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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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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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Replying to: dieselone (Jan 06, 2009 7:54 am) My question is would be, if the UAW members were asked to pay 50% of their income in taxes as is the case in Canada would they be so gungho for government sponsored health care? As you have pointed out. IT IS NOT FREE except for those that are on welfare and not contributing to the country. The high paid UAW workers would be some of the hardest hit in any kind of redistribution of wealth, as proposed by our new President. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 06, 2009 4:29 am) On health, 47 million Americans have no health insurance Another 25 million are underinsured. (PBS) In UAW news (you know - the topic in here), GM starts seeking concessions from UAW, bondholders (Motor Authority) Up to 31,000 jobs will go, reduce wages to levels competitive with non-union foreign carmakers by 2009, and require the UAW to accept stock in the place of half the cash payments made to its health care trust fund by 2010 are among the concessions sought. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 06, 2009 4:29 am) Don't get me wrong - I would not care at all if those guys are slim or fat, lazy or most dedicated, if they made product that I want at price I can accept without coercion from the government or union mob. But if you think it's appropriate to coerce me into "supporting" them, I take a closer look at what I would be supporting, and I say, thanks, but no thanks. Just as an example, if somebody thinks it was an acceptable behavior to vandalize somebody else's property just because they didn't like that choice, I would rather have my hand severed than give them a penny of my money. I would rather my money go to Mexico, Germany, Japan, or China, just for the principle.
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