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First, China made cut-price clothes and knick-knacks. Then it learned how to make mobile phones and iPads. Now it is making a 2,050ft-long bridge spanning the San Francisco bay.

Next month, four enormous steel skeletons, the last of the 12 segments of the bridge, will be shipped 6,500 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco before being assembled on site.

The bridge, which will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of the bay, is a sign of how China has moved on from building roads and ports in Africa and the developing world and is now aggressively bidding for, and winning, major construction and engineering projects in the United States and Europe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... I.facebook


I wonder if our gov't has any idea how many jobs this would have created??? I'm sure this bridge was bought with tax dollars... This is another great article. I'll bet Al Gore is sorry he ever invented the internet!!!!

katie wrote: I wonder if our gov't has any idea how many jobs this would have created??? I'm sure this bridge was bought with tax dollars... This is another great article. I'll bet Al Gore is sorry he ever invented the internet!!!!

Yes, but they would have been union jobs.

You seem to want it both ways. The government is just doing exactly what you say we need to do. Quit overpaying for stuff. If it can be done cheaper by someone else, screw those fat cat, over payed lazy POS workers. What's the difference if it's a union working american or just a plain old american who's getting the shaft?

imaposer wrote:

katie wrote: I wonder if our gov't has any idea how many jobs this would have created??? I'm sure this bridge was bought with tax dollars... This is another great article. I'll bet Al Gore is sorry he ever invented the internet!!!!

Yes, but they would have been union jobs.

You seem to want it both ways. The government is just doing exactly what you say we need to do. Quit overpaying for stuff. If it can be done cheaper by someone else, screw those fat cat, over payed lazy POS workers. What's the difference if it's a union working american or just a plain old american who's getting the shaft?

Why do they HAVE to be union jobs??? There must be something I am missing. Go through a hiring process just like any other job. The unions are jacking up our country, I believe that with all my heart - no need to try to convince me otherwise. And yes, the majority of the savings are on labor. But, how much are we paying out in unemployment, taxes no paid on income and other purchases on having the frikin chinese doing it??? It goes full circle.
I agree, the union laborers are severly overpaid, so the unions can collect their fee, so they can in turn give money to the dems to protect them in the USA.... Unions leaders are nothing short of a mob. Government = crooked b*astards. They don't really care about the health of the country, they're there for their ego's and their own bank accounts. I have never been more sickened of a situation in my whole life. That includes Viet Nam...

Kate, you hit the nail on the head. Obama is prounion. So not much will change until he is out. There are thousands of good steel workers collecting unemployment, get them to work. Don't hire the union dudes.

katie wrote:
Why do they HAVE to be union jobs??? There must be something I am missing. Go through a hiring process just like any other job.

They don't have to be union jobs. But, if you put up a now hiring sign and want good experienced steelworkers, guess who the only qualified applicants are going to be? It's not like you can hire joe schmuck off the street and have them installing steel the next day. Building bridges isn't mcdonalds level of work.

I agree, the union laborers are severly overpaid, so the unions can collect their fee, so they can in turn give money to the dems to protect them in the USA....

Don't know who you are agreeing with, I'm not going to say who is overpaid and who isn't. You do know union laborers don't build bridges, don't you? That would be steelworkers, and I think they probably deserve every penny they get. Also, out of that money they collect, they have a few more things to cover than just giving it to the dems. They provide the training, health care, and retirement plans for the union workers out of that money. Things the company would have to provide for directly for non union workers, but love to ignore when making comparisons between union and non union workers pay for doing the same job.

The unions are jacking up our country, I believe that with all my heart :

Really? you mean the unions that represent a small, small majority, like 10% or so of the workforce are destroying our country? The unions who have been losing membership numbers steadily for the last few decades and becoming less and less of a factor are having more and more of an influence on the country overall? How's that possible? Look back to your "good old days", ya know, when the way things used to be so much better. Take a look at union membership then versus now. If unions have anything to do with our current state of affairs, it's our lack of them that is the problem....

Spare Change wrote:There are thousands of good steel workers collecting unemployment, get them to work. Don't hire the union dudes.

I don't think either of you are familiar with trade work. Where do you think all the good, skilled trade workers come from? Is there a college out there that teaches this work, and produces qualified workers? I don't think so.... It's the unions that provide the schooling and the training. Bust the unions, and where are all the next generation of qualified steel workers going to come from? I guess, China?

imaposer, I am speaking of all unions, not just steelworkers.... our forefathers did not have "instructors", they just learned it. You wanna work here, do it right or you're gone. It's time our country gets back to teaching.

I've got to think it's just the opposite reason why the "membership" has dropped off... I can tell you Cummins opened their eyes. I seen MANY lose their homes and all belongings here due to union & striking... no, they got no union pay either.

Ever wonder why all of our clothes are made everywhere else (excluding a very few shops here). Why all of our consumables are now made being elsewhere?? I don't blame all of that on free trade...

Having worked in the construction industry as a project manager for 10 years building project from Indiana to Texas with some union and jobs and most that were not I can actually speak form experience. The union projects (with signed project agreements with the unions) I completed I never once saw a lack of experience and skill in the non-union projects. However, in the union projects I did have workers that would continually complain and threaten to strike at the drop of a hat.

One great on I encountered:

I walked up to an operator sitting on his fork truck doing nothing. I asked "you on break?" His reply was a simple "no". I then asked him what he was doing. He replied "I'm waiting for a laborer to move that empty pallet so I can get my forks under it. I went over to kick the pallet about 6 inches so he could proceed. He yelled "That's a laborer's job, if you move that I'm calling my business agent." We had a short exchange about him being lazy after that

I could continue onto other stories about the union workers getting drunk at lunch thinking their jobs were safe - I proved a few of them wrong along with some steel workers walking red iron 4o feet in the air without being tied off.

Bottom line is they have all the steel. We have been scrapping out our country for years and selling it to them. Now we are having to buy it back!

Imaposer,
A) So your are saying that there are no union workers unemployeed that would take a non union job?

B) Steelworkers UNION. Most companies I know pay the insurance for employees or at least part of it. The employee pays for the training. retirement programs have been in the news several times for misapropreation by the union big dogs.

C)I agree totally with her. I was forced to join a union once, and it was no less than mob style antics. And yes the 10% can destroy our country when you have a corupt president backing them. Another example of small numbers hurting the US is the GREENIES, which are 14% of the US, but they pay and buy the government to keep the US from drilling.

D) I beleive we can survive without any union..We don't have jobs now and the bridges and roads are being built and only 10% of them are union.

E) I am guessing you are a union person? I spent a afternoon on a tour at Cummins Engine in Columbus, IN I witnessed employees playing cards and napping. When I ask WTF they person leading the tour stated that the union sets the quota for the day, and that these folks had met that quota. They are still on the clock and eating into the profits of the company. I have always said, if you want to dictate how to run a company then buy it and do as you please. But don't tell me how to run mine. I do not hold a gun to anybody to stay and work for me. My folks do not need a union to tell them what to do. I had the same business for over 30 years. We make orthodontics products. I never got a bail out when times were tuff. Didn't expect one.