Auto Bailout Bill: Dead

[Charlie]

Well, I wonder how come GM employes make 50% more than the ones at Honda or Toyota US plants. The big Three employees cost $14 billion more per year in extra salary and benefit over Honda and Toyota, in the US. Where is the thread from last month about that?

They don't. The actual hourly pay for employees at UAW plants vs the Honda/Toyota plants in this area is the same. Do you honestly think that Honda/Toyota could hire anyone if they were paying 50 cents on the dollar vs what you could make at a GM plant?

Seriously man, do a little research past just reading messageboard ramblings.

What's killing the Big 3 is the legacy costs of its retired employees. Healthcare, pension, etc. So what do you do there? It's not the 25 year old guy making 16 bucks an hour, it's the 75 year old guy with a bunch of health complications. How do you cut that?

-Charlie

[Massive Lee]

Well, I wonder how come GM employes make 50% more than the ones at Honda or Toyota US plants. The big Three employees cost $14 billion more per year in extra salary and benefit over Honda and Toyota, in the US. Where is the thread from last month about that?

I am 100% for social benefits, medic aid, and pensions, but not to the point of strangling a company when it is obvious low education employees get over paid for basic tasks.

[Charlie]

$60k per year, when you add all the benefits and pension plan, years after the worker is gone, becomes $100k, which is what it costs the employer for a guy that does the same routine all day long. Chimps get paid with bananas and would do the same job...

Dude, that's a stupid argument. You can take damn near any US job that has healthcare benefits and a retirement plan, and double their wage to state their "effective cost". Are you saying they shouldn't have health benefits? Are you saying the guy that's worked there for 25 years shouldn't have a retirement package?

I don't get you man. You're all over Obama's nuts and ride the socialist train all the way to kookville, but you wanna take the complete opposite tact and say "fuck you guys, everyone should be a contract employee, no benefits for anyone!" like so many businesses are trying to do to a lot of industries these days.

As for "robotization", dude, it's not 1972 anymore. Go look at a modern assembly line. It's very heavily automated.

-Charlie

[Massive Lee]

Please, do tell me where you're getting 100k from.

$60k per year, when you add all the benefits and pension plan, years after the worker is gone, becomes $100k, which is what it costs the employer for a guy that does the same routine all day long. Chimps get paid with bananas and would do the same job...

In fact, UAW has always opposed robotization of basic tasks, which cost a lot to their employers. Robots don't need pension plans, Medic coverage, and they work 100% from Monday 8AM to Friday 5PM. UAW dug its own hole.

[Jand3rson]

You're factoring in overtime. Which, yea, you can make a shitload of on the line. Toss in 3-4 double shifts, and yea, I can see a six figure paycheck. Of course, that's also a 70 hour workweek.

-Charlie

All that money and no time to enjoy it. I went through a couple of patches like that when I was in manufactured homes. 70+ hour weeks, taking home almost 3x what I normally made, and never being able to enjoy having it. I worked at 6 am, didn't get off until 7 or 8 pm, went home and ate dinner, watched tv for an hour, went to bed, and did it all again.

[Charlie]

An employee that worked for me moved to Ohio with his dad from California when he took a job at the GM plant. His dad was a supervisor on the assembly line. He was laughing about how much his dad was making per year with his overtime and vacation pays, a whopping 107K. A classmate of mine from high school (class of '00) got a job at the plant 6 months after graduation. He started at 60K.

You're factoring in overtime. Which, yea, you can make a shitload of on the line. Toss in 3-4 double shifts, and yea, I can see a six figure paycheck. Of course, that's also a 70 hour workweek.

-Charlie

[BillBrasky]

100k? Where did you pull that figure from? Top level, high seniority pay for a UAW assembly line guy with 20+ years is $28/hr, so about 60k. You start at about $9/hr, and most assembly line guys are making 14-15/hr.

Please, do tell me where you're getting 100k from.

Charlie

An employee that worked for me moved to Ohio with his dad from California when he took a job at the GM plant. His dad was a supervisor on the assembly line. He was laughing about how much his dad was making per year with his overtime and vacation pays, a whopping 107K. A classmate of mine from high school (class of '00) got a job at the plant 6 months after graduation. He started at 60K.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Please, do tell me where you're getting 100k from.

Charlie

Duh, Canadian Media, spiked with US bullshit.

[Charlie]

I am sure that the education-less GM factory workers who earns $100k wouldn't see a problem getting a 33% pay cut if the alternative is a 100% cut after the factory has closed down...

100k? Where did you pull that figure from? Top level, high seniority pay for a UAW assembly line guy with 20+ years is $28/hr, so about 60k. You start at about $9/hr, and most assembly line guys are making 14-15/hr.

Please, do tell me where you're getting 100k from.

Charlie

[Massive Lee]

I regard of UAW, my understanding is that they were asked (within a very short period of time) to level salaries and benefits at par with what is paid at US Honda or Toyota plants.

I am sure that the education-less GM factory workers who earns $100k wouldn't see a problem getting a 33% pay cut if the alternative is a 100% cut after the factory has closed down...

What does strike thugh, is that if they say no to the Big Three, why haven't they say no to Wall Street? Tax payers don't want to see they tax money being given to private enterprises. Car makers, just as banks, and speculators, are private entities. I also wonder how much the big CEOs will take from their deep pockets and put back on the table... How much have they earned in the past decade, and what are the results?

[Collin]

This is exactly what happened in the 70's gas crisis. I don't see how the big 3 couldn't have seen this coming.

Americans build bigger and bigger and crappier cars/trucks

Foreign companies continue to produce small cars with good build quality and relatively good mileage.

Americans get wiped out and take 20 years to recover.

Maybe we'll get them the next time around?

And not giving us european fords is a huge mistake, I would drive the shit out of a mondeo or the new fiesta, I wouldn't get within ten blocks of our focus (which is the old focus with uglier sheet metal and poorly placed chrome side vents).

[Jon325i]

More UAW fingerpointing....

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/12/u...e-republicans/

[BillBrasky]

If you read a lot of the posts in this thread, and every other thread that mentions unions or UAW, that is the perception. Everyone thinks that UAW assembly line workers all make $70 an hour. They fail to realize that its more complex than that.
You can't just axe the pensions without sending 10s of thousands of retired workers into a financial tailspin.

You should see the excess money that a lot of local retired GM workers have. I live in a suburb of Youngstown, OH. A lot of my neighbors work at or are retired from the GM Lordstown(it's anything but) plant where they made the Cobalt, Cavalier, Vega, Impala. They all call it Generous Motors and brag about how they rip off the company by clocking in and hiding somewhere and going to sleep until their shift was over. They would steal anything and everything that wasn't bolted down. They work 40 hours a week and have multiple new cars, big houses, and too many toys to ever use. They are the most unappreciative assholes I've ever met. All they do is talk trash about a company that has provided them with a job that requires no education and pays $30-$40 an hour with full benefits to bolt on door handles.


FUCK THEM ALL!!!

[Jon325i]

I'm not going to go as far as to say I favor printing off money and handing it out to everyone, but watching a lot of these hearings, it is really frustrating to see how congress thinks they are dealing with 1995 era detroit vs 2008. It shows how clueless those putzes are we have in office.

First, the putzes. There's no question we are dealing with a bunch of nimrods here.....why are they still in power? Great question - thank you for bringing it up. Everyone seems to possess a sour opinion of Congress..."they're all corrupt I tell ya! Except my representative - great person, doing a great job!" This is the mantra being echoed in every city, in every state, across the fruited plain. The end result? We just keep fucking ourselves because we keep sending them back to DC. Here's an election day hint: in your next election, be daring....live on the edge some.....and don't punch out the chad of the candidate with 'incumbent' next to their name. Go with the underdog/unknown/less-corrupted option.

*steps off political soapbox*

Second, I don't want our tax dollars bailing out a few boardrooms full of executives who made some bad decisions. Granted, the US auto industry has made some improvements with their products in the last decade or so. However, these executives, GM in particular, made the decision to place nearly all their eggs in the SUV & pickup truck basket because for the short term it meant greater profits. Long term, they were setting themselves up for failure because they ignored the evolving trends in the marketplace. They have made their bed, now they can sleep on their stained sheets.....I don't want us footing the bill for some new satin sheets for these guys.

Thirdly, Cerebus (owners of Chrysler) has got some bowling ball sized brass sacks to be showing up to these Congressional hearings with their hand out. These guys are venture capitalists with a net worth somewhere in the 20-25 billion dollar range.....and they're asking for help? What they should be doing is a) look into their portfolio and see what can be downsized/sold off to raise some cash to keep their Chrysler investment healthy, or b) sell it off to the highest bidder. What they are doing is akin to Bill Gates asking for mortgage bailout assistance because he's affraid of losing his house.


/rant

[joshh]

I just hope this helps get the Unions more realistic about wages and benefits. It's been lop sided for too long.
Some of the laziest workers I've ever seen were Union. Although not all are this way.