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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
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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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my numbers were off on the usa/ canad comparison - old data from past speeches. world heath organization ranks us health care system at 37th in the world . canada is 30th. almost of of socialist europe and even cuba ranks above usa. canadian life expectancy is a remarkable 3 years ahead of ours. in 2005 canada spent $3,128 per citizen or 9.8% of its GDP on health care. US spent most of anyone $6,401 or 15.3% of GDP. don't forget we still don't have health care coverage for 46 million americans. bring on that socialized medicine while i am still alive please!
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jan 05, 2009 10:29 am) I can vouch for this one - One of my friends had a Cadillac (bought new in late 80s), and he would have to put the car in Park, then slide over to pay express way / parking meter tolls However, there was another - and in my mind, bigger - problem that the US companies did not address initially. This was the lack of a nationwide dealer / servicing network (a must, when competing with the domestics here) leading them to focus mostly on high end sales in big cities (where they ran up against the Germans). Compounded with the reliability issue at that time, it is easy to see why it did not work out. Nothing to do with the tariff barriers here (after the market was opened in the mid 80s). At that time, the market was also opened for semiconductors and financial services. Intel, TI and the US investment banks went on to take large market shares, and one does not hear them complaining about the "protective barriers". Not to say that Japan is as open as the US. There are tariff barriers on agricultural products, construction materials etc, but these are areas where Japan is not competitive internationally (hence the protection - though people like me would say it BECAUSE of it....).
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 11:51 am) Thank you for the explanation. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 7:57 pm) The United Auto Workers union launched a nationwide strike against General Motors on Monday as 73,000 UAW members walked off the job and hit the picket lines at the nation's largest automaker. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger blasted GM management, saying that the company had not been willing to meet the union part way in negotiations. "This is nothing we wanted," he said about the strike. "No one benefits in a strike. But there comes a point where someone can push you off a cliff. That's what happened here." Company officials did not respond to Gettelfinger's comments, other than to say they were disappointed that the first national strike against the company in more than 37 years had been called, and that they hoped that an agreement to end the walkout could be reached soon. Gettelfinger said at the midday press conference that the union is ready to discuss the company's key bargaining goal of shifting an estimated $51 billion in healthcare expenses for retirees and their family members to union-controlled trust funds. But he said that other issues had derailed hopes of an agreement. The union president said he was looking for assurances from the company about the job security of UAW members. He said he wanted guarantees about how much GM would invest in U.S. plants and about how many new vehicles would be built in the United States. The UAW has seen its membership at GM plummet by 70 percent since 1994, as the automaker dumped its parts unit and closed plants to try to align its production more in line with its shrinking U.S. market share. Outcome of strike A new labor contract was ratified by UAW members exactly one week after the tentative agreement was reached, passing by a majority 62% vote. In the contract are several product and employment guarantees stretching well into the next decade. One of GM's key future products, the Chevy Volt, was promised to the GM Poletown/Detroit-Hamtramck plant in 2010. Also included is a VEBA (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association) which will transfer retiree health care obligations to the UAW by 2010. This eliminates more than 50 billion dollars from GM's healthcare tab. It will be funded by 30 billion in cash and 1.4 billion in GM stock paid to the UAW over the next 4 years of the contract. It also eliminates 70% of the labor cost gap with GM's Japanese rivals. |
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