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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16701 messages, Last post on Nov 20, 2009 at 3:39 AM
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Replying to: bumpy (Jan 05, 2009 5:04 pm) so if the GM employee has a contractual or legal obligation to pay someone else and GM gets a loan from the government-- the taxpayer oversight obligation or right to impose conditions attaches to anyone in this second or third level of the disbursement chain. If the GM employee owes local property taxes, state income taxes, has a mortgage obligation, a credit card obligation, etc--oversight of that creditor also attaches through the original loan to the employer. where is this taking us?? i think we are back to case closed! if i understand your argument it was wrong, or a political mistake anyway, for the uaw to sit at the table with the big three employers supporting the employers' loans requests. if UAW president gettlefinger had stayed home, you would now say it's perfectly ok with you for the uaw to continue its 40 year history of maintaining the uaw black lake education center for use by its own members--but since he supported the loan request--the taxpayers have a right to tell the uaw to close the center.. have i got that right?. you haven't argued it -but i assume you agree that it is uaw wages and benefits that brought about this bridge loan request from the big 3 employers. that seems to be the common refrain from the right and from the southern republicans. the fact that most observers say the problem is the credit crunch and the near depression we are in and that since at least 2006 the uaw has been negotiating major contract concessions with the BIg three is a fact that is just ignored. another little factoid that does not register anywhere is that almost every other country is similarly making bridge loans to their domestic auto industries. moreover none of these other loans were conditioned on the hourly workers jumping on the bangladesh wage and benefits express --only the good old usa. add to this the fact that hourly labor costs are about 10% of product cost. wall street, aig, lehman brother, bear stearns etc --where the taxpayers simply spent or gave the money reportedly have about a 60% employment cost factor. do you see any web blogs or fox news specials or rush/hannity rants on the need to condition these bequests to having wall street brokers and insurance executives also getting on the bangladesh train?. indeed some would even suggest that these six and seven figure white collar types have a greater responsibility for their current situation that the guy installing the transmission on you cadillac. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 5:46 pm) Yep, got it in one. i assume you agree that it is uaw wages and benefits that brought about this bridge loan request from the big 3 employers. No, that is the result of management being consistently stupid for several decades in a row. The UAW is at fault only so far as agreeing to the absurd promises management made over the years, and leaving the long-term prospects of the membership in the clumsy hands of that management.
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 5:46 pm)
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 4:23 pm) That is what most Americans believe according to surveys. Explain the UAW motives this Summer when they went on strike against GM for no real good reason. Where do you propose that GM will get the money to keep funding health care. While I put the major blame on the Management of GM for their sheer stupidity signing onto such an agreement. The UAW needs to give a little also. The concessions so far are pathetic and mostly aimed at the new workers. What did a 20 year member lose over the last 10 years on any contract? It is probably all a moot point for me. As far as I am concerned the 2005 GMC PU I bought that was UAW built will be my last. It was the 5th GM truck since 1988. The rest built in Canada and Mexico were better built. Much of my dislike for the UAW is based on the poor build quality of that last truck. I believe that UAW workers are over paid for the skill level they displayed in building my PU truck. If you think that Socialized Medicine is so great, you need to move across the border and let US know what you think of the Canadian plan. Most people I talk to from there think it is very poor. I would rather continue to pay my own supplemental at Kaiser, thank you very much. thus we come up with the crazy number of $70 dollars per hour for a current hourly GM employee. (the ratio of retirees to active workers is about 3-1). Don't blame the consumer. It was the UAW that agreed to that stupid plan along with GM. What happens when it is 4-1 or 5-1? Then it will be $100 or more per hour. Though I think GM will be history long before that happens.
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Replying to: bumpy (Jan 05, 2009 6:02 pm) . so i will head over to black lake tomorrow and see if i can find walter reuther's ashes from the 1970 ceremony. but we have had almost 60 inches of snow so far this year and it may take me a couple of months. but once that is done, we can probably get the place real cheap right now. resorts and golf courses in northern michigan haven't been doing all that well under trickle down economics. how's it been for you? maybe we can get a group together from this blog, with my uaw and local connections smoothing the way, we could acquire the 1200 acres for a purchase price of around 6 million (center and the first class golf course). taxable value in 2007 was about 12.6 million put a couple million into the rooms to make them nice, get rid of the buffet style cafeteria, put in some hot tubs, build some nice condo models around the fairways, dump the overpaid local employees and bring in foreign workers on temp visas, lumber off the good timber. now if we could get global warming to trigger in perhaps we could stay open longer. alternatively we could doze down a couple of acres and push snowmobiling in the winter. i can then die knowing my six grandkids (two with severe medical conditions) will be taken care of. my only other request, is that my ashes be spread on the golf course since the locals, my uaw friends and my family may do some bad things on my grave site. by the way tell that guy that those great GM Frigidaire refrigerators were made by the IUE members in dayton until that plant change over to a truck plant in late 80's. uaw can't take dredit (or be blamed as you would have it) for the GM frigs |
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"i just realized i was responding to a post from 2007!"...hey, nothing wrong with that...in fact, I think I will go back 2 years, and, thanks to your new post/response, I may have to edit EVERY ONE of my posts since that time... And I expect that ALL of you will scroll back and read every one, so gagrice can support me and rocky can argue with me... 
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 05, 2009 6:13 pm) Do you really think that the reason the B3 have to ask for money from the government is because of the banking issues? Do you think that's the only way corporation cean get $ is through a bank? No. The #1 and #2 ways corporations get $ is by selling stock - they can issue new stock, or by issuing bonds. Why doesn't the B3 do so? Because people in the markets will not risk their own $, because the likelihood of making anything is very low, and losing everything is high! The markets have no belief the B3 can ever make any profit given their contracts. So the ONLY choice for the B3 is the sympathy of the politicians they have paid for through political contributions for years. Oh yes some of the politicians put on a good show lambasting the B3 execs, but many are bought and paid for.
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jan 05, 2009 7:24 pm) And I'll do a little of each. No problem. Let me know when you've done it.... |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 05, 2009 6:52 pm) understand this carefully every three years contracts were negotiated promising retirees health coverage during their retirement. the big 3 chose not to fund this promise over the working lives of the employes who received the promise but rather hope for the best--stable health care costs despite our stuidity over national health insurance, and continued growth of the domestic industry--and pay as you go when they retire. placing the legacy costs onto the current hourly costs of an employee is really not accurate or fair--they are not current costs and indeed have to be paid if GM has no active employees. right now if GM discovers huge oil deposits under all its property and decides to go out of the car business and sell its property to exxon--it is still obligated to these past retirees from their lucky real estate wealth . however, the big 3 retirees had their health care benefits cut somewhat in 2006 when the uaw re-opened the contracts and negotiated some relief. to make sure they had the authority to do so, the UAW filed a class action lawsuit in federal court--the retirees then obtained legal representation separate from the union and after court hearing the cutbacks were approved. in 2007 contract negotiations, the UAW agreed to set up independent trusts called VEBAS to provide for health care for past retirees. the big three would provide funding thru a combination of stock and money equal to about 50 cents on the dollar. once again this was approved by the federal court in detroit after notice to the retirees. recently the uaw agreed to change the mix on the funding and accept more stock and less cash. the vebas will take these legacy costs off the books of the big 3 in 2010 and put the risk on the uaw and independent trustees. I read your words about comparative health care between the usa and canada. it is standard dittohead nonsense. opps I am not supposed to do name calling so let me just say you speak with forked tongue. Give me the name and phone number of any of these alleged canadian who want to go backwards to our system. I know a few more canadians than you do-eh!. heck most of them live south of me! they laugh about comments like this as they watch the bus loads of american seniors crossing over to buy the same prescription drugs sold profitably in canada for less than 50% of our costs. find me one, just one, national politician or a political party in canada advocating a return to the employer-fiat health model we have. yes canadians wait for elective surgery--but everyone has coverage and the overall quality of care--in terms of life expectancy, favorable medical outcomes, etc exceeds the usa by a wide margin. we are the only industrialized country without national health care. we have 46 million americans without health care, are ranked 17th in the world in terms of favorable health care outcomes, have costs going up somewhere between 14% to 20% a year and you say you are pleased with the status quo. fortunately you are in a very declining minority.americans are not going to be scared with the socialist medicine tag this time. hell i don't care if my doctor, nurse or orderly is a socialist or a methodist. hell i don't even care if my doctor is a republican--he can't help it --he's making a bundle too. canada spend 7 % of their gnp on a better health care system which provides universal coverage we spend 14-16% of our GNP on an inferior patchwork system with high copays and gaps with 46 million americans (mostly children) falling not between the cracks --but into the chasm but let's put this into perspective for this debate: the same care made in canada by the same company costs $1800 less to build because they have national health care. i win!
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| Among 25 countries that have comparable accounting systems in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2006, the latest year for which data are available, spending per person on health care remained highest in the United States (US$6,714). The U.S. was followed by Norway (US$4,520), Switzerland (US$4,311) and Luxembourg (US$4,303). Canada was in the top fifth of countries in terms of per person spending on health, spending US$3,678 per person, which was similar to seven other OECD countries, including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. The lowest per capita expenditures were seen in Turkey (US$591) and Mexico (US$794). | |
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