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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: fintail (Aug 11, 2008 7:34 am) I suspect there are a good deal of parts on the Big 3 vehicles that are "foreign" made, and installed by UAW workers. Last fall I wanted a "Levi" brand denim jacket. But at the local stores, including Kohls and a "High End" store, they were in the $60 to $70 range. A bit high for my blood. Ended up with a "Wrangler" brand from Wal*Mart. Got it home and started removing the tags and discovered it was made in Bangladesh. Near winters end a local store had marked down their Genuine "Levi" jackets from $68 to $20. Snatched that puppy up and was a proud camper. Got home and discovered the "We were the first, We are the American Tradition" (according to the tag) Genuine Levi jacket was made in China. Yep, right there on the inside sewn in label. Can't tell any differences in the two brands except for the tiny red tag on the Levi pocket. Three days ago "Car Quest" ordered, for me, a pair of 350 Chevy OEM type exhaust manifolds for my 78 Chevy Van. I got them and they fit perfectly. "Made in China". Doesn't seem to much matter where we shop, an overwhelming amount of the stuff we purchase is made outside the USA.. I suspect there are a good deal of parts on the Big 3 vehicles that are "foreign" made, and installed by UAW workers. I wonder if that employee really cares, or refuses to install them for that reason. Now that Big 3 and UAW are working to get wages and hopefully CEO and management salaries to a more realistic level, maybe they can improve parts quality. The employees just might be proud to have a job and work diligently to keep it. I truly miss having a new Chevy or Pontiac in my garage, as I did from 1960-1987. However, I didn't abandon them, they abandoned me. Kip
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 21, 2008 8:26 am) When our contract changed in 2003 and I went to a new company, they did the same thing, combining vacation and sick pay and just calling it "leave". I actually prefer it this way. I remember when the old company lost the contract, I had about 240 hours of vacation saved up, and about 57 hours of sick pay. The vacation pay got paid out to me when the contract was up, but the sick pay was lost. I forget what my accrual rate was back then, though. Probably 3 weeks of vacation and 1 week of sick. I think my seniority got bumped up to a new level right as we switched contracts, so with the new company, I ended up getting 5 weeks per year of leave. Well, we're about to lose the contract again. They let us accrue twice our annual rate, so I can get up to 400 hours total. I'm near that now. So to keep me from hitting my 400 hours and not getting anymore, they're letting me just cash it out, a few hours at a time, and add to my paycheck. So in a sense I'm working 10 days per pay period but getting paid for 11 or 12. It all comes out in the wash anyway, since when our contract finally expires in October, they'd have to pay all that out to me, anyway. Back when we used to have sick days, people would abuse them. But since it's all just considered leave now, in my company at least, it seems like people are less likely to abuse it. Now the new company I'm about to go with separates the two, again. I'll get 22.5 days of vacation (180 hours) and 5 days (40 hours) of sick pay. One thing that's cool though, is they'll let you take sick leave for doctor's visits and such...you don't actually have to be SICK! And they'll let you take partial days, which is nice. |
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Replying to: kipk (Aug 13, 2008 5:58 am) I bet they don't last as long nowadays, either. I bought a Levi's denim jacket back in 11th grade. Must have been late 1986 or early 1987. I remember even back then it was 50 bucks. That sucker lasted, though. Eventually the elbows wore out, and I cut the sleeves off and made a vest out of it. I think I still have it packed away somewhere. It was getting a bit frayed around the collar too, but that just gave it a "vintage" look. |
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if Julius Caesar invented Caesar salad dressing, does that mean that Ronald Reagan or George W.Bush (or George H.Bush, for that matter)invented Ranch dressing. I know, tee-hee.  tedebear, so the Boeing job is local there in St.Louis? The UAW members ought to be thinking re-training round about now if they haven't already been thinkin' along those lines. 
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Aug 13, 2008 7:24 am) I thought that Bush was responsible for those baked beans that the Irish setter is always trying to leak the recipe to. Ronald Reagan, he was an actor. I don't think he invented anything. If he did, he probably wouldn't remember... 
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Replying to: marsha7 (Aug 13, 2008 4:49 am) We always cut the lawyers extra slack. But you can glance at the discussion title now and then as a memory trick to remind yourself that you are in the CarSpace UAW topic, and not, say, chatting up the judge's clerk or picking up your starched ties.
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Replying to: tedebear (Aug 12, 2008 4:50 pm) Take the BOEING job!!! McDD / BOEING's general working conditions cannot be beat. Boeing has the most amazing education support system, - get your bachelor's degree, all costs paid 100%, AND receive 100 shares of Boeing stock!!! I might add that no import car will ever be found in my garage, no matter where I work. The UAW helped me get to where I am today. You will have to drive some rather exclusive rig, 'cause all that mundane transportation is bolted together in Mexico or elsewhere. My '91 lincoln conti was slapped together in Mexico... 
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You must cut kipk: I think I remember reading a few years ago that Levi Strauss finally closed their last remaining USA plant and moved it all to China or Mexico...to bring Levi on topic, I must question that age old mantra, was it worth paying Americans, say, $20-30 per hour and still sell the jacket for $80...it seems to be a question that always pops up, that the wages of the workers sent the product overseas, as I do not think the price of cotton would have done it...and the fact that Levi did it within, I believe, in the last 5 years means that they TRIED to do it with American labor, but I am assuming that the cost was simply too high, or they could not sell the jacket for $125 to recoup the cost of USA labor...which is why, I think, we do not have a textile industry here, as the cost of the US made clothing would be more than the average American will pay, so they must meet their market and drop labor costs, or at least that is what I am thinking... Every one talks about the WORKER making a reasonable wage, but nobody looks at the demand side to see if the public will pay the price for the US workers wages...if the $80 jacket becomes $125, then fewer jackets will be sold and the industry will shrink simply due to lower demand at the higher price... andre: my wife used to work at a bank where they called it all PTO, Paid Time Off...you could bak only so many days a year, not all of them, and they didn't care whether you called it sick time, vacation time, bereavment time, personal days or whatever...say you got 21 days a year, and you could bank 10...that was it and it seemed reasonable at the time... |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Aug 12, 2008 5:49 pm) Then you bring up Chicago as the only place that election fraud occurs. Florida comes to mind, Texas and the Duke of Duval county. You can't be thinking that Nixon and his dirty tricks was robbed in Chicago? Might I remind you that Obama is a professor at the University of Chicago (Americas number one MBA school with countless Nobel prize professors) and is light years ahead of the status quo and or anything the entire GOP has to offer in intellect.
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