2011 was a very good year for the Caterpillar company. Sales and profits have never been higher.
But even when you're more profitable than ever, there's a sure-fire way to ratchet record profits up to even higher levels.
Ratchet down the wages of the folks who actually build your Caterpillar stuff.
That's what's going on right now at the Caterpillar locomotive plant in London Ontario. Purchased from General Motors via a very profitable layover at a hedge fund, Electro-Motive Diesel employs about 500 workers in the southern Ontario city.
The skilled welders and steel-fitters at Electro-Motive have been given an ultimatum by the company that is coming off the best financial year in its history: work for half of last years wage or we'll shut you down and send the work somewhere else.
Makes sense to me. Just because you're having the best year in your history doesn't mean next year can't be even better. And if you have to rip the guts out of the union folks who build your stuff, well, that's the way it goes.
This is where I lapse into fantasies of worker solidarity. What if the guys who operate Caterpillar equipment world-wide simply said "no thanks - I won't operate equipment that is built by a company that squeezes it's surplus profits out of the paychecks of their workers."
Construction sites and mines and road-building projects all over the world would shut down overnight.
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