"If we’re able to move forward with the recommendations that you’ve outlined here in this booklet, I think we’ll definitely be able to turn the economy around."

Question: Exactly how does expensive union labor improve a company's or an industry's ability to 'turn around'?

Answer: It doesn't, unionized labor undeniably kills companies & industries.

Sledman: your are exactly right! Can you say goodbye to the pulp & paper industry....their day has come and GONE because of the all powerful labor unions!

Thanks Mike & co. Welcome to welfare Maine, The Way Life Should Be!

Sledman,

Same old song and dance you spew out every time you get a chance without even trying to educate yourself on the subject.

The reason the pulp and paper industries in the United States cannot compete with South America or China is because they( South America and China) can sell their Pulp and or paper cheaper. You being ignornant and uneducated on the subject claim it is because of Union wages, and no matter what anyone says you would just keep singing your song without checking the facts, which makes people Union and Salary and just people who have made themselves educated on it, realize how ignorant you are on the subject.

The biggest reason is because our Industries in The United States have to comply with enviromental laws which means spending Billions of dollars on equipment to comply and then when big brother's satellites which are constantly monitoring the mills see something go a few mils over their( the Governments) specs the State and or federal Government slap a nice big fine on them.

Do you know how much the South American and China Companies have to spend on enviromental equipment, of course you don't, well do you remember the Olympics being held in China and the athletes having to wear a mask all the time because of the pollution, hmmm I wonder where that come from. Go to these places and I will guarantee you that you will see Black Liqour and other chemicals in water being dumped directly back into the streams and rivers, not to mention the chemicals going into the atmosphere though the stacks, which many people still think of as smoke, no smoke people, steam and chemicals and a lot more chemicals in the other countries.

Do you realize that Maine shines above the other States by always having their Specs tougher then the other States and the Federal Government?

Of Course you Don't!

There is nothing wrong with putting the enviroment first, don't get me wrong, I am just trying to explain to you why they can undersell us.

I am sure we do get payed more than they do, and if you want to work for their wages feel free to do so, but maybe the wages they pay in these countries is why we get illegal aliens.

Why don't you ask the top Pulp and Paper CEO's and ask them to list their biggest costs in trying to run their business and then get on here and tell me it is because of Union wages.

Sledman and Flyfishin you guys have to get your facts. Labor costs to make paper is around 7% of the total cost. And you don't want to get these companies to shut down they play an important role in all region of Maines economy. From the wood cutter to the plant they employ a huge group of people that pay taxes. Don't try to low the standards of these people instead you should be thinking of raising the bar for the other people who work for less.

Prices received for goods are set by what the market is willing to pay. If you can't compete with the market price you have to either cut your cost of production or go out of business.

When you talk about how to reduce cost, part of the discussion has to include the ease with which you can reduce the particular buckets of money in your operating budget. As an individual business, you can't do much about utilities or taxes or regulatoiry compliance costs. But you can do something about labor cost by either having a flexible labor force who's willing to change the way they work to be more efficient, or by moving your operation to a place where the workforce is cheaper and more willing to change things like work rules and making individual job descriptions more flexible.

Once the manufacturing businesses that produce products of value have been driven out by the various costs, the people left behind have to find a new way to make a living. You have to ask yourself: What are all these "new" jobs producing? and: How much would you be willing to pay someone to produce that amount of goods or value of a service.

More government handout programs aren't going to create new ways to build wealth, they're jst going to penalize the people who have adapted and found new ways to be productive members of society. There's no such thing as free health care. The government is going to pay for it by taking from the people who are producing and giving to the people who aren't. That's not "fair" that's communism.

U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud is a babbling idiot, yes an idiot

Even if every job in Maine was unionized, and a business says union out or I`ll close the doors

Also if the empoyees sign those cards and employer doesn`t want a union he can always say bye,

and reopen after getting rid of the trouble makers

unions are not the answer to todays problems.

they have force the wages up so high employers are leaving

employees should be paid a good salary but not at the expense of shutting down the business

When the teamsters tried unionizing out shop they said the company had so much of a profit and you employees deserved

to get you piece of the pie.

Well we were allready getting that evry week with a check and benefits

unions are all about profit

maybe we need a union that would unionize unions and dip into their profits.

they wouldn`t like that

Tom_Bingham

You may be right about an individual business not being able to do much about compliance regulations, but in the paper industry a Multi-Billion dollar business which has lobbyists at both the Federal and State level you can, all you have to do is shut down a few of your mills when the market swings down and say " maybe if you would cut back on your regulations we could run these mills" and let it known to your labor force that they, evern though we(the company) can't tell you what to do, should ask the Governor, Senators, and Representatives to do everything they can to help ease these compliance regulations.

That is the case here in our neck of the woods, we feel the way the company is dealing with us that they have no intentions of starting this mill (Domtar)back up when it goes down in May and they are using us, like pawns on a chess board,to get the regulations lowered for their other mills and also there is a lot of tax credits, on things in our and like industties proposed that most people have never even heard of, that we ( the Union Labor force) are being suggested to by our companies, that we should ask our State and Government Officials to push through, knowing full well that they don't plan on starting us back up, while having our Mill Manager impress on the Governor how much they(the company) care for their workers.

There is no doubt our Mill Manager who grew up in the Town fo Baileyville does care about the people, unfortunately he is just as big a pawn in this as we are, it was not his decision to shut this mill down.

The Mill was losing money at this time, of that there is no doubt, mostly because it could not compete with South America and China because of the way they can run their businesses compared to the way our company run theirs. Market demand is out there, it is just being filled by these other companies from these other countries, that we will never be on the same level playing field with because they have very little, if any compliance regulations, these countries love to see American Companies go under.

This is a chess game on Government levels as well as companies competeing with each other and we " Union Labor workers" have very little influence on it. We have contracts with our companies that was negotiated between the company and the Unions, we don't hold a gun to their head and make them pay us what we want, how many strikes in the Pulp and Paper industry have you seen in the last Twenty years.

People should ask themselves, and educate themselves, on why Unions came about in the first place, before running us down and call us "the demise of the American Companies.

A business can't wait years for politicians to do something. The politicians in Washington and Augusta are the ones who caused the problem, it would be foolish to sit and wait for them to fix the problem. The politicians are beholden to the Marxist Greens and the other kooks who give them the power and money that they crave.

The people running the business have a responsibility to the shareholders to maintain profitability. In many cases, that means moving offshore where taxes, utilities and regulations are less expensive and the workforce is cheaper and not bound by antiquated work rules and fixed job descriptions.

The unions have to accept some responsibility as well. A big part of the cost of labor is the unwillingness of workers to save the company a few bucks by doing tasks that might not be part of their strict job dessription. Like the guy who says "that's not my job you have to get an electrician to plug the light in."

Union=Mafia

Tom,

I agree with you on some of your comments, but on some you have to understand that many of these companies will also say" It is just a tripped breaker, go reset it." Unions are not just there to insures wages. If you have ever been Union or dealt with a Union Contract, Safety is a very important part of any Contract. I will agree that high up offficials in any form can become corrupt, in Government, Business and Union. But as you seem to want to hold us Union people responsible for what our high up Officials do, then we all are responsible for electing these Politicians, so then all Americans should except partial responsibility.

You make it sound like Unions are corrupt, politicians are corrupt and the Poor businesses are stuck in the middle and are the only ones not corrupt, who do you thinks throws out the money to make these Union and Government Officials willing to become corrupt?

Answer-Big Business!

Beelzebubba, if that were truly the case, Unions would not be going in the direction they are, which is out the window, and when that finally happens, I wonder who will get the blame then. Ask yourself this, How did big business treat their workforce before Unions, and if you don't already know but are willing to do a little research, you will find out how things will be once the Unions are no more. Which is what is taking place, and unless things change will be final in a few short years and then you will find out. It is because of Union pushing that we have labor laws, which benefit Union and Non-Union Workers, soon the Unions will be a thing of the past and it makes me wonder just how long thises laws will stay on the books.

Please read "these laws" instead of " thises laws" lol

Big business pays out money to make union and government officials corrupt? Please explain.

You started out saying that regulations are the reason for lost jobs, not unions. Last time I checked the campaign finance watchdog type websites most of the politicians who are pushing these regulations were financed by union dues and had millions of dollars of "in kind" contributions of labor and services to their campaigns from unions.

Not all Americans are responsible for the corrupt politicians. Lots of us didn't vote for the crooks. Only the people who don't take the time and make the effort to learn about the candidates are responsible for electing them.

johnaphelps: Although you do not agree w/my correct viewpoint based on my life experiences & field of study, there is one thing you cannot dispute: U.S. manufacturing has for a while & will continue to diminish. You, me, our crooked misguided politicians, our union friends & to a lesser extent, our self-serving, short sighted money grubbing CEO's cannot reverse this horribly unfortunate trend that has caused unimaginable economic damage. This is why I emphasize the need for manufacturing & union workers to get an education or develop new skills. U.S. manufacturing will continue to go abroad. That means more manufacturing laborers will be displaced. Period.

The other thing you cannot deny union labor is more expensive than non-uinon labor. In general, union wages are higher, benefits are greater & more union personnel are required in any given uinion shop since Joe the broom pusher can't also load a pallet, etc. Union labor is less efficient than non-uinion labor. Sure, there are exceptions to this but in general, it has been well studied, well documented & unilaterally confirmed union labor is more expensive than non-union labor.

If the added expense of union labor worms its way into the service business, it too will collapse.

Meanwhile, lets hope our politicians & CEO's start conducting themsleves for the common good or we will be in more trouble that we are now.

Have a great day!

If that is the case than I shouldn't have to explain what I mean about corrupt Officials, it sure isn't in the best interest of Union Workers for these regulations to be put into place. Let me get this straight, you figure that the average uinon joe wants to have these regulations put in place so that the company we work for is put out of business. Please give us a little credit.

If the top Union Officials are using our dues to do this, we don't have a lot of control, as all we do is send them our dues, we are just small fish in a big ocean and our locals see very little of our dues, just enough to pay our bills for our Union halls, which the Unions at this mill rent time from a Legion or Odd Fellows hall.

The Union person who would do something like this would not be looking out for our best intrerests, but maybe the interest of their own pockets.

Who would be shelling out that money would be debatable, but I don't see how this would benefit either Union or company, so who would it.

Remember the old saying" follow the money.'

Just because a website publishes something doesn't mean it is Gospel, not saying that is the case here, just that it sure would not benefit the companies or Unions.

Someone is spending money to drive American buisnesses out of buisness and in the Process destroy the Unions also.

Maybe peoples eyes should turn elsewhere, instead of blaming the Unions on doing away with their own jobs, and seeing who this would truly benefit!

Oh, and Tom this is a Democratic Govenment, and the majority rules, which is how these people get into office, so we all have to take responsibilityfor the Officials in office, and before you say anything about who voted for who, I did not vote for President Obama or Governor Baldacci, as a matter of fact very few towns in Washington County voted for the Governor, and I would think most people could guess the reason.

UNIONS DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHETHER THE BUSINESS OR THEIR EMPLOYEES SURVIVE...ITS ALL ABOUT THEIR MONEY AND POWER...LOOK AT THE AUTO INDUSTRY RIGHT NOW...THEY WERE GIVEN BILLIONS TO RESTRUCTURE AND GIVE CONCESSIONS.....THE AUTO UNION WON'T GIVE IN AND IT WON'T BE LONG BEFORE THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SAY NO MORE...YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE..NOT YOU ARE IN BANKRUPTCY AND THE UNION LOOSES, THE AUTO COMPANY GETS TO RESTRUCTURE AND EMPLOYEES ARE OUT IN THE COLD...

SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GREED TAKES OVER...THANKS MR. MICHAUD FOR MESSING THIS UP...GO BACK TO THE VALLEY WHERE YOU WILL FIND OUT JUST HOW MUCH GOOD YOU HAVE DONE FOR THEM...NOTHING...YOU LEFT THEM OUT IN THE COLD...THEIR OUT OF WORK, OVER TAXED AND NO SOUND REPRESENTATION FOR THEM IN MAINE OR WASHINGTON...THAT'S WHY I MOVED OUT OF MAINE...THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD OUT THERE WHERE THEY DON'T TAX YOU TO DEATH AND STILL TELL YOU THAT YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT DOING YOUR SHARE....

Sledman,

Like you say many of your view points are undenieably true as it is obvious union People may make more money on any given job.

And you are right about not agreeing on everything you say, however you are not the only person with a lifetime of liviing experience and or field study. And thank God all of us don't think the same on everything or it would be a pretty boring world! lol

Many unions have taken concessions when asked, and on new contracts, we don't want our companies going out of buisness more than you do, I can assure you. It just don't make the papers as much as when someone get a big raise, something the companies would have to be blamed for as much as the Union as "Strike Power" was killed here in the good old U.S. In the 80's. Since then the Companies have had the upper hand negotiating a contract, as they know they have little worry of a real Strike.

No doubt most small buisnesses could not survive paying Union wages, but very few of these are Unionized, if you believe these big companies are doing so bad, how many times have you heard of their salary taking concessions to keep their mill running, I can tell you one, Lincoln Pulp and Paper, cudos to them on seeing it is not just Union workers that have to make concessions in these hard economic times.

Flyfishing get reel(lol) and get a life, you really need to educate yourself better on Unions. As I just said the only power the Unions ever had was the power to strike, and maybe the Auto industry could make their companies believe they would go on strike but how many Pulp and paper mills have you seen on strike in the USA in the past twenty years. Our strike power has been pretty much taken away from us. One thing I don't understand is if Toyota, Nissan and other Foreign Car Makers could make their cars somewhere else to sell them cheaper, why don't they, and for the ones that due why are they in the same price range?

Also writing on here in capital letter does not make your comments any more worthy than anyone else's

We get it you hate Unions and you hate Michaud!

You are correct, it is a 2-way street between unions & management. Both sides need to compromise. People should also keep an eye CEO's & payola politicians. It's a three way tug o war: Unions / CEO's / Politicians. Trouble is, scumbag politicians play unions & CEO's.

I do think there is some truth to what flyfishing says, I have witnessed the self-perpetuating scheme game union management plays. It is about collecting union dues to pay union mgmt who pays lobbyists who pays politicians.

Bottom line here is this country is in-fighting protecting their own special interests instead of using common sense to work towards a common good like it was back when this country was great. You may not agree with this but I do not believe it is for the common good if the service sector is unioized. There will be fewer jobs available if service biz owners have to pay union wages.

Unions need to conceed, CEO's need to concede, politicians need to serve the common good. And we know the latter will never happen.

BTW, glad to see I'm not the only one who knows how to vote.

johnaphelps,

At least you understand what is going on and what the unions have done to make the middle class and liveable wages. I tried to have this argument with flyfishin on another article, I just think he is stubborn in his ways and will never understand. Too many people love to point the finger at the unions without doing any actual research. If all unions were disbanded today, how long would it be before you start seeing some of these companies lowering the wages to un-liveable wages. Are we really going to trust these companies to do the right thing? It would not be long before the employees banned together to demand better treatment, guess what, that would be a union!

Some people will just never get it. Here are the problems: A worldwide recession, slave wages in other countries, regulations strangling U.S companies, government policies and regulations. Lastly, maybe a little greed spread all around.

Some of you people sound like you want to get rid of the middle class, just have the poor and the rich.

An injury to one is an injury to all! Workers of the World Unite!

movethen: It is not a matter of pointing fingers as you say to the unions, the unions are disbanning themselves as these manufacturing jobs leave this state and country, there will be just two classes of people, working people and the wealthy..do the research how many unions are adding to their ranks!

flyfishin,

You also have some good points and forgive me for making it look like I didn't think you did, what we are doing is just what whoever is responsible don't want us to be doing. We are discussing and listening to each others opinions instead of just thinking we have it all figured out.

Once you think you know it all, you will never learn anything else and I would like to think we all know this.

I think the Politicians should worry, for I believe the American people will stop pointing fingers at each other and find the real culprit.

We had better and soon!

How much would you want to be paid? Remember these people are working at least half of their time between 8:00 at night and 8:00 in the morning. Most of them have had to endure the transition from outmoded conditions, like feeding pulp to a grindstone, to high technical operators of computer operated systems, and then back again. The companies produce more paper today and they still cry they cannot compete, on the world market. They skimmed the profit off these workers over the course of the last thirty plus years. Now they cry poverty and take away health benefits that are common in industrial countries. The owners get government subsidies while the workers get asbestosis. That’s real

Employee Free Choice Act----

-----------------: a concept from the cesspool of 'progressives' ; the secret ballot ----a [former] cornerstone of our democracy

And from the left we expect less ? ? : can this country survive 4years of this------------

We the people of the United States of America do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Republic. This sometimes means that if a majority, of a group, asks for representation they get it. This is something like a democracy however it is the way this country has flourished for these hundreds of years. Yes I think we will survive eight more years.

one term president

johnaphelps:

Sorry but I think you need to do a little more of this research that you keep lecturing everyone else about. As stated above, this is not a quote "Democratic Govenment, and the majority rules". Our form of government is a "constitutional republic". We're supposed to have a government with powers limited to those enumerated in the Constitution to protect the rights of the unpopular few from being abused by the will of the majority. That's what liberty and freedom is all about.

Democracy is what's commonly referred to as mob rule. That may be the ideal of the Democrat party, to enslave the few productive people under the rule of the unproductive mob.

Saying that people bear responsibility for the actions of lousy politicians that they didn't vote for is foolish. I don't even know where to begin to address that.

iIF MICHAUD HAD ANY LEADERSHIP QUALITIES HE WOULD GO BEFORE CONGRESS AND STATE THAT ALL HIS FELLOW MAINERS ARE HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME MAKING IT AND HE IS TAKING A 15% PAY CUT IN PAY AND CHALLENGES ALL THE REST OF THE DEADBEAT CONGRESS TO STAND UP AND DO THE SAME. WE GET NOTHING BUT LIP SERVICE FROM HIM AND THE REST OF HIS CRONIES, iTS ABOUT TIME HE STANDS UP TO MS. PELOSI, hE SHOULD LEAD BY EXAMPLE BE PROUD YOUR FROM MAINE AND QUIT FOLLOWING PELOSI LIKE A SMALL PUPPY DOG

PULPER1.

Hey Tommy-boy

I stand corrected, but you don't need to lecture me on liberty and freedom I put my time in to protect it also.

My choice of wording was bad, but I meant we are the ones that continually put these people in office.

I try to vote for the one who will do me the least amount of damage, you seem to still believe that oneside, Republican or Democrat still want to do

what is right for the people. One side is just as bad as the other, most come from rich families to begin with and many from families that have been in politics for years. They are all Corrupt and until Americans quit being duped by this Republican- Democrat fighting that they pretend to do, we will keep slipping back into the days of Royalty and Peasants

Our vote to put them in should be by the majority, but it don't always work that way, ask Al Gore, but the fact is they are put into Office by a democratic vote. You are right about it being a " Constitutional Republic and when the Government fails to put the best Interest of all the people at the forefront, then it is the responsibility of the people to replace the Government, I stopped being duped along time ago, how about you. Our Country is more corrupt, and more demanding of the peoples money and Freedom than the Government we fought to win our freedom from was.

We all have to take resonsibility for putting these yahoos into office over the years and letting this happen while we lived the good life,and to not wake up and see it is just fooolish!