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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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The people left holding the bag are you and me. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3415.cfm |
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 11, 2009 4:47 am) Caddy would be more appealing at a lower price point. All taxes should be balanced globally. Hard to achieve with special interests (UAW) and uneven economies. Regards, OW |
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An old tale about two mid-20th-century titans may be apocryphal, but it offers insights into our economic history. Henry Ford II and Walter Reuther are jointly touring a modern auto plant. Ford jokingly jabs at Reuther: "Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay UAW dues?" Not missing a beat, Reuther responds: "Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?" It is easy to romanticize the '50s, but the era did have some positive features. Unions along with minimum wage and unemployment insurance contributed both to the emergence of a strong middle class and to rapid economic growth. Americans may well have paid more for cars than if the "Big Three" had not been unionized, but unions had a protective effect that went well beyond their immediate membership. Many bosses -- from construction to the emerging giants in retailing and services -- hated unions and were willing to pay above market-rate wages in order to forestall union organization.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 11, 2009 5:36 am) I have witnessed first hand on several attempts to organize companies where they used tactics like you are saying. I have seen companies give big fat bonuses, throw elaborate parties, increase wages. I have also seen competing Unions screw potential Union members out of their chance to have representation. At least 3 times I remember two Unions were vying for workers at companies in the Oil Fields. Two of those times the company was able to take advantage of the situation and won the NLRB election. Of course as soon as the dust settles they start the old we are not doing well and have to cut wages back. In 1970 when we signed cards with the IBEW to become Unionized, the Teamsters snuck in via the telephone operators. It was a hard fought battle. Operators out numbered the technicians 10 to 1. It was still a close election. The Teamsters knew how to throw better parties and convinced the operators they would get the best deal with their representation. And that was probably true. As the local Telephone operators under IBEW contract did not fare as well as our long distance operators. I would probably be getting about $2000 more per month retirement with the much better run IBEW pension plan. Automation has all but eliminated those 1200 operators. There are more technicians today than in 1970. Automation will continue to eliminate UAW jobs and increase high tech jobs. If the domestics survive. PS In 1970 RCA Global preferred working with the Teamsters. They did not put out any anti union propaganda. Their employees world wide were under Teamster contracts and felt that was to their advantage. AK Teamsters were not quite as easy to deal with as the International was.
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 11, 2009 4:47 am) So you think that the VAT explains why the BMW is less expensive than the Cadillac? If so, you missed my point. Both the BMW & the comparable Mercedes are considerably more expensive. Cadillac enjoys a significant price advantage over its German competition, & yet it can't translate that into increased sales & profits. In the luxury market segment, perceived status matters much more than price differences, so you can't blame Caddy's problems on how other countries tax their citizens. Caddy's problem, which, by extension, is also a UAW problem, is that far fewer people aspire to own one. You can say that the German brands attract status-seeking badge hounds & you'd be at least partly correct, but I'm old enough to remember when status-seeking badge hounds hungered for Cadillacs & made the Cadillac division a profit monster that was the envy of the entire industry. Why can't Caddy get back some of these shallow people? Their money is just as good as anyone else's. 1. Drop any tariffs, quotas or other special taxes on imported goods and services. 2. Drop any market-distorting practices, like selective subsidies, taxes, regulations or other policies that favor domestic or foreign products or services. 3. Provide free access to accurate information about the markets involved. 4. Allow money and other forms of capitol to flow unrestricted between countries, without currency manipulation or restrictions. 5. Labor must also be able to travel freely within the free-trade region. I'm a hard-core free-trading Cato Institute supporter, so all of these sound good to me. My main brief is with some UAW supporters who say that until all countries adhere to these principles, the U.S. should be as protectionist as the worst of its trading partners. I don't buy that.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 11, 2009 6:11 am) There's a tremendous variation among labor unions-not only among the industries with which they're affiliated, but among the working people comprising their memberships. There's the guy toiling in an iron foundry in Indiana, the guy running a paper machine in Everett, Washington, the woman nurse tending patients in a San Francisco convalescent hospital. And there's George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriquez, Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady. What do these folks have in common? They are all dues-paying members of labor unions, organizations dedicated to improving the wages, benefits and working conditions of the American worker. The first three individuals mentioned earn roughly $50,000-$60,000 a year, with decent benefits. The others-the actors and athletes-earn millions. As for the tel com corridor here in Texas In many ways, it's worse. Like the massive declines in the nation's steel, oil and automobile industries in decades past, the disintegration of the telecom business is leaving deep wounds in the U.S. work force. But labor historians say telecom stands out for the unprecedented speed of the boom-and-bust cycle. After telecom was deregulated in 1996, it quickly expanded by some 331,000 jobs before peaking in late 2000. Since the downturn started, though, companies have announced layoffs that have wiped out all those new jobs and more -- a total of well over 500,000 workers, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal. By contrast, it took two decades for the ranks of the United Auto Workers to fall to 732,000 from 1.5 million, as the auto industry was forced to become much more efficient in the face of foreign competition. http://www.happinessonline.org/InfectiousGreed/p26.htm
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I have not said one word here on this subject except to say that the big 3 have had excellent insurance in the past at a very high cost. This high cost paid for not only the workers but also those who used the services that did not have insurance. Only lately have the insurance companies fought back. Now when I get back the invoice from the insurance company there is the charge by the care provider, a much lower charge of what the insurance company will actually pay and my copay. So if the medical provider wants my business (insurance approved) they can only accept the insurance companies estimate of what it should be. But what I really want to say is how the heck can we afford national health care? My brother no longer has a job with insurance. His family cost would be over $15,000 a year. Since only half the families in this country could ever afford that then the other half would need to pay $24,000 in taxes. I do not know about you but that is a large percentage of our income. My opinion? We start out by providing free health care for all US citizens until they are 18 (and any issues that they had before 18 that continue) and for those over 65. Affordable and fair.
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Replying to: jimbres (Jan 11, 2009 6:18 am) The United States is the leader of the World. We need to lead by example. We need to get the message out that improved lifestyle is a direct result of free trade. It keeps prices competitive and quality is assured. It has been proven so many times throughout history that protectionism creates mediocrity and eventual collapse. GM and the UAW have to work together to gain back the edge they once had. Or they will just go into the history books with the dozens of other automakers. I miss Studebaker and Packard more than I will miss Chevrolet and Dodge. |
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Replying to: jimbres (Jan 11, 2009 6:18 am) Could you even think that the price gap would be even more if it were not for VAT? The CTS V has the recarro seats and a V8 which makes it the Status Car if one is looking for the envy factor. CATO ? Isn't that where old PHDs go to promote think tank ideas which are funded by private interests? Where is the peer review in such institutions? Much like the writers of the old classics, where few women were represented (Emily Dickinson/Harper Lee come to mind) and the good ole boys club came to being. We have to also note that maybe 10% of Americans could read and write. Americans for Democratic Action gets a label slightly less frequently than the Heritage Foundation, though both are labeled very often. In fact, the ADA gets a label more often than the Young Americans for Freedom does, and almost three times as often as conservative groups like the Cato Institute or the National Association of Scholars. And the overall tendency is overwhelming: liberals are singled out for their views more often than conservatives are. Liberal has become such a problematic word that nobody seems to want to use it. Since the Reagan era, the right has gone after it as "the L-word," to the point where a lot of politicians are nervous about owning up to being liberals. And people on the genuine left have always been suspicious of the term, preferring to think of themselves as progressives. But nobody every talks about "the C-word," and people on the right are always happy to call themselves conservatives. Hence, we can go on about the Orwellian lexicon and almost as laughable as the liberal media bias. Just who does own the media? Who advertises/bankrolls on this so called liberal media?
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 11, 2009 6:36 am) As a life long Union person under 3 different Unions, I am not anti union. My problem is with the UAW that is squeezing the life blood out of the Domestic Auto Industry. 400,000 prima donna workers and 700,000 retirees should not be allowed to hold the domestic auto industry hostage. You will never convince me that the auto industry jobs lost are not a direct result of UAW bullheadedness over work rules and benefits. The UAW is as much responsible for the jobs going to Mexico, Brazil and Canada as any one entity. And in spite of that GM was so weighed down here at home that they have not made a decent return on investment for over 20 years. I say that is killing the goose laying the golden egg.
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