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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: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 6:23 pm)
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Replying to: fezo (Jan 07, 2009 6:15 pm) I think it is important to have medical insurance. After I retired and before I turned 65 I carried a policy that would protect me against a catastrophic illness or accident. The most I would have to pay in a given year with the policy I bought was $4000. There are dozens of choices in CA. I am not familiar with other states. I paid $273 per month for peace of mind that the medical system would not take everything including my home if I were to get very ill. My Union COBRA was $900 per month and not great coverage. They only paid 70% with $1,000,000 lifetime coverage. My Kaiser plan has no limit. Most HMOs now are set at $5 million lifetime limit. GM claims that $2000 on each car is to cover the UAW retirees Health Care. That is more than 10% of a Malibu currently selling for $15k.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 6:23 pm) Gagrice, I think this is the slippery slope we have now. The one caveat that the "new hires" have in their favor as opposed to retirees or older employees in the UAW, is that they now accept the new rules as a condition of their employment, and have the time to properly prepare for how they will finance healthcare and their living expenses in retirement. The others don't have that luxury. It is understood that you "can't get blood from a stone", but I think everyone involved understands that they have to protect the older workers and retirees at the very least to the point that you don't pull the rug out from underneath them entirely. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 07, 2009 4:30 pm) I agree with you on all your points. Brilliant minds think alike. What I want to add is that we have an envy factor going on here too. Who cares what the CEO and or a forklift driver makes? If they are reduced to working Walmart jobs, we will all suffer. Instead of the upscale restaurant, they will have to suffice with McDonald's. Then Walmart will absolutely be the winner in this mindless race to the bottom. All of those other, more expensive, choices will have to cut back in the least. More jobs gone and in the end few new cars will be sold as used cars will be the middle class standard. We have no earthly idea of the multiplier effect that this race to the bottom encompasses. Good paying jobs fuel this economy and if the prevailing wage in any given area goes down, so does the purchasing power of the consumer. I'm not against progress and want competition to thrive. However, we have no idea of what transpires at the factory in China. Certainly, we don't want to find out that children were exploited to make the very shoes were wearing? We could go on about all the products which have made the store shelves, only to later learn that they don't meet our free enterprise standard. Dog fur in coats might offend animal lovers? Lead based paint might upset parents? This all race to the bottom is nothing but the wholesale of jobs to the third world, with some faint promise to have entry into their markets in some future date decades away. We have had competition prior and will continue to do so. However, if $10 a hour jobs by the bulk of the middle class is the vision, even those with $20, $30, and $50 and hour jobs will see a drop in business. Just do the math and see if you think this is a great idea? Once you realize were all connected, suddenly it doesn't make sense. In closing, if you knew prior, that buying all those wonderful things at great prices, at Walmart, would fuel the consumer in China to be the second largest consumers of cars. Then those cars would require fuel/gas and that price is the rationing mechanism of gas. Would those goods purchased at Walmart, have been as attractive when $5 a gallon was nearing? |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 6:35 pm) |
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 07, 2009 6:28 pm) i really think as far as the healthcare issues go, there have been a lot of medical advances and that coupled with the good continuous medical care has resulted in the retirees living a lot longer than anyone projected. |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 07, 2009 5:51 pm) I want special interest out of health care and their spending millions in Washington to cease. >The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current Your govt went along with the AMA (doctors union) to limit the supply of medical doctors/openings for future doctors at medical schools. The lower the supply of medical providers, the higher the cost of their services. Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a government-sanctioned guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. In Free to Choose, Friedman said, "The AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopaths with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible." |
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jan 07, 2009 3:40 pm) Ya just can't believe everything you read. Joe the plumber isn't making $150,000 a year either. I just have that feeling.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 07, 2009 7:09 pm) I wasn't implying that he made $150k, but that it is possible for someone to make that kind of coin with lots of OT. I see guys here at Verizon working close to 1000 hrs OT a yr. My point is that whether you make $30/hr or $13, to try and live off the OT like the well is never going to go dry is foolish. We've seen it happen at Verizon and guys have put themselves in quite a bind when the OT dries up. |
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 07, 2009 7:09 pm) Don't bet your retirement on that feeling. Joe the Plumber just left for Israel as a war correspondent. If he pulls it off he could make a lot more than $150k per year. The speech you are commenting on made a very astute observation. If you pay someone more for any given job than the average pay for that job, you are setting them up for failure. The lug nut assembler that is making $30 per hour will become accustomed to that wage. He will base his life on $62k per year plus OT. When that job comes to a halt and he finds out that the rest of the USA is only paying $15 per hour to install lug nuts, he will most likely lose his home, car and wife. The UAW has nurtured an atmosphere of entitlement that has no basis in reality, except in the rarefied air of the Domestic automakers. Now that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and laying off 1000s of workers it creates a real problem for those that thought they were worth more than they actually are. The Big 3 and the UAW have done a disservice to the lug nut assemblers and Oscar the fork lift operators by paying them MORE than they are worth in the real world outside of Detroit.
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