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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16668 messages, Last post on Nov 11, 2009 at 8:03 AM
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 06, 2009 8:18 pm) The issue was never how much the company contributed to my retirement and health care. It was the Union making changes to what our retirement plan would give us. Ours was all in one big pension fund. Not a separate agreement. When health care started going up to an unsustainable level to keep providing it for the retirees. They lost that benefit. Same as when the Union changed the age from 45 for full retirement to 57. My point that you seem to have trouble with is circumstances change and we have to live with them. No god given rights are being violated if you do not get health care. I am not thrilled with trusting the Government for Medicare. I paid into and will accept it if and when I ever need it. As much fraud as there is in Medicare and Medicaid I cringe at the thought of that bunch of losers we have in Congress now coming up with a plan that would not cost US more than buying our own. If it was practical to have Universal Health care. Why did Hillary fail so miserably with a Democrat Controlled Congress when Bill appointed her to "make it happen"? so gagrice- you can now just acknowledge that when the trustees cut your benefits that you were one of those special people who got exactly what you voted for, deserved and wanted. Yes, when I was informed what would be deducted from my retirement to keep full health care benefits I was happy to have that $900 in my pension and not in the pockets of some crooked HMO. Simple math, NO FREE LUNCH. A concept that the UAW will need to get a grasp of SOON. you say you will stay with your unscrupulous and corrupt tactics claims because in the canadian "final offer" film, Never heard of the movie. Must have been a rust belt local flick. What I am reading is the UAW tried to lobby Congress to force the automakers to pull some of the manufacturing out of Canada. Again this was 4 years after Carter bailed out Chrysler. So I do not see any tie to the CAW split being part of the Chrysler bailout. Maybe you have some pertinent documentation you can contribute to Wiki and set the record straight. PS I was against the Chrysler bailout. Iococca was able to pull it off and we got our tax dollars back. Not likely with the bunch running GM today. Those days were much worse than now. With auto loans at close to 20% and home loans 15%, plus double digit inflation. Much higher unemployment. The American people have short memories. Maybe the Automakers did not feel the pain the rest of US were feeling. The UAW had the Democrats in Congress feeding at the UAW trough. The rest of the country was in total chaos. This recession is a piece of cake by comparison. I just spent the weekend at a mountain resort area. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary in a very nice restaurant. There was a guy at the bar telling this lady how bad things are. All the while buying rounds of martinis at $9 a piece. My wife says he has no idea what rough is. We both remember not having food on the table as youngsters in the 1950s. What he spent at the bar we will spend eating for a week. Not because we cannot afford more. Because we are both extremely frugal. That is why it is hard for me to sympathize with someone filing for bankruptcy when he is still knocking down $87k per year. I worked lots of OT. In fact 25 years working 21 days straight 10-16 hours day. I never spent close to my income after I got rid of an ex-wife that could not control herself with my paycheck. My guess is a lot of UAW workers will have to learn to live on a LOT less than they are making now. The smart ones stashed a bundle away when they first started watching GM fail. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 06, 2009 4:29 am) If you look at how that has played out for Japan, it doesn't seem to be a great idea. Swathes of Japanese economy (especially in agricuture) got decimated by the Chinese in this decade simply because they were protected by competition (US/Australia/Europe) for a long time, and finally when the Chinese arrived on the scene with prices a fifth of what they were charging, they had no way of responding. So protection avoids immediate pain, but it simply postpones the inevitable. The argument in favor of protection goes like "This buys the industry time to change itself structurally (e.g. retool factories etc) and then compete in an open market", however in reality protectionism breeds complacency, and no major painful changes are made. Now if you are talking about open ended protectionism, then that can work - but at a high cost to the consumer. The consumers being represented on this board do not seem to be much in favor of that....
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 06, 2009 6:05 pm)
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Replying to: dino001 (Jan 07, 2009 5:36 am) |
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 06, 2009 5:50 pm) We have a consumer economy with no consumers, and until we recreate working wages, coupled with corporate AND personal fiscal responsibility, deflation, monitization, and public works projects may save the country and government, but we will avoid becoming a second rate nation state by sliding directly into the gutter. China can’t keep loaning us money to buy their unsafe, cheaply made products forever. Even they will eventually demand cash. And not American Dollars, cash that has value and the ink is dry when it hits their hands.
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 06, 2009 7:48 pm) I won't say that is the norm but some people do work that much. My FIL is a retired iron worker from LTV. He worked doubles 3-4 days a week for years which basically doubled his pay. He always worked 16 hours on holidays getting double time plus 8 hours on those days. Granted, with his job he wasn't tied to an assembly line. He was in plant maintenance so, many of those hours were spent reading a news paper or playing poker. Heck, he told me back in the late 70's he got a DUI on his way home from work after working a double on New Years eve and a crane operator brought in a couple coolers of beer. Nice. I think I posted an article a while back from about a fork lift operator at Ford who had donated nearly $1 million dollars to higher education. He had been working for Ford over 40 yrs and worked all of the o/t he could get earning $100k+ a year and I believe that was in the late 90's to early '00s. I agree that most worker probably don't work 5+ 16 hour days. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 06, 2009 7:48 pm) That happens at many plants. Same thing at the steel mills. It's probably cheaper in the long run to offer o/t when needed vs. hiring an additional employee with all of the benefits. Plus when things slow down it's very difficult to lay anyone off in a union environment. My FIL had 32 years of service when LTV went belly up in late '99 and he still was near the bottom in seniority in his department.
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Replying to: lemko (Jan 07, 2009 6:24 am) There are MILLIONS of well paid people in the USA. The Feds and State governments employ many millions of Union workers. The UAW is a small segment of the population. There demise will have little impact on the rest of the USA. Obama has said he was going to expand civil service jobs by close to a million. To keep this in perspective. The good paying UAW jobs at GM are about 70,000. Not sure how many white collar workers at GM. My guess is they will have a better chance at maintaining their standard of living. I listened to a GM engineer with 30+ years service. He claimed each time the UAW got a fat raise the company would trim the engineers wages and benefits. No love lost between the white and blue collars at the automakers. So much for the UAW bringing the standard of living up around them.
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Replying to: dieselone (Jan 07, 2009 6:33 am) I can relate to that. After 37 years in the AK Teamsters I was still number 2 on the seniority list in my unit. The senior technician retired the year after me on his 75th birthday. He could not afford to retire earlier with a 50 year old wife and 12 year old daughter. He loses over half his retirement so it will carry over to his wife. He is also getting $2300 per month SS until his daughter reaches 18 years of age. Hope he gets a few good years in retirement. I could not hang on to reach number one. I was tired of flying 3500 miles to work every 3 weeks. |
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Replying to: manegi (Jan 06, 2009 10:17 pm) Look at Argentina. Less than 100 years ago, it was one of the world's richest countries (#4 based on per-capita GDP). But starting in the 1930s, it closed off its economy & imposed tariffs on both imports & exports. Within 20 years, it was a 3rd-world country. Consumers suffer when an industry is protected. Prices go up while quality & selection go down. Once protected, an industry spends less time satisfying customers & more time seeking political influence so that it can continue to keep outside competitors at bay. Political maneuvering replaces the free market. |
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