A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and had to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the ‘Rowing Team Quality First Program,’ with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to “equal the competition” and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance; all canoe equipment was sold and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India.

THE END.

Here’s something else to think about:
Ford has spent the last thirty years moving many of their factories out of the US, claiming they can’t make money paying American wages.

Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter’s results:
Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads and collecting bonuses.

Not to seem like a union basher but we have a name for the UAW branch up here the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) or as any non union trucker delivering into one of their plants call it Cry And Whine. I'm sorry but no one deserves 22$ per hour + to pound weather stripping onto a flange....skilled workers yes line monkeys no...just my 2 cents

I feel unions have done a lot of good for America.

However, considering the way that Japanese automakers have succeeded without unions... food for thought, eh?

Honda has never had a shutdown at the Marysville, OH plant, except for the normal seasonal ones. No layoffs... nada... what good is $22.00 and hour when you don't have a job to go do?

Is there a single person that favors unions that isn't in one?

Maybe the Japanese based auto makers do, they've profited greatly from the existence of unions.

When outsourcing was at it's peak, american managers cut their staffs and as their own job languished, trained the foreign replacements until they were no longer needed and fell into the same abyss. Lets see, you have a CEO, CFO, VP of this and a VP of that, HR, safety, and finally the workers. Then you have to produce something that people really want and need.
The shift to a service economy was the icing on the cake. How many restaurants,super centers,gyms,day care centers and other non product producing retailers can an economy support till it implodes. The illegal entry of millions of low paid undocumented workers has done it's share to destabilize our formerly productive structure.
Then we get to the american workforce. In general the up and comers are unmotivated, spoiled, pansy asses that has had life handed to them on a silver platter by well meaning parents who have coddled them and protected them till they can't walk down the street without supervision. Either that or they're hard core felons by the time they reach puberty because all they learned they picked up on the streets. Not that I have any strong opinions about any of this. Back to the rowing .............

Thats why Ford as a security, sells at $4.65 a share and Toyota as a security, sells at over $85.00 per share.

The market usually values a company correctly.

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I agree that unions at one time did do a lot of good for the labour force on both sides of the boarder. My grandfather was UAW back in the hay days of the 60's...my father was part of the power workers and police unions here in Ontario and my best friend is a member of the Iron Workers 721 out of Toronto. The thing about it is this tho....the unions them selfs have become big business more so about profit than members rights...Being from the Oshawa area I have seen a lot of good people be put out of work by the CAW. Mackie automotive for example. Workers there were getting a decent wage and benefit package then a group of people in there thought it would be a good idea to bring in the CAW within a year wages climbed from 16$ per hour (for sorting parts) to 21$ per hour. The Mackie family could no longer compete and had to close the doors boom 500+ workers now unemployed. Unions are a good thing but from time to time they do need to be reined in. Not to mention the fact that the big three didn't keep up with their market research. They were still making gas guzzling SUV's and the likes while the import company s such as Honda were building ecnoboxes I know our vette (while it was running) only got out on weekends our primary vehicle is a 2002 VW, and we are a G.M. family all of us from Oshawa.