Looking for help... Skilled trades...

[Detective D]

As a former tradesman and subsequently a career construction manager, I can look back with an insiders view and say this issue has been building for decades. It's now at an significantly impactful level, and the outlook is dim. The upcoming generations get softer and softer and are taught not to respect trade work... so young people take on a load of student debt, work low wage desk jobs, and then complain about income inequality, high cost of living, blah, blah, blah.

Our local high school was touting how they had 100% of the graduating class going to college. Instead we should be proud to say that X% are going to trade schools, apprenticeships, or straight to work. We need a fundamental societal shift.

For all the negativity about immigration, we actually need immigrants that are motivated and willing to do physical work. I am convinced that our governing bodies over the last 30+ years fully understand this, and that is why so much undocumented immigration is actually allowed to happen. The construction industry has been leaning on this for years.

It is not some brilliant plan to have a bunch of illegal people move into our country. It would not even be a discussion if people would evaluate what has happened since around 1995.
Clinton allowed the major banks to use savings money and loan interest to do speculative trading when he revoked Glass-Steagal. That law was put in place when FDIC was put into place, because tax payers would bail out other tax payers if their bank went bad. Once that law was revoked, tax payers had to bail out banks that had used normal, working Joe's car loan interest and savings accounts to trade stocks. When that law was revoked, so much money poured into the stock market it is almost unfathomable. So it kept going up and up and up, and they kept putting money in.
Except they didn't have endless money, people only had so much savings, so many car loans to make. So they pushed mortgages, because they could use the mortgage interest from THE LIFE OF THE MORTGAGE to put into stocks. So people taking 30 year loans in 2001 meant the bank could take interest they wouldn't see until 2030 and use it for speculative trading.
Then they sold mortgage securities, because having those mortgages meant you could get your hands on that interest money. So people took loans, the loan got sold without their consent or even knowledge sometimes, even so far as to sell it in pieces.
Then, they ran out of that money too. So then the housing market failed, everything failed.
TAXPAYERS BAILED OUT THE BANKS. Why? Not because "too big to fail" but because FDIC INSURED. We were on the hook to save their bacon, by law, through FDIC insurance because THAT is the money they used, and lost.

Why does all that matter? Because when that happened, the leadership of most every big bussiness said "This is fine, I don;t need a pay cut or to even lose profits much." Aaaaaand they just stopped paying people more money.
In the midwest, people in trades, manufacturing, construction.... they didn;t get a raise. For a decade. Maybe 13 years sometimes. Except all that money the banks poured in, well, it went out there into the marketplace and inflation went crazy, and deflation never made a dent in it. So people got to the point where they didn't buy a car, no one bought a home, everything stagnated and skilled people LEFT. They LEFT FROM EVERYWHERE, trade unions, non union, semi skilled.... they all hopped jobs to somewhere that would give them 50cents an hour more because it was better then the nothing they got for the last 8 years or more. many just dropped out of that, because if they couldn;t buy a car or home why work so hard?
Alternatively, people worked their *** off. Two jobs, 80 hours at one job, that entire span was "overtime is the cheapest labor" because after all, the pay was the same in 2015 as it was in 2005, but health insurance costs quadrupled. So people worked double the hours a week because then they could earn 22 bucks an hour instead of 15, for at least half the time.

So those young people now.... guess what? They grew up watching Mom and Dad both doing that and thought: Holy cow, why TF would anyone do this just for a house? SO THEY DON'T.

Then, about 5 years ago, TSHTF. Massive labor shortages, employee retention fell apart. Why? Because the economy had finally uncorked and businesses had big sales, and needed more people, and the only way to get them was to throw money out there. We have been in 5-6 years worth of WAGE WAR ever since. We never did catch up to where we are supposed to be, hence McDonald's paying more then some manufacturing positions. The needle moves slow in industry, and the trades, they can;t look at quarter to quarter like retail and adjust on the fly, they need contracts to work through, material prices to move, etc.

Bringing in hoardes of people isn;t to "bolster the workforce" it is to MAINTAIN THE STANDARD OF INCREDIBLY CHEAP LABOR that has been in place for almost 15 years and suddenly got totally rocked in the last 5-6. People actually were allowed to almost catch up in the wage game(see: housing market boom) so a flood of new people is supposed to stagnate that again. It won't, because they printed so much money they can never put the genie back in the bottle. There are plenty of people willing to work, they are just looking at the effort vs. the pay and choosing less effort for not much less pay.
This is why I wrote in my last giant comment we are in a whole new world for wages. We have 20 YEARS of wage stagnation to catch up on. 3% a year for a good worker is 60% of what they earned before. If it was $20/hour in 2005, it will be $30-35 now. $40/hour in 2005? try $65/hour now. Maybe more. From what I can tell, the only ones to figure this out so far are car mechanics that are charging $120/hour shop rate now when it was $30 in 2005. In 2005 construction framers by me made $12-20/hour depending on position and tenure. Now they make $15-25. Imagine being in that industry for the last 18 years and earning $5/hour more then you did back then. What young person in their right mind is going to go after house framing for $15/hour when they can go sit on a stool at ALDI for $18? The answer is none of them will, and the framer that didn;t get a raise for 18 years has moved on to something different so he could get an extra $2/hour because every little bit helps.

So instead of owning up to our mistakes and fixing the issue and making plans to help business adapt and people to catch up on wages, instead the answer is to flood the country with more labor and try to maintain a state of barely middle class for skilled labor? YEAH< OUR LEADERS ARE SO BRILLIANT.
Frankly, the idea of building a business around a bunch of undocumented illegal workers just because they will show up for $5/hour less then people that already live in your hometown sounds really, really, really stupid. Does anyone imagine the illegals will choose the hardest jobs for barely more money any more then the young generation does now? WHY WOULD THEY? Why wouldn't they go sit at ALDI too?
Figure out what your company paid in 2005, add at least 60% minimum and see where that lands on your pay scale. Keep in mind if you paid a premium for a niche skillset before, you will probably be looking more like +100% or more because the available labor in that niche is much smaller then it was in 2005. That is the price we all have to pay to right the ship because of almost 20 years of absolute heinous economic policy making.
The alternative is to let it all collapse, and we can live like China or worse.

Sorry this got so long, but too many people have their head in the sand for the last two decades.

 

[Ron H]

I'd maybe chime on in - but - this is in the GD forum..

 

[Detective D]

Permit me to jump off the track for a minute thinking of car sales guys. In my town there was a huge dealer Mr. VS. Had a couple encounters with him; my brother worked for him for a short time in parts. Known as the ultimate sales king, tighter than a turnip. Wife and I, in our late 20’s then, spent about 45 minutes negotiating with one of his salesmen, young guy, on a new Lemans with our trade.

We were close to buying; but in walks da king behind his sales guy’s desk grabbing the paperwork from his hands yelling “What ya trying to do, give the car away!” He crumpled the papers dropping them on the desk and walked out. Old bastard never even looked at us or said a word. More? Sales guy started crying saying he’s going to quit. He said he’d find another sales position at another dealer and asked if he could call us about buying a car when he did. Have a few other rather comical stories about that old grump. Hugely successful for decades, long dead now. How he did it, considering our experience, I’ll never know, lol.

I have two...
First one, buddy has an Uncle selling a 79 Camaro. This was probably 25 years ago. No rust, small block V8, metallic blue. $500. Running, driving, just had two bald tires(guess which two) I am sold as soon as I see it, no rust in WI?
We go in to the small office. See, car was there for 3 weeks and battery had drained off too far. Why was it there for that long, set prominately under the dealer sign right along the highway? Because the guy was only open when he felt like it and had erased the grease pen price off the glass(don;t know why). So we go in, figured we would ask for a jump.
We are greeted by the guy. Probably 60 years old. A dirty baseball cap on, but wearing what amounts to a khaki color suit, with vest, but no coat. Cigar about 2" thick.
Buddy asks for a jump.
guy takes enormous cigar out of his mouth, and responds:
"Your Uncle is 2 days late on his monthly rental for that spot. Got his money?"
To which my buddy answers, no, but this guy wants to buy the car my Uncle will get that plus your commission(yeah, rental plus commission for a $500 dollar car lol)
The guy blows up. Not even kidding, goes off about not being paid and get your own jump and.... well we looked at each other and left while he was yelling. I never did get that car, his uncle sold it to a relative at a family reunion while my buddy was telling the story to people.
Old guy had gotten so bent out of shape he not only lost his rental money but the commission.
That guy was in business for 8 more years.
Funny thing: I traded a 1994 Cougar and my old 91 Bronco in, 3 hours away in Madison like 4 years after this went down, for the used Expedition I picked up for the family truckster.
2 weeks later, my Cougar shows up on the old guys lot LOL. I know what I traded it in for, and I had gutted the cats(three cats plus a resonater= 1200 dollar replacement pipe!) and the AC had gone hot. Old guy had replaced the pipe and charged the AC and was asking $400 more then I traded it in for. I offered his hired help $200 more then I got for trade and brought it back home, then old it to a coworker for $600 more then I just paid for it LOL. I asked, old guy was still there just never came around.

Second story:
Get in accident with commute car almost right after the above all happened. Totaled. Local small dealer(different old guy) has a 1992 Cadillac with 90K miles on it(Deville!) for $2200 bucks. Nice car. No rust. Ask to test drive it. Old guy tells me he needs to be somewhere in about two hours so try not to be too long. I live 6 miles away, so I drove there so I could look under to look. Bring it back. I noticed a small rust hole in the rear wheel well at the bottom(not on the fender, in the well itself). When I got back, the guy was pacing around, red faced mad. I was gone like 15 minutes. Old guy proceeds to lose his grip on reality and starts screaming about how he had somewhere to be and had to leave in a half an hour and where did I drive, (town XX, like an hour away) and WTH was I thinking blah blah.
He stopped to breath, and I told him I wanted to buy it, and offered him $2100 because I wanted to get the little hole fixed.
"That car is worth 2200 all day and I wouldn;t sell it to you blah blah and I am going to be late if I don't leave in half an hour and get off my lot blah blah...."
Then he turns, yells to the old lady behind the desk "show him the title, I want 2200" and leaves mumbling to himself.
Lady apologizes, comes right out and says "we only sell cars when he isn;t here." and I told her I wouldn;t do 2200 out of principle now, sorry, if he asks tell him he can shove his $100 where he likes it and the 130 coworkers I have will all be hearing about this hillarious story.
he was out of business in about a year from then, consolidated to his other lot first then closed that 8 months later. Turns out you can't act like that in a town of 3500 people lol.

 

[moparedtn]

Fella I bought the '04 Ram from down in Greeneville back then was a good man; he was out of place
at that dealer and was quite relieved to have my wife and I as customers.
The usual deal, I knew exactly what I was going to pay, done all my homework, all that jazz.
He actually appreciated that; it made the deal quick and easy for him, too.

His used car guy damn near blew the deal when he came exploding into the office, accusing us of
trying to pawn off a "broken Jeep" on him as a trade.
Come to find out, the idiot had no idea how to get a Grand Cherokee into 4WLow....
Told the moron if he damaged my vehicle, he'd be the one carried outta there (he didn't, lucky him).
We had us a little impromptu lesson right there in the parking lot, in fact.

When we bought the '12 Charger R/T though? All done online, through a dealer in Hickory, NC that told
me over 90% of their sales was online. We had test drove a couple local ones, got a taste of the car,
decided it would work as a replacement for the '06 R/T and I went to work.
Salesman was on the other end of the phone and email and was a pleasure.
Again, I made the offer I wanted, no negotiating - and they accepted.
They actually delivered the car to us, some 4 hours away - and took our trade away with them.
Signed the damn papers right here in the garage.
Simple - and the way it should be done.

 

[#41]

It is not some brilliant plan to have a bunch of illegal people move into our country. It would not even be a discussion if people would evaluate what has happened since around 1995.
Clinton allowed the major banks to use savings money and loan interest to do speculative trading when he revoked Glass-Steagal. That law was put in place when FDIC was put into place, because tax payers would bail out other tax payers if their bank went bad. Once that law was revoked, tax payers had to bail out banks that had used normal, working Joe's car loan interest and savings accounts to trade stocks. When that law was revoked, so much money poured into the stock market it is almost unfathomable. So it kept going up and up and up, and they kept putting money in.
Except they didn't have endless money, people only had so much savings, so many car loans to make. So they pushed mortgages, because they could use the mortgage interest from THE LIFE OF THE MORTGAGE to put into stocks. So people taking 30 year loans in 2001 meant the bank could take interest they wouldn't see until 2030 and use it for speculative trading.
Then they sold mortgage securities, because having those mortgages meant you could get your hands on that interest money. So people took loans, the loan got sold without their consent or even knowledge sometimes, even so far as to sell it in pieces.
Then, they ran out of that money too. So then the housing market failed, everything failed.
TAXPAYERS BAILED OUT THE BANKS. Why? Not because "too big to fail" but because FDIC INSURED. We were on the hook to save their bacon, by law, through FDIC insurance because THAT is the money they used, and lost.

Why does all that matter? Because when that happened, the leadership of most every big bussiness said "This is fine, I don;t need a pay cut or to even lose profits much." Aaaaaand they just stopped paying people more money.
In the midwest, people in trades, manufacturing, construction.... they didn;t get a raise. For a decade. Maybe 13 years sometimes. Except all that money the banks poured in, well, it went out there into the marketplace and inflation went crazy, and deflation never made a dent in it. So people got to the point where they didn't buy a car, no one bought a home, everything stagnated and skilled people LEFT. They LEFT FROM EVERYWHERE, trade unions, non union, semi skilled.... they all hopped jobs to somewhere that would give them 50cents an hour more because it was better then the nothing they got for the last 8 years or more. many just dropped out of that, because if they couldn;t buy a car or home why work so hard?
Alternatively, people worked their *** off. Two jobs, 80 hours at one job, that entire span was "overtime is the cheapest labor" because after all, the pay was the same in 2015 as it was in 2005, but health insurance costs quadrupled. So people worked double the hours a week because then they could earn 22 bucks an hour instead of 15, for at least half the time.

So those young people now.... guess what? They grew up watching Mom and Dad both doing that and thought: Holy cow, why TF would anyone do this just for a house? SO THEY DON'T.

Then, about 5 years ago, TSHTF. Massive labor shortages, employee retention fell apart. Why? Because the economy had finally uncorked and businesses had big sales, and needed more people, and the only way to get them was to throw money out there. We have been in 5-6 years worth of WAGE WAR ever since. We never did catch up to where we are supposed to be, hence McDonald's paying more then some manufacturing positions. The needle moves slow in industry, and the trades, they can;t look at quarter to quarter like retail and adjust on the fly, they need contracts to work through, material prices to move, etc.

Bringing in hoardes of people isn;t to "bolster the workforce" it is to MAINTAIN THE STANDARD OF INCREDIBLY CHEAP LABOR that has been in place for almost 15 years and suddenly got totally rocked in the last 5-6. People actually were allowed to almost catch up in the wage game(see: housing market boom) so a flood of new people is supposed to stagnate that again. It won't, because they printed so much money they can never put the genie back in the bottle. There are plenty of people willing to work, they are just looking at the effort vs. the pay and choosing less effort for not much less pay.
This is why I wrote in my last giant comment we are in a whole new world for wages. We have 20 YEARS of wage stagnation to catch up on. 3% a year for a good worker is 60% of what they earned before. If it was $20/hour in 2005, it will be $30-35 now. $40/hour in 2005? try $65/hour now. Maybe more. From what I can tell, the only ones to figure this out so far are car mechanics that are charging $120/hour shop rate now when it was $30 in 2005. In 2005 construction framers by me made $12-20/hour depending on position and tenure. Now they make $15-25. Imagine being in that industry for the last 18 years and earning $5/hour more then you did back then. What young person in their right mind is going to go after house framing for $15/hour when they can go sit on a stool at ALDI for $18? The answer is none of them will, and the framer that didn;t get a raise for 18 years has moved on to something different so he could get an extra $2/hour because every little bit helps.

So instead of owning up to our mistakes and fixing the issue and making plans to help business adapt and people to catch up on wages, instead the answer is to flood the country with more labor and try to maintain a state of barely middle class for skilled labor? YEAH< OUR LEADERS ARE SO BRILLIANT.
Frankly, the idea of building a business around a bunch of undocumented illegal workers just because they will show up for $5/hour less then people that already live in your hometown sounds really, really, really stupid. Does anyone imagine the illegals will choose the hardest jobs for barely more money any more then the young generation does now? WHY WOULD THEY? Why wouldn't they go sit at ALDI too?
Figure out what your company paid in 2005, add at least 60% minimum and see where that lands on your pay scale. Keep in mind if you paid a premium for a niche skillset before, you will probably be looking more like +100% or more because the available labor in that niche is much smaller then it was in 2005. That is the price we all have to pay to right the ship because of almost 20 years of absolute heinous economic policy making.
The alternative is to let it all collapse, and we can live like China or worse.

Sorry this got so long, but too many people have their head in the sand for the last two decades.

I agree with much of this other than your assertion that I believe there is ANY kind of brilliant plan by our governing bodies. The lack of immigration enforcement is simply a "do nothing" option to allow a supply of warm bodies to certain industries.

 

[moparedtn]

I agree with much of this other than your assertion that I believe there is ANY kind of brilliant plan by our governing bodies. The lack of immigration enforcement is simply a "do nothing" option to allow a supply of warm bodies to certain industries.

Also offers that same supply to one certain political party. Just sayin'...

 

[68BabyBlue]

I'd maybe chime on in - but - this is in the GD forum..

I'll try to keep this objective. When I went back on the truck in 2006, my inflation adjusted earnings were almost the same as what I had made with my first truck, as a 25 year old rookie hauling the cheapest loads, with a junk tractor. I now had over 30 years in the industry, the best paying hauls available, and a superb Peterbilt under me.

Fifteen years later, I was making half that for the same work. Costs inflated, but rates didn't, and the carriers I leased to cut my percentage. Meanwhile, investments I made during my earlier years bore fruit, and I didn't need truck earnings to live. So last year, one more veteran professional hung it up. My attorney's words - "there is no financial reason to continue." The current forces in place are causing many other skilled tradesmen to do the same thing. My last delivery, shown in the picture.

 

[MarPar]

 

[Ron H]

test drove a couple local ones, got a taste of the car

Let me add another tale about old Mr. VS. He ruled with an iron fist, always seemed to be in a bad mood. He had one of his lofty friends asking about the Riviera he spotted on the showroom floor a couple days before. VS ordered one of his sales guys to get the car out for the test drive. It was missing. VS was pissed ordering an all-out alert across his dealerships to FIND the car immediately. His dealerships spanned some five buildings over 3 or 4 blocks.

Nobody could find that Riv. Story went his veins were ballooning on his skull. Knowing the police chief, a call was made to him to find it. No doubt the town pd made it priority one. They soon spotted it, an older lady behind the wheel. Pulled her over and made her exit the vehicle. Mr. VS received a call his car was found! The driver was? Mrs. VS. He forgot he had let his wife take out the Riv..

 

[Ron H]

Fifteen years later, I was making half that for the same work

Twice in my career found out I was being paid considerably less than new co-workers I was assigned to TRAIN while no relief doing my own work. First employer I had told me my new co-worker had a 4-year degree while I had a 2-year. Oh I see, the two years I had on the job here, plus related job experience I had over the four prior years before I acquired my degree, while that guy was in a classroom means squat? Reply? Well sorry, it’s just company policy, nothing about job performance. Reply? Ok well sorry, doesn’t jive with my policy; giving you notice I’m quitting in two-weeks.

2nd time this happened, without asking about it as they knew I had found out about the salary gap, received a $12,000 raise.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Twice in my career found out I was being paid considerably less than new co-workers I was assigned to TRAIN while no relief doing my own work. First employer I had told me my new co-worker had a 4-year degree while I had a 2-year. Oh I see, the two years I had on the job here, plus related job experience I had over the four prior years before I acquired my degree, while that guy was in a classroom means squat? Reply? Well sorry, it’s just company policy, nothing about job performance. Reply? Ok well sorry, doesn’t jive with my policy; giving you notice I’m quitting in two-weeks.

2nd time this happened, without asking about it as they knew I had found out about the salary gap, received a $12,000 raise.

Similar experience, the only reason I worked my last year. Told the company owner I was giving a month's notice, he asked what it would take to make me stay. I told him bring the rate on my core customer up to match inflation from the time I'd had the truck on with him, and no skimming by the company. He actually got double, and I made triple what I did the year before. But it was too little too late, I was pretty well disgusted with the process by then, and my legs going south sealed the deal.

 

[451Mopar]

A coworker told me her husband might get laid off at work for 4-6 months because of delays.
I'm waiting to see where this goes, because he has specialized skills that are not that easy to replace.

 

[Cranky]

View attachment 1496066

 

[moparedtn]

Let me add another tale about old Mr. VS. He ruled with an iron fist, always seemed to be in a bad mood. He had one of his lofty friends asking about the Riviera he spotted on the showroom floor a couple days before. VS ordered one of his sales guys to get the car out for the test drive. It was missing. VS was pissed ordering an all-out alert across his dealerships to FIND the car immediately. His dealerships spanned some five buildings over 3 or 4 blocks.

Nobody could find that Riv. Story went his veins were ballooning on his skull. Knowing the police chief, a call was made to him to find it. No doubt the town pd made it priority one. They soon spotted it, an older lady behind the wheel. Pulled her over and made her exit the vehicle. Mr. VS received a call his car was found! The driver was? Mrs. VS. He forgot he had let his wife take out the Riv..

 

[PlymCrazy]

I'll try to keep this objective. When I went back on the truck in 2006, my inflation adjusted earnings were almost the same as what I had made with my first truck, as a 25 year old rookie hauling the cheapest loads, with a junk tractor. I now had over 30 years in the industry, the best paying hauls available, and a superb Peterbilt under me.

Fifteen years later, I was making half that for the same work. Costs inflated, but rates didn't, and the carriers I leased to cut my percentage. Meanwhile, investments I made during my earlier years bore fruit, and I didn't need truck earnings to live. So last year, one more veteran professional hung it up. My attorney's words - "there is no financial reason to continue." The current forces in place are causing many other skilled tradesmen to do the same thing. My last delivery, shown in the picture.

View attachment 1496064

Almost looks like a subtle wave goodbye with your left hand too...

Sorry, couldn't help going there lol. I'm envious I guess...

 

[padam]

I'll try to keep this objective. When I went back on the truck in 2006, my inflation adjusted earnings were almost the same as what I had made with my first truck, as a 25 year old rookie hauling the cheapest loads, with a junk tractor. I now had over 30 years in the industry, the best paying hauls available, and a superb Peterbilt under me.

Fifteen years later, I was making half that for the same work. Costs inflated, but rates didn't, and the carriers I leased to cut my percentage. Meanwhile, investments I made during my earlier years bore fruit, and I didn't need truck earnings to live. So last year, one more veteran professional hung it up. My attorney's words - "there is no financial reason to continue." The current forces in place are causing many other skilled tradesmen to do the same thing. My last delivery, shown in the picture.

View attachment 1496064

So this is the issue with the influx of cheap foreign labor.:

The work still gets done but at a fraction of the cost.

I have random truck drivers knock on the door where I work, probably twice a month, looking for a different business. When I ask where they are looking for, they mostly have to show me their phone because they don’t speak English.
Don’t know where they are going, and aren’t interested enough to look it up ahead of time.

Twenty years ago I worked in a tool and die shop. We designed and built medium sized stamping does. Communist China decided to target that industry. Our customers could get die from China for less money than it cost us for the raw steel. The dies were junk and needed rebuilt before they would work, but the customer saved a few bucks in the end, so that’s how a lot of it went.

The sad thing is that the European Union did the same thing to the injection mold industry a decade earlier. Built a whole city around it in Portugal.

My point is, and I think this has already been made by someone in this discussion, is that these things couldn’t happen without the approval and collusion of our government and business leaders.

 

[Cranky]

So this is the issue with the influx of cheap foreign labor.:

The work still gets done but at a fraction of the cost.

I have random truck drivers knock on the door where I work, probably twice a month, looking for a different business. When I ask where they are looking for, they mostly have to show me their phone because they don’t speak English.
Don’t know where they are going, and aren’t interested enough to look it up ahead of time.

Twenty years ago I worked in a tool and die shop. We designed and built medium sized stamping does. Communist China decided to target that industry. Our customers could get die from China for less money than it cost us for the raw steel. The dies were junk and needed rebuilt before they would work, but the customer saved a few bucks in the end, so that’s how a lot of it went.

The sad thing is that the European Union did the same thing to the injection mold industry a decade earlier. Built a whole city around it in Portugal.

My point is, and I think this has already been made by someone in this discussion, is that these things couldn’t happen without the approval and collusion of our government and business leaders.

Yup...the whole world is one big cooperate/gooberment pig sty.....

 

[68BabyBlue]

So this is the issue with the influx of cheap foreign labor.:

The work still gets done but at a fraction of the cost.

I have random truck drivers knock on the door where I work, probably twice a month, looking for a different business. When I ask where they are looking for, they mostly have to show me their phone because they don’t speak English.
Don’t know where they are going, and aren’t interested enough to look it up ahead of time.

Twenty years ago I worked in a tool and die shop. We designed and built medium sized stamping does. Communist China decided to target that industry. Our customers could get die from China for less money than it cost us for the raw steel. The dies were junk and needed rebuilt before they would work, but the customer saved a few bucks in the end, so that’s how a lot of it went.

The sad thing is that the European Union did the same thing to the injection mold industry a decade earlier. Built a whole city around it in Portugal.

My point is, and I think this has already been made by someone in this discussion, is that these things couldn’t happen without the approval and collusion of our government and business leaders.

My industry has gone full circle. The government made a priority of insuring it succeeded, with the passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1939, making the industry a public utility, with the ability to fix prices through rate boards administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Creation of the NLRB at the same time brought the Teamsters to power, and insured premium driver pay for decades to come. Although the Democrats created the NLRB, Jimmy Hoffa was a Republican. Wages and rates rose in tandem. Hoffa's greatest foe was Robert Kennedy, a Democrat. His issues with Teamster corruption set the stage for low wages in the future. The pension fund was solvent when Hoffa ran it. Today it is being carried by federal government bailouts

The Carter administration pushed for economic deregulation of transportation, and the legislation creating free market rates was passed early in 1980, so Reagan took the blame for it. I got rid of my first truck that year and went to law school, correctly figuring that the race to the bottom had begun. Teamster carriers went under rapidly as the rate structure was decimated by new, cheaper entrants. I was lucky enough to get into management with one of them, and rode the wave until they peaked at number 85 in the top 100 carriers.

From a political standpoint, I find it interesting that the Democrats gave, in 1939, but they were the same party that took it away, 40 years later. Speaking and reading English is a legal requirement for interstate truck driving, but like the illegal immigration situation, enforcement is limited.

 

[Cranky]

My industry has gone full circle. The government made a priority of insuring it succeeded, with the passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1939, making the industry a public utility, with the ability to fix prices through rate boards administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Creation of the NLRB at the same time brought the Teamsters to power, and insured premium driver pay for decades to come. Although the Democrats created the NLRB, Jimmy Hoffa was a Republican. Wages and rates rose in tandem. Hoffa's greatest foe was Robert Kennedy, a Democrat. His issues with Teamster corruption set the stage for low wages in the future. The pension fund was solvent when Hoffa ran it. Today it is being carried by federal government bailouts

The Carter administration pushed for economic deregulation of transportation, and the legislation creating free market rates was passed early in 1980, so Reagan took the blame for it. I got rid of my first truck that year and went to law school, correctly figuring that the race to the bottom had begun. Teamster carriers went under rapidly as the rate structure was decimated by new, cheaper entrants. I was lucky enough to get into management with one of them, and rode the wave until they peaked at number 85 in the top 100 carriers.

From a political standpoint, I find it interesting that the Democrats gave, in 1939, but they were the same party that took it away, 40 years later. Speaking and reading English is a legal requirement for interstate truck driving, but like the illegal immigration situation, enforcement is limited.

Shipping rates these days are going up more often than not. A buddy of mine who drives a rig complains like crazy about how his pay isn't keeping up. He likes hauling lumber and the like and hates dry vans but seems ChinaMart pays their drivers pretty well? I'm thinking his record isn't good enough to get hired. Anyways, on the subject of not speaking English, I get a lot of them when I sell something on FactlessBook that's too big to ship but won't speak Spanish with them. I know a little and wish I knew more but I'm living here in the U.S. and not in their country and wouldn't speak it even if I did know how.

 

[Ron H]

Mentioned a few tales with this guy, not that unusual I think – he required an employee to work Sundays when closed to watch people who came browsing cars, used to do the same so I wouldn’t be bugged by a sales guy. Employee was to watch what cars people seemed interested in and get their plate number. Next day, one of his sales people would call them “You want to make a deal on that red ’65 Buick? At that price, won’t be on the lot long.” Happened to me. Well, he was ahh, something with sales records. He acquired some fame with his broken English jingle: ”Who do ya know wants to buy a car?” Lol, I'd say to myself, I do; but NOT from you.

Another dealer selling Pontiacs had their ‘talking with Ponty” commercials. Owner and wife stood by a new Pontiac in the showroom. The hood was rigged up to open and close, like it was talking. Ahh, doze bygone dayz I actually miss sometimes..