The US Economy with care and consideration for the worker.

Trade must be free and fair. Check out http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-27306 We, as Americans must look at ourselves as a country first. Quality over price is what we are doing for the most part. All the TV's sold in the US come from overseas, most notably Asia. I saw a US car and the country of origin is now put on the sticker, 88% of the material and labor came from South Korea (My views on Free Trade/Fair Trade http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-27306 ). The UAW states they want to protect US jobs, but what they really care about is collecting their Union dues. Union membership is inflated only because some states make it so if you want to work in a Union Shop, you must be in that Union. My Aunt is now retired, so I can talk about her. If she would have worked in a regular shop, she would not have been able to take advantage of the system. She used to call in sick a lot for reasons she just did not want to work. At the same time she talked about if you said a minority worker was inept at their job, or you even tried to help them and they got mad, the union representative came down on you.

I believe what should be between management and labor is a team of employees chosen every year by the employees with three years as being the longest number of consecutive terms an employee can have.

The new thinking is labor is expensive. It is better to have a machine idle than an employee idle. Unions had their time for US labor and that was long ago. Why were the unions needed?

• 1. The unsafe working conditions
• 2. The overworking of labor
• 3. Taking advantage of situations with labor
• 4. Correcting unsafe conditions to the public

Now what are the number one and two reasons for having a Union?

• 1. More pay
• 2. More free time

What Unions fail to grasp is people need jobs. When a strike is called, one day on the picket line has more or less eroded all of their gains they would have gotten. Union picketers harass employees crossing the picket lines and the temporary employees (scabs). The temporary employees are doing the job the Union Workers have refused to do. I would have zero pain if the company refused any more negotiations with the Union if a strike is called. The employees can cross the picket lines as long as they understand they are working for what they were getting, no more. Then given the choice if they still wanted their Union dues taken out or if they want to revoke their Union membership, I would suggest they probably would just like their job back.

The people concerned about their factory and their own personal economic status will continues to work their job. The company will also gain new employees who have the company at heart.
Back to the employee team as mentioned earlier. The employees should come up with a way to organize themselves. Whether it is one or two members from each cell, department, section, etc. Taking in consideration for the members of the other shifts. Each shift should be equal in number regardless of size of shift.

Employees should be able to start on the ground running the day they start. A very simple way of having the employees earn vacation time and/or sick time is as follows:
I believe every employee should be salaried. This gives the employee a base of what they can expect each pay period. Even at a fast food restaurant salary them, maybe not for 40/44 hours, but for 20/24 or along those lines. This example is for a normal 40hour work week.

EXAMPLE

Salary the employee at 44hours. They would still clock in as normally done. They would be scheduled for 40 hours as normal; the four extra hours they did not work will be logged. This is the time the employee owes to the company. The employee that makes up the hours might wait until week two and work an extra 8 hour day. So the amount of time owed to the company would be zero. The eight hours would be logged as positive time saved, and eight hours would be deducted from hours owed.
In a 52 week year, this would add up to a total of 208 hours.
These hours can be broken down for new employees as for every 2 hours you have logged in as positive hours, you can have an hour of vacation time, which is roughly 13 days of vacation for the year, but you start earning your vacation time the day you start working.
For every 3 hours in the positive log hours you can get one sick hour. Which means you would be getting paid for not working and no excuse should be required. After all, anyone can get any excuse from a doctor; you just need to find the right doctor.
Now the specific numbers stated were for explanation purposes only. The real numbers would have to be determined by the employees of the company and the company.
Now the company giving you a bonus vacation time for your years of service or lesser time to earn vacation or sick time can and should be done.
The most valuable assets to a company are the employees.
Now there will always be those that use a system for their advantage. If a person is absent and have zero time banked up, the hours owed log would increase three hours for every hour missed. Once the hours owed bank is equal to the number our hours salaried, the employee is let go unless FMLA or some other government program would come into play.
Remember this; I am whole heartedly in favor of labor. I just think that government regulations for health and safety have replaced the need for Labor Unions and all Labor Unions really care about are getting Union members' dues.
Take a look at my proposal to revamp the IRS, almost actually dismantling the IRS and starting over with how wage and salary deductions are made, and eliminating April 15^th^ tax deadlines for filing. http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-34000

My cousin is roughly my age, and a big Union person. He was one of the leaders when a certain foundry went on strike. The foundry told them all they could afford to do was leave the pay the same, and they were going to have to pay more for their health insurance. So the Union workers voted to go on strike. The foundry was doing its best to get enough workers to meet the demand. The BIG 3 has to deal with their own Union problems and have not been able to keep up with what their suppliers need. All I know about the situations is they filed for bankruptcy, ended up losing the company and all of those employees could have went back when the foundry was purchased for about 70% of what they were making, and it was a non-Union shop. So the Union did absolutely nothing for workers. Unions care about their kick-backs from Union dues, because in the long run, a Union is a business.
Charles R Newman (Chuck)
http://CharlesRNewmanUSPresident.com
Look for me in the news, and look for Senator Hillary Clinton to Upstage Senator Obama at Denver.