Union Workers at Big Three Automakers Average $73 an Hour

[bozack]

Originally posted by: bctbct

Many companies do that, now if a competitor undercuts your prices, kiss it goodbye.

umm big whoop, Personally I would just up and work for the competitior...

I don't think unions are solely to blame for the mess that those companies are in, but they did help place the US automakers at a competitive disadvantage with their compeition, and now when the industry is on the brink of collapse have announced that they are not willing to do anything more to help the situation.

Having known a few that work in the contruction and other unions, the feeling I get from them is they get paid alot of money comparatively for very little work...small sample on my part yes, but once you have that experience it is hard to get away from generalizing about all unions in the US.

 

[jackace]

I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

 

[miketheidiot]

quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

 

[Ferocious]

Nonsense.

That $73 figure includes costs for retirees. Over a half million of them.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: jackace
I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

Skilled vs unskilled? Hmmm....

 

[bctbct]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

State lacks money to lure industrial development
Published: June 27, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Dwindling state money for economic development incentives is keeping Tennessee from luring major industrial projects, according to those trying to do the recruiting.

"We don't even have the cost of admission to the game," said Janet Miller, economic development director for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

The budget for Tennessee's chief economic development incentive program has been sliced by more than half -- from $16.5 million to $6.5 million, a move officials say prompted companies to bypass the Volunteer state and strike deals with Tennessee's neighbors instead.

In addition, a no-new-taxes budget being considered by the state legislature would cut funding by 42 percent for the Department of Economic and Community Development, which is responsible for luring business to Tennessee.

"We just can't get that aggressive at the state level. Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi are all able to shoot us out of the water," said Randy Brewer, president of the Lawrenceburg/Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce.

In the past 18 months three large automotive companies that considered building or expanding a plant in Tennessee were drawn to other states offering pricey incentives.

Mississippi gave Nissan North America $295 million in incentives and more than $400 million in additional tax credits two years ago to build its $930 million truck plant in Canton, Miss. It added another $68 million incentive package last week and landed a $500 million expansion project that will increase total employment at the plant to 5,300.

Hyundai Motor Co. received $234 million in incentives from Alabama in April to build a $1 billion plant that will employ 2,000 people near Montgomery, Ala. It beat Kentucky, which offered $123 million in incentives.

Alabama also offered Toyota Motor Co. $29 million in economic incentives in 2001 to build its $220 million engine plant in Huntsville, Ala., instead of Clarksville, Tenn. The facility will employ about 350 people.

"It's frustrating," said George Halford, president and chief executive officer of the Clarksville/Montgomery County Economic Development Council.Halford said Tennessee was unable to match Alabama's plan, despite Clarksville's attractive local package for tax exemptions.

In the past, Tennessee has given tax credits for large projects. But most of its economic incentives come through job training and infrastructure, such as roads and water and sewer lines.

"We lose because other states are willing to go to the well," said ECD Commissioner Tony Grande.

------

On the Net:

Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development: http://www.state.tn.us/ecd/


Text

 

[jackace]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace
I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

Skilled vs unskilled? Hmmm....

Sure there is a difference between those, but we are not talking about burger king jobs here.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: jackace

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace
I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

Skilled vs unskilled? Hmmm....

Sure there is a difference between those, but we are not talking about burger king jobs here.

Right, we are talking about people pushing buttons or driving a couple screws... not skilled.

 

[jackace]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace
I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

Skilled vs unskilled? Hmmm....

Sure there is a difference between those, but we are not talking about burger king jobs here.

Right, we are talking about people pushing buttons or driving a couple screws... not skilled.

That is a broad generalization about any type of manufacturing facility, but there are still many skilled workers in those facilities. I personally do not know much about the auto industry, but I have worked in food plants while saving money for school. There are a good majority of skilled mechanics, electricians, HVAC, food science, etc people working in these factories. Many of which have 4 year degrees and/or very specific training.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

So what if they do?

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Rainsford
I'm pretty sure the company is paying for past workers because they agreed to do so back then. It's called a pension plan, and nobody held a gun to their head any more than they hold a gun to the heads of workers when they want some kind of concession. It's called capitalism, even when it's labor trying to get something out of management rather than the other way around. If the companies feel things are unfair, maybe they should hire different workers. After all, that's the advice when management is screwing labor, right?

In any case, the reason I brought it up is that I wonder what the cost is for companies like Toyota when you take the same factors into consideration. This article was so blatantly biased that I have a feeling that the surprising differences were arrived at by measuring totally different things.

Sure...except for the fact that the labor union forms a monopoly on labor and thus had the ability to do something similar to holding a gun to their head. It's no different than Microsoft, who we tried to bust in the 90s or any other monopoly.

And yeah, management has done something stupid. They didn't bust the union way back then. Of course, that management is long dead.

Unions are not a monopoly on labor any more than your employer has a monopoly on employment. Your employer can fire you and feel far less impact than you do when you're fired. Collective bargaining puts workers on the same level, employers can't screw with them without feeling the same kind of pain workers feel. But if GM really wanted to, they could totally dump all their union employees and start from scratch. Of course doing so would hurt them, but no more than getting fired hurts a single employee. And bitch about unions all you like, they arose to combat an obvious problem in how workers were treated that capitalism did nothing to solve.

Now that doesn't mean the unions aren't acting stupidly, but the solution to the problem isn't to remove unions. They aren't bad in principle, in fact they are just as fundamental to capitalism as corporations are (in some areas). Labor is a resource too, and workers have a right to try to maximize their income just like their employer does.

The difference is collusion. Employers don't collectively decide not to hire you, so once you're fired from one place you can go work elsewhere. GM can't hire new employees very easily because those potential new employees are colluding by joining the union in the first place.

Collective selling of labor is no different than if AMD and Nvidia collectively sold graphics cards.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: jackace

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: jackace
I love how so many people argue their job and what they do for a living is worth making a good salary or hourly wage and in some cases worth being wealthy, but when it comes to "that guy" he is only worth about $10 an hour.

Skilled vs unskilled? Hmmm....

Sure there is a difference between those, but we are not talking about burger king jobs here.

Right, we are talking about people pushing buttons or driving a couple screws... not skilled.

That is a broad generalization about any type of manufacturing facility, but there are still many skilled workers in those facilities. I personally do not know much about the auto industry, but I have worked in food plants while saving money for school. There are a good majority of skilled mechanics, electricians, HVAC, food science, etc people working in these factories. Many of which have 4 year degrees and/or very specific training.

Those aren't the bulk of the employees. I do work in plants all the time, trust me - Operators are not skilled positions. There are some "skilled" but it really depends on the type of factory. Most "skilled" employees won't be on the plant floor all day every day.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

So what if they do?

that would give nissan and toyota a further 'edge' would it not?

 

[First]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Collective selling of labor is no different than if AMD and Nvidia collectively sold graphics cards.

rofl. Now I understand, you're actually mentally handicapped. :laugh:

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

So what if they do?

that would give nissan and toyota a further 'edge' would it not?

They negotiated themselves a better deal. Maybe GM should have done the same.

 

[Mxylplyx]

I think we can all agree that management at these Big 3 companies has been down right atrocious over the past several decades, and you can count the many insane union contracts among those stupid decisions. These companies have made promises to unions that they cant keep, and they are soon to be broken. Government may come to the rescue of the union pensions and such due to political connections, but I think it's safe to say that the days of gold plated union contracts are nearing an end. While average Americans, making average wages, are losing their jobs in droves, they have little sympathy for the big 3 and their unions, especially when they read about "unemployed" union workers sitting in so called job banks for 6 years doing nothing while making 90% of their former salary. Democrats seem to be standing alone in the call for a bailout for these dinosaurs.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Everyone should go read the piece by Mitt Romney.

The big 3 pay $2000 more per car in employment expenses. That is why their cars feel cheaper, because that have to be cheaper in order to compete.

Giving them another $50 billion is not going to solve this problem.

VW loses more per vehicle than the big 3 and they probably use some of the best materials out there (their reliability is a seperate issue though). Their cars have felt cheap because of poor management decisions. GM and Ford are in worse shape now than when they were doing quite well a few years back, yet their cars are infinitely better now (reliability and quality of materials). They always would have had to face the current issue, but management had them pumping out shit for years. I'd just say take a look at Saturn (the only line GM has completely refreshed, I believe). The current lineup makes the old one look like a joke. Their cars felt cheaper because they were. Management had them using cheaper materials, focusing on big SUVs that people didn't seem to care that used the same crap materials because they just wanted big, as well as encouraging bad practices like selling heavily to fleets -- which would flood the market with ultra-cheap used cars. The big 3 made it so they had to take heavy hits (incentives etc) to sell their vehicles. Have you ever been inside a Malibu Maxx? A Fisher Price car has a more quality interior.

 

[freegeeks]

stick it to the little man, always the easy solution

 

[Red Dawn]

The first thing that needs to be done away with is this Job Bank where all unemployed UAW members receive 96% of their pay for two years after they are laid off.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Ferocious
Nonsense.

That $73 figure includes costs for retirees. Over a half million of them.

Yep and current Toyota workers when you include their bonus, which i did not see added to the labor cost in these stories, make as much and sometimes more then current GM workers.

"The UAW is losing its edge in pay compared with non-unionized U.S. assembly plant workers for foreign companies, even as Detroit automakers aim for deeper benefit cuts to trim their losses.

In at least one case last year, workers for a foreign automaker for the first time averaged more in base pay and bonuses than UAW members working for domestic automakers, according to an economist for the Center for Automotive Research and figures supplied to the Free Press by auto companies.

In that instance, Toyota Motor Corp. gave workers at its largest U.S. plant bonuses of $6,000 to $8,000, boosting the average pay at the Georgetown, KY, plant to the equivalent of $30 an hour. That compares with a $27 hourly average for UAW workers"

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

So what if they do?

that would give nissan and toyota a further 'edge' would it not?

They negotiated themselves a better deal. Maybe GM should have done the same.

So when Toyota negotiates that?s good. But if workers negotiate its bad? Last I checked most people are not in a union but Toyota is the only one to make Toyotas. So it seems unions do not have a monopoly yet Toyota does on its own cars yet now you change your story from what you said above.


Nothing to see here folks, just another Loser111 thread.

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BarneyFife
New workers are getting paid under $25 hour including benefits.

I have to say that some of you are so fucking stupid its not even funny.

That $73 figure is arrived at by taking the total cost of all past and present workers, including all benefits, and dividing it by the number of CURRENT employees. In other words, workers at the big 3 automakers do NOT "average $73 an hour" in pay or benefits.

In any case, even if it wasn't for the 3rd grade math failure, the thesis of this article (from a completely biased "news" source), I see no argument that the cost is the main reason the automakers are having problems...other than the repeated assertions by conservatives that this "must" be the case.

When current workers force the company to pay for past workers in the form of an oppressive labor union, there's no reason not to count them.

You are philosophically opposed to unions, regardless of the result. Which is why you continually cite only right wing blogs and spews sources. The math is not only juvenile it says nothing about the obscene amounts of money paid to management. Whine about management pay a bit and you might get a more receptive ear, but probably not.

The problems with the auto industry are mainly it's lack of innovation and leadership by management, a fickle economy, and slightly high wages for workers. But, those workers spend their money in AMERICA and they pay taxes in AMERICA. The plus side for our economy is huge.

Don't diss the workers or the unions. By the way, I love to hear the right wing use the word 'oppressive'.

-Robert

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
quick, someone figure out how much southern states subsidize toyota and nissan and honda. IIRC they get tons of tax exemptions and crap.

That same southern state that subsidizes Nissan (Tennessee) also subsidizes a GM plant (formerly Saturn, now called GM Manufacturing). In fact that GM plant opened in April after being shut down nearly 18 months for retooling. And the state had to kiss GM's ass so bad that they ended paying unemployment benefits above and beyond what a normal Tennessean would make. So over a thousand GM employees got paid 80% of their salary by the union contract, and the state of Tennessee kicked in the rest to almost give them full pay. I never heard of Nissan asking for that sweet of a deal.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: bctbct

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: bctbct
OP how much do you cost per hour?

$73 an hour.

If you dont want to talk about it thats ok.....who are we to judge you.

Is OP asking for a handout also?

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: bctbct

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: bctbct
OP how much do you cost per hour?

$73 an hour.

If you dont want to talk about it thats ok.....who are we to judge you.

Is OP asking for a handout also?

No but the OP was suggesting that every currently employed member of the UAW was making $73 an hour which is a blatant falsehood.