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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16663 messages, Last post on Nov 08, 2009 at 9:32 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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A $2150 UAW pension is better than a $14.50 per hour job at a transplant. The transplant worker has to pay soc sec and since he has no pension he has to put 15% into a 401k. That leaves $1944 a month gross, which is 206 a month less than the UAW pension for 30 and out. The UAW guy doesn't need a 401k because he's already into an income for life situation. When the pensionless transplant worker has 3 years in and gets a 20% raise, he will catch up to the retired UAW. So in effect, the retired ex-UAW nearly costs GM more than the active worker at the transplant factory costs the parent co. back in Japan. Japan uses part of the profits from the American worker (and there is a lot) to design a robot that can eliminate the transplant worker's job forever. The guy on pension can only be elimated by death and that could also possibly include that of a spouse before GM's obligation is done. I would not be suprised if today, the total UAW pension payouts each month exceed the combined US citizen gross payroll of all Asian transplants employees combined.
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Replying to: dave8697 (Jan 01, 2009 8:10 pm) I have read your post and not sure of your point. First and foremost, GM & the UAW should have NEVER entered into a contract that did not set aside money for retirement as the employee worked. That was sort of rectified in 1990 with ERISA. When they say a pension plan is fully funded that means if the company goes broke the retirees and those vested should be covered for their retirement. IF the UAW and GM agreed to pay the retirees health care for life they should have set aside money to do that. If they did not and the company goes broke, the retirees will not get anything but Medicare with their SS when they turn 65. It seems throughout the hearings the only real interest was in covering the workers. How lame is that. If the tax payer is bailing out the automakers we have the right to see something positive. Not just payments to UAW workers for building vehicles no one wants. Why is it so bad that a new hire only gets $14.50 per hour? My understanding is they can work up to around $25 per hour. That seems like plenty for a menial task job. Calling auto assembly skilled work is a real push. If they have electricians, machinists, and other skilled workers that should be separate. I am sure that my retirement after 37 years in the Union is higher than many people doing the same kind of work I did. When and if they find a good company they will end up making far more than my retirement. One of the Technicians I worked with the last 10 years I was up in the Arctic quit and went to work for Conoco Phillips doing the same work only non union. His gross this year will be over $150k. A good $40k more than he was making working the Teamster job. He will get a retirement from the IBEW that he had 12 years in. Another retirement from the Teamsters with 11 years and however long he stays with Conoco Phillips. There are good jobs if you are not set in your ways. You cannot stay in Flint and expect the work to come to you. I would not be suprised if today, the total UAW pension payouts each month exceed the combined US citizen gross payroll of all Asian transplants employees combined. Is that a good thing or bad? I think I read that GM pays pension to about 450,000 people. They only have 266,000 people working WORLD WIDE. General Motors is a FAILURE. They have created a monster and it is in the form of retirees that did not produce long enough to pay for their own retirement. The average retiree should have had at least 45 years in the company to get 50% of their pay. That is about what Ma Bell paid their retirees at age 65. Not a minute before. AT&T is still going strong while GM with their millstone UAW are ready to dissolve. |
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Replying to: duke23 (Jan 01, 2009 6:34 pm) Well some airlines have failed completely. However, three of the biggest - Continental, United, and Delta, were in BK and successfully restructured and emerged leaner and stronger. So your statement is incorrect.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 01, 2009 8:48 pm) I don't understand. If the pension is fully funded then GM is not paying anything. The pension should be an annuity covered by it's investments. So GM has (supposedly) no unusual pension costs for its retirees. Health care is the big enchilada, but the Union has agreed to manage a fund. GM is supposed to pay into the VEBA and the amount is well less than the bailout money they asked for. So PAY the VEBA and then there should be no more discussions about GM's cost for retirees, right? So why is GM still whining about labor inequality? If, as Goldfinger as stated, the UAW is cost-competitive, GM only needs to beg congress for the VEBA amounts (I believe the amount is $7B) and pay it into the fund. Then all they have to do is make some vehicles that will sell well enough to support their bloated structure, which is their real problem. And since that's not likely to happen they should be cutting big time so that the company size and cost structure mirrors their ability to sell product.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 01, 2009 12:40 pm) For every dollar that we individually contribute to the plan, up to 6% of our income, the company is committed to contributing an equal value in its stock. Enron was riding high, and as we saw the company officers and supervisors investing in company stock, we felt assured that our own investments were solid. There are a few things you need to understand about our § 401(k) plan to understand the impact of Enron’s collapse. First, we are free to make various kinds of investments with our own contributions, but the plan prohibits any employee under age 50 from trading the company’s contributions. In other words, the company puts in its own stock, and until we reach age 50, we hold that stock. Second, until very recently, even after age 50, we could only trade 25% of the company’s contributions per year. Third, I said before that the company is committed to contributing stock equal in value to our cash contributions. The company’s practice, however, has been to purchase blocks of stock at the beginning of the year, which it then uses to match our contributions over the course of the year. In making those contributions, Enron uses the cost of the stock when it purchased it, not the value when it makes the contributions. In good years, this certainly has been advantageous. But over the course of the last year, our employer has been contributing stock worth a fraction of the contribution it is supposed to be matching. Tim Ramsey, age 55, 33 years with PGE: $995,000 loss. Roy Rinard, age 53, 22 years with PGE: $472,000 loss. Al Kaseweter, age 43, 21 years with PGE: $318,000 loss. Joe and Diane Rinard, age 47, 12 years with PGE: $300,000-plus loss. Dave Covington, age 42, 22 years with PGE: $300,000 loss. Tom Klein, age 55, 30 years with PGE: $188,000 loss. Mike Schlenker, age 41, 10 years with PGE: $177,000 loss. Patti Klein, age 47, 24 years with PGE: $132,000 loss. |
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Replying to: tlong (Jan 01, 2009 8:52 pm)
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 01, 2009 11:05 pm) Sounds like just what GM needs. It can't manage it's debt and is insolvent. It needs to be reorganized and shed debt if it ever wants to become profitable. If it can't ever become profitable then it should fold. If GM fails completely then that is the risk the shareholders have taken.
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Replying to: tlong (Jan 01, 2009 9:06 pm) The only whining I see is from the people here. GM has said they have worked out an equitable solution with the UAW. They have two tiered wages and in 5 years there will be virtually no higher wage UAW employees left. Pension is funded. Health care is going to be taken care of by VEBA. Issue is that TODAY's economic conditions, not 5 years from now, that GM needs these cost to be taken care of. Hopefully the loans/government requirements will force the UAW to accept these future conditions today.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 01, 2009 9:39 am) Our family felt the pain of loosing 40+% of our 401K savings when the dot.com bubble burst under the Clinton administration. Loans were made to many of those companies with no real assets and no real profits. Actually that bubble was pretty much created and reached it's zenith under Clinton's reign. Start to finish ! ! ! A lot of people lost all their savings. Then came the grand finale years of the housing "Bubble". We didn't buy into that one. We were aware of the shoddy loans that were being made and felt fairly certain that eventually there would be multitudes of foreclosures hitting the market and the bubble would burst. It did. However it was not created under the Bush reign. It had it's start under Carter and was nurtured for many years. Give loans to people that simply can not pay them back. Stop discriminating against the poor. So if we are to blame Bush, we need to be fair. Blame Clinton and all the other involved presidential administrations also. Plenty of blame to go around. >"The GOP has acted like a drunken sailor on shore leave is what history bears out. This let the free markets decide deregulation, borne of the Reagan era is what we have just seen before our eyes." Reagan was busy straightening out Carters mess. As you might remember, under Carter, interest rates to buy a house were 18%. To buy a car was 21% and Bank CD's were paying 15%. Unemployment was in the double digits. If there was a problem with Reagan's policy, why didn't Clinton fix that during his 8 years in office ? I don't believe for one minute that any bank wanted to loan money that had a high chance of not being repaid. But they were pushed and prodded to do so. >"Could they perhaps be wrong about the UAW? I believe in personal responsibility and someone needs to fess up. " Somehow UAW and personal responsibility just don't seem to go together. Where was the "Personal Responsibility" when they continuously strike a failing company. Why didn't each person realize the welfare of the goose might be a lot more important than increasing the size of the egg from that dyeing goose. Where is the "Personal Responsibility" with UAW workers? Because we do listen to talk radio and watch Fox, CNN, CNBC, C-Span, and follow up on links supplied in the internet, it dawned on us that we had been letting that 401K be managed by people that had their own interest at heart. Much like the UAW workers have done for so long. We took charge of our own affairs and manipulated the 401k to new heights even though we could no longer contribute to it, due to retirement in '96. Kip |
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 01, 2009 9:39 am) What a misguided view of reality. In 1998 my wife's 401k had a value of $348,000. In early 2000 when others at her work started complaining of losses she decided to check her 401k. Paine Webber had swindled her out of all but $106,000. That was a 70% loss during the CLINTON administration. The people advising the 401k plan at her work transferred all of the employees to a local Financial advisor. Without adding any to the $106k he has brought her back to a current $248k. That is after the current losses. How have you done over the last 7 years financially? I know the number one and two people in the previous administration have gotten extremely wealthy during the Bush administration. Bill and Hill have made $121 million and Al Gore $100 million. For all the complaining about Bush they have done better than they will do under the next one. Enough of that. What would you do with the current mess at GM? Given the likelihood that there will be a long road back to profit if ever. Would you expect the UAW to implement the future changes now? Or just keep throwing your children's future at a losing enterprise?
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