12,000 paid not to work

Detroit News reported Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits. "We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."

This is what is wrong with unions. At one time they may have been good, but when they can force employeers to featherbed 12,000 workers for doing nothing, something needs to be done.

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union. The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing. As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program.

Steve blogged It does not strike me as unreasonable for an employer to help a layed off employee retrain and find another job. However, after a year (more or less) of retraining

These guys were not being retrained or helped to find another job. They were being paid not to work.

I can't think of any good reason these 12,000 should not have been sent out to get real jobs.