Grizalltheway wrote:Baldy wrote:
You're mostly correct. Labor costs aside, it costs manufacturers 20% more to produce goods in this country than it does in the countries of our nine largest trading partners. Until that changes (quickly), companies will continue to offshore any and every manufacturing process they can....and you can't blame them for that at all.
Funny, Germany manages to have a robust manufacturing and exporting sector, even with a MUCH stronger union presence than us.
There are numerous differences between us and Germany. First, work contracts generally do not affect productivity, they just deal more heavily with benefits and pay and are light on the proverbial coffee breaks.
Anyone at the BMW plant in Spartanburg (which is there because of the high cost of manufacturing in Germany... and the lack of unions in SC.. hmm) can tell you that German work expectations are quite strict, and benefits center more around pay and healthcare and nothing else.
Lastly, many labor contracts in Germany do not have to be nearly as comprehensive because the government provides a lot of benefits that would normally be in a labor contract here in the US. Germany can afford to do this for a number of reasons, but one big one is that their defense spending is a minuscule fraction of ours, because the US is the guarantor of their security, as it is for all of Western Europe.
Oh, and Germans on the whole take a lot of pride in their work and efficiency. Americans just get by until the lunch bell rings, and American unions make sure they can continue doing just that.
Unions and corporations are much more symbiotic there, rather than adversarial which is the case here.
