The $70-an-hour autoworker Myth
By John Amato Tuesday Nov 25, 2008 6:20pm
During the Automotive crisis that has erupted in the last few weeks, many false narratives are being implanted by the right wing thugs that helped push our economy off the cliff. Eric Boehlert tackles this latest smear that our media is ignoring. Don't you think it would be important for our media to actually do some in depth reporting on this issue instead of reciting misleading, conservative talking points?
Indeed, that $70-an-hour meme, actively promoted by the anti-union conservative media, has ricocheted around the traditional press as well as the political landscape, where it was picked up by congressional critics last week during hearings and used to argue against aiding GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
But what's obvious to me is that it's harmful to public discourse when the press, on such a central issue facing our country, fails to clearly state the facts and instead perpetuates misinformation with sloppy reporting -- reporting that seems to hold blue-collar workers to a different standard than their white-collar counterparts.
But having the media echo conservative misinformation and bandy about urban-myth salary figures about allegedly high-on-the-hog GM workers does not constitute a careful review of the facts.
Question: Is the press just being sloppy on this issue of supposedly pampered autoworkers, or are there other elements in play? Because honestly, I've had trouble escaping the not-very-subtle elitist, get-a-load-of-this tone that has run through the media's misinformation on the topic; i.e., "These autoworkers get paid that?!"
Answer: No, they don't, so please stop reporting it. (And why has the press been so reticent to note that Big Three autoworkers recently made significant concessions to management?)
Make no mistake: The $70-an-hour claim represents a classic case of conservative misinformation. It's also a very dangerous one. The falsehood about autoworkers is being spread at a crucial time, when a make-or-break public debate is taking place, a debate that could affect millions of American workers...read on
And as Jane says, the UAW has done a terrible job in handling their side of the PR battle:
This is largely because the UAW has, without question, executed the worst, most non-existent public relations campaign ever. It's just shocking how bad they are at this, leaving everyone to scramble in their defense. Tying their fate to the automakers and leaving it to the CEOs to present their case seems fraught with risk. (If I was Gettlefinger I'd be on a plane to China looking for buyers to save my members' pensions, but nobody asked me.)
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Just print enough money so that we all can be filthy rich!
so we can use it as wallpaper.
While Hamsher's bitching about how inept the UAW is she needs to look at some of her progressive compadres that are just as eager to spread the $70 an hour myth as the neocons are. Contrary to what she might think the UAW does not have the same resources to mount a massive media campaign like the Auto companies do. Instead of attacking the head of the UAW, Jane Hamsher needs to be using her media perch to HELP them spread the truth.
and allowing the reichwing to keep framing the issues.
If the MSM doesn't interview or try to interview the union reps, the public will not learn the facts. In "Orwell rolls in his grave," a Fox news producer said, "If it not seen or heard in the news, is it news"? If they fail to report the facts, none of us will learn the facts. Google it.
The anti-union people and the right wing politicians in their employ are swift boating the unions because they are trying to head off any possible pro-union legislation like "card check". It is nothing but a transparent attempt to gin up envy, fear, anger, snobbery and resentment to win the public relations battle .
So how much does an average Union Autoworker make?
I think it is about 28/hr plus benefits, for experienced people, and about 14/hr plus bennies for new people.
the end of the middle class
At $14 per hour there is no way you can afford to buy what you build. Even the Nazi financier Ford realized that and paid his workers enough so they could buy what they built. People making low wages can't buy things. I've seen this collapse coming for years. Until we bring back jobs with wages high enough to be able to buy things, we can bail out whoever we want, it isn't going to stop this death spiral our economy is in. And what about those foreign companies getting billions in tax breaks from southern states? If Congress wants a plan, they need to look in the mirror and stop foreign tax breaks and they need to implement univeral health care. That would be the first two things in my plan for the Big Three to submit to Congress.
entry at 24.5k, max of 54k or so after three years. the problem was being able to live in ny on 24.5k/yr. dad's basement looks mighty good then.
we need to produce goods and services the world will pay for. we are in a global economy. until we do some producing, we can guarantee that we'll never recover. we can only increase our debt.
Go look at a parking lot at an auto plant - it's filled with cheap cars, old cars that they keep running forever, and foreign cheap cars.
Except for the executive lots, of course.
Johnny Cash had a song about working on auto assembly lines back in the 60's. It was about a guy who built a car from pieces he stole from the line over years. All I remember is the refrain was something about owning a 51,52,53,54,55,56, 57 Ford.
And that's even though employees and retirees are entitled to buy autos (supposedly) at cost.
source?
horrible as I thought it was then.
Not great, but enough for Top Ramen, beer, Marlboros, and ammo...
The current veteran UAW member at GM today has an average base wage of $28.12 an hour, but the cost of benefits, including pension and future retiree health care costs, nearly triples the cost to GM to $78.21, according to the Center for Automotive Research.
By comparison, new hires will be paid between $14 and $16.23 an hour. And even as they start to accumulate raises tied to seniority, the far less lucrative benefit package will limit GM's cost for those employees to $25.65 an hour.
Here's my source.
general motors and others have actually NOT put money into pension plans, making the cost of current pensions a current cost, instead of having it as an investment fund. It's cooking the books to make it look like the tripled cost per employee.
The pension fund, as currently utilized is more pay as you go. That's by their own choosing. An accountant can toss in all sorts of things and claim them as current costs. that's what is being done here.
A liability is a liability. regardless of how it is expensed, it has to be on the books.
there is no honest accounting going on here.
What does the pay, benefits and pension benefits package cost per employee? You beat me to this post Andy K. The funny thing is that what seems like outrageous compensation to some people is perfectly justifiable if the work force productivity allows profitability. If it weren't for the current recession one could make a pretty good case (which the UAW hasn't done) that this is possible. If they could get the growth in the pension and benefits liabilities the UAW wouldn't have to give up much at all.
If the media treats union heads like they treated Kucinich, how and when do you expect to hear from them?
Here's where the insane cognitive disconnect sets in:
They never seem to connect productivity and profitability with executive wages, only the workers on the line are measured that way, even though they have no power over the decisions that do affect profitability.
Here's another cognitive disconnect we always get hung up on: We never want to make the connection between how one side lives compared to the other.
I grew up in Detroit, among a family of autoworkers, (Ford). The assembly line people who are supposedly draining the industry and the country dry are not the ones living in Grosse Pointe mansions. By and large, they live modest lives in modest homes. If they stick with it, their kids have health care, they can afford to get them educated and they have pensions when they retire after decades on the line.
But it is beyond a myth, it is downright dishonest, to pretend that the people on the lines are rolling in dough while the good executives suffer through hard but necessary decisions brought on by greedy workers.
It's a load of bull.
Because he says it so better than I....Jonathan Cohn says:
"But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.
Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just "not true.""
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=102...
Your source is just repeating the same meme. Logic and some basic math will show the absurdity
of $78.21. In other words, if your figures are exact, it would mean that every hour of every day worked, $50 is being "paid" by the auto maker for healh. That would mean $400 a day!!!!!! The only answer that is logical (as well as being correct) is that in fact the industry is calculating into a workers hourly wages a percentage of what is being paid out for all existing retirees. That's more than misleading, it's downright erroneous.
My husband has 14 years seniority at Chrysler, he makes $28 per hour, should be $30 per hour, but last year they gave up their cost of living raise for retiree's health care. It's about $2500 per year for health insurance premium for a family of five. Not sure what they pay into pension. So he makes no where near $70 per hour. His plant in St. Louis shut down three weeks ago, but he has been on a medical layoff since January, he gets about 70% of his original pay. He has had both shoulders blown out twice on the line and needs a second neck surgery due to injury on the line. I agree the UAW and Gettlefinger, (they call him Middlefinger) has done a piss poor job with PR for years and years, the international union has been selling the locals out for years. Glad to see this issue getting some attention, we're getting really po'ed at all the union bashing going on in even the liberal blogs. It's sickening. If it weren't for the unions, no one else would be making decent wages, workplace safety wouldn't exist, nor would vacations and overtime. If you've ever been in an auto plant, you know you are taking your own life into your own hands, it's a very dangerous place to work, even with the union. My husband's plant has lost three people in the last several years, all very gruesome deaths, I'll spare you the details. Granted, there are lazy people in there, most of them are gone now, they've been weeded out. My husband has earned every penny and benefit he made in that place, the hard way with his body. We are contemplating taking their buyout, which after taxes will be about $65,000.
The unions lost their grip on the US worker long before Reagan took a big axe and started swinging with abandon -- first the air control tower workers, then UPS and on and on. While the union just slept, membership, leadership and all.
Probably, in my mind what is most glaring is the reluctance of the rank and file to make the effort to get out of their comfort zone and organize the unorganized. They seem to believe that expanding their membership will somehow erode what little resources there exist, instead of understanding that higher organizing means more power and more union jobs and more resources for all.
But no, anyone I have ever known who is a member of a union acts like its some secret sacred society that they worked so hard to join and they'll be damned if they let just anyone come in and possibly ruin it for them.
Sad thing is such small thinking will be their ruin and sooner than most think.
thanks for letting us know.
What does the brain trust at AIG and GM make per hour? How much per hour does the Pentagon suck out of the economy? Maybe we shouldn't point fingers...
Yes I would love to know how much people at AIG made. How much money did they spend on limos, expensive dinners, theater tickets, golden parachutes, etc. I would love to find just one article with ANYONE asking these questions to AIG, CITI and the other Wall Streeters we are bailing out.
That's what I'm talking about! This bullcrap that it is the workers bleeding us dry while NO ONE wants to take a serious look at the waste and corruption on the top.
C'mon - if the auto big whigs go to Congress to whine with their hands out, the least the liberal blogs could do is show the kinds of modest little places those guys call home. Let's see what they drive. Let's demand to know what their health insursance, pension plan, bonus structures look like.
And they shouldn't get to ask for a damn thing until they reveal that info.
I'm trying to refinance my home. I'm asking for my own little bail-out. But I have to tell the people I'm asking for money EVERYthing about my finances.
Let the CEO's tell all if they want any help. Seeing as how they voted to give each other all the money and goodies they get from the companies that are now in desperate need of help, it only seems fair.
in the first 45 minutes of the first day of the year, on average.
That's the only even remotely plausible use of the kids of Government investment it's gonna take to buy us out of his hole the 'speculators' got us into.
Invest. In rebuilding infra-structure, in building a practical green economy. Invest in affordable, durable, easily serviceable passive solar collection. Water heating is the obvious first step. Heating the water tank is an incredibly inefficient use of energy, 40 or 50 gallons at a time, with natural gas or electricity. In Eurpoe for years they have used 'instant' heaters that produce enough hot water for cleaning or hygene purposes on demand. They're pretty expensive, but cost would come down if the "logic of the market" drove the creation of more of them rather than the consolidation of the few...
Another way is by installing water-heating solar collectors in a sunny spot on a convenient roof. Everywhere one looks in the deserts of Mexico one will see black, 55-gallon drums, singularly or in arrays, collecting the heat of the sun and imparting it to water circulating through them. That water gets darn hot, friends...
Then there is the matter of truly 'greening' the economy. Full-scale energy conservation retro-fitting of existing structures, and ensuring ALL new construction is as energy-efficient as physically--not fiscally--possible. Such expense on the front end ALWAYS repays itself over time.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to master the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing knowledge and skills required to become a high-functioning conserva-technician. Should pay between $20 and $50 per hour, depending on skill and experience. Good work. And not outsourceable. Green jobs.
Same-same with manufacturing, installing, and servicing the new generations of solar photo-voltaic technologies and small, efficient, ecologically non-intrusive wind generators. Jobs in retro-fitting and new building.
It's the only kinds of solutions that are gonna have tangible results.
that infrastucture- and most certainly the energy sector- should get the investment, that type of work booms then lags. More importantly, though, we need to rebuild industry and produce widgets we can sell.
and services. we have nothing to export. our economy contributes nothing to the global economy, except debt. until we actually produce something the world wants to buy, there will be no real recovery.
the green shit will be the ivy that grows over our infrastructure.
right back to doing their job of fucking americans, every way they can.
C&L missed the point here. The discussion has not been about "hourly wages". Instead, it has been about labor costs per hour to produce a vehicle. GM pays over $70 for what Toyota USA pays $43. Here is where C&L missed the boat(from the linked article):
What that $70 figure (or $73) actually represents is what it costs GM in total labor expenses, on an hourly basis, to manufacture autos.
Do you see that there's a big distinction? General Motors doles out $70 an hour in overall labor costs to manufacture cars. But individual employees don't get paid $70 an hour to make cars. (The discrepancy between costs and wages is explained by additional benefits, pension fees, and health-care costs GM pays out to current and retired employees.)
So, these are real numbers. They represent the difference in legacy costs that "new" USA manufacturers Toyota, BMW, Honda, Kia, Hundai, do not yet pay. These companies have not been employing American workers long enough to have incurred those legacy costs. That shit will hit the fan in 30 years or so. Meanwhile, GM, Ford, and Chrysler have over 1 million people on pensions to care for. Makes them non-competitive. But, the numbers are correct. C&L missed this one.
is that those foreign manufacturers aren't paying out pensions to workers who retired in the 1970's and '80's, because, iirc, there weren't many of them building cars here back then. I know a few guys who've put in 30+ years at GM. I think if you compare the seniority of UAW workers at the three US autoworkers with those non-union people at, say a stateside Toyota plant, you'll see that the UAW folks have put in a lot more hours, on average.
the building boom by o'seas manufacturers didn't even start until WELL into the '80s.
Nonetheless, C&L did not make that distinction in their comment. The Big Three have one hand tied behind their backs on this one. It is almost certain that taxpayer money will be used to make up some of the difference. That will almost certainly piss the "feriners" off.
california has unionized toyota plant. no problem.
stop blaming the workers when the fatcats make 10,000 time the average salary.
The media are reporting this like the auto workers bring home $70/hr and people are buying it.
including C&L. I am not surprised at the "MSM" blowing it, but C&L generally does better, imho.
of the airplanes, salaries, bonuses, stock options, etc. that the head honchos incur contribute to the price of a car produced? I bet it's more than triple the average worker.
To say the union had no fault in the industry's downfall makes you completly ignorant of the facts. Factory workers in detroit are disgustingly overpaid.
Let's see how long you last on a line doing ten things in two seconds 900 times in eight hours. A lot of people don't make it back after the lunch break. I dare you to do it. And don't forget to look out for all the heavy shit that could fall on your head at any time. And don't breathe in those toxic chemicals all over the place. And don't step in a hole, you might get crushed to death. Should I continue?
written by a guy who's a protege of Michael Moore's...Ben Hamper.
Here's an Amazon link. Great book. I usta teach it in grad seminars on 'epistemology and pedagogy'. I just knocked me out...
Both my husband and my dad will enjoy that book. I believe I've heard of it, but I had forgotten about it.
Have told me to read that book if I wanted to know what the life is like. They say that Hamper nailed it.
I did on another kind of line, but it was pretty leisurely, and i didn't have 15 different things to do in a particulaar order, within seconds...
that sounds fucking brutal.
Always a second shift guy, and I used to meet up with him at a bar close to the plant. J.R. drives hi-lo, so he was relatively free of stres- relatively- but those guys who worked on the line came off of it looking like beat-down zombies. These people self-medicate harder than anyone I've ever seen, and I was a barfly for a few decades.
At one point their ability to put it away impressed me- now it makes me depressed.
GM is shutting down that plant. Planned for next December.
it Janesville?
Janesville is closing next month, iirc. They moved up the shutdown.
My buddies work at the 36th Street stamping plant in Wyoming (Grand Rapids), MI.
to hear that. St. Louis south (Chrysler)closed last month, we're looking for St. Louis north to close any time. We put in for transfer to Kenosha engine and Belvidere, IL so we could move to Janesville. They have openings in both of those plants, but with so many plants closing, not sure if we will get the transfer, we've got a week left to decide whether to take the buyout.
Home of The Brat Stop! Going to the Packers' game this weekend- hope Dad isn't averse for a half hour refueling!
Gotta be up inside of 7 hours. Change the world for the better while I'm sleeping, huh?
wanted to move to Wis. for several years now. I love it there, but I'm a cold weather person. It doesn't snow enough here anymore for cross country skiing. Hope you have a great time, Go Pack!
(From this Chicago gal. Sorry!)
Andy, enjoy the Braaht Staahp. ;-)
They really spanked Chicago! But the Bears beat the Rams (we really suck!). And nice Wisconsin drawl by the way!
fact-free and loaded for bear, aren't we?
It was just a garden variety troll...
I guess the UAW should have forced GM to forsee the coming gas crisis and the country's economic crisis. Man, the UAW dropped the ball AGAIN just as they did during the 70's gas crisis. Somebody get the union a crystal ball so they will stop being at fault everytime Detroit gets caught with it's pants down.
The UAW put in the last two contracts that Chrysler set aside several million dollars to be used to lobby Congress for universal health care, but Chrysler never did it and the union never made them do it. Of course with Chrysler being sold and sold again, it just got lost in the mix. Not sure if GM and Ford had the same clause in their last two contracts.
in the same company is making hundreds of thousands or tens or hundreds of millions for doing ANYTHING else.
You gonna pay some shithead a hundred million? You can pay me $28 plus benefits and retirement.
You wanna crack down? Fine, but it better be across the board.
Not the easiest way to make a living. Hard on the body,hard on the mind, if ones a thinker.Rotating shifts.Long commutes.Most folks that claim the auto workers are that overpaid likely wouldn't last till lunch time on a moving line.I know. Ive been there. Felt i earned every dime too. You dont think suits making millions a year for power lunches and running companies into the ground is unreasonable though? Greed is finishing off the USA anyways.
My bro just took 120k of Fords money to leave maybe a year early. He had his thirty in. He gets to keep his benefits for life too. He earned it. Wish i had stayed there too in hindsight. Would have been in the same boat as he is. Instead i put in nearly 25 at a company Ingersoll Rand ( assholes at large ) took over and chewed up and spit what was left out to Mexico.
So you have something against working people making a decent wage and not having to live on dog food when they retire? Go see a shrink pronto to treat your Stockholm syndrome.
lame box of rocks!
So all we have to do is destroy the last vestige of democracy, collective bargaining and we can finally get all these wageslaves to do what they are told and stop bitching.
They expect us to just lie down, not talk to each other and not recognize the capitalist crimes inflicted upon us and our countries daily?
isn't it?
...that US autoworkers go to work for Japanese shops without unions because the pay and benefits are comparable, if not better. They've made so many concessions to auto executives it isn't even funny. Yet the right wingers keep blaming the unions as if they're responsible for GM's cash shortfall.
like Mr. Shelby know damn well that those foreign companies are getting billions in tax breaks from his state that the Big Three do not get. Talk about inequality.
In the tax breaks offered up. Both the state of Michigan , as well as the municipalities, have doled out a lot of breaks to keep jobs around.
The reason that the foreign manufacturers settled in the south was because those states weren't what you'd call union friendly.
$253 million in tax breaks, paid to train the workers, cleared and paved the site and paid for all infrastructure, bought 2500 Mercedes vehicles, an incentive package that totalled $175,000 per worker. And paid for the land, around $300 million. I don't know about other plants, but our two plants in St. Louis don't get anywhere near that.
and all the reps from right-to-work states are the ones who want the auto3 to go belly-up.
n/t
I wonder if they got contributions from foreign car manufacturers?
in front of a union official and let them make a case?
Please give dates and station ID's or print bylines or weblinks.
the last time I saw a union video circulated, it was by the steel union boss asking people to not be racist and vote for Obama.
I think it's been made clear - they are not making $70/hr - which would be around $140,000 a year. It's everything totaled together - everyone's getting this one wrong.
"They expect us to just lie down, not talk to each other and not recognize the capitalist crimes inflicted upon us and our countries daily?"
It cannot have escaped your attention that the guy Mr. O wants as AG did everything he could to permit execs for Chiquita Banana to escape punishment for hiring and supplying guns to para-militaries who intimidated and murdered Colombian labor organizers trying to organize Chiquita workers, can it?
old whatshisname?
Or are you talking about someone else?
Median UAW income was 31 bux an hour in 2007.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images...
that's salary, no benefits counted.
Just sayin.
Add benefits...eh, they can give a bit, if management gives a lot. If we get health care under wraps, UAW can give a lot.
up your salary, we'll give up ours. Have you read anything on here????
EVERYTHING on here.
That's more than what my department caps out at.
I got college, experience and industry certs.
$31/hr is high.
And if Management gives, especially the cretins at the top, they gotta go, then "median income" can give some too...
These are not normal times and it beats no job.
in our union makes $31 per hour, it caps at $28 per hour. My husband has hours and hours of training and paid thousands for his own tools. He can do any job in that plant and any repair on any vehicle and on most robots. He earns every penny of that $28 per hour, and has paid for it with his body. Thanks for the heartfelt sympathy though. I sure would hope I wouldn't be so uninformed and heartless when others are facing losing the livihood they've earned and deserved and were promised by a legally binding contract.
The Median income was still $31 an hour. WSJ pulled that from UAW's own data.
If that isn't your old man's shop, then it isn't.
Oh, maam, I'm not putting down your man's work in the least.
Just sayin, $31 an hour as median income seems high to me.
Concessions sure beat unemployment. And it beats unemployment, the Waggoner's will also be unemployed. It just won't hurt their kind much.
Internet network engineering pays fairly well, that's what I do. It's not unionized, but it still pays fairly well.
The "Median" UAW income exceeds my maximum possible. It seems high, as it should, to ME
And I work in a department full of very well trained and capable people.
to try his job for one week and I think you will change your opinion. And drop the $31 meme.
You read too much. I have done shit work, I have done back breaking work, I have done intense, long term and for more demanding assembly work than auto building.(ever install an X-ray room? No? than don't judge!)
Oh, and I got a 2yr degree in automotive technology too.
You read too much.
have to read shit to know things first hand from experience and to know an arrogant jerk when I meet up with one. But thanks for the compliment, I do read a lot, that tends to make a person more informed.
You've insulted me in every post directed at me. I have been civil and responding on point.
and now I'm arrogant.
I see.
So, the view from someone who's never been Union is not welcome? From my perspective, Troll, You've lived a sheltered life and now the shit's REALLY hitting the fan.
Enjoy unemployment.
Yeah, uhm, you do realize that high uneployment is only going to create more competition for every job out there, right?
Maybe you should apologize for that crack.
High unemployment becomes an even further drag on both society and the business sector, and is entirely possible should any or all of the big 3 enter bankruptcy.
If they choose Chapter 11, the UAW is done. Legally shit canned. I don't like that, but it's true.
I'm not kicking the UAW, I'm being a realist though. Concessions now (even symbolic if need be) beats the hell out of the unemployment line.
Management must go though.
That comment, by the way, was sarcasm.
My post at 19:42.
The '06 figure was $31.75/hr. The '07 figure was $28.12/hr. That's a 10% drop in in one year.
Did Rick Waggoner give up 10% of his GM salary in one year?
But read my fucking post.
I said that they had to go. (upper management)
I also said that if they did go, then UAW can make consessions too.
Especially if Health care issue is resolved.
but I won't be reading any more of your effing posts. Obviously you don't read enough from sources that tell the truth or you wouldn't keep saying the UAW should make concessions when it's been said on this thread alone over and over the UAW has made concessions.
Cause it's fucking coming. And I DID NOT DO IT TO YOU
The UAW made some pretty noteworthy concessions in '07.
I linked this up top (@18:40):
By comparison, new hires will be paid between $14 and $16.23 an hour. And even as they start to accumulate raises tied to seniority, the far less lucrative benefit package will limit GM's cost for those employees to $25.65 an hour.
Then there was this concession:
Legacy Costs: The new contract transfers responsibility for retiree health benefits from GM to the union. Under the agreement, the UAW will hire a financial company to manage the health care trust. That allows GM to clear a $50 billion liability from its books...
And this:
Signing Bonuses: GM workers will receive a signing bonus worth thousands of dollars to accept the deal. But those workers give up their cost-of-living adjustments, and the company gains more control over setting future salaries
(from NPR)
want to understand Andy.
Entry level systems admin is just about there at 15 an hour or so. 14-16 an hour for car assembly seems normal.
I pay my own health care, so...that seems normal to me too.
As far as I'm concerned, GM should EAT the legacy health costs until Gov't has a better solution.
What's a cost of living adjustment?
Welcome to the world of Global recession/depression.
Great, then they can live in an apartment for life and never own the cars they build or a house.
What an insensitive jerk you are.
Too bad your college education couldn't compensate for your inability to relate to other human beings...or listen (or rather read) them.
Your inability to follow a thought thru multiple posts was lacking there.
Entry level pay for generally unskilled labor(that's apprentice level) shouldn't exceed entry level pay for someone with 4 years of college either.
and honestly, I think that autoworkers should be paid more than I am paid, for the job I do, compared to what they have to do. A degree does not equal compententacy or skill.
Does anyone else see anything wrong with paying skilled people a high wage for building something that can be a deathtrap? If I buy something with an internal combustion engine and a tonne of metal and glass, I want the dudes that built it to be well paid.
And yet, Detroit has a history of putting lemon after lemon after lemon on the market.
Cost is not the only reason Detroit's been losing market share for decades.
Balance is a good thing.
LOL, either you are a really crappy one... or you did not even manage to get one of those shitty Microsoft joke diplomas.
Even the most retarded, and adamantly libertarian, sysadmin I have had the displeasure of interacting with got significantly more than $28K a year.
I'm a network engineer with a major ISP. Juniper/Cisco/VoIP/MPLS
I've done sysadmin work, though, and I got my primary IT training through the Navy. That was after I gave up on Auto Tech employment in 1980 after my 3rd dealership went belly up on me during the last great Detroit crisis fueled by mediocrity in management and folly as government economic policy.
And you make my point for me.
An entry level (apprentice?) mostly untrained Assembly worker making 14-16 bux an hour is even above national average for factory work.
And a crappy sysadmin will, eventually, find him/herself out of work.
And more plants are shutting down. Add to that all new hires start at the $14-$16/hr. range, rather than $22+/hr....It's time for management to give up their own compensation.
1). The labor costs are from '06, not '07. After plant closings and buyouts, the hourly figure dropped to $28.12 an hour. It's probably lower now. When the Janesville, WI GM plant closes next month, it'll drop more....then there are the GM plant closings slated for next December ('09), that will drop those figures further.
2). Notice how there's no side-by-side comparison with the labor costs of the foreign manufacturers? Doesn't it make you suspicious that maybe there isn't that much disparity between the foreigns and the domestics? But, hey, the Wall Street Journal wouldn't be guilty of sin by omission, would they? Nah....
That labor costs for foreign manufacturers who assemble here in America are lower?
That's a no brainer.
Are they unhappy auto workers?
And at what point does the hourly wage of the average worker at a relatively new Toyota plant surpass that of the average GM worker? I know guys who have worked at GM since before there was a Toyota plant in the US. You work that out....
And if people want that work and it's a decent living, then more power to em.
In 15 years or so the average guy at the Toyota plant now will be making more than the guy at the GM/Ford/Chrysler plant.
It's a "no brainer" because those foreign manufacturers have virtually zero retirees. But then I'll bet you have a hard-on fantasizing about old people eating dog food.
I don't know where you get that from. I've been an "At Will" employee my entire life and have had to deal with some serious shit. (bankruptcy, loosing everything I own multiple times, a full decade without any kind of insurance, blah, blah, blah). MY retirement is almost exclusively my now seriously suffering 401k. And at 50, it's looking like I might be one of those elderly eating dog food that you think I have some kind of hardon for.
The lesson I've learned from all that is that...Life isn't fair. SO I TAKE STEPS as best I can, in a non union environment, which represents the huge majority of blue collar, i-collar America.
You don't get it....and this is regardless of Senior and Executive pay disparity...(the moron's at the top certainly NEED to be fired too), If the Big 3 go Chapter 11, then the UAW is finished. Kaput. GONE.
That is the worst possible outcome.
The UAW made needed concessions in '07, but can they make more? If it means preserving jobs?
A cut in pay is STILL better than unemployment. But pay is not the only place where UAW can negotiate.
These legacy contract commitments were toxic for the big 3, and it was the UAW that put these into that contract. And now the Union was forced to take them back.
Now, allow me to relate a true story to you. This happened to ME.
Was working as a contract employee for one of America's premier company's, Xerox. Was a manufacturing facility staffed with contract IT and IBEW as well as other line personnel. I had a piece of gear I was responsible for. It had somehow gotten unplugged (standard household 115v power). I placed a trouble call which was forwarded to the Union shop. 4 hours later, no sign of a union rep to plug the thing in. I needed it, so I plugged it in. IBEW dude saw me do this, and tried to have me fired. I was written up and formally reprimanded and it destroyed my chances of getting a permanent assignment at the end of the contract.
THAT was unreasonable and downright spiteful and mean spirited. And it left a sour taste in my soul which never quite faded away. So, forgive me if I'm not quite so "pro union" as you expect me to be, as I see "some" of the demands of unions as being counter productive to efficient, cost effective manufacturing.
Unions brought a LOT of good, like training programs wage stability and advancement paths, much needed worker safety regulations and the 40 hour work week. So understand, I am decidedly NOT anti union. But the union cannot continue to exist if these bloated companies go Chapter 11.
Now, IF (and it's a BIG if) executive and senior management pay/compensation IS BROUGHT IN LINE with reality, (which it must!) and the big 3 are STILL unable to compete with an international market, what do YOU think will give out?
are not the main production cost by a long shot.
Labor costs for both foreign and domestic automakers is around 10% per car.
Funny to see the right wing business "geniuses" and all the union busting troll ignore all the 90% of the cost of an auto. Eh?
with the myth of the welfare queen
the true crime is that american car manufacture ceo's make between 13-17 mil, and that is not counting stock options and all the other perks
toyota ceo makes 1 mil
they want to kill the unions
i dont see the ceos stating that they will accept a paycut
Nardelli said he would take a $1 salary, but the other two basically in a very round about way said they wouldn't. But then again, Nardelli really doesn't need it anyway, he got over $200 million from Home Depot. And there is really no way of knowing what Nardelli gets, Chrysler is owned by Cerberus (the three headed dog that guards the gates of hell), it's private equity. John Snow, Dan Quayle part of that outfit also. That should tell you all you need to know about Cerberus.
or a benefit until exectutives and management salaries are dealt with.
For way too fucking long you'll have companies laying off hundreds or thousands of workers while having some asshole or assholes making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
I don't give a fuck WHO you are or WHAT your qualifications are - no one person is worth that much more than ANY other person.
I wish I could agree with John on this but I can't, I was just talking about this very point today with my boss, half his family works in the factories in Michigan and are all nervous about the outcome of what will be. It is well known they can earn higher wages in an American auto factory vs. a Japanese auto factory.
We all like higher pay but I don't see how you can compete with a situation like that.
Toyota workers in Kentucky plant made more than UAW members last year.
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/31/toyota-wor...
A worker may get $25 an hour in his/her labour, but the cost of having that employee on the shop floor costs the company $70+.
this 'Average' IIRC, factors in the compensatory salaries and packages for the CEOs. It includes the all payroll taxes, which includes the companies' share of SSI taxes, the benefits, retirement fund costs, worker insurance (possibly including dead peasant insurance, from which they ultimately profit) and every other chargeable amt involved in running a business.
That's not an AUTOWORKERS HOURLY PAY; It's not total compensation; It's the total cost per hour per shop floor employee, if I understand it correctly.
And this is a pliable number. The cost per hour can be lowered by cutting Executive compensation and perquisites. If there was universal health care, the companies' costs would be substantially lowered.
This one isn't saying workers get paid that much. It's also not saying it's compensation.
Lying. I'll bet this writer took the cost and assumed it meant wage, not knowing all the hidden costs that rear their ugly heads when you employ people.
Total compensation. That's the phrase. But I believe it's incumbent on these equivocating assholes to explain that. But like I said, I don't think the blue collar guys get $70 in total compensation; I think that's total cost.
They are weasel wording it so it SOUNDS like it's the workers living up on $70 per. and there are plenty of Thickie McThickersons that believe that shit. And the assholes promoting it are counting on it.
And how much do these overpaid assholes get? I'm sick of Richie Rich pissing on the rest of us.
Nothing the middle and lower classes hate more than the idea that their neighbors are doing better than them.
I remember Bill Ford being interviewed on TV. The reporter asked him about executive compensation when the UAW was making concessions.When pressed to answer if 20 million for 6 months work was justifiable ? Ford said " Good help is hard to find".. what an asshole.
The $78+ per hour figure looks like an actuarial calculation to me. It is the present hourly wage, plus present benefits, PLUS the present value of all future retirement pay and benefits expressed on a present-hour basis (whew!).
So a person who retires at age 65, makes $28 an hour (cash) plus 50% benefits, might cost $42 an hour now. But if you assume that worker will live another 30 years in retirement, receive the same benefits, plus COLAs each year, discounted by expected inflation ... that adds as much as another $36 to the present hourly cost. That assumes GM is fully funding the retirement plan, which many companies do not do.
The factory worker on the plant floor never sees an amount anywhere close to $78 a hour, of course. His/her take home pay is probably about $800 a week.
This autoworker myth reminds me of Reagan's welfare mother driving a new Cadillac myth. It demonstrates that Republicans live in a fantasy world.
Oh I remember when I was in the military. All my conservative buddies and all the crap they spewed about free enterprise, etc. I told them they were in the biggest socialized organization EVER CREATED:
The US Military.
They were fed, clothed, housed, provided for until death if they chose to make it a career. All these were support guys so they were NEVER going to get close to danger.
How they could beat the warpath about welfare queens, liberals and unions, but they were in an organization that produced NOTHING, fed from the public trough with basically no accountability.
I left and discovered what real capitalism was.
If only they had the guts to taste that bitter pill...
This same grope was defending $150+ dollar-an-hour plumbers just a couple of months ago.
I wonder how much per hour the average auto executive makes?
Someone did just that a week ago, (I hope your sitting down) $6,000+PER HOUR...average hours per day...5.5 Long lunches and golf take up time of course.
By average executive, I'm including all, not just the CEO.
They probably make more getting coffee and scratching their nazz than a laborer doing a full hour of back-breaking work.
And hopefully one day one of these over-paid pundits while waxing about workers getting paid too much will have the boom dropped on their head by the soundman.
MAYBE that's because they are not professionals at spinning shit for profit.
The autoworker unions are made up of AUTO WORKERS. There aren't a lot of professional PR flacks on the assembly lines, and they auto workers certainly do not have the same connections and funds as the corporate CEO's have into the mainstream corporate media to help spin lies for them.
This is not an equal playing field. The corporate CEO's in the auto industry have millions in PR resources available for anything, including smearing the workers they undermine at every opportunity, even as they live in obscene wealth at the expense of everybody else.
So let's not join in the "blame the victim" mentality, ok?
... and the union busting trolls aren't helping at all.
Benefits, healthcare, making enough to maybe send their kids to college? Who do they think they are, Europeans? It's their fault the economy failed.
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