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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16705 messages, Last post on Nov 25, 2009 at 6:56 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: tlong (Apr 25, 2009 10:30 pm) No I wouldn't!!! Again for the millionth time I think competition on a level playing field is good for GM and the consumer.  But given that is not very likely, you are running the new GM and you have tough choices. Presumably the New GM already is a lot smaller, has many fewer divisions, and has dumped a large number of uncompetitive vehicles. If you want to compete with other makes you need to be have desirable products but still be profitable. If the full healthcare costs are still on the books for the retirees, I don't know how the bankruptcy court is going to say GM is viable enough to emerge. Well now is this presidents chance to unveil his national healthcare plan. It would help GM cut costs and stay even more competitive. However that alone isn't going to save them. There needs to be tariffs slapped on the hoods of each import to level out the playing field. This would make it costly to use cheap foreign labor or manipulate your currency and those jobs would have to come back here and compete on a level playing field. I also would make sure EFCA passes to unionize the transplants. And I agree that if you are a retired worker it would suck big time. Even if I don't agree with the size of their retirement benefits, it's unfair not to get benefits that they counted on and planned for. Yep!!! The pension appears to be pretty secure but the healthcare is a different story. The best approach for the UAW is to pressure Obama to pass National Healthcare and in return to get GM to increase there pension plan so they can buy supplemental health insurance which would save GM billions and the retirees and active wouldn't lose any benefit coverage. That is how I personally would solve that issue. On a similar note, a family member's wife works as a California unionized school teacher in very large district. She is two years from retirement after over 30years of service. Her RETIREMENT BENEFITS are a pension of $6K/month, with full health care for herself and her husband, for the rest of their lives. Well that is more than double what my dad gets. Dad is getting $2900 a month thus taking a little less per month so my step-mom can collect in case he were to die. However he doesn't live in the costly state of California though either. $6K is chump change in Cali. That will get you what a modest house in the projects of Long Beach, Watts, Compton???  No wonder we are taxed to death in this state. Watch California keep raising taxes, and watch the businesses and affluent individuals leave. I am not planning on retiring in this state. It is like GM and the UAW, but on a larger level. And like the UAW, the state unions are choking our finances. Seriously a home in California in the poor areas will run you $350K from what I could see by watching those HGTV shows like flip that house, etc. I'm sure it's a cool million or so where Gary aka gagrice lives in San Diego. I was born in Long Beach but I don't know what is so special about living there??? It is cheaper and warmer in Florida. I guess since I haven't been there since I was a baby I don't know what I'm missing, eh??? I'll take Michigan, and our 4 seasons any day. The only good thing about California, is six-foot tall blond bombshells are as common as the California sunshine from what I hear.  However we have our fair share of tall smokin' hot women here in Western Michigan and one of em' happens to be my best friend.  -Rocky
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Replying to: rockylee (Apr 26, 2009 12:09 am) |
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The UAW workers don't make the big bucks anymore. Tell me just how big of a wage cut did the old timers take? The UAW is playing games with the new hires. That should be plain to you. A real Union does not cut the wages of just the lower guys on the seniority list. It is across the board. Same goes for Retirees. When the AK Teamsters eliminated Health Care for the retirees it included those already retired as well as the next generation of retirees. That is fair and equal. Just take a long hard look at the UAW contracts and tell me they treat all the workers in a given job equally. That is what a REAL Union does. What you see now is only the beginning of your serf n' elite society. That is what I see with the UAW. The older workers making the big bucks with golden parachutes and the new hires taking the hit. You should be ashamed of that kind of treatment. And in this case I do not believe Reuther would have gone along with the contract. All for one, and One for all is not part of a two tier wage package. your children might be living high on the hawg now with good jobs Hardly. They get by with a little help from the Dad, me. My daughter is doing better in Indiana than they did here in CA. They should be closing on a home soon. They would NEVER have been able to buy a home in CA. My daughter and husband together do not make the base pay that a Delphi fork lift operator makes. Which is somewhere in the $65k to $80k+ per year without OT. Unless Oscar was lying on his bankruptcy case. I think competition on a level playing field is good for GM and the consumer. A level playing field would mean the UAW workers should be making the average for manufacturing throughout the USA. That is not the case. There are factories everywhere with people making $10 per hour and sometimes less. You should think about the playing field being level in the USA before you try leveling it across the globe. My ex brother in law slung hides in a packing plant until he went on SS. You ever go into a beef packing plant? You think that any job in the auto industry is any messier than scraping cow hides? Well he was always paid just above minimum wage in Modesto California. No incentive to better himself. Sound like folks you know in the UAW. The difference is in the UAW you make as much as many with expensive degrees. How fair and level is that playing field? I don't think you know what fair is. $6K is chump change in Cali. That will get you what a modest house in the projects of Long Beach, Watts, Compton? You really are out of touch with reality. I wish I was getting $6k per month pension. Mine after 37 years in the Teamsters is about 2/3rds that with NO HEALTH CARE. And I live quite comfortably in a very nice area of CA. I know I could live like a king in Michigan on $6K per month. That is $72k per year. Not a lot of people make that much here in CA. Maybe 5% of the workforce. Mostly in government. Which generates NO income other than taxes from the lower paid masses. They are getting close to being complete with Medical Mile which will give us the finest hospitals in the country. So why aren't you taking courses to get one of those great jobs? I think ILUV has tried to head you in that direction. I am sure you could get Federal aid of some sort to retrain yourself. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Apr 26, 2009 5:51 am) Would the same go for the transplants? How do you think they would react to having their pay slashed to $10-12/hr?
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Apr 26, 2009 6:33 am) If the dust ever settles from this whole business, I would expect cuts. Not that drastic. I think if the UAW had cut all the workers to about $20 per hour and got rid of the retiree gold plated health care, we would not be looking at GM & C BK. And the bottom line is GM will never be able to replenish the Pension fund. So it will be in default with the PBGC at the end of this year. The UAW and D3 were running a Ponzi scheme just like Madoff and this housing/banking bubble exposed them both. The difference is the UAW/D3 leaders and management are still on the loose instead of in jail. |
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Replying to: rockylee (Apr 25, 2009 9:41 pm) I don't want to know the average worker's salary. I want to know the top salaries and the lowest and the distribution between those. I like histograms or box-and-whisker plots of those things. Same for the UAW at GM. I want to know what the top, older guys are still making. I don't want to hear about the average. The average can be lowered by the poor guys who got hired in at the lower new salary that still haven't been bumped out. I have nothing against the older UAW workers making a good salary, but I don't think they need an outrageous salary while the new hires were eating the dust on starvation salaries and then use the average to fool the numbers. The older, seniority UAW workers should have taken definite cuts a decade ago. I always believe figures lie if not analyzed properly.
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Replying to: rockylee (Apr 25, 2009 8:21 pm) I already posted a story that the whole sequence is more than just UAW and high salaries. Indeed that includes management. All managements make mistakes. But when it was time to adjust the last couple of decades the UAW kept on going up. Many people don't want to accept the government could have helped with this situation through the decades. Guvment has some responsibility to the citizens.
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The Czar appointed by the Govt to oversee the Auto guys in the motorcity sole purpose is to make sure the UAW doesn't get the screwed in the reorganization process..The govt has not a clue on product lines except it has to be small, dangerous, and something with a short cruising range..Future long distance travel is a no-no, especially by car.. The future UAW will be a community organizing group which will make it viable to receive govt funds, your tax dollars, and joining the well-known Acorn plus the Americorps which between them have been awarded $ 10,000,000,000 to carry out protests and neighborhood projects including Election Fraud.. Someone mentioned high pay for teachers in retirement plus full health benefits and wondering where the money is coming from?? Remember AIG and the $100,000,000,000 of our tax dollars--yep they hold the majority of the NEA pensions... Don't worry the UAW will end up sucking up our tax $$$$s. It's the liberal payback time.. Maybe some of you think the Obama "Shovel Ready Projects" will rescue the UAW folks, no back-breaking work for the loyalists..It's vacation time with pay, thanks to our new folks in DC.. Lots of beer drinking time with almost full pay, isn't Captialism Great!!!! Old Henry Ford had the right idea about unionism, he fought it to the end, and of course he lost, but it wasn't a cakewalk for the workers..Any laid off UAW workers will draw unemployment benefits until at least the next election 2010... If you are thinking about buying a foreign car assembled in the USA, better get one before the UAW organizes the bunch, for the quality will hit the bricks..I am sure that the current govt bunch have laid the groundwork for unionizing the Asians..w/o Card-check laws.. Love my country.
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Replying to: motorcity6 (Apr 26, 2009 9:36 am) That's not a correct statement to assume that UAW in a plant would cause poor product. The BIG THREE gave the workers the parts to put together and oversaw the assembly.
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