greg334
Veteran Expediter
Cheri,
you were playing devils advocate, so I had to throw in the class warfare thing in. It is true by the way, people look at what the white collar workforce makes and makes a comparison to what the labor makes and many claim it is unfair. Unfair? I even heard it last night when they were interviewing the people who were on strike, a bunch of them mentioned that it is unfair that the white collar people were making too much money. It is look what they got, that's unfair to me attitude.
Oh well - let's go automated it will solve a lot of problems.
As for the wages they make, the actual wages for the blue collar are around $125,000 a year. I can get an accurate figure right from GM if I want but I won't because I will get more angry about it. I got that figure right from GM management and confirmed by the UAW a few years ago (and the Detroit News got a little less accurate figure and reported $115K) but remember that the real wage for workers who enter the auto workforce is lower and the real average age of the workforce is above 38 years and they have been on the job more than 7 years. I don't feel a bit of empathy for any GM employee or ford employee because they have gotten too much in the past and they don't seem to be serious about helping their employer by buying their product, not leasing but buying.
AND living in this horrid place, I have to face car commercials that tell me that I am not important as a consumer of their products - they always present the employee discount price on these ads which insults a lot of people, it don't happen with Toyota or Mazda ads. SO why should I buy their product.
As for the retirees, oh well if GM pulls out of the pension and retirement benefits to survive, no one should ever suggest that the tax payer picks up the tab. I didn't hear any of them complain when Kmart screwed their retirees. Many GM retirees I know complained that they are getting screwed over on the slight changes with their health care even after they have Medicare which picked up most of the cost. I said that the UAW should have followed other unions who controlled the pensions and health care - like the IBOE. Every union should control the pension and the cost of it should come out of the company right from the start, not played with the accounting practices like the GM and Ford did.
The cost that is put into the price of the car has nothing to do with the competitive nature of the product they produce - union, no union. They still make a profit, they still make a product but they also lose market share. If there is no product that anyone wants to BUY, then there is no reason the company should be able to maintain a percentage of the market. I point to the history of the American auto industry where they went through this in the 70's with the Japanese building in better quality (*not talking about the price of the vehicles which were under-priced to get market share).
One thing to remember is this, there is no "I deserve a job", the union screwed the workers in the past by forcing issues so the company will give more but at the same time the union allowed closing of plants and even to the point to allow plants to compete to see which one would close - something that the old UAW would never tolerate.
you were playing devils advocate, so I had to throw in the class warfare thing in. It is true by the way, people look at what the white collar workforce makes and makes a comparison to what the labor makes and many claim it is unfair. Unfair? I even heard it last night when they were interviewing the people who were on strike, a bunch of them mentioned that it is unfair that the white collar people were making too much money. It is look what they got, that's unfair to me attitude.
Oh well - let's go automated it will solve a lot of problems.
As for the wages they make, the actual wages for the blue collar are around $125,000 a year. I can get an accurate figure right from GM if I want but I won't because I will get more angry about it. I got that figure right from GM management and confirmed by the UAW a few years ago (and the Detroit News got a little less accurate figure and reported $115K) but remember that the real wage for workers who enter the auto workforce is lower and the real average age of the workforce is above 38 years and they have been on the job more than 7 years. I don't feel a bit of empathy for any GM employee or ford employee because they have gotten too much in the past and they don't seem to be serious about helping their employer by buying their product, not leasing but buying.
AND living in this horrid place, I have to face car commercials that tell me that I am not important as a consumer of their products - they always present the employee discount price on these ads which insults a lot of people, it don't happen with Toyota or Mazda ads. SO why should I buy their product.
As for the retirees, oh well if GM pulls out of the pension and retirement benefits to survive, no one should ever suggest that the tax payer picks up the tab. I didn't hear any of them complain when Kmart screwed their retirees. Many GM retirees I know complained that they are getting screwed over on the slight changes with their health care even after they have Medicare which picked up most of the cost. I said that the UAW should have followed other unions who controlled the pensions and health care - like the IBOE. Every union should control the pension and the cost of it should come out of the company right from the start, not played with the accounting practices like the GM and Ford did.
The cost that is put into the price of the car has nothing to do with the competitive nature of the product they produce - union, no union. They still make a profit, they still make a product but they also lose market share. If there is no product that anyone wants to BUY, then there is no reason the company should be able to maintain a percentage of the market. I point to the history of the American auto industry where they went through this in the 70's with the Japanese building in better quality (*not talking about the price of the vehicles which were under-priced to get market share).
One thing to remember is this, there is no "I deserve a job", the union screwed the workers in the past by forcing issues so the company will give more but at the same time the union allowed closing of plants and even to the point to allow plants to compete to see which one would close - something that the old UAW would never tolerate.
