[sgarnett]

The Senate, UAW, et al, just gave up (ie failed) on reaching a compromise a few minutes ago.

I don't know how GM will come out after bankruptcy (they just hired the bankruptcy lawyer), but the stock market futures are looking ugly tonight. It actually held up well through some dismal recent employment numbers, but I suspect tomorrow is gonna be ugly. Rebuilding my retirement is going to mean austerity and no new cars for a very long time, and I suspect that will be true for many others. That can't be good for any automaker.

I'll admit I wasn't convinced that bridge loans to March could solve the problems for GM, so I don't claim to know what the right answer was. Nevertheless, this is going to be a big kick in the teeth for the economy.

This post has been edited by sgarnett: Dec 12 2008, 04:07 AM

[00 Trans Ram]

Bring a little levity to the situation:


(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree1.jpg)

(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree2.jpg)

(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree3.jpg)

THE RIGHT WAY
(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree4.jpg)

THE WRONG WAY
(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree5.jpg)

[T.O.Dillinder]

Bring a little levity to the situation:


(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree1.jpg)

(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree2.jpg)

(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree3.jpg)

THE RIGHT WAY
(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree4.jpg)

THE WRONG WAY
(IMG:http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o145/mpatterson1410/Bigthree5.jpg)

Did you know that when GM had the last round of plant closings, if the TOP THREE EXECS would donate their salary for one year, they could have kept all those plants going for another three.
Quit bashing Union Labor with Full Assembly line Pay at $ 30.00 ($ 62,000 per year salary) Per hour, and target the real Greed Problem. The Presidents and CEO's of Large Corporations, Banks, and even the National Executive Committee of the UAW.
Who the Hell needs a 8 to 10 figure salary a year with such an outragous "Golden Parachute"?
It seems some of you may have never worked at the ground level before.
Try it sometime and see if you can raise a family of five on $ 11.50 an hour.
Even my late cousin Gerald Knight (Fuel System Engineer for Cadillac that retired in the 80's) said that the "Newbs" probably never changed a spark plug in their life the way they were designing the vehicles.

[marka]

Howdy,

Quit bashing Union Labor with Full Assembly line Pay at $ 30.00 ($ 62,000 per year salary) Per hour

My wife is a college physics professor with tenture, PHD, etc. etc.

She makes ~$55k/year.

I'd been working as a hardware/software engineer for ~ 4 to 5 years, with a BS in 'computer engineering' (basically a cross between the digital side of EE and the core classes of CS) before I passed the $60k/year mark.

I'd also be extremely surprised if the UAW worker contribution toward health care was anything like as costly as what she and I pay.

Don't go there.

Mark

This post has been edited by marka: Dec 27 2008, 04:43 PM

[robz71lm7]

Howdy,

Quit bashing Union Labor with Full Assembly line Pay at $ 30.00 ($ 62,000 per year salary) Per hour

My wife is a college physics professor with tenture, PHD, etc. etc.

She makes ~$55k/year.

I'd been working as a hardware/software engineer for ~ 4 to 5 years, with a BS in 'computer engineering' (basically a cross between the digital side of EE and the core classes of CS) before I passed the $60k/year mark.

I'd also be extremely surprised if the UAW worker contribution toward health care was anything like as costly as what she and I pay.

Don't go there.

Mark

I strongly agree with what Mark has said here. The problem is many of these UAW workers are unskilled and wouldn't have a chance of making that much on the open market. Where I work we employ union mechanics, I/E techs, and operators who make about the same pay. I think it's fair because our union employees are actually worth that much. They could find a job on the open market with comparable compensation. FWIW, with a bachelors and masters in mechanical engineering I make about half of what union employees at our plant make-and I have authority over them.

My point is the UAW really is a unique situation here and is costing GM more than it should for labor.

[94bird]

My point is the UAW really is a unique situation here and is costing GM more than it should for labor.

I think everyone agrees with that, which is why the contract signed with the UAW last year allows the OEs to bring in new workers at about $14/hr, instead of the current $30/hr average. Problem is buying out a large percentage of the workers who are working at a higher wage, is costing $50K-$100K per worker. That's a boatload of money that the OEs thought they could afford, and now realize they couldn't. It's also getting very hard to find more takers, as many of the workers who took buyouts are still unemployed, or are working at minimum wage a year or more later. A "retired" auto worker can burn through that kind of cash very quickly if he's working at near minimum wage with very limited or no benefits. That reality is now common knowledge with current workers. Many of them are staying put and taking their chances that the Detroit 3 will make it out of this mess, and they'll be better off than taking a buyout. Of course, with these new terms for company viability, may come the end of buyouts as we have known them for the past few years. We'll see how many strings are attached to layoffs of workers after March 2009.

OTOH, as a salaried engineer at GM, if they want to lay me off, they don't have to give me anything. As a courtesy they might give me one month's pay for every year I've worked there. Many of you may have heard that Chrysler's plants are shut down until Jan. 19. The UAW workers will get paid about 95% of their normal wages through collecting unemployment and getting Jobs Bank money from the UAW, or so I've heard on the news. The salaried workers like engineers and other plant employees will have to burn through vacation time or just not get paid. The disparity isn't lost on me, believe me.

[StanIROCZ]

The salaried workers like engineers and other plant employees will have to burn through vacation time or just not get paid. The disparity isn't lost on me, believe me.

I work for a tier 1. GM and Chrysler's releases to us are down to ZERO for the month of January. In response, we had to shut down completely, that means even the Engineering office that is located 800 miles away shuts down. I'll be at home collecting unemployment, and hopefully use my time off to put a cage in my car. I'm not totally bummed out about it since it is only one month and I'll be ok, assuming I go back to work and stay employed etc etc, but I don't get 95% of my salary while I sit at home are you freaking crazy?

Quit bashing Union Labor with Full Assembly line Pay at $ 30.00 ($ 62,000 per year salary) Per hour, and target the real Greed Problem.

A very good percentage of those people made over 100k for many years after they work a little overtime at 1.5x, 2x, and 3x. I’ve even heard of a couple people making over 200k/year.

I don’t care too much about how much they get paid / hour. It is higher than it should be, but my biggest gripe is how big of a pain in the ass it is to work with the UAW and Skilled trades. Its one thing for them to get paid a lot and be hungry for work and high degree of respect and professionalism and quality, but they don’t. Many of them are spoiled brats.

I worked in a UAW plant for a couple years and this is just a sample of some things that I remember coming from them:
“I’m not doing it, that’s not my job”
“I’m calling my committee man”
“Can’t you see that I was busy sleeping… reading the newspaper…etc, don’t bother me” (wasn’t actually said, but definitely implied)
“why should I bust my ass and finish this job? I need to milk this so I have to come in on Sat and Sunday and get paid 2x or 3x or whatever” (wasn’t actually said, but definitely implied)

You are getting paid a crap ton of money, QUIT YOUR BITCHING AND DO YOUR FREAKING JOB!! This isn’t true for everyone, but it is for a decent percentage. Many of the people aren’t concerned about making good product or making/saving the company money. Only concerned about extracting as much money as possible, do as little work as possible, and be a pain in the ass the whole time. And because of the foot hold that the Union has these bad apples can get fired but will come back to work after a short time.

How can union company be competitive with this mindset?

A friend of mine and my father-in-law are both in skilled trades, and they aren't bad apples. But they are getting hurt by this.

The Presidents and CEO's of Large Corporations, Banks, and even the National Executive Committee of the UAW.
Who the Hell needs a 8 to 10 figure salary a year

I agree with this too. John Wagner, your company is in the hole, you don’t deserve your 8 figure salary and you certainly don’t need that much to live.

There isn’t just one problem, there are many.

Hopefully I don't ruffle too many feathers here.