my one family member who works for EMD and is locked out, he has nothing past high school and he really should go to college.

I will give him credit though - instead of sitting around complaining like a lot of the other employees who have been posting on the LFP website, he is actively looking for another job.

Last edited by manny_santos; Jan 24, 2012 at 5:04 PM.
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