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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: 62vetteefp (Jan 06, 2009 5:05 am) I agree that the steel industries pension funds were severely underfunded, much to the dismay of their workers/retirees who thought they were in good shape.
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Replying to: srs_49 (Jan 06, 2009 5:23 am) When General Motors left Washington empty-handed last week, among the lingering questions was whether its huge pension fund could topple and crush the government’s pension insurance program. United Automobile Workers members at a benefits meeting last week. Workers worry that bankruptcies in the auto industry could shred their pension plans. When any pension fund fails, usually as part of a bankruptcy, the government takes over its assets as well as its payments to retirees. In G.M.’s case, its plan would dwarf the nation’s pension insurance fund. Still, G.M. appears to have enough money in the pension fund to pay its more than 400,000 retirees their benefits for many years — even with the markets swooning around it. That is largely because of the conservative way G.M. has managed the fund recently, and it explains why G.M. has not joined the long list of companies pressing Congress for pension relief. But this glimmer of hope in a bleak auto landscape could change drastically, particularly if G.M. struggles along for a few more years, only to go bankrupt. The company’s blue-collar work force is still building up new benefits with every additional hour worked, and the pension fund will have to grow smartly to keep up with those costs. If G.M. continues paying people to retire early, the costs will grow even more, because the plan will have to pay retirees for more years than it budgeted. And G.M. is not contributing additional money to the plan right now. Already, G.M. says it will be paying retirees about $7 billion a year for the next 10 years. The fund’s assets were worth $104 billion at the end of 2007, more than enough to cover its obligations of $85 billion. Since then, the assets have declined and the obligations have grown, each by undisclosed amounts. The company says it does not plan to add any money to the fund for the next three or four years. Even if G.M. were forced into bankruptcy, the government might insist that it keep the fund, and cover any shortfalls with its own money. G.M. acknowledged in its most recent annual report that from 1993 to 2007 it spent $103 billion “to fund legacy pensions and retiree health care — an average of about $7 billion a year — a dramatic competitive and cash-flow disadvantage.” During those 15 years, G.M. paid only $13 billion or so in shareholder dividends. The company has been sending far more money to its retirees than to its owners. After falling $20 billion behind on its pension earlier this decade, G.M. doggedly put money into its plan to catch up. It has also agreed to invest more than $30 billion in a fund to cover future health-care expenses. But these efforts have starved its business. |
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in message 7190, i succumbed to the obviously intelligent argument that by supporting bridge loans to the BIg 3 to avoid bankruptcy and keep the plants opened, the uaw now should be required to sell its black lake family education center and golf course. since it would be a fire sale, i suggested we all get together (your money, my connections) to buy it for about 50% of its 13 million taxable value ( and then turn it into a nice place with some real amenities and "improvements" more likely to attract a higher class of customers than those blue collar lowlifes who have used i t for 40 years.. too many damn trees and ponds over there anyway--needs more condos and some snowmobile trails. once we get rid of the overpaid 145 local employees and bring in some walmart level rates and temp visas workers--it might even start to make money. not a single person has jumped on my offer. i don't understand--given the large numbers who share the view that the uaw should be forced to stop wasting its dues money on its members. there goes my chance to finally turn the corner and become a good trickle down republican--oh well!
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 05, 2009 8:58 pm) You keep throwing out that phony number. It needs to be refuted. Two young ladies in our Church recently had babies. Neither had health care coverage. Both got excellent Prenatal care and delivery. They take their babies in for checkups all paid by the State of CA. The only thing they paid for is circumcision. Your argument on Canada health care is totally flawed, but I would not expect any thing different from your lifetime of brainwashing by the UAW.
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Your first on my list to contact................ Random: "General Motors workers who build the Chevrolet Malibu, one of G.M.’s most popular and important new vehicles, went on strike Monday at a plant in Kansas after they were unable to reach an agreement with the company on local work rules." (bold emphasis mine)... Therein lies a large part of the problem...the import transplants have, according to the books I have read, virtually NO "local work rules"...if it needs to be done, anyone may be assigned to do it...so, their labor cost is lower simply by being more efficient...the books also cite various Big 3 in-house studies where they are literally watching the imports make more cars with fewer employees, hence the 1)lower overhead and 2) greater productivity, neither of which you will ever see from Big 3 UAW plants...the union work rules are simply the rot that is eating the tree alive, and it will not survive until the rot is eliminated... I believe one example was either Toy or Honda, running a plant with 2,000 employees, making a similar number of cars as a UAW plant needing 6,000 employees... These archaic work rules should be abolished, and the UAW along with it...the 1960s are gone, we do not own the world, and they apparently make a product as good as ours, or better, with less workers and less overhead...the UAW is the new Jurassic Park...time to go...if a transplant can do with 2000 what the Big 3 need 6000, I defy anyone to justify keeping the union and the work rules as they are... And anyone who does try to defend the absurd, would you run a hardware store with 10 employees, if you were doing the same amount of business as your competitor down the street who sold just as much, with equal quality and service, with only 3 employees???...your labor overhead would drive you into B, just like the Big 3 are now... |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 06, 2009 7:19 am) I believe many of the statistics are misleading such as comparing life expectancy and numbers of uninsured. I've known many people over the years who've made good wages/salary that didn't have health insurance because they didn't want it. Yes, these were young males w/o a family. But to say that every person who is uninsured, doesn't have it because they don't have access or can't afford it is not 100% true. To my knowledge, life expectancy is based on death's per 1000 for the population. That is not a good way (IMO) to compare the effectiveness of health care systems. Every time a gang banger executes another gang member that effects mortality rates and no amount of health care can fix that. Add auto related deaths, the US is among the highest in per capita traffic fatalities. Many of our citizens are fat and generally unhealthy. This all affects our morality rates and health costs and is IMO hard if not impossible to accurately compare health care systems between nations. While that is all debatable and off topic. I whole heartedly disagree that health care is why the big 3 is in the position they are in. Sure, the health care costs are an issue, but I just turned 38 and for as long as I can remember the big 3 have built a lot of crap as I've witnessed customer after customer choose foreign cars after a horrible experience from the D3. If management would have invested the money when they were profitable into the product to build competitive cars they would be making money today (well pre recession anyway). I'm willing to bet the d3 would be in the same situation today if we had a national health care system over the past 30 years. Any funds these company's might have saved (granted someone would have to pay for it) would have been wasted somewhere else. Probably in the the form of a larger dividend, executive bonus's, poor acquisitions, and overly lucrative labor agreements.
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 06, 2009 6:39 am) From the 2007 records it looks like the golf course is being used for a higher class of citizen. Probably the UAW leadership bringing all their crony lobbyist friends up for a nice vacation at UAW member expense. Out of the 13,000 rounds of golf played last year only 4000 rounds were played by UAW members and retirees. You have said the course loses money. So how much UAW money was wasted on NON MEMBERS out playing golf? How many were lowlife Republicans playing a round of golf on the Members nickel? I have never mentioned selling the place. I have questioned if any of the money was out of a pension plan? If the the UAW had to pay $5.9 million to a pension plan last year then it would be easy to assume they borrowed money from one of the pension plans the UAW oversees. Spending interest from a strike fund for training I would consider legitimate. Spending it so some non member fat cat can go play golf would raise my eyebrows if I was a member. Then I did get involved in my Union and was on the carpet more than once for bucking the leadership's wasting money on pet projects. I can assure you I would not have worshiped Reuther any more than I would have Jess Carr. Even though I am sure they did much for organized labor.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 06, 2009 7:19 am) yet the refutation you supply is an anecdotal accounts of two ladies in your church who had their prenatal care and deliveries (less circumcison costs) paid for by the state of california. ok you have "proved" to me that i am off by 2-- how about the other 45, 999,998 americans without health insurance? i am finally beginning to understand that there are probably about that number of americans out there whose strong opinions are such that facts don't really matter.
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Key note speech My favorite line "I also learned what a horrible disservice it is to let people's pay outgrow their skills, so when they lose their jobs they also lose their middle-class standard of living, many permanently.
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