UAW President says no more concessions

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: chucky2
that's less than $30k a year for a job you're expected to perform perfectly each time, in tough conditions, in a constantly repetitive manner.

Pefectly each time? What american car company is THAT supposed to be a rule at. LOL

MY favorite story is my friends 2002 Trans Am WS/6. He bought it brand new. in the first year he had to travel to the dealer 6 times (not scheduled maintenance) including transmission problems, replacing the whole driver door because the keylock was defective, replacing the manifold, and my very VERY favorite the passenger side rear view mirror fell off and was just dangling by the mirror adjustment cord. We looked and found that the screws were stripped, and it was just glued on at the factory rather than being properly fixed. =) ... and the WS/6 is the bad assed high end model

 

[ICRS]

Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

 

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

Its a tough situation for sure... But the fact is they failed over 30 years ago. You think with all their money and experiance that they cant figure out how to make a reliable car? They made the conscious decision to make cars that don't last... You see, if you make a car that lasts 15 years, you lost a customer for 15 years, right? So they make them crappy to help their own future sales. This move backfired as people turned to foreign cars...

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: retrospooty

Originally posted by: chucky2
that's less than $30k a year for a job you're expected to perform perfectly each time, in tough conditions, in a constantly repetitive manner.

Pefectly each time? What american car company is THAT supposed to be a rule at. LOL

MY favorite story is my friends 2002 Trans Am WS/6. He bought it brand new. in the first year he had to travel to the dealer 6 times (not scheduled maintenance) including transmission problems, replacing the whole driver door because the keylock was defective, replacing the manifold, and my very VERY favorite the passenger side rear view mirror fell off and was just dangling by the mirror adjustment cord. We looked and found that the screws were stripped, and it was just glued on at the factory rather than being properly fixed. =) ... and the WS/6 is the bad assed high end model

People on the line don't determine what they're going to use to put things together. It's not their fault that some pencil pusher decided to use a little double-sided tape to adhere parts in a car or cheap screws.

Yes, the labor costs are high and the legacy costs are just as bad (for union and non-union), but as much as those costs affect the bottom line, the quality has been a real killer. Sure, they're quite nice now, but let's face it, there's a lot of stigma associated with American cars. You can take a Toyota and put a $25k MSRP on it and it will sell much closer to it, possibly with a higher interest rate, than a $25k GM, Ford or Chrysler. The labor costs would still be an issue, but it doesn't help that American companies can't command the premium some other companies can.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

:laugh: please tell me you don't really believe what you posted....

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: venkman
Honestly, in a climate like this, is making these kinds of comments in the best interest of the UAW? If they want to survive, and I don't think they will, they need to make MAJOR concessions, otherwise they will lose EVERYTHING when the big three goes bankrupt.

When the UAW went on strike a year ago against American Axle (a GM Supplier), I wondered what stopped GM from just contracting out the part to Mexico or China and just be done with these guys. I believe the answer will be "nothing" pretty soon.

Of course nothing is ever management's fault.

The UAW workers decided on their own to keep making 20 foot long behemoth gas sucking monsters.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

QFT idiocy all around though. UAW not realizing that 70s are gone and pushing for incredibly idiotic requests (ie job banks); GM betting that high marging vehicles (trucks, suvs) will get them outta trouble.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

SLAVE WAGES? That's a moran argument if i ever heard one. If the wages were too low, they couldn't find people to do them, same way I don't accept a job that i feel is underpaying me. There's a reason why no one except UAW had $30/hr assembly line work, it was way above what people would want to do that kind of job!


Is toyota, honda and nissan chaining people down in their factories and making them work? No, as a matter of fact they got bonuses in the past few years.

 

[ChunkiMunki]

the whole auto industry is completely based on cheap gas. without it, the business model is gone, regardless of how much money you give to the companies. Better to let them fail now, it will be incredibly painful, and move on. the lingering death just sucks capital.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: chucky2
The UAW already did make major concessions. Starting UAW employees are down to a $14 starting wage - that's less than $30k a year for a job you're expected to perform perfectly each time, in tough conditions, in a constantly repetitive manner.

Go turn the heat lamp on in your bathroom, leave the door open, and then do the same exact series of motions, lasting around 50 seconds each time, for 8 hours straight...you get a 17 minute break, then a 30 minute break, then a 15 minute break in those 8 hours - that's it. Now do that for a few weeks straight and you'll have some concept of what it's like working on an assembly line in the summer.

The UAW here is working with the Big 3 to leverage pressure against DC to get some more $$$...and sending a message the UAW contract well has run dry.

Chuck

Yeah, if you ignore their retirement package and their health care plan that makes Dick Cheney jealous.

 

[Thump553]

winnar111: You won't find me defending the autoworker's gold plated health care plan, but you should note that with the round of concessions made last summer GM transferred liability for the health care plan to the union (along with several billion dollars). That legacy cost, at least, is no more.

But anyone who has any experience with labor unions should not rely on the union to honor it's new obligations under the health plan. Will we have a federal bailout of this health system down the road? Almost inevitable I think, esp. given unions' track record of honesty in dealing with members' trust funds. I personally think national health care reform is way overdue, and costs of boondoggles like this will well outweigh the costs of a national reform.

I've read the pension costs going forward on new hires have been drastically reduced too, but there still exists the hugely substantial obligations to current retirees.

 

[Modelworks]

I think the way to save the auto industry is to get them making something else. Something they can sell and profit from. Not giving them money when they can't generate any to stay afloat once the amount we give them runs out.

If you look at history there are plenty of companies that had to shift their work to another industry because there were no government handouts and the current model was failing. They need to look at the big three as manufacturers and factories and not as only a auto maker. You have companies there with a lot of experience in engineering and production.

We need windmills for alternative power, retask some plants for those. Something that can benefit the consumer. I wouldn't care if the government helped them if they did things like this that would open up new markets.

I know they are looking at electric cars and such, but looking at the big three as only capable of making cars is short sighted.

 

[Ktulu]

Looks like there's alot of posters in this thread as well that don't know what the hell is going on between the UAW and the Big 3. The Big 3 were already well on their way to profitability before this whole economic and gas price mess. So please stop posting idiot remarks like "They need products people actually want" or "a bailout is only delaying the inevitable". The UAW is correct in refusing anymore concessions, they've already given enough. We just have to wait till 2010 for the affects of those concessions to show.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/1...log-with-john-mcelroy/

Most people seem to miss the fact that they are on the verge of a massive turnaround. I'm not trying to be a rah-rah cheerleader here. I'm persuaded simply by the facts.

Last year's UAW contract was truly historic in that it will completely remove the health care cost burden off the Big Three. Though they have to give the union the money to assume this burden, they're paying 40% less than it would otherwise cost them. After 2010 they stop paying billions in health care every year and start dropping that money to the bottom line.

Moreover, there will no longer be any pensions for new hires. They'll get 401k's instead. Again, massive cost savings going forward.

On top of that the UAW workforce takes big pay cuts, and new hires come in at a wage rate that is roughly the same that Toyota, Honda, Nissan, et al, are paying their American workers. In other words, the Big Three can finally compete with the transplants from a labor cost standpoint. That means they can now make small cars in America without losing money on every one they make.

Another benefit of that new labor contract is that the Big Three are no longer pressured to keep building cars and trucks in the face of weak demand. Under the old labor contract it was cheaper to build cars and slap big incentives on them than it was to not build them in the first place. Now, they can build to actual demand, and they're running on much tighter inventory.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Ashton Kucher summed it up perfectly on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, why dont the oil companies bail out GM.

 

[shabby]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
Ashton Kucher summed it up perfectly on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, why dont the oil companies bail out GM.

That's actually brilliant.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: ScottMac

Originally posted by: chucky2
The UAW already did make major concessions. Starting UAW employees are down to a $14 starting wage - that's less than $30k a year for a job you're expected to perform perfectly each time, in tough conditions, in a constantly repetitive manner.

Go turn the heat lamp on in your bathroom, leave the door open, and then do the same exact series of motions, lasting around 50 seconds each time, for 8 hours straight...you get a 17 minute break, then a 30 minute break, then a 15 minute break in those 8 hours - that's it. Now do that for a few weeks straight and you'll have some concept of what it's like working on an assembly line in the summer.

The UAW here is working with the Big 3 to leverage pressure against DC to get some more $$$...and sending a message the UAW contract well has run dry.

Chuck

It's not that bad. I worked the A & B line jungle at Fisher Body, Lansing MI right out of high school in '73 until the early '74 layoffs. I did five sets of spot welds of the passenger firewall to the body pan, firewall to post, and post to roof. The post welds had to meet NVSS spec, so they were worth another nickle a car for me.

The A line (Olds 88s, 98s, and Custom Cruisers moved at 43 units an hour, the B line (Cutlass, Cutlass Wagons) moved at 53 units an hour.

It wasn't that hot, even through the summer. We all had radios wired to an antenna and power by the electricians (for $20.00) so we had tunes.

If you timed it right, You could do three cars and wait long enough to read a paperback page and sit down while listening to your tunes.

The non-overtime day is split in half by 30 minute lunch, each lunch is split by a 15 minute "wagon" (food cart / mini roach coach) the line stops for both of those. Each wagon period is split by a 10 minute break, where a relief guy takes your job for the ten minutes (the line doesn't stop). You can also request relief for "emergencies"

With rare exception, we worked 9.3, or (most often) 10.2 hours for which we were paid overtime beyond eight hours.

If it wasn't for the layoffs (thank Gawd for the layoffs) I'd probably have done twenty or thirty years there. I went into the Navy, got out of the Navy, and started unionless work where I could advance my position based on something other than how much time I spent at the job.

Other than the Trades (Plumber, Carpenters, etc), unions are a drag on the business and the economy. They protect the slugs, and promote processes that guarantee the slowest, least efficient way of performing work so that it takes more man-hours to complete the process.

I'm sure that ergonomics and conditions have improved somewhat since 1973-74. They weren't that bad then, they're much better now.

I started working as a sweeper janitor in March 1978 at Fisher Body Fort Street in Detroit. I became an apprentice Die Maker in '79.

Things have changed a little since then, in fact I'd say the biggest changes have happened in the last 10-15 years. The line moves a lot faster and the expectations are a lot higher. I remember talking about parts per hundred that were scrap. Now the numbers being batted around were parts per million. Every facet of your work-life has some parameter that tracks it. You get away with nothing.

The place I retired from was a forge making axles. We heated steel to 2150F and squished them into the shape of an axle. The average temperature in the plant in the summer was 115F. My job as a die repairman was to crawl down 10 feet into the upsetter and repair the tooling. I probably averaged 15 minutes in the upsetter, but I might be down there for an hour. The temperature down there usually was 135F and steam was coming up all around me. All the tooling was still at about 250F when I went "in the hole."

See that little area, the size very small closet, between the three things labeled "Multiple Operation Dies"? That's where Squisher made his money.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: shabby

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
Ashton Kucher summed it up perfectly on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, why dont the oil companies bail out GM.

That's actually brilliant.

That's actually stupid. Why should one industry have to bail out another. It's probably one of the most moronic statements I've heard over this issue.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Ktulu
Looks like there's alot of posters in this thread as well that don't know what the hell is going on between the UAW and the Big 3. The Big 3 were already well on their way to profitability before this whole economic and gas price mess. So please stop posting idiot remarks like "They need products people actually want" or "a bailout is only delaying the inevitable". The UAW is correct in refusing anymore concessions, they've already given enough. We just have to wait till 2010 for the affects of those concessions to show.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/1...log-with-john-mcelroy/

Most people seem to miss the fact that they are on the verge of a massive turnaround. I'm not trying to be a rah-rah cheerleader here. I'm persuaded simply by the facts.

Last year's UAW contract was truly historic in that it will completely remove the health care cost burden off the Big Three. Though they have to give the union the money to assume this burden, they're paying 40% less than it would otherwise cost them. After 2010 they stop paying billions in health care every year and start dropping that money to the bottom line.

Moreover, there will no longer be any pensions for new hires. They'll get 401k's instead. Again, massive cost savings going forward.

On top of that the UAW workforce takes big pay cuts, and new hires come in at a wage rate that is roughly the same that Toyota, Honda, Nissan, et al, are paying their American workers. In other words, the Big Three can finally compete with the transplants from a labor cost standpoint. That means they can now make small cars in America without losing money on every one they make.

Another benefit of that new labor contract is that the Big Three are no longer pressured to keep building cars and trucks in the face of weak demand. Under the old labor contract it was cheaper to build cars and slap big incentives on them than it was to not build them in the first place. Now, they can build to actual demand, and they're running on much tighter inventory.

With the big 3 bleeding billions every single month, why wait until 2010 to stop paying pension/healthcare? Why don't they stop paying right now when they cannot afford it? And what's the use of having new hires with same rate as Japanese makers? We all know the problem is not with the new cost structure and new employee, they are the minority. The problem is with the old cost structure that pays retiree and existing employee an amount out of touch with reality.

Stop blaming the economy. Foreign car makers face the same economic problem and they are not losing billions each single month, that's a ridiculous sum of money. Big 3 is corrupted to the core, any company is corrupted to the core if they lose billions every month. They have no choice other then to fix the problem fast and much of the problem, like UAW contracts, cannot be fixed unless they declare bankruptcy and rebuild from the ground up.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: shabby

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
Ashton Kucher summed it up perfectly on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, why dont the oil companies bail out GM.

That's actually brilliant.

That's actually stupid. Why should one industry have to bail out another. It's probably one of the most moronic statements I've heard over this issue.

If its a LOAN where they would make money how is it that dumb idea? Its two companies coming to a business agreement.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

Not quite. I used to live near the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tn... and I still know a few people who work at Nissan. They are not complaining one bit about the wages.... which are far from slave wages.

Granted the menial jobs like mowing, moving cars, etc are contracted out and do not pay as much as the factory workers. But I supposed Nissan could be like GM and pay the guys that mow around the plant $60/hour in wages and benefits.

 

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

Not quite. I used to live near the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tn... and I still know a few people who work at Nissan. They are not complaining one bit about the wages.... which are far from slave wages.

Granted the menial jobs like mowing, moving cars, etc are contracted out and do not pay as much as the factory workers. But I supposed Nissan could be like GM and pay the guys that mow around the plant $60/hour in wages and benefits.

Yup... GM's (and the other 2) problem is NOT the unions and paying off pensions etc as they complain. Their problem is very similar to teh US govt... Total bloat complex. They are so rediculously fat that there is nothing they can do to save it.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: retrospooty

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: ICRS
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are paying its american factory workers slave wages. We can't allow the Big American Automakers to fail or it would be a huge set back for the UAW employees.

Not quite. I used to live near the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tn... and I still know a few people who work at Nissan. They are not complaining one bit about the wages.... which are far from slave wages.

Granted the menial jobs like mowing, moving cars, etc are contracted out and do not pay as much as the factory workers. But I supposed Nissan could be like GM and pay the guys that mow around the plant $60/hour in wages and benefits.

Yup... GM's (and the other 2) problem is NOT the unions and paying off pensions etc as they complain. Their problem is very similar to teh US govt... Total bloat complex. They are so rediculously fat that there is nothing they can do to save it.

But the real fact is Toyota actually pays its people more sometimes then GM does.

Its not current workers that get to much its that GM's MGT gave away so much to people a while back that it is still on the books yet those people have not worked in years or even decades.

Right now a lot of the VPs at GM made more then the CEO of Toyota and other car makers. Yet they and the CEO have been at GM for a long time yet they keep trying to blame someone else. They need to get rid of most of the top MGT at GM and really look at running the company different.

 

[Chunkee]

How much money does he make?