A letter I received for your edification (source or validity cannot be confirmed)

As I have said, this is a contribution I received from my father-in-law. I cannot confirm its origins and thus I cannot confirm its validity, but knowing the U.A.W. it is probably not far off:
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Unions are BAD

The one thing that this story does not mention is that Toyota, Nissan etc do not have UAW in their plants. There in, my friends, is the source of the real problem; it costs American automakers $75/hr in labor costs while it only costs foreign automakers $40/hr for labor costs.

I worked in U.S. auto plants and I can tell you from first hand experience that UAW has crippled the American Auto Manufacturers, period end of story!!

Example; did you know that the janitor for the boiler room, (yes the boiler room and only the boiler room because work rules were such that they had to have a separate janitor) made $55K in 1978 doing only janitorial work in the boiler room? No bull story, not second hand, not from a guy who knows a guy, personal first hand experience by me while working in the auto plant in Lordstown Assembly.

You can blame Management all you want but the bottom line is that UAW workers don't work, and that is what the real issue is.

Consider this, the three most powerful unions represent the three most inept and least effective workforces around today; do you know which ones they are?

UAW - the American auto worker, not much more to be said here.

The American Education Association - teachers. Did you know that in all major school systems the teachers are rated outstanding to excellent yet the schools, on average of 70 to 90%, are all rated as poor to failing?

Union of Government Workers (the largest section of the AFL-CIO) represents all those wonderful people that make our lives so interesting when we have to deal with the government on any level. (Did you know that 10 years ago the Cuyahoga recorders office had 5 employees to handle all the county recorder business? Today they employ 105 workers and the county has actually shrunk while "improved methods" of record keeping have been implemented.

Did you know that it is practically IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of a union worker? In addition, if you really wanted to it would cost between $200 to $350K to do so. Did you know that in the Cleveland School System only one BAD teacher, out of 3900, has been fired in the last two years? It cost $350K plus the salary earned while going thru the process?