As someone who's moved across the country for work, I find the notion of "we deserve good jobs to be given to us at home" to be laughable...
Where does it stop, though? Would you move to India or China? There is the family support factor as well. It may not be an issue for you in your particular place in life, but it can be a huge factor for others--support with childcare (schools and snowdays) and/or eldercare (taking a declining parent to doctor appointments).
I'm not saying that you should never have to expect to move, but that it can be much more complicated than just moving a single you.
Is it society's responsibility to make sure all industries stay relevant? Horse trainers, buggy manufacturers, VCR repairs have all gone by the wayside. It happens. Industry changes.
It can be complicated, absolutely. I'm saying that I think the sense of entitlement is absurd.
We aren't talking about an industry that has become irrelevant, though, we are talking about one that has moved farther away from it's customers.
I'm not going to argue for keeping the auto makers in Michigan, though. I still see auto plants in other states. I think it has to do with the UAW and it's shitty practices, at least somewhat. Unions were good and useful, until they went too far.
Unions went too far, lol. That is funny. Why do you think auto workers had decent paychecks? If not for unions autoworkers would be paid just like any other low skill job. And the increase in pay did not hurt the auto industry's profit. Compare the cost of it, to the C-level increases.
they had decent paychecks for a time, because about the time John got sick of buying Ford's union built junk and bought a chevy, Tom got sick of Chevy's union built junk and bought a Dodge, and Jerry got sick of Dodge union built junk and bought a Ford. During all this, the big 3 could put up with the UAW's nonsense and ridulous demands and pay the floor sweeper 100K, make a profit, and not improve thier product.
Then toyota and Honda came along. When someone bought a honda or Toyota, they didn't end up with a bad taste in thier mouth and kept buying them. the union, in thier infinite greed, wouldn't dial back thier parasitic bleeding of thier hosts... and killed off all but three of the american automakers.
And how much do the C-level executives earn? Or are you just pulling things out of your ass, like you did with the salary you posted?
I shouldn't bother addressing this, as your response is non-sequitor and, I think, you may be confusing me with someone else... but I can't help myself.
Sorry, the $100K janitor is really a $270K per year janitor who is a public employee union in LA. Public employee unions are another level of corrupt and dispicable, so I won't go into that any further here.
So, How many of these 'C level executives' do you think there really are in a company like GM? Not a whole lot, I'd think. A conversation about whether some exec deserves 500K is one a company should have when it struggles, and i'll bet that those guys did get a haircut or fired during the lean 80's, 90's, and early 2000's.
But Consider the sheer numbers of hourly employees (there are 225,000 according to Wikipedia right now). Paying them lavishly can run a company under pretty quick, when the company is facing slowing sales. With that many employees, every $1 per hour paid, on straight time alone, is nearly 500million dollars... let alone the social security taxes, etc that the employer has to pay.
Throw in the games unions play that cost productivity for zero gain for the worker, and you're talking huge quantities of money.
Read my last post closer. You will see I clearly laid some of the blame at the feet of the executives who didn't innovate or see fit to improve the quality of what they sold. That does NOT absolve the UAW of it's role in thier own demise, and unions, going forward, must honestly assess thier relationship to thier host companies if they want to survive. Your attitude, of unions can do no wrong, will just ensure they demise.
I want to boil this down concisely so it fits in everyone's attention span: Unions are not soley to blame for the demise of American auto manufacturing, but thier demands became especially painful during the lean years of the late 70s through mid 2000s, and accelerated the bleeding and outsourcing. unions must accept that globalisation is here to stay, and they may need to change the way they do things if they want to continue to exist.