Summary
Magna for the last 62 days has been trying to prevent the company from shutting it's doors, or at very least prolonging the inevitable.
Analysis
As Magna currently does owe back pay of $37,500 from last years contract to ease the UAW workers transition to lower pay to $20.16; and offered that as a buy-out to retirement for some, and fulfilling contractual obligations to others.
Other requests in more recent times have been a temporary shut-down of the plant, so production would cease, minimize expenses, and permit, maybe demand to pick-up. Also, a paycut to $16/hour would be mandatory for all workers.
These requests were made with the provision that if Magna hit it's financial 'mark' of breaking-even, or better, obviously the plant would remain open. However, if the plant continued to lose money, the plant would probably close in July.
This of course, a mute point, because this contract has been voted down 580-530, and therefore, will put 1400+ union workers out on the street and on unemployment, and worsen an already bleak employment situation for the Central New York Economy, as not only will 1400 more people be without work, but one of the oldest companies will no longer be around.
The Union workers' are worried about the pay-cuts, health benefits, and all the other aspects of their fringe benefited contract. And then they scream foul when someone buys a foreign car, because they couldn't afford the sticker of the GM, Ford, or Chrysler vehicle because those vehicles also come standard not only with equipment, but with the pay, health benefits, and other fringe benefits of the contract.
Finally, while these workers sit on unemployment for two years being 're-trained' as the Federal Trade Adjustment Assistance money will permit them to do. 'Re-trained' is the correct term too, 're-trained' to take a position for $8 or $9/hour, where they have to earn vacation and sick time slowly, where they have to pay something for their benefits, and don't have a fringe benefitted contract, so they can take a bereavement day because their precious gold fish died.
And in the end, at least, they didn't take a pay-cut to $16/hour, and maybe have to pay something for their benefits; some small constellation I guess, as they punch their new time card, flipping burgers, doing an oil change, or what ever else, for minimum wage. At least management didn't get the best of them.
