Corporate Double Speak and Unions

[rsdoran]

Good for you Stephen! As long as you own the company its no one else's business how much you net or how you compensate your employees.

But it is ok to talk about another company and their employees.

Just wrong.

Phil, this thread needs to be stopped, please.

 

[TConnolly]

Here are just a few numbers made on some big ASSumptions - since the article did not give us any idea what the machinists at the plant are paid and what the employee's portion of the health insurance is.

So assuming that an employee is paid $50,000/year and that his insurance premium is $500/month of which he pays 50% with the company picking up the other 50%. Bear in mind that the premium is going up each year, so the amount the company is shelling out for its half of the preimum is also going up.

The employee can expect a raise of $1,500 this year. His health insurance premium will go up by $37.50/month, or $450/year. The second year he will get a raise of $1545 and his health care will go up $517.50. After five years, he will be making 8,000 dollars more than he makes now, and will be paying $3,000 dollars more in health care than he pays now.

No way is the employee going to come out with less net pay. Calculating the net pay (less taxes, etc) from the increased health care costs, the employee nets a steady 2% raise for each of the five years, netting $15,406 (again not counting taxes, etc.) more over five years after paying the health insurance premium increases.

Whether thats fair or not is for you to judge, but mere percentages reported in a news article never ever tell the whole story. To the undeducated who hears just 3% and 15% it sounds like the employee is getting thoroughly screwed when in fact he is not.

(Employees earning less than $15,000/year have reason to feel screwed. I serously doubt that any union employees are any where near close to being in that category.)

------------------------------------

I usually enjoy Stephen's posts and find them to be informative, but picking on a competitor using numbers which tell an incomplete story is an ad hominem fallacy, or to use a word I recently learned: schadenfreude.


.

 

[rsdoran]

I personally do not care about the strike and the numbers associated with it.

It was plain wrong of Stephen to make this post, eventually I will be banned or this post will cease to exist.

 

[MarkTTU]

Good for you Stephen! As long as you own the company its no one else's business how much you net or how you compensate your employees.

But it is ok to talk about another company and their employees.

Just wrong.

Phil, this thread needs to be stopped, please.

How much did you net last year? How much did you share with your 'employees' (anyone you paid who performed a service)?

Are those fair questions to ask you? No.

The only people that have any business knowing how much any company nets are the people who own the company. For a publicly traded company (AB, Citibank, etc) the only reasonable way to disseminate that information is via a public channel, but for a privately held company there is no reason what-so-ever to disclose that information... it can be used against you by your suppliers, competitors, and customers too easily.

Now to the thing I think you've really taken issue with. I agree with you, it was improper for Stephen to create this thread given that he is a competitor; in my opinion it reflects badly on him and his company.

I think any company or representative of a company that slanders its competition (even if its only eluded to as Stephen's was) is headed down the wrong path under virtually all circumstances. A company should stand up and say "look at us, look how good we are", not "look how bad our competition is"... Intentional or not I think the latter is what Stephen did by starting this thread - while I am not a big AB fan (because of lack of knowledge) I do think they tend to take a pretty good beating, but they must be pretty good at what they do to be as big as they are with the following they have.

 

[rsdoran]

How much did you net last year? How much did you share with your 'employees' (anyone you paid who performed a service)?

Are those fair questions to ask you? No.

Its fair to question another companies procedure though.

Y'all do not want to get me started, it will not be nice.

End this Phil.

 

[CroCop]

Its fair to question another companies procedure though.

Y'all do not want to get me started, it will not be nice.

End this Phil.

Come on. I haven't seen great trolling action since my man RDB said he was his wife, and posted that he died on the way to the hardware store to get some files.

I could use some more classic trolling.....

 

[Stephen Luft]

my last words on this:

First a definition:

Slander - words falsely spoken that damage the reputation of another.

The information provided in the original post were from the Dow Jones news wire and a press release from Rockwell (regarding their financial information).

The information presented was in the public domain.

I could provide examples, but would not want to be accused of slander.

I usually enjoy Stephen's posts and find them to be informative, but picking on a competitor using numbers which tell an incomplete story is an ad hominem fallacy, or to use a word I recently learned: schadenfreude

The dispute was over the 15% increase per year in health care costs that the company wanted the employees to pay. Just because you don't have the imperical numbers doesn't mean the story is incomplete...it is 15%, no matter what the actual numbers were, it was significant enough for the union to say no.

Some of you have prompted me to share and provide perspective from the position of a PLC manufacturer...therefore, Yes...I did offer some commentary and opinion from the perspective of a business owner and PLC manufacturer. Forgive me for having an opinion. I must be the only one on this forum that does.

Whether any of you choose to believe me or not, I have no control. As simply put as possible, I read the press release and thought this would be something of interest to the forum, given the many Rockwell customers that visit. There was no intent to slander or destroy but merely to inform. (Paul...that was the purpose of this post.)

Yes the story was negative. Yes they are a competitor, but as we have concern for our customers, I do have concern for other company's customers as well.

I do hope that the issues are resolved promptly, because as it has been stated several times within this thread, very little that is good comes out of a strike, not to mention a prolonged strike. In addition to the 140 Rockwell employees involved, there are countless thousands that are affected in the form of Rockwell customers...and their customer's customers, not to mention all of their families. Did any of you think of them?

Without going into detail...take some time to think about the macro effects of a strike.

I thank you all for holding me accountable to a higher standard.

I guess in the future, should I post a thread or reply, I will have to provide a full disclaimer as to my intentions before hand, so that everyone is fully aware of its purpose (and my agenda).

The messanger has been shot.

I'm done.

 

[MarkTTU]

Stephen, posting a link to the story with a comment that you're concerned or that you thought everyone in the automation industry should be aware of the situation is one thing and I would not have had issue with you doing that.

Posting your negative (the whole mess is negative) unsolicited thoughts and comments about your competitor crosses the line (IMHO). Because you are a competitor any unprovoked negativity will automatically come across in a negative light, fair or not.

I will say that I know you well enough from your other posts and threads to know that you did not mean for the thread to come across as it did.

At the end of the day, fair or not, you are held to a higher standard than many others here because you own Entertron.

 

[RheinhardtP]

OT:On a ligther note..



Life at work is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels. Some monkeys are climbing up, some down.


The monkeys at the top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces

The monkeys at the bottem look up and see nothing but A$$HOLES.


And that is life..

 

[RussB]

unsolicited thoughts and comments

Who gets to do the soliciting?

 

[cntrlfrk]

The monkeys at the bottem look up and see nothing but A$$HOLES.


And that is life..

Which is why some of us sweat and bleed to get our way to the top so we don't get crapped on, and some others sit at the bottom and complain about getting crapped on, claiming it's the fault of the monkeys on the higher branches.

 

[grs]

I like pie. Apple best.

 

[Bob O]

I love pie but apple isn't the best.

 

[TimothyMoulder]

Screw pie! Cheesecake! That's the ticket!

(let's see how long THAT takes to touch off a firestorm of baked-goods conflict)

 

[kamenges]

No, no, no!!! Rhubarb custard pie. Now THAT'S good eatin'!!