Gettelfinger argued Toyota’s workers actually make $2-per-hour more than UAW workers, if you count bonuses. But … but. … Toyota did not go bankrupt. … Toyota hasn’t had to be rescued with $17.4 billion of taxpayer money. … If Toyota can afford to pay its workers $2/hour more than UAW workers–perhaps because it doesn’t have to build cars under the union’s legalistic work rule system–that’s great. It doesn’t mean Gettelfinger’s workers have a right to $28/hour if at that wage their employers can’t stay in business without an ongoing multi-billion dollar subsidy. I’m sorry if this seems obvious. It’s apparently not obvious enough. … P.S.: So will promoters of greater unionization now boast that with unions, workers can earn $2/hour less?
The last line is the kicker.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
Two words: Social Security.
In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.
“Canon has a very strong birth planning program,” says the company’s spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. “Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it.”
Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country’s low birthrate.
At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan’s population, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Now I am all for babies as much as it is possible for a guy to be. But I dunno about working for a company that feels compelled to urge you to multiply. Business is Business and family is family. Still, the ugliest thing about the above story is that 1.34 figure. Japan no longer has the time to turn their birth rates around. They are doomed without massive immigration and I don’t see anyone in Japan willing to accept that.