You're talking about bells and whistles I'm talking about technology like better batteries, large castings, better crash worthiness, accident avoidance tech etc.
You're advocating for simplification, minimalism, this I agree with.
It works both ways. UAW treats their employer like a cash register not a partner.

 

yes i agree and wrote similar earlier here.

bad products didn't help, but it wasn't that simple. gm et al were also literally trapped in union contracts where they had to pay billions for decades to thousands of workers to do NOTHING. that and giant pension obligations they couldn't afford but agreed to years before to keep the factories going. one gm ceo literally said their survival depended on how fast gm retirees die off.

 

They did it themselves by never saying no. I think it will happen again.

This is probably not a popular opinion but American cars from the glory days are terrible. Build quality is generally poor, reliability isn't great, they guzzle gas, leak oil. Panel gaps were on another level, giant shims everywhere. We have a rose coloured glasses view because the classics on the road now have been restored and most of the issues fixed.

 

Survivorship bias.

Plus yeah, the ones still around are NOTHING like what the cars were actually built when new. They are existing to a standard that is insanely better than factory new due to the amount of care and effort the owners put in.

No one seems to look at the fact that the newer cars (1995-now) somehow can and do easily hit 200k miles with poor ownership. They aren't regarded the same as those old junk boxes because they don't look as cool and aren't from the peak days of the US despite the fact that they are better cars

 

We live in a capitalist country. Also, if you owned stock in a company, would you want them to make more money, or pay their employees more than necessary? If employees feel underpaid, they should find a new line of work. These things work themselves out.

Yes, they can price themselves right out of business. Back in the day you're referencing, there were way more paying into their pension than taking out. Everything was rosy back then. Plus, no competition from Japan, Korea, etc... Unions once had a place in the auto industry. Now, they're just getting in the way. It's time to move on, or get run over by the competition.

 

That's not really an answer, so let me reverse the question. In your opinion, what do you believe is an appropriate total labor expense (including all benefits) for one hour of assembly line worker?

For reference, my total labor cost (including benefits) works out to about $80/hr for a software developer with 25+ years of experience who is more or less solely responsible for designing and building an application that is ranked by the organization as MORE important than the ones that actually contribute to our revenue. The UAW says it should cost nearly twice as much to employ someone who assembles cars designed by someone else, using parts that are provided to them. I obviously don't agree.

So what is "the right amount"?

 

Thus is not meant to be evasive to your question, but It's hard to give any one set figure. I have always felt, and still do today, that wages should reflect the average cost of living for whatever area the plant or factory is located in. Obviously, it costs a LOT more to live (or retire) in the New York City area or Coastal California than in the Midwest or South. Wages should be negotiated and set, IMO, for the conditions of working at each plant.

 

Luckily for our discussion, most of the plants in question are in the Midwest, and none are in NYC or SoCal. So that should make it easier to come to a figure. So if we go with Michigan, where a decent number of these plants are located, where should we land?

If an employee chooses to retire to a HCOL area after spending their entire career in a LCOL area, I'd argue that's none of the former employer's concern.

 

Does the UAW have a location based pay system? I didn't think so.

Do you think someone in MI with 10 years experience doing basic assembly work, is worth more that $33/hr and have a company sponsored pension? How about a barista's salary at the neighboring Starbucks? What do you think they're worth? Their average pay is less than $15/hr with no pension. I'm guessing you're ok with that.

 

Not that I know of, but I don't know all of the pay details.

In a word, IMO, I think that anyone who gives 30 or 40 years of their lives to an organization, from a janitor al the way up to a CEO, deserves a reasonable pension. In the military (and other uniformed services such as police and fire) you can get one after only 20 years. My own pension, BTW, after 33 years in my career, was about two-thirds of my salary....and that doesn't count my own private retirement nest egg from my own investments.

 

Back to the strike.....Stellantis offerred 21% pay hike over 4 years....the union is still holding out for 40%

While I'm not sure the whole 40% is feasible, I still think they have a point.....Stellantis's CEO got a 40% hike in the last four years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...-strike-offer/

 

That's only sustainable in a government environment, aka - taxpayer funded. No way can a business survive with that level of nonproductive "payroll".

 

Someone can fact check me but I think this is right, military personal get paid about the same as GM workers do currently.

 

one of the most effective political con jobs over the last 50 years has been the steady and effective effort to convince the American middle class to vote and take positions against their own best interests but beneficial to the interests of those significantly wealthier than them.

quality generally-available healthcare that isn’t tied to your job and doesn’t bankrupt people: bad.

free or affordable four-year degrees or quality vocational training: bad

tax burdens that disproportionally fall on lower and more middle income families: good

Caps on social security taxes that massively benefit the wealthy at the expense on lower and more middle income families: good.

And so on. It’s clearly working, as you can see from many posts in this very thread. Most people are an unexpected pink slip on a Friday away from being royally screwed as soon as the following Monday, yet they’ve let themselves be manipulated to think it will never happen to them and that it’s ok that it happens to others.

remember, folks, that rising tides float all boats. It doesn’t need to be a zero sum game. Others don’t all need to lose for us all - individually and collectively- to win.

 

unions always want to share in the profits, but that also means sharing in the losses.