Does it bother you that the Prius is not Union made?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gas hater @ Jul 9 2006, 09:32 PM) [snapback]283583[/snapback]</div>

A better person ? Not implied. I was only talking about compensation. Compensation is always relative, and so wages were noted. I think that the auto unions have artificially forced auto worker wages way beyond any semblance of their worth in society, and certainly to me. I'll say the same things about many jobs, but you asked if I would monetarily support keeping it that way for the auto unions.

The reverse is true, too. My daughter's math teacher was uncomfortable with the present I gave him at the end of the school year. I told him that in my opinion, he should be compensated like a physician, and I was only giving a part of what was deserved.

Please realize, I am not trying to convince you or anybody else to accept my values in regards job compensation. I thought you were asking for opinions regarding personal comfort in purschase of a non-union produced auto. If you do not want honest answers to your questions, why ask ?

 

Don't know know your year model or DOB but if it is newly built it came from the Fujimatsu Japan plant. JAW (Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' Unions) 12 Group Unions, 1321 Company Level Unions and 750,000 members. Toyota Group 279 Company-unit unions & 273,000 members. Now I don't know how your car could have been built sans union workers. Are you saying Japanese union members don't count???

 

No.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gas hater @ Jul 10 2006, 01:40 AM) [snapback]283694[/snapback]</div>

Union made? Who gives a damn. Japan isn't exactly a sweatshop people.

Even the Camry's made in Non-Union enviroments in Georgetown Kentucky, line workers make 70 dollars an hour.... Non-Union!

No, Toyota takes care of their people and their people take care of them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gas hater @ Jul 9 2006, 02:18 PM) [snapback]283479[/snapback]</div>

Well, several pages later and many entries to the point that the Prius IS union made, make the premise of this entire thread moot, don't you agree?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gas hater @ Jul 9 2006, 04:18 PM) [snapback]283479[/snapback]</div>

I find it most comforting that the Prius is assembled with very little human labor to begin with.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 9 2006, 05:41 PM) [snapback]283566[/snapback]</div>

The wage rate in the Big Three is $27.97 - $32.34 (http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Auto_News/NUMMI_UAW_Agree_on_Pact.S175.A9078.html).

So you are proposing that benefits comprise in excess of 100% of the wage rate. I have been involved in negotiating labour contracts for years. I have never seen a benefits attribution in excess of 100%. Benefits (including pension, retirement benefits, health care, vacation, leaves, etc.) typically run in the 20% to 30% range.

Lower paid positions typically attract the higher percentages because some benefits, like health care, often have fixed costs. (A $100 monthly/employee cost is a greater percentage of a $10.00/hour wage than a $50.00/hour wage.)

 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/uaw-j29.shtml
---
According to Burnham Securities analyst David Healy, many of the outgoing GM workers will be replaced with temporary laborers receiving wages of $19 per hour, 30 percent below the current pay scale for regular hourly employees. They will receive no benefits.

This contrasts with outgoing workers who receive $80 per hour in wages, benefits and pensions. Annually, this translates to a cost savings for GM of some $129,000 per worker, excluding overtime.

At Delphi, new-hires are being offered only $14 per hour, without any benefits. The company has already hired 2,000 temporary workers to replace a portion of its outgoing employees.

The newly hired temporary workers will, as part of the quid pro quo between the UAW and the auto bosses, be compelled to join the union and pay dues to the UAW bureaucracy.

And another link: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=3614

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 10 2006, 12:05 PM) [snapback]283978[/snapback]</div>

Does it not bother anyone that the non-attributed data is coming from 'The World Socialist Web Site'?

 

So these workers are supposed to take part of their $14 an hour and buy their own healthcare with it, and then take some more and invest in their own pension plans and then support their families on what's left over? Boy, what an incentive to work for GM.

The cost of Healthcare is increasing at double the cost of living rate. Anyone know what it costs per year for Kaiser or Blue Cross?

Workers with healthcare are sick less often and in fact save their company money by not losing work days.

The "new" workers that are being hired with no healthcare and at low wages will probably lose more days of work due to illness. They are also unskilled, so I for one won't be much interested in any GM product built by these guys. And since these workers will have very little loyalty, the turnover rate will probably keep the workforce perpetually unskilled.

This plan may keep GM afloat fiscally for a little longer, but I'll bet the quality of their product will suffer and that will translate into less sales, etc, etc.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

 

When I worked for GM, I was 'unskilled', was paid $5/hr, got BC/BS for 'free'. When I had to cover my own during layoffs, etc., I paid $85/month for the Blue Cross coverage (this was in 1972).

I now pay about $100/month for about a quarter of the healthcare coverage and have NO retirement benefits beyond my 401k.

I am not certain where this phantom number of $80/hr average came from; are they including lower management salaries?

I also wonder what people think will happen when French Government-owned Regie Renault takes over GM?

tres damage or tres bonne?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gas hater @ Jul 9 2006, 05:18 PM) [snapback]283479[/snapback]</div>

I never, if possible, buy "union made".

I recently built a new office and had to use "union" and it was a complete disaster - both financially and quality wise - never again - if possible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wstander @ Jul 10 2006, 03:19 PM) [snapback]283985[/snapback]</div>

It bothers me more that you do not read. The data is from, and attributed to, David Healy, a US auto analyst. Another link was also offered, that did not have that nasty 'S' word in the url.

It bothers me most of all that you are so brainwashed.

Here, try this link form Ward's auto world:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...v29/ai_13787737
It is 1992 dollars. Note the ratio of wage to total labor cost, and remember that the GM unions gained additional concessions through the 90's.

 

Take a look at this UAW webpage to read the union's spin on the cost of labor. I found it quite interesting that as of 2003, 60,170 active Chrysler employees supported benefits for 57,490 retirees and 17,580 surviving spouses. At GM the figures were 117,780, 228,550 and 63,480 and at Ford 72,570, 77,460 and 24,220.

The total compensation package included:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 10 2006, 12:54 PM) [snapback]284015[/snapback]</div>

Curious. I've had exactly the opposite experience. When I bought my house in North Dakota, back around 1980, it needed extensive repairs. I hired a local contractor who used non-union labor and, while he probably charged me less, the work was definitely sub-standard. Later I used union labor for the occasional work, and it was always 100% satisfactory.

(I would not have used a non-union contractor, but I was very inexperienced, and didn't think to ask before hiring him. He was local to my area and that seemed like a good criterion.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 10 2006, 01:00 PM) [snapback]284019[/snapback]</div>

I was referring to the included website:

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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

47,600 GM and Delphi workers accept buyouts and early retirement
A vote of no confidence in the United Auto Workers union
By Andre Damon and Barry Grey
29 June 2006
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

General Motors announced Monday that 47,600 GM and Delphi workers have accepted buyouts and early retirement in the largest corporate downsizing in the history of the US auto industry.

The number of workers willing to accept exit packages exceeded even the highest preliminary estimates, fulfilling GM’s 30,000-worker attrition goal two years ahead of schedule. These figures are a stunning and unmistakable expression of the contempt of auto workers for the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership, and their entirely justified conclusion that the union is neither willing nor able to defend their interests.

The mass exodus testifies to the fact that the union has been transformed into the apparatus of a privileged and corrupt bureaucracy that is not accountable to the members, and is seen by them to be an alien and hostile force. Were the UAW in any sense a genuine workers’ organization, with which the rank-and-file identified and which they democratically controlled, the workers would reject en masse the company’s pressure to force them out and look to the union to fight in their defense. The opposite is the case.

Caught between accepting an exit package and remaining at work to face ever greater concessions in wages, benefits and pensions—plus the ever-present threat of being laid off—one third of GM’s hourly US workforce chose to get out, even though the exit terms offered by the company, and agreed to by the UAW, ensure that many will face economic hardship and insecurity.

Workers who accepted the exit packages—35,000 from GM and 12,600 from the auto parts maker Delphi—did so with the understanding that the UAW is preparing to go beyond its previous betrayals and collaborate with GM in destroying the most fundamental gains wrested from the bosses by auto workers in the course of more than 70 years of struggle.

GM’s “Special Attrition Program†is designed to induce high seniority workers to retire early, allowing workers who have been employed with the company for more than 26 years to retire with full benefits. These workers, of course, must forgo years of employment and the pay checks they bring, and live on far lower pension stipends.

Workers with less seniority will be able to keep their accumulated pensions, but are denied full retirement benefits.

For employees who have more than the 30 years required for full retirement benefits, the attrition program provides a meager $35,000 bonus if they choose to retire now.

The program also offers lump-sum buyouts of between $70,000 and $140,000. Workers employed by GM for over ten years are entitled to a $140,000 buyout, entailing the complete revocation of benefits (excluding vested pensions). Employees with less than ten years’ seniority get a $70,000 payment under similar terms.

Out of 35,000 GM workers accepting exit packages, approximately 30,400 took early retirement and 4,600 accepted buyouts. 33,800 of the departing workers are represented by the UAW and a further 1,200 by the International Union of Electrical Workers. Delphi advanced a similar departure compensation program, with 12,600 of its 33,000 unionized hourly workers accepting exit packages.

GM had planned to cut 30,000 employees from its 113,000-strong US hourly workforce by 2008, but the wave of exiting workers will allow it to meet this attrition quota by the end of this year. The current workforce reduction comes on top of last year’s cut of 6,500 union jobs.

Despite the greater-than-expected departure of employees, GM has stated it will not raise the number of factories it expects to close in the short term. Analysts have indicated that this may create a shortage of workers, resulting in chaotic production as the company scrambles to rotate its employees. GM plans to close 12 plants and engineering centers by 2008.

The early retirement and buyout program will cost GM approximately $3.8 billion in immediate payments and benefits adjustments, but will allow it to significantly reduce its operating costs. At a press conference on Monday, CEO Rick Wagoner announced that the higher-than-expected number of departing employees has allowed the company to revise its target savings on US structural costs upwards from $7 to $8 billion.

According to Burnham Securities analyst David Healy, many of the outgoing GM workers will be replaced with temporary laborers receiving wages of $19 per hour, 30 percent below the current pay scale for regular hourly employees. They will receive no benefits.

This contrasts with outgoing workers who receive $80 per hour in wages, benefits and pensions. Annually, this translates to a cost savings for GM of some $129,000 per worker, excluding overtime.

At Delphi, new-hires are being offered only $14 per hour, without any benefits. The company has already hired 2,000 temporary workers to replace a portion of its outgoing employees.

The newly hired temporary workers will, as part of the quid pro quo between the UAW and the auto bosses, be compelled to join the union and pay dues to the UAW bureaucracy.

The decision of large numbers of auto workers to accept buyouts and early retirement is the result of decades of betrayals by the UAW bureaucracy. The role of the union in suppressing the resistance of auto workers and collaborating in the companies’ attacks is reflected in the near-collapse in UAW membership. In its report to the UAW convention held earlier this month in Las Vegas, the union leadership acknowledged that UAW membership had plummeted from a high of over 1.5 million to 557,000, the lowest level since 1942.

Seeing only more betrayals on the horizon, many older auto workers view GM’s buyouts and early retirement as the only way to preserve some portion of the benefits for which they have worked most of their lives.

GM and Delphi workers did not accept the terms offered in the attrition program because they considered them fair or adequate. Many workers will be thrown into economic hardship without a serious guarantee that the retirement benefits promised by GM will be honored. They have the example of Delphi before them. The world’s largest auto parts company, which was spun off from GM in 1999, filed for bankruptcy protection last October and promptly demanded that its union employees accept a 60 percent wage cut and sweeping concessions in health insurance, pensions and other benefits.

GM and the UAW both held up before GM workers the prospect of the auto maker following the same path so as to blackmail them into accepting further job cuts and concessions.

The fate of employees accepting buyouts is especially tragic. In place of the lifetime retirement benefits which many were expecting, workers choosing buyouts will be left with little more than the equivalent of a year or two of pay and benefits.

Last fall, GM and the UAW pushed through an unprecedented concessions package under which retired workers must pay hundreds of dollars toward their health care benefits while active workers defer wage increases in order the subsidize the company’s health care costs.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger’s remarks at this month’s union convention made clear that these concessions were only the beginning. He declared that the auto makers faced an unprecedented and long-term crisis and made clear that the union would respond by agreeing to further cuts in health benefits, pensions, wages and jobs. The speech, delivered some two weeks before the deadline for each worker to decide whether or not to accept an exit package, was aimed in no small part at convincing the largest possible number of workers to leave.

The UAW has adopted a policy of working with the companies to slash the current work force and replace it with fresh blood—younger workers who will be forced to perform the same tasks at a fraction of the pay and minus the health and pension benefits of the older workers. It has deliberately set out to significantly lower labor costs, in the hope that it will be able to staunch the decline in its dues revenues by assuring the auto companies, in the manner of a labor contractor, that they will have a supply of cheap, highly exploited workers, who will be compelled to pay union dues as a condition for getting a job.

See Also:
US auto union signals its capitulation on wages, benefits and jobs
[15 June 2006]
The Delphi crisis: Socialism and the American autoworker
[11 April 2006]



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Now, I may be unable to read, but perhaps you can speak slowly and show me my errors, oh most kind and brainy one :angry:

 

This is the second time I quote the relevant data from the article. Read it as slow as you need to for understanding. And do try not to get too hung up on your silly biases. As far as the article goes, it is well researched, and I find it easy to discern their opinion, and the data reported. Moreover, their opinion that the UAW leadership is corrupt is not exactly out of the mainstream non-socialist sphere of opinion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 10 2006, 06:58 PM) [snapback]284201[/snapback]</div>

res ipsa loquitur

My dad died in 2005; He retired from GM in 1980 and his combined UAW/GM pension+SSA benefits was never more than 24K/yr. Couple to that a nominal value for Blue Cross/Blue Shield for he and my mother may have added another 4k/yr to his 'take' in benefits...

A far cry from $80/hr....

And, I retract my comments about my wondering about 'The World Socialist Web Site'; from what I have read on this forum, it is a seemingly perfect organ for most Prius owners...

Have a nice wobbly day, and remember

"workers of the world unite!"