"ST. CLOUD, Minn. — It was just five months ago that Vice President
Joseph R. Biden Jr. made the New Flyer bus factory here a symbol of
the stimulus. With several cabinet secretaries in tow, he held a
town-hall-style meeting at the factory, where he praised the company
as “an example of the future” and said that it stood to get more
orders for its hybrid electric buses thanks to the $8.4 billion that
the stimulus law devotes to mass transit.
But last month, the company that administration officials had
pictured as a stimulus success story began laying off 320 people, or
13 percent of its work force, having discovered how cutbacks at the
state level can dampen the boost provided by the federal stimulus
money."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/bu...d.html?_r=1&hp
Here's a really great snapshot of Unionized companies.
"Mr. Wahl said the loss of his job was still sinking in. He joined New
Flyer soon after it opened the St. Cloud plant in 1999 — he was the
118th employee, he said — and worked on everything from power steering
to putting on side panels to installing engines. When the work force
unionized, he became president of the local. Last November, he moved
to a nonunion job working with transit systems as they prepared to
take delivery of the buses.
“It was a lot easier on the body,” he said. But the switch to a
nonunion job also made it easier for him to be in the first round of
layoffs, despite his 10 years with the company."
Don't you just love it? Guy moves out of the Union because he's
getting hit hard physically - poof gets laid off. Think any of the
Union guys got laid off.
Bet 'cha they didn't.
Must be keeping American tax money close to home then I guess as it's
a Canadian company. Interesting little blurb from the company web
site.
http://www.newflyer.com/index/news-app/story.70