To add to the Sudbury gossip.....

The rumors I heard coming out of Sudbury after the layoffs last month was that the union workers were getting 1/3 the work done as the contractors... so in my mind they have brought some of this on themselves. Once all the contractors were removed from the site.. it was a little more apparent... and I'm not even going to go into the nickel bonuses they were receiving.... before the crash.

There is no place in todays business world for unions. They drive up the prices of our gas, metals and manufacturing to a point where as a consumer you have to stop and think.. is this truck I bought really worth $40,000???? No. It is because they are paying an employee on the line who has been with the company for 35 years... $70/hour to put a couple moldings on the body. Both GM and Ford need to cut these costs to survive. On top of that it promotes lack of productivity/lazyness. We cut half of our manufacturing department... and within a month were producing just as much stock as we were previously.. suddenly everyone is concerned about their job.. and willing to work.

As these union nogotiations occur across the business market (refineries, smelters, manufacturing plants, etc) we are sure to see wage/pention cuts, bonuses minimized, etc. This can only help the consumers and our business market recover. You also see fine tuning of processes to ensure cost effective production schedules. In the end.. the product becomes cheaper to produce.. and can be sold at a reasonable price.

Consolidation in the Nickel market would also help. As OPEC has done with oil.. if you are able to control the flow of the supplies side.. you can keep the inventories at a reasonably level. If OPEC hadn't done its cuts.. Oil would have been sub $20.

As recently China is investing in several production projects and even some exploration projects here in Canada it would seem their long term goal is to control the inventory coming onto the market. This boom and bust cycle is too unpredictable.

Quaz