Oh kids, I couldn't make this shizz up if I tried.
A little birdie told me the following...
When Audi's light set went up in flames causing the Great Detroit Fire of 2010, Audi staff on hand acted quickly to grab keys and move vehicles out of the way so A) fire personnel could easily extinguish the fire and B) the cars wouldn't be totally ruined.
Guess who got all up in arms about that?
The union.
Yup. Strict rules on who can do what in auto show land, in union cities at least. Never mind that it was a dire emergency situation.
Never mind that it took one booth literally 28 hours to get their brochures restocked according to union rules during busy show days when consumers were thirsty for info.
If Audi had waited around for a union guy to get there, the cars would have been completely destroyed and Richard Simmons would be wearing long pants sweatin' to the oldies with Satan.
Another display waited around for eight hours for a union electrician to show up, and all that needed to be done was have three wires unplugged from the wall. Yes, that is in fact a job a four-year-old can do.
I don't know what the repercussions were to Audi, if there were any fines levied, etc. But frankly, this kind of thing does nothing but give European manufacturers more reason to stay away from NAIAS. (And the Chicago show, and NY...)
Friday, January 29, 2010
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I hate unions! They seem to employ some of the most lazy people that are out there, but are also the first ones to complain when you do the work for them. Seattle got a reality check when Boeing decided it didn't want to pay the local union boys crazy wages / benefits and open a new plant in South Carolina. They broke the union (this was part of the deal before giving them the business) and are going to be paying them half as much and not have the difficulties of dealing with a Union. I believe there was a time when unions were a good thing, I just don’t think that time is now anymore.
ReplyDeleteI hate unions! They seem to employ some of the most lazy people that are out there, but are also the first ones to complain when you do the work for them. Seattle got a reality check when Boeing decided it didn't want to pay the local union boys crazy wages / benefits and open a new plant in South Carolina. They broke the union (this was part of the deal before giving them the business in SC) and are going to be paying them half as much and not have the difficulties of dealing with a Union. I believe there was a time when unions were a good thing, I just don’t think that time is now anymore.
ReplyDeleteUPS has fewer "lazy" people than any other company and they are union. Lazyiness has nothing to do with being union, it has to do with the way the upper management runs the company.
ReplyDeleteToo funny! I remember working at a place where there were some union folks and they were religious about break times and other stuff too.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure unions are totally unnecessary all the time. I had a job a few years ago that would have been a lot better for me, and for thousands of others, had there been a union to stand up for the little people. Said company has terrible turnover due to its horrible employee treatment. But back to the fire, very glad people got out OK and those Audis are safe. Audis are a guilty pleasure of mine. I would love an S5 or something like that but those cars depreciate almost as bad as Maseratis.
ReplyDeleteWow, and I thought the government had some crazy rules. Also, I hope you weren't at the DC Auto show this week, it sucked ten different kinds of hard. It wouldn't matter if a fire broke out in there because it was so empty there would have been nothing to sustain the blaze.
ReplyDeleteAs a union member I hate to see union bashing. I will admit, however, that there are lots of silly rules that both management and I have to follow at my job.
ReplyDeleteMost of the union rules (at least in the case of my job) were made 30+ years ago and a lot of them are outdated but no one is making an effort to change them it seems.
Chicago in particular is losing trade shows left and right due to the expense of hosting them here. The city is trying to work with the union to lower the labor costs. Of course, the politicians depend on the union's vote, so this might be an uphill battle.
ReplyDelete