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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: 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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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 9:42 pm) What GM and the UAW have done to the rank and file is quite similar to what Madoff did with all those investors. They promised huge wages and benefits and planned to pay them with future earnings. Madoff did the same thing and will go to jail. If the retirees lose their health care as a result of the GM/UAW Ponzi scheme should the leaders of both go to jail? |
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Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s biggest automaker, is asking workers to accept lower pay while it extends a domestic production halt to cope with plummeting demand for new automobiles. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8jMxijVuiVE Our UAW friends may find this interesting.....All Japanese plants are unionized.... |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 4:51 pm) Now my point here is that one of the reasons the cost of medical is so high is that the insured and well off are paying for all those who do not have insurance. If you pay $3k for a bedroom stay that money is also paying for a bunch of emergency room work and a whole bunch of others that will not be able to pay their bills. I read a while ago that GM not only pays the medical for all it's employees and retirees but some huge number of non insured. If GM does drop medical (already did for salaried retirees) for the union retirees the cost of medical care for everyone else is going to go up. Of course if they go under then it will be alot worse. |
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Jan 08, 2009 4:55 am) How can it be any worse than Federally Mandated Health Care? Either way those that pay taxes are paying the bills for those not contributing. San Diego is trying to get the Feds to cough up over a billion for treating illegals in the county hospital system last year. They come across the border to have their babies born as US citizens and we pay for the delivery and some times prenatal. I posted about the engineer that felt he was screwed over by GM when the UAW got more in a contract. It looks to me like he was right if they have dropped health care for the white collar retirees and are still paying it for the UAW retirees. Why are the UAW retirees treated like they are more important than the white collar workers? I don't know what you pay in Michigan for Health care. If you buy a plan that allows you free or 80% office visits here in CA will be at least $600 per month for an individual. Emergency medical care for 300,000 illegal babies per year has to cost the tax payers more than half a million UAW retirees. If we do not already pay for universal health care, I would sure like to know what you call it. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/07/eveningnews/main4000401.shtml?source=m- ostpo%20p_story
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 07, 2009 4:30 pm) While our system of health care coverage isn't perfect, nationalized health care isn't the panacea that its supporters make it out to be. The UAW certainly agrees with me - it won't shift retired UAW members to Medicare, which would save the companies billions and allow it to support a government-run health care system. The UAW's inaction speaks louder than its words... lumoy: [ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)] That site is incorrect. Defense and security spending account for 29.2 percent of total discretionary federal spending. By far the largest portion of federal spending goes to Social Security and Medicare, which together account for 43.5 percent of total discretionary federal spending. If you are upset about federal spending, then you will need to address spending on Social Security and Medicare. Defense spending is the responsibility of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. We can certainly debate over how MUCH it should be spending on defense, but that is its job. Bailing out failing companies and their coddled union is not its job. lumoy: but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product. In an industry where costs for parts are measured in PENNIES, a cost that accounts for 10 percent of the total costs needed to produce that product is a significant amount. lumoy: if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped. Really? Are you going to tell us that UAW members receive LESS pay and enjoy FEWER benefits than they did in 1979, before Chrysler demanded and received concessions? Do you have the figures to support this contention? lumoy: i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk. It was a different world in 1980. The Japanese and German manufacturers sold vehicles in far smaller volumes, and the Koreans weren't even in the American market yet. Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans and Hyundais were largely economy cars, and not real substitutes for American family sedans. Plus, not as many people had been burned by the Big Three, so more people were willing to give Chrysler a chance. The simple fact is that GM needs to file for bankruptcy, or have the government allow it to file for quasi-bankrutpcy protection. It owes so much money now that it would take over 20 years of record profits to completely pay off its debts. GM is simply not sustainable in its present configuration, even with this infusion of government money. It was not profitable when auto sales were much higher, and given that it is unlikely that auto sales will return to their former levels for a few years, it is unlikely to be profitable in the future, unless it completely restructures. Chrysler is toast. Daimler and Cerberus have basically gutted the company; there are very few new models on the horizon, and it needs more than a few billion from the federal government to keep going, let alone give its car lineup the complete top-to-bottom overhaul that it needs. lumoy: the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff. They needed to change their method of operating in the early 1980s. It's obvious that by 2006, it was too late. But neither management nor the union was interested in making the necessary changes at that time.
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