more f'ing BS from unions

[theevilsharpie]

Many inefficiences occur in unionized labor. Everyone knows this. The desire to outsource/subcontract comes from the fact that there are specialized labor forces out there that can do the job for a far more competitive rate. While there may be some benefits to unions, it's quite obvious its a huge bureaucratic mess. Sometimes this mess is minimized and unionized labor can compete, but at other times it's probably not that great. I'm willing to bet in the USPS' case it's bogging the whole institution down.

In the case of the USPS, I'd be willing to bet that the biggest cause of their financial woes is the fact that more and more documents are being sent electronically.

Since January, I think I've received about 10 legitimate pieces of mail. I'm sure I'm not alone. If the USPS cut deliveries to 3 days a week, I doubt I'd notice.

 

[grrl]

Propaganda?

I'm not anti union, but I am anti-antiunion bullshit.

Fixed.

 

[ShawnD1]

In the case of the USPS, I'd be willing to bet that the biggest cause of their financial woes is the fact that more and more documents are being sent electronically.

Since January, I think I've received about 10 legitimate pieces of mail. I'm sure I'm not alone. If the USPS cut deliveries to 3 days a week, I doubt I'd notice.

Same here. I almost never send mail to anyone. Postal service really could be down to just saturday and it wouldn't make a difference. I get an email for each of my bills

 

[drinkmorejava]

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/08/which-business-is-this.html

"Every year between now and 2016, he has to put aside over $5 billion to finance health benefits for future employees. You read that right: future employees. There isn’t another business in the country that finances benefits for employees it hasn’t even hired yet."

That's why.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I think its time for an exercise in MATHEMATICS :awe:
...
$10,000,000,000 x 0.3($10,000,000,000) = $13,000,000,000
...

D:

 

[theevilsharpie]

D:

Whoops. That should be a +, not an x D:

I fail

Edit: The answer's still right, and that's all that matters :awe:

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Hehe yeah I figured it should be a +

 

[Ruptga]

In the case of the USPS, I'd be willing to bet that the biggest cause of their financial woes is the fact that more and more documents are being sent electronically.

Since January, I think I've received about 10 legitimate pieces of mail. I'm sure I'm not alone. If the USPS cut deliveries to 3 days a week, I doubt I'd notice.

According to a few of my business professors, you're half right. The other half of the problem is that they can't cut their costs because their labor is basically a fixed cost (rather than a variable cost).

Consider a wage laborer, if he works 8 hours at 10/hr your labor cost is 80. If demand drops and you only have 4 hours of work for him your labor cost is 40.
Consider a unionized laborer, by contract he is entitled to 8 hours at 10/hr (i.e. salaried), whether you have work for him or not. That provides security for the employee and the employer doesn't mind, that is until they have more workers than they have work. When that happens they can't just give people fewer hours and their only option is to cut jobs. Even if they talk the unions into allowing a pay cut the vast majority of their expense isn't wages but benefits, so that only gets them so far.

 

[Adrenaline]

I think its time for an exercise in MATHEMATICS :awe:

Let's take your example of someone making $25. Assuming that this person works full-time, he or she is making $52,000 per year, which I'll round to $50,000 to make the math easy.

According to Wikipedia, GM currently has 244,500 employees. Let's assume that 200,000 employees are union workers making $50,000 per year.

$50,000 x 200,000 = $10,000,000,000

On top of a employee's gross pay, the company has to pay for things such as health insurance, vacation/sick pay, worker's comp, etc, as well as overhead from services such as HR that support the workforce. For the typical office job, this overhead cost is about 30% of the typical employee's gross pay. I'm going to assume that a union factory worker is higher, but I'll go with 30%.

$10,000,000,000 x 0.3($10,000,000,000) = $13,000,000,000

There may be a handful of people at GM making a few million a year, but GM's rank and file labor force is costing it $10+ billion a year. I wonder where they'll look to cut expenses :hmm:

I see where you got your 244,500 from, but how about digging deeper to find an actual number of union employees. I found a number for 2008, 74,000, which will reduce your 200,000 assumed number by 63%. That is less than 1/3 of the total number of employees they had in 2008 that were union. I doubt it went up by a huge amount since then. So, explain why the union got hammered for taking cuts moreso than others in the news when they make up less than 1/3 of the workforce.

The "less than 10%" I heard was given by a union representative during an interview on CNN. The number was backed up by the local president who was standing next to the guy.

 

[theevilsharpie]

I see where you got your 244,500 from, but how about digging deeper to find an actual number of union employees. I found a number for 2008, 74,000, which will reduce your 200,000 assumed number by 63%. That is less than 1/3 of the total number of employees they had in 2008 that were union. I doubt it went up by a huge amount since then. So, explain why the union got hammered for taking cuts moreso than others in the news when they make up less than 1/3 of the workforce.

It's time for more MATHEMATICS :awe:

From the CNN article you linked to:

74,000
Number of employees offered buyouts - all of GM's U.S. hourly workers represented by UAW.

...

$78.21
Hourly labor costs, including benefits, for current GM workers.

$78.21/hour x 2,080 hours = $162,676.80/year

$162,676.80/year x 74,000 employees = $12,038,083,200

:awe:

 

[Adrenaline]

The USPS isn't a for profit industry. Can you show me the management that rakes in the cash? This might be a bigger problem at your privatized carriers like UPS and FedEx, but I'm certain people with fat bonuses aren't working at the USPS, and even if there are some, it cannot be compared to the finance/banking industry.

Many inefficiences occur in unionized labor. Everyone knows this. The desire to outsource/subcontract comes from the fact that there are specialized labor forces out there that can do the job for a far more competitive rate. While there may be some benefits to unions, it's quite obvious its a huge bureaucratic mess. Sometimes this mess is minimized and unionized labor can compete, but at other times it's probably not that great. I'm willing to bet in the USPS' case it's bogging the whole institution down.

Ok, the USPS may not fall under a greedy company. How about the horrible customer service people I have run into there when I do need to go there? I hate going there. I am sure they have had to turn a profit before though, since at one point they were self sufficient.

FedEx and UPS have ALWAYS been more friendly to me when I ship anything through them.

 

[Adrenaline]

It's time for more MATHEMATICS :awe:

From the CNN article you linked to:


$78.21/hour x 2,080 hours = $162,676.80/year

$162,676.80/year x 74,000 employees = $12,038,083,200

:awe:

You do realize that all those costs factor in retired people benefits right? Find out what portion of those can NOT be controlled and what can. I know the number was over 70 but GM got themselves into that position from ripping off the American people for so long. They did not agree to those terms because they were losing money.

For people that work now though, their cost was 10%. I am 100% sure that every GM union worker does not cost GM almost $163k a year that works there at this time.

On the wiki page I could see where the cost was less than 10% (don't know exact figure but it would be nice), and of course it has gone up since then seeing the sales figures. They sold nearly 3,000,000 vehicles in 2008 and nearly 3,900,000 in 2007. Seeing as how the interview was given in 2009, I can see the figure. Now, through reductions in manpower and the reduction in sales, it would be interesting to see a number for 2009 and then after this year also 2010.

 

[Red Dawn]

lol, you missed the point. why do that, they cut their own throats. So many of our manufacturing jobs are now outsourced....what reason did you think they outsourced for anyway?
There are far fewer construction workers actually working in my area now, their all laid off and have been for over a year. All cause they can't take paycuts or anything, they'd rather lose their jobs ans suck every ounce from companies no matter how well/poor that company is doing.

I doubt that, it probably has to do with the slump in construction do the the economy. Unions representing construction workers are always making concessions just to keep their members working when possible. If their members aren't working they aren't getting any dues.

 

[Red Dawn]

Built by crappy union workers?

Toyota isn't a union Shop.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Toyota isn't a union Shop.

only NUMMI, whose last day is tomorrow.
after watching a video of how those savages behave, good riddance.