Caoboy

iTrader: (2)

Toyota straight up laid off everyone at an interior plant here in Modesto. A friend of mine who worked there was making like $16/hr and worked there for 3 years, started at 12-13 an hour.

They were doing the same things that the UAW does in Chrysler plants, while $50/hr (doesn't that include the wages, benefits, and whatever else? it's not like they take home 100k a year) is ludicrous, I think $15 an hour is not.

Besides, here in CA, 15 an hour is only *double* minimum wage...and you still can't live on your own with that unless you REALLY budget, and don't live in a decent neighborhood.

These plants in other states, where the minimun wage is lower, cost of living is lower, just shoots these salary values up even more.

The union might have made crazy contracts, but Chrysler DID give in to the demands...while they could have suffered for a bit longer in the past, for the short run, to get the wage demands lower, maybe not have to pay for healthcare after these people retire, and maybe it would have saved them in the long run...

kt22cliff

Why should optometrist/chiropractor/podiatrist make more money than UAW workers or any other work for that matter? Is it because you are an optometrist? Or you seem to be "implying" - correct me if I perceive it wrong - optometrists went to school/college longer therefore optometrists should make more money??

In this country, the setup is you get paid what the market is willing to pay. There are plenty of PhD's with twice the time spent in graduate school than optometrists who toil at 30k jobs and at the same time there are some guys right out of high school barely able to spell their name right get paid millions because they are 6-10 and can shoot the basketball - talk about repetitive simple tasks. Whatever UAW workers are getting paid now - it's certainly not 50/hr - I say they deserve every single penny. They negotiated the deals with the GM, Crysler and Ford fair and square. No one put the guns to the heads of management to get those deals UAW got.

Caoboy

iTrader: (2)

Correct me if I'M wrong, but there's quite a big difference in tasks here.

Have you ever worked on an assembly line, or in a factory? ANYBODY can do it, monkey see, monkey do.

Put this here, put this there, screw, push, put this here, put this there, screw, push, etc, etc, for 8-10 hours a day. You need NO education, no grasp of a written language, not even to be able to speak the native language well to be able to do this job.

Can an optometrist do his job without any schooling? Correctly?

kt22cliff

My point is not that UAW assembly work is as difficult or require as much schooling than optometrist. Like I mention in my post, being an NBA bench player doesn't require any education, no grasp of written language, nor being able to speak the native language well to be able to do the job while getting paid minimum of hundreds of thousands dollars - I am not sure what rookie minimum salary is, might even be million+. Certainly more $$ than the optometrists by at least 10 fold. And I'm sure vest majority of people who are not bball players or related to bball players would agree that optometry is more difficult, requires more schooling and more "important".

My point is UAW worked the same system everyone else have. They negotiated with their employer fair and square. If they are "overpaid" then vest majority if not all the fault of them being overpaid should be put on the management. What should have UAW said in that negotiations? Nah we don't need more pay/benefits?

cajunboy

Your point of view of comparing NBA player to union worker is way off. Can anybody work at the car factory? yes. Can anybody play in the NBA? no. It take yrs and a lot of practice and natural skill to play in the nba, while union worker doesn't require skill. If you think making in the NBA is easy, than everyone will be in the league and get paid well..

kt22cliff

No, not everyone can be Kobe but everyone can be the 11th 12th guy. Their job is to sit on the bench and not fall asleep. For example Lakers have 2 current players who made less than 1 fg per game and 3 more with less than 2 fg per game. What would Lakers record be if they replaced that 12th player with a 3ft midget? It would be exactly same 65-17. Not one game better not a game worse. For those gigantic contribution of natural skill, those players were paid $442,114 $797,581 $854,957 $854,957 and in the case of Adam Morrison $4,159,200. Wow life is good.

Now I say, Adam deserve every penny of that 4mil+ just as any UAW worker deserves whatever pay/benefit he/she have gotten. That's my only point. Don't think because some jobs require less education, less qualification, less whatever, that those workers deserve any less. They deserve what the market is willing to pay. And conversely, don't assume anyone deserve more b/c that job requires more schooling, more natural skill, more whatever. They don't.

CDNROCKIES

That is probably very true. But the bottom line is that GM and ChryCo are desperately close to bankruptcy. If the UAW/CAW are unwilling to recognize how close they are and want to play this high stakes game of Russian roulette, then they also better be prepared to watch all of the contracts go through the shredder when it happens.

What's worse?....A job at a slightly reduced (and imo, more realistic pay scale) or joining the line at the unemployment office?

mmarshall

One of the point I was making (and you seem to tacitly agree with it) is that a lot more than wages/benefits and the UAW are behind the poor financial condition of the Domestic automakers. They made many poor buisness and marketing decisions as well, and produced many poorly-made cars over the years..

ffpowerLN

iTrader: (1)

Can't argue with that and I totally agree with you. However the topic is UAW here so I was just trying to stay on-topic. If I am the god of D3 then I'll have all the people in management SHOT and reduce the average UAW wages to around $15 to $20 per hour. So am I just a UAW hater?

mmarshall

The UAW, here, is only part of the thread topic. Part of it is also Fiat's potential ownership of Chrysler and what that would mean.

Just my $.02 here, but I personally don't think that $15-20 an hour is an adequate wage for the skills and effort needed to help assemble a modern car, and the close, microsopic tolerances it is built to. I have described why in earlier posts, above. Granted, some UAW members may (?) be currently making more than they are worth, but, in general, it has become skilled work, and needs to be treated as such.

Take China, for instance. They don't pay their auto-factory workers much in the way of wages and benefits, and look what kind of cars the Chinese auto industry is making (Chinese-made, American-designed Buicks being a possible exception). While I will reserve final judgement on them until I have a chance to personally review some Chinese-designed, Chinese-made cars (and I'm still waiting), everything I have read about them, so far, seems to indicate that they are automotive junk....much like the Korean-vintage cars of 20 years ago.

ffpowerLN

iTrader: (1)

So the more you pay them the better quality they build and less you pay them the worse the product becomes?

Going by that logic, do you think the airplane, missiles, radars and satellites were built with less quality and precision? Like I said before, the defense contractor mechanics don't get paid the kind of wages as the UAW workers.

mmarshall, I know that you have more experience in the automotive industry but being an engineer working for a big defense contractor I can tell you that the quality and precision of a product have a bigger (way bigger...) part to do with how it was DESIGNED than how it was built. All machines were built with high-tech and precise tools now a day, the line-workers merely take the design and set the tool up to the spec then build it. No magic here what-so-ever.

mmarshall

No. Of course, it is not that simple. Other factors are involved too, like the quality of the vehicle's engineering and material-parts used.

Mechanics? Are you talking about the people who assemble and build the aerospace hardware, or those who simply service them and keep them running?

Agreed....and I respect your knowledge as an engineer. But have you ever spent a day in the plant or done any assembly-line work yourself, to see how difficult it can be?

Take the Boeing plant, for example, in the Seattle area. They don't just crank out aircraft and missiles like cookie-cutters. It may take weeks, even months, to complete just one big jet airliner. Why? because the work has to be done slowly, carefully, and to VERY exacting specs. That is also true in the auto industry, to a lesser extent, except that you can't take a month to build just one car......the line obviously has to be kept moving, especially with hot-selling vehicles like the Camry and Accord.

ffpowerLN

iTrader: (1)

People who build them, like the people who work on F-22 and F-16 lines.

Yes, it has to be done slowly and carefully but the bottom line is that with enough training, any high-school graduates can do that work "slowly and carefully"...

Can high-school graduates design an engine or transmission?

To the very exact specs? That work is done at the design level, then each panel or part will then build to that spec, the assembly line workers merely take the precise-build parts and put them together "slowly and carefully" Again, with no magic involved.

Like I said before, call me an elitist, but a work that can be perform by ANY high school graduates doesn't deserve to get paid as much as a work that requires a college/master's degree in a professional field.

IS-SV

Yes, education is a good thing anyway you look at it.

Btmnk21

iTrader: (1)

From what I have been able to read on this thread (about 15 posts or so) you're all way off. I know because work for an auto sub-contractor. What's that you ask?

The way the auto industry works is that the a BRAND (Ford, Toyota, GM) designs the car which is then bid on in parts by other companies (have you heard of Denso, Visteon, Continental?). The winning company then in turn goes out and gets 10-20 bids from other companies (sub-contractors) all over the world to make a particular part for a given unit (let's say the motors in the instrument cluster). Depending on the budget they are working with they make a decision on who supplies the motors. The parts (motors) are shipped to the contractor and then the unit (instrument cluster) is shipped to the assembly line for final assembly by the UAW.

The "sub-contractors" if you will are LARGELY non-union. This is done to save costs in an already low margin industry. This entire bidding/contractor world is ruled by cost and that is why unions are not allowed. I would bet that the only unions involved are mainly at the top level assembly lines and a few scattered companies that were spun off GM/Ford/Chrysler years ago. Anyways...

If a contractor is given a budget based on the bid they put in then they may have to go with the lowest price (this happens ALOT). These parts can come from 3rd world countries with poor quality, poor project management, and no warranty (also common). These costs are then passed on to the consumer in terms of reliability, performance, resale value, etc. The budget approved by the BRAND and given to the contractor dominates this process.

Who originally decided the cost model for the contractor? Not the UAW, BUT the executives in the front office. You get what you pay for.

Like some other people said. The UAW workers just assemble mindlessly. A monkey could do it. But somehow it is their fault and they are to blame and they should be punished for the white-collar pencil pusher's decisions?