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Open-shop laws threaten unions

Business leaders and politicians are talking about making Michigan the country's 23rd state with an open-shop or right-to-work law, according to USA Today.

Right-to-work is the phrase union opponents use to describe what unions call open shops. Under such laws, union membership is not required to get a job, and workers can choose whether they want to be in a union, even if a company is unionized.

That makes it harder for unions to organize new members in already-unionized plants and makes it more difficult to bring unions to new sites. Ultimately, unions say, it means more non-union workers earning lower non-union wages.

Posted by   at 11:19 AM to Unions | Permalink | Comments 0

Report: Banks postpone Chrysler funding plan

Investment banks raising funds for the turnaround of Chrysler Group postponed a $12 billion debt offer after investors balked, so they will now fund the bulk themselves to keep the automaker's sale on track, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, according to USA Today.

The banks, which include Goldman Sachs Group (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), will fund about $10 billion of the deal, said sources familiar with the deal, who could not comment on the record because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Posted by   at 11:16 AM to Chrysler | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Prices Near $77 a Barrel

Oil prices neared $77 a barrel amid speculative buying and worries that inventories of crude oil at a key Oklahoma terminal fell last week, according to AP

Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $1.08 cents to $76.96 a barrel by mid-afternoon in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract had risen $2.32 to $75.88 on Wednesday, reversing a three-day decline as traders started buying at lower prices.

Posted by   at 11:14 AM to Oil | Permalink | Comments 0

Ford Surprises Wall St. With 2Q Profit

Job cuts, slimmer losses in North America and good sales overseas helped Ford Motor Co. post surprise second-quarter earnings of $750 million, its first profitable quarter in two years, according to the Associated Press.

The company also confirmed it is exploring the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover subsidiaries and said its U.S. market share rose during the quarter.

Posted by   at 11:13 AM to Ford | Permalink | Comments 0

Exxon Mobil 2Q Profit Slips

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said its second-quarter profit fell 1 percent from a year ago as lower natural gas prices hurt results, according to the Associated Press.

Still, the company's net income of $10.26 billion was the fourth-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company. The latest profit compared with earnings of $10.36 billion in the second quarter of 2006.

Posted by   at 11:11 AM to Exxon Mobil | Permalink | Comments 0