By: Diane Benjamin According to an interview on WGLT, the chances of finding a buyer for the Mitsubishi Auto plant aren’t good. Paul Eisenstein, of the Detroit bureau-dot-com, said dozens of plants have closed in the US in the last decade, most have been torn down. Cleanup will cost millions. New plants are built away from unions and a trained workforce is not essential, they prefer to train their own workforce. Hear the interview here: http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2015/08/00804_08-03eisensteinWEB_014945.shtml Task forces, like the local group, were created in light of the plant closures. Eisenstein said most failed. Illinois is NOT a state that values manufacturing, fleeing the state accelerated in 2014. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/hey-speaker-madigan-illinois-no-1-budget-problem-is-taxpayers-fleeing-the-state/ The McLean County Board needs to pass Right-To-Work now. Bloomington and Normal will never pass it, so the County must. It may be the only hope. Citizens must DEMAND it. Contact your representatives. County Board members: http://www.mcleancountyil.gov/Directory.aspx?DID=11 Don’t assume wages will be lower. Job growth and incomes are rising in Right-To-Work states, while falling in states like Illinois. What Illinois is doing isn’t working, why not try something different.
Side note: Multiply the number of Mitsubishi jobs by 4-7 to get the total job loss number. Not all will be local, but many will. 4-7 is in the interview.
WOW unions don’t work-NEWS FLASH! Years ago I worked (in college) at the EUREKA plants-Main, Ft Jesse, and worked on several machines and lines. ONE job was punch press, and a co worker and I had to do so many pieces per hour. We could do PRODUCTION in TWO hours, and the hardest part of the job was finding an empty box to hide in for the other SIX HOURS! Course we didn’t smoke, so didn’t take smoke breaks. NEVER had I had such an easy BRAIN DEAD job as those for such good money! $11.56 an hour in 1986 wasn’t bad-sent me back to school. (actually the Bahamas) SO, WHO wants a TRAINED work force? ( read complacent)
No longer is the B-N economy insulated as it has been in the past. Welcome to the real world! Welcome to the effects of the world economy which was clear to see for anyone with an open mind. These loss of jobs from Mitshubishi and State Farm relocating thousands will be quite the burden. More folks will leave because it is just becoming too expensive to live here as basic infrastructure is ignored for million dollar bike lanes pipe dreams of utopia. Take a look at China’s ghost cities and wonder why the “if you build it they will come” is failing.
There really isn’t a consensus that economic growth can be directly tied to right-to-work laws. There are many other factors to include: corporate taxes, incentives, regulations, trade agreements, I would add skilled labor, and the ability of each state to attract new business and COMMIT to hiring workers here in the states. Globalization and the ability to compete with international companies is another factor. That being said, I would support Right-To-Work if it eliminated the requirement for a Union to represent all workers, regardless if they are Union or not. It really won’t matter in the long run unless there some serious work done on economic policy and creating international partnerships. Either that or we need to think twice when we buy a pair of jeans that says made in China and pay the extra money for a pair made in the USA.
With Mayor Renner joining President Obama’s war on fossil fuels which will cause energy prices to rise it becomes even more difficult to replace the auto plant. Countries like China and India despite warnings of Armageddon have doubled their use of fossil fuels since the 1970s. The result has been longer life expectancy and a much higher standard of living. I suspect many auto companies will seek out country’s like China for expansions. Mayor Renner And Mayor Koos just how are you going to operate your electric cars without coal fired power plants to charge and build them? I guess that’s why you view bike paths as a need.
Right. You are making are very weak correlation between fossil fuel use and life expectancy. Ian Bayne made a similar comparison regarding transfats. Both are wrong. Correlation is not causation. Wait….I figured it out! Unless Rush, Alex Jones, and Fox News say it, it’s not true. It’s obviously OK to inhale black smoke because I can expect to live 80 years after the fact, but with my lungs bleeding and severe COPD! Woo Hoo!
What does any of this have to do with the story? I love how leftists think they know where conservatives get news. I’ve posted on Facebook more than once that I’m not a Rush fan, I’ve never listened or read anything from Alex Jones, and I watch very little Fox News – actually none of their news shows. Sorry about your lungs, life expectancy keeps rising and the air is cleaner now than in the 70’s, so let’s all use expensive energy so we can’t afford anything else. Brilliant!
Am I not allowed to correct inaccurate statmements? Do you really believe life expectancy and fossil fuel are directly connected? Or are a combination factors like modernized healthcare, sanitation, improved diets, eradication of childhood diseases more plausible? Do we leave a better world for our children and find a path to cleaner energy or do we continue to lag behind due to cost? It’s not easy, but America has not been known to just quit because it is too costly. I’m sure the city could get rid of golf courses and other luxuries to offset some cost. But the other part is companies just need to find a way and not look for the government to bankroll them. Heck provide tax rewards for finding lower cost clean energy.
Mikey, You state “Correlation is not causation.” It is the environmental extremist and progressives like Mayor Renner and President Obama who tell us every day that “Correlations is Causation.” If its hot = humans fault, If Its cold = humans fault, If it snows = humans fault, Tornado = humans fault. The entire argument for the environmental extremists is based on the flawed non- scientific Correlation = Causation fallacy. Below quotes from leader of the extremists show why life expectancy increasing is a big deal.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” – Paul Ehrlich
“In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” – Life magazine
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” – Harvard biologist George
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” – Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day
“Heck provide tax rewards for finding lower cost clean energy” is already in place. Tax “rewards” are still government subsidies. Government mandates often cause more harm than good and the cost is just passed on to the consumer.
Jeff you are saying fossil fuel use led to greater life expectancy! You seized on one data point (fossil fuel emissions) that had no bearing on the other (life expectancy). Your pivot to criticize the left smacks of desperation to salvage the righteous high-ground. People are dying in China and India. Look at the reports. Greater life expectancy didn’t result because of low fossil fuel admissions.
http://m.scmp.com/news/china/article/1632163/670000-deaths-year-cost-chinas-reliance-coal?page=all
http://m.sfgate.com/world/article/India-China-face-growing-risk-of-air-pollution-6330959.php
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hengshao/2015/03/02/only-in-china-why-a-smog-documentary-sends-chinese-stocks-soaring-beyond-trading-limit/
Mikey. People die everywhere.
So what is the math here? Figure 4 jobs lost per each job at the plant. How many is that and what percentage of the total jobs in BN is that? As I’ve written before, the latest jobs growth numbers got a one time boost from HyVee opening. The job losses as a result of that (Cub foods) will show up later. It’s going to be ugly. Think is will shake the council back to reality?
thinking…..thinking……….thinking……..NO. They don’t have any independent thoughts.
Not all employees of the Mitsubishi auto plant live in Bloomington and Normal.
http://www.wjbc.com/2015/08/03/sen-brady-pushes-enterprise-zone-extension-to-aid-mitsubishi-site/
Enterprise Zones, a pie in the sky.
Brady is so out of touch of what is going on in the world.
this link was an FYI
I put a majority of the blame at the federal government level. A long time ago they should have slapped a big tariff on goods coming into the U.S.
Using DullMart as an example they wanted cheap goods to increase profits. If they can make it in China for 50 cents instead of $20 in America and still sell it to Americans for $50 life is good in the corporate world. Hey we can even buy more politician’s too to get more that we want. Life is even better in the corporate world.
That wasn’t enough for corporate America so lets start targeting white collar jobs by expanding the Visa programs. Cheap labor to replace highly paid American’s. Life just got even better in the corporate world with huge magnitude increases in profits. Most of Congress and the Senate is on their donation list by now thanks to the SCOTUS.
Personally I don’t see where right to work will do much to change things. Too little, too late. Companies want those emerging market countries and they hate to be regulated too. I bet if all environmental rules were suspended in IL they would be right here in no time combined with a right to work and no corporate taxes. We know that isn’t going to happen.
I hate to see it happen but those Mitsubishi workers might as well figure on taking lower paying jobs if they can even find one. Do you think politician’s really care? Not at all about 900+ people.