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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16737 messages, Last post on Dec 03, 2009 at 8:53 AM
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 03, 2009 5:46 pm) I'm rank and file, held two different offices years ago." DD you are extremely knowledgeable for a "Worker Bee". What do you do for a living? Are you on the assembly line? What does your job entail? Thanks, Kip |
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 03, 2009 8:53 pm) In 1968 Pacific Telephone CWA members went on strike for two weeks. I went back to construction for those two weeks. I could not afford to be out of work. We got a nickel an hour raise. I went after work and carried a picket sign along with my fellow employees. I quit 2 years later after 9 years and NO retirement to show for those years as a Union worker. RCA hired and moved me to Alaska to get the Long Distance up and working in 1970. We soon became Teamsters. I was very involved including being elected to the E board by my fellow employees. I was in on several contracts with RCA and later AT&T. When I went to work for a small company in the Arctic I was one of the organizers to take that small group into the Teamsters. I was in on every contract for the last 25 years I worked there. I know when to push a company and when not to. The UAW mentality has not been good for the Domestic auto industry or the country. As a retired Union member I feel more for those that are retired and somewhat helpless in their position. They did have the right and opportunity to get involved when the UAW and GM were negotiating unsustainable contracts over the years. Promising benefits that are funded by future work forces is not right. The UAW and the Big 3 did just that. So now about 70,000 workers are carrying the burden of half a million retirees health care. Ask yourself, why did Ford just build a state of the art manufacturing facility in Brazil when they would rather have built it in the USA? Simple answer UAW work rules.
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DD: If you build up a health spending account with both opt in funding and employer contribution over years. Your more likely to be frugal in its spending if in the end those funds are yours to do with as you please. I see that as an excellent way to handle health care. What messed up our health care plan was abuse by employees. During the 1970s pipeline boom in Alaska the Teamsters were very powerful. We built a state of the art hospital and dental clinic. All 100% coverage. Our work rules were such that you needed a Dr's excuse if you took off more than a couple days sick leave. So the employee would go see a Dr for a runny nose to get an excuse. In AK a cold was a regular yearly ailment. With a 1000 plus telephone operators we were keeping the Drs busy. When the construction of the pipeline was finished and 1000s of dues paying workers moved back to TX and Louisiana Anchorage went into withdrawals. The mid 1980s were bleak and many Union contract wages were cut drastically to survive. The Teamsters could not maintain the hospital as it was draining our pension and strike funds. So we sold and went to a co-pay plan. Most did not like it but reality, is what it is. For those that think the Government will offer better health care than your HMO need to do more research. Just two tidbits on Canadian health care. It takes two years for a hip replacement in Canada. That means pain and suffering on the job for those two years or starve. There are more MRI machines in the City of Philadelphia, than the whole country of Canada. Plus a 10 month wait for a maternity room.  DD: I see the defined pension as a thing of the past. Companies don't like it because they are at the mercy of the stock market. I agree there also. You can thank the Government regulations for protecting the Pension funds from fraudulent investing by the fiduciaries. The same regulations made the pensions too high of a risk to accept. How often does the Pension Trust Board re-evaluate the fund at GM? Our Pension trust board bases any increase on the health of the fund. COLA is unsustainable if the Trust loses money through no fault of the fiduciaries. Only the government that prints the money can offer a raise when there is no more money to give. In the last two years my pension has only increased by $6 per month. My SS went up $129 this month. More than the the notice I got from them. Maybe Uncle Sam had some left over from the $700 billion giveaway.  My advice to anyone is stay on the job as long as you can. While DD's $400,000 seems like a lot in a 401k. I would not want to try and get by on $2300 per month. http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/fiduciaryresponsibility.html
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 04, 2009 6:44 am) $2300 is in addition to pension and ERISA. Which would total $2,300 + $700+ $1500 = $4,500 as an example for an early retiree. The $700 would go away at 62 plus age creep and SS would replace it, and you would be at or about $5,000 monthly. This is a typical example of how to pay the least amount of taxes and a smart man would start shifting their 401K/IRA funds into better investments. Just because your getting $4,500 or $5,000 a month doesn't mean you have to spend and or consume it all. This is where the human factor comes in and discipline is virtue. The UAW and society in general needs to educate folks about the responsible thing to do with their income/investment funding. Its so simple, that I just don't see how folks get into dired straits when it comes to money. I've also designed/developed a wealth builder plan. One for the masses which would pay into future generations. Instead of the annuity, a perpetuity which given two or three generation would free many from the toil of working for others to pursue more worthwhile meaningfully endeavors. |
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Replying to: tlong (Jan 03, 2009 8:15 pm) While the UAW may support the Big Three in their quest for these loans/bail outs, they aren't asking for taxpayer money. In fact they have been running the international in a prudent fashion. While membership/income have declined they have adjusted to the current conditions. They're all living their continuing lifestyle while you, I, and the rest of the American people try to pay our bills on time and live within our means. You fail to mention the positive externalities of unions. The prevailing wage in any give area is calculated from an average. This very average is kept high by high paying employment. This is but one of the benefits that non union folks get from union/UAW folks, there are more. So to envy for the sake of keeping up with the Jones is silly and you bring them down to your level, your not going to make your lot any better. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 04, 2009 5:45 am) i wonder if either party was satisfied with the settlement as a result of the strike. it sure seems like the company had a whole lot more to lose than the union. the government wasn't happy to be underwriting all those uinemployment checks, either. the workers probably made up most of their losses by working overtime to catch up on production numbers. i am not sure if either party was unaware of the growing retiree pension/benefit bubble, or were not willing to face it. Wagner is still there, so he didn't just take the money and run. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 04, 2009 6:44 am) With the Uaw takeing over the health care even though we will use union hospitals we must get BEST deal for are people. The union must hire a health care manager at National level and local level. Just like me I have not attended many meetings do to doing things with family but I will now be a thorn in there side to make sure the buddie system does not work. We but these people in office to take care of ALL of us not the select few. This is a buisness not good old boy's club |
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i have played golf at the uaw center. it is a great course and i can't break 100.i have been retired up here for 8 years and i play only 3-4 times a year --too busy now that i'm retired and it is a little pricey for my level of ability. the legacy cost issues are somewhat complex: the lifetime health care packages for uaw retirees were negotiated in the 50's as part of the ongoing treaty of detroit. back then the monthly costs were only about $30 a month. remember we went to an employer financed health system when truman's attempt for national health care was scrubbed by the republicans as "socialized medicene". stupid stupid stupid look where we are now: health care costs the usa about 14% of gnp versus canada's 7%. and we have 46 million without coveragel same car built in canada by same auto company has an almost $2000 price advantage. that is on big problem for domestic auto companies-but they too fought national health care as part of our failed republican tradition . just the same the employers made a promise to workers that when they retired they would have health care for life. like 99% of employers who have made that promise, they decided not to fund this cost over the work life of that worker but rather deferred it to retirement age. employers could have set up funded health care trust funds but didn't. thus it is logically and ethically wrong to consider past retiree health care costs as a current cost of operations--but almost everyone does. OK a bankrupt company can't pay as you go so UAW agreed to VEBAS in 2007. But UAW will never NEVER ever negotiate away a vested benefit. If you can negotiate away health care for a past retire--why not agree to reduce the pension?
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i have been all over the web on this UAW black lake golf course issue -trying to give some right wingers the facts. I must say that this site has the most intelligent and fair discussion of the issues. this issue is hot only because of the auto industry bridge loans. wall street, AIG, Bear Stearns etc where we dumped a trillion saw no demands that high salaries (which are about 60% of those industries costs) be reduced as a condition of the gifts of money. Only now does bush and other republicans demand that employees whose costs are but 10% of the product must start spiraling down. The right wing is bananas on the UAW issue and finds this a perfect opportunity for some good old union bashing. the credit crunch has affected all worldwide auto companies but this country and its repubs are the only ones demanding that hourly workers race to the bottom to the level of non-union transplants.--why are the transplants the standards for fair wages and benefits anyway--and why stop there, how low are the mexican and south korean rates?? soon we can go down to china rates and then finally the repubs may be happy. and its a two-fer. GET THE UAW!! THe UAW represents everything the Republicans can't stand: the UAW, almost alone, gave us the middle class in the treaty of detroit, the most consistently progressive voice for the common working stiff that has ever existed in the usa, pro-civil rights when it was not easy. anti-war when it was not easy, pro=government regulation of industry and corporate greed when it wasn' t easy and through its long history the uaw leadership has been among the lowest paid with not a single national officer being either jailed or even charged with corruption. George Romney once called Reuther "the most dangerous man in America" Nixon's enemy list for special IRS and FBI treatment had names with several sentences of explanation for then UAW President Leonard Woodcock all the list showed: "UAW President- enough said!" Both men were proud of these titles. rank and file factory workers and their families at an alleged " lavish resort" with golf. very very uppidity next thing you know they will think its ok to demand a voice in their terms and conditions of employment. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 04, 2009 2:24 pm) Really, how Republican of them.  I have in-laws in the UP and it's nice country up there. But it's not exactly easy to get to. If I were UAW at NUMMI, I think I'd resent having a UAW resort like that. Well, not being a golfer, I'd resent it if it were in Fremont too. 
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