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  #401  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2012, 7:36 PM
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Rick Mercer's take on Canadian unions and the Conservative government:

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This was made in October 2011 yet is pretty relevant to what happened at Electro-Motive.


Big question: do you think this would have happened if the plant was still part of GM's Diesel Division? If that company hadn't tanked they may not have sold it?
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  #402  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2012, 7:47 PM
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Possibly if GM Diesel still owned the plant this might not have happened but that is a pretty big IF. Gm Diesel was two owners ago.
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  #403  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2012, 8:23 PM
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Big question: do you think this would have happened if the plant was still part of GM's Diesel Division? If that company hadn't tanked they may not have sold it?
I think other changes would have been made a long time ago if this was still under the GM diesel division.
I dealt with EMD over the past few years and they were quite frankly a pain to work with...very slow, zero sense of urgency, they would often wait until the last second to order things and as a result pay large air charge premiums. From what I saw it's really no shock they are no longer around.
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  #404  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2012, 11:04 PM
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If EMD was still owned by GM diesel, I think the outcome would have been similar.

Having GM diesel own Electro-Motive was as disasterous as having GM Corp. own Saab. The two entities suffered from poor management and chronic under-investment, so by the time new buyers came around the operations of both companies (Saab and EMD) were woefully inefficient and hopelessly outdated.

The difference is Saab's new owners actually tried to save it. Not so with Electro-Motive. General Rule: Anything run by General Motors eventually goes to pot!
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  #405  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2012, 3:23 AM
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Slagging unions is one thing. But what about the cops/firemen getting year-over-year raises double the inflation rate for the past decade? Compare to those poor bastards at electromotive asked to take an extreme pay cut (which we all know was simply a ruse to gain a pretext to move the company to buttfuck usa). Look, we all know that the wages were unsustainable. But you can't really blame the workers for the unsustainable pay increases of the past.
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  #406  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2012, 1:45 AM
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http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2.../19399816.html

The Free Press is still spreading the blatant lie about the EMD workers taking a 50% pay cut. I have just sent them an email (again) with a link to EMD's final offer, and then telling them that it is very unfortunate how much they have sensationalized the EMD issue without providing balanced coverage, and instead manipulating facts (such as EMD's final offer) to suit the CAW's position.

Between the Free Press and AM980, I am starting to think more and more that London's media landscape is dominated by young, recent graduates who have no idea what they're talking about when they write a story. I know from interning at The Gazette at Western that it is very difficult to stop your personal biases from showing through in a news article, but it can be done - it takes journalistic skill, which is an art. You just have to know the right questions to ask, but I don't think today's commercial journalists have a clue how to do that - instead it's interview the head of the CAW, do a few man-on-the-street interviews, and you've got a story. There's no in-depth research anymore.

Walter Blackburn would be horrified at what his two London media properties have become.
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  #407  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2012, 4:28 AM
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Originally Posted by manny_santos View Post
Between the Free Press and AM980, I am starting to think more and more that London's media landscape is dominated by young, recent graduates who have no idea what they're talking about when they write a story.
Funny, I've thought the same thing about journalists in general over the past several years. People who are very skilled at writing but lack any relevant knowledge on the subject at hand.
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  #408  
Old Posted Feb 29, 2012, 3:37 PM
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This week's massive job loss in Southwestern Ontario comes to us from Chatham, already ravaged by the loss of the Navistar Truck plant:

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2.../19439676.html

This is not the Canada I remember growing up with, and I have a little rant I need to get off my chest. As some of you know I currently work in Latin America, in a region that has economically grown by leaps and bounds over the past 18 years. It really bothers me when local people here question why I, a Canadian, would want to work in their country when I'm from a golden "land of opportunity". Locals I talk to are absolutely shocked when I tell them about London's unemployment rate, and about the multitude of employers that have closed down in Southwestern Ontario (EMD, Ford Talbotville, Sterling, etc.); in some cases, job losses their country has directly benefitted from. They also don't know about the unemployment problems in other parts of Ontario, and in the Maritimes. Instead, they cite the number of people from their country who go to Canada to work (not knowing that most of them are actually seasonal farm workers going to pick tobacco in Norfolk County). The Canada we're living with today is not the image of Canada they had.

I spoke with a man from Cleveland recently who echoed my sentiment with respect to the United States, and he said that many people from where I am now who crossed into the United States (legally or otherwise) to find work have been so shocked by the economic problems in that country that they've gone back home to find work. Being from Downtown Cleveland, he knows what he's talking about.

This isn't the 1950s anymore, where Canada and the United States were booming, and most of Latin America was in the third world.

There, end of rant.
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  #409  
Old Posted Feb 29, 2012, 3:55 PM
Highinthesky Highinthesky is offline
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So it was a rant about things change?
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  #410  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2012, 4:43 AM
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So it was a rant about things change?
My rant was related to people I know in Latin America who make comments to me about leaving "the golden land of opportunity" to go work in their country, when they have no idea what they're talking about.
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  #411  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2012, 11:49 AM
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Nothing annoys me more these days when I have to make a call to some institution for technical support and I get someone in a foreign country and most of the time even though they can speak English it is heavily tainted with their own accent still leaving a language barrier.

I have nothing against other countries or languages, it's just that it can make things very difficult at times and most of the time when you're calling for support it's because something has happened that was unintended causing duress in the first place.
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  #412  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2012, 8:23 PM
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Originally Posted by Symz View Post
Nothing annoys me more these days when I have to make a call to some institution for technical support and I get someone in a foreign country and most of the time even though they can speak English it is heavily tainted with their own accent still leaving a language barrier.

I have nothing against other countries or languages, it's just that it can make things very difficult at times and most of the time when you're calling for support it's because something has happened that was unintended causing duress in the first place.
In many cases that's a result of people not starting to learn English until an older age. In some non-English countries today it is common to start learning English in earnest in Kindergarten. We may see the results of that in the next 30 years - more English-speaking people in other countries with much less of an accent than today.
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  #413  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2012, 8:56 PM
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Customer support really is an afterthought for most companies, so I'm disappointed to see call centres moving into foreign countries with poor training. I used to have to deal with Bell's India-based tech support, which was outrageously bad, and switching to Teksavvy's Chatham-based support was like night and day.

As far as Latin American opinions go, I suppose old presumptions die hard. Little do they know, but there are probably a lot of industrial workers in this country who strongly resent them.
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  #414  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2012, 2:06 AM
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Bit of an old article, but London's unemployment rate stood at 8.8% in February, partially because a whole bunch of people just gave up.

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2.../19480686.html

I honestly expected it to be worse, but we're still second-highest in the country (behind the perpetually troubled Windsor, which stands at 10.7%). Surprisingly, Toronto is not doing much better, with 8.6%.

I was perusing through the Toronto Star at a Chinese Restaurant a few days ago, and I found an article that says 100,000 people left Ontario for Alberta between 2003 and 2010. Can you blame them?
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  #415  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2012, 2:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Wharn View Post
Bit of an old article, but London's unemployment rate stood at 8.8% in February, partially because a whole bunch of people just gave up.

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2.../19480686.html

I honestly expected it to be worse, but we're still second-highest in the country (behind the perpetually troubled Windsor, which stands at 10.7%). Surprisingly, Toronto is not doing much better, with 8.6%.

I was perusing through the Toronto Star at a Chinese Restaurant a few days ago, and I found an article that says 100,000 people left Ontario for Alberta between 2003 and 2010. Can you blame them?
I was expecting much better numbers for Windsor too, but any decrease is better than an increase. At least our numbers dropped because the workforce actually grew, and new jobs were created. Hopefully this trend continues.
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  #416  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2012, 2:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wharn View Post
Bit of an old article, but London's unemployment rate stood at 8.8% in February, partially because a whole bunch of people just gave up.

I was perusing through the Toronto Star at a Chinese Restaurant a few days ago, and I found an article that says 100,000 people left Ontario for Alberta between 2003 and 2010. Can you blame them?
I'm one of many Londoners who has left the labour force, after being laid off in September. I was one of the few graduates from my program at Fanshawe that even found a job related to my field after graduation (not in London but nearby), and seeing what my Fanshawe colleagues were still dealing with in September, I felt there was no point in even trying to find another job in Southwestern Ontario. One Fanshawe grad I know has been without work since July, but she refuses to look for work outside Ontario. Another Fanshawe grad I know works in a call center, far outside of her field, but she refuses to look for work outside the London area. She won't even look in Toronto, where all the jobs in her field are located. They're both good friends but I have a tough time feeling sorry for them when they complain about their lack of job or their lousy job, because they have the choice to look elsewhere. It's an easy trap to fall into when you love the city you're from. (I don't hate London, but it's not on my top 100 choices of places I'd want to live in.)

Fortunately for me, I see myself as a citizen in a more global context than in a strictly local/regional context, so looking outside Ontario and outside Canada for a job is much more appealing to me than for some.

Last edited by manny_santos; Mar 14, 2012 at 3:11 PM.
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  #417  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2012, 3:06 PM
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Being one of those 8.8%'s, it's higher. I use the fanshawe job deal, and the people say it's really closer to 15-20%. People only on EI are counted. Once theirs expires, it drops that %. Mine is set to expire soon I believe (shit) and again, I am unemployed. Welcome to the wide world of false statistics.
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  #418  
Old Posted Mar 16, 2012, 6:06 AM
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Have you heard the recent story about OLG's restructuring? It could involve upgrading London's slots at the Western Fair into a casino.

Story from A Channel:
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I would like to see this happen. With the closure of nearby slots, London will become more attractive. It will pump more money into the local economy too.

Plus I'm a sucker for Blackjack. Gotta drive at least an hour away to play a some hands.
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  #419  
Old Posted Mar 16, 2012, 12:22 PM
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As much as this news is bad for some places, this is a huge chance for London.

Maybe they can become a full blown casino (actual tables) along with a new hotel in the area for gamblers as well as the hockey tournaments. I think the Western Fair district is going to use this as a huge chance to increase capacity and continue growing.

Last edited by MrSlippery519; Mar 16, 2012 at 2:52 PM.
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  #420  
Old Posted Mar 17, 2012, 12:08 AM
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Western Fair already has plans to buy properties between Rectory & Ontario Streets, building a hotel among other things. I remember these plans being published and Fontana and some of council not being happy since it creates a Western Fair vs. Downtown revitalization battle.

While it is bad for other communities hopefully re-organization of casinos would help London's economy, and gets some more business
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