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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: lemko (May 14, 2009 10:25 am) NOBODY could afford to go fishing either. With $30 per hour UAW workers making lures the prices would be out of sight. These are all thing we lost decades ago to cheaper labor. It just took longer to catch up to your Buick and GM. If the UAW had offered to cut everyone back to $15 per hour and dump the retiree health care plan back in 2005, GM would probably be profitable and this thread never would exist.
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Replying to: gagrice (May 14, 2009 1:11 pm) Retiree health care? Health care in this country is totally out of whack, but these retirees would've ended up on Medicare costing the taxpayers that much more money! Well, I can be vicious and say those who can't afford their own private health care should just let nature run its course and kill them off when they get sick, but I'm not that sociopathic.
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Replying to: lemko (May 14, 2009 2:21 pm) Perhaps this might make you smile a little, both being possible Buicks soon.   Regards, OW |
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Replying to: lemko (May 14, 2009 2:21 pm) Well do you want to keep unskilled jobs in this country or don't you? I cannot affor a yacht either. I doubt any of the guys building yachts can afford them. Where does it say in the Constitution you have to be able to have everything? A car is a luxury in most of the world. If you are in an unskilled job riding the bus and want more, get an education and rise above the level of unskilled. The UAW and its ilk have warped the minds of unskilled workers. They made them believe they were worth more than they actually are. The UAW is forcing those jobs over seas as sure as I am typing this. There are millions of out of work people in this country that would jump at the chance to build your Buicks and Caddies for $15 per hour. And that is high pay for what they would be doing. I dare say it takes less training than a bricklayer or a concrete finisher. And those jobs are lucky to make $15 per hour in California during the housing boom. Today it is more like $12 per hour with NO benefits. And an out of work felon is still a felon that should be shot when caught in the act of committing a felony. And cities like Philadelphia were over run with Felons when the unemployment rate was at its lowest ever in the last decade. We have already debunked the idea that crime goes up with unemployment. |
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Wonder how the UAW feels about 750 Chrysler dealers losing their livelihood? I hope they're scared to death that there will be 750 fewer outlets to market the poorly built (and designed) product the halfheartedly screw together, but doubt it. And who will fix these miserable products when they break? The ill-will that will be generated by the shuttering of 750 community business men and women (in mostly small, tight-knit communities) will overwhelm whatever amount of investment the Obama administration brain-trust, as well as you and I, can afford to "invest" in Chrysler. Think the UAW cares about these dealers and their employees. No way. Like a previous post stated, as long as some overpaid broom jockey gets to keep a job, all is well! The thing that seems to get lost in these discussion is that assembling cars (we don't "build" them anymore) is not difficult or skilled work. The process is so compartmentalized and the training is so specific, that most any 11th grade student could do it. Chrysler's problems stem from years of terrible management (Daimler and Cerberus), overall miserable product and UAW greed. I'm a domestic car fan (3 Ford's and a Chevy) but I will NEVER BUY A CHRYSLER (or Fiat), given the way they've treated these dealers. And if GM does likewise, I will adopt the same philosophy toward them. Good luck, Chrysler and UAW.
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Replying to: wjtinatl (May 14, 2009 3:28 pm) 
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circle: "If the idiots at the D3 invested the wasted money on UAW contracts into flexible and highly automated plants and produced cars better than the rest..."...Roger Smith, CEO of GM, 1981-1990, tried to automate plants with as many robots as possible, hoping to create the non-human auto plant...whether the software was bad or it was just too soon for robots, but he tried... gagrice: "Well do you want to keep unskilled jobs in this country or don't you? I cannot affor a yacht either. I doubt any of the guys building yachts can afford them. Where does it say in the Constitution you have to be able to have everything?"...that is the other problem...people often work making something that they may not be able to afford...yachts, STS-V, high-end shotguns, etc...there is no law that says that you have to afford everything...the better law is that you are paid what you are worth, and, as the evidence shows, the UAW are not worth it...yes, I know Henry Ford paid his people so they could afford his product, but that does not mean they could afford a Packard or Duesenberg, but they could afford a base Ford...it is not that the pay is too low, it is that the car they WANT costs too much... UAW people are starting to see reality and it hurts, but they have been spoiled children for so many generations, it is in their DNA, they really believe that someone sweeping floors is worth $35/hour as though money grows on trees...those trees are rotting away, faster than anyone thought... I wonder what the feeling is out there in the nation...folks who never knew that UAW made our cars or that they were paid like no other unskilled labor, suddenly know what is going on, and the curtain has been pulled back from the Wizard...now, how many people who would have bought Big 3 will avoid them after understanding the shenanigans going on with overpaid floorsweepers???...if sales fall further, you might see the UAW down to 2 locals and 17 members...wouldn't THAT be heaven??? |
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Replying to: gagrice (May 14, 2009 3:17 pm) That is the essence of the problem. In a "normal" free market, the auto companies would pay what the market would bear, and they would still be making lots of cars here. The UAW in their greed has limited the natural ability of the job market to adjust to prevailing conditions of the workforce. The salaries and benefits are artificially inflated and the ability of the D3 to adapt is limited. The only sensible choice is for them to outsource more work to non-UAW locations. The irony is that the non-UAW car companies (foreign nameplates) are happily building plants in this country and making good products right. It's just the American makes that can't do that competitively. Thanks UAW for helping the American economy!
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Replying to: imidazol97 (May 14, 2009 4:12 am) |
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