While you were sleeping

[renfruzetz]

Gas rationing, unrest in the Middle East, high mileage foreign cars. I recognized these issues as a fifth grader in the 70's.

 

I have no sympathy for the Big 3. When Henry Ford introduced the Model T, all the good blacksmiths kept their jobs. The crappy ones had to learn a new trade.

[Tcali]

If the UAW is gone, I hope you can live with WALMART wages.

 

US workers are forced to compete against $3.65 wages in China and Korea.

 

Unfortunately we live in Buffalo and have to pay taxes too!

 

The Answer is to buy AMERICAN and tax the importers to the US or nobody will have a job.

Forget the 3.65 an hour stuff. They just need to match the levels that USA workers At Honda Nissan and Toyota make.

The workers there make a somewhat decent wage---which is better than the nothing they will soon receive if they stay stubborn(unions and management)

[BuffaloBill]

I lived in W.N.Y. [actually Orchard Park] all thru the 80s and most of the 70s and it seems to me the economy was ALWAYS bad. I wonder if that confiscatory tax system is more to blame then the unions. I read in the online news a few weeks ago about a retiring 59 year old cop who was going to get a 100000k+ pension-for life- with COLA no doubt-where is that money going to come from? Why you and the place you work.

 

 

While I have no data to respond to the cop and his pension, it is a combination of issues that has beaten down the WNY area:

 

• 
  

Perhaps most painful is brain drain .... WNY has alot of very good colleges but how many grads stay in the region?

Taxes do not favor investment

For too long there has been an overreliance on heavy industry and a failure to shift to the "new" economy

The climate - WNY has never found a meaningful way to celebrate the winter and use it for recreation

Yes - unions - argue what you want about pay and contracts - fact of the matter is that they scare off investment. As an Executive I can tell you that no industry possibly impacted by the presence of a union is going to easily look to invest in WNY. I get it that companies (management) get the unions they deserve but unions also tend to be lost in the freakin stone ages and do not help their own cause by being short sighted

Failure to grow from within - for at least a decade the "saviors" of the economy were thought to be large employers that would be "attracted in" - WNY needs to foster growth from within. Perhaps there is a bit of luck involved but look at Seattle - a city that - like Buffalo - was a blue collar industrial town is transformed into a high tech beacon

 

Not sure what any of this has to do with the Bills but what the heck.

[DIE HARD 1967]

Diehard...whether they 'help' GM or not doesn't really matter unless GM drastically alters their pay for workers and pensioners.If they don't do those things and they receive the bailout----then the bailout $$$ will go right down the sewer and they will declare bankruptcy anyway.

If they don't get the bailout then they will go to banktruptcy and get restructured by force.....and some of the company and many the employees will still have jobs.

I think the best thing would be to give the bailout WITH stipulations for drastic change in the employees contracts/pensions.

The worst would be to give the bailout &throw away billions of taxpayer dollars while the companies go bankrupt anyway because they don't reform their pay model/business model.

The middle option(which may be inevitable) is for them to go to bankruptcy.

 

GM employees have a Federally insured pension so you will not change that.

 

I think the people that have already retired need to be potected or you will send most of these people into bankruptcy and forclosure and the numbers are too high.

 

Most of the above are in their 60's and 70's and 80's and do not have the big pensions you read about Some get less then $1200 per month and they pay into their health care.

 

You can't just send these people to the streets.

[BuffaloBill]

GM employees have a Federally insured pension so you will not change that.

 

I think the people that have already retired need to be potected or you will send most of these people into bankruptcy and forclosure and the numbers are too high.

 

Most of the above are in their 60's and 70's and 80's and do not have the big pensions you read about Some get less then $1200 per month and they pay into their health care.

 

You can't just send these people to the streets.

 

 

Do not be overly confident in a federally insured pension ... fact of the matter is that PBGC could easily be overwhelmed and negotiations could end up leaving pensioners getting dimes, nickles, pennies on the dollar. I do not say this to be spiteful or hurtful just factual. The situation is a mess. I feel for the people who worked for years believing they were going to receive a benefit at the end. However, this is not unlike the millions who have invested money into a 401(k) believing that they were doing the correct thing only to watch much of it evaporate this past year. Also not unlike the social security system which is not as stable as many would like. At some point the government can't keep being the money bucket of last resort. Every day that goes by during this current mess makes me appreciate my grandparents generation that much more (depression era). They worked hard, they tried to avoid debt (except maybe for a resonable mortgage) they took care of their (extended) families and they paid their taxes.

 

Now this has less to do with the Bills - should we ask the gov't for a new stadium now?

[Jim in Anchorage]

Not to pick on cops but that is the example I know of. They used that trick when I was there-use there seniority to get gobs of o.t. in there last two years- thats how the pension is set. [oops seniority.theres that union thing again.]

[BillsWatch]

the "job banks" employees of the big 3, all 3700 or so of them, cost the big 3 over half a billion dollars all in last year. these are guys that could be replaced by a slightly above average high school junior.

 

You sound really bitter that you do not qualify. You could get help and get your GED.

[manateefan]

You can always find another job. But, the Bills cannot be replaced.

 

But probably not in Buffalo.

[BuffaloBill]

But probably not in Buffalo.

 

 

Sad but true

[colin]

You sound really bitter that you do not qualify. You could get help and get your GED.

 

because pointing out factual information (detroit free press had an article, and this is public information anyhow) means i couldn't even have a GED? get real.

 

these union guys getting the big money are lucky losers, but the gravy train is out of service. getting way way way more than what one is worth is a great situation to take advantage of, but being losers the unions (and their members who cry and whine about all of a sudden now getting dropped in the cold reality that they were protected from) effed it up and pissed it away instead of using the big income to secure their own future.

 

look -- auto workers are UNSKILLED LABOR. that means they don't or can't do anything anyone else can't do easily. there will be a mess finish to this, but the failures of the big 3 have been support too many times already, they should be allowed to die (killing the legacy union disease with them) and started anew by real entrepreneurs.

[manateefan]

Thank you for the link.

 

The problem with GM is the turn over time to retool for more popular vehicles is about 2 years.

 

The bigger gas guzzlers will real popular in the US till gas hit $4 per gallon.

 

American's wanted those big SUV's then changed their minds when gas went up!

 

Now GM will tool up for smaller cars and the gas is now $1.86 in Florida and the customers will demand SUV's

 

 

Wrong. I live in Florida and I have never wanted a big SUV.

[Jim in Anchorage]

Well I live in Alaska and did. At $1.86 a gal why not?

[BillnutinHouston]

Thats hardly the problem. $47/hr for Toyota workers vs $95/hr for GM union workers. Break the union contracts through bankruptcy & GM is back on track to get out of the hole that they've dug for themselves.

 

$95 per hour (and even $47) to stand there with a screwdriver all day? As Obama's buddy likes to say, "the chickens have come home to roost." No company can afford to pay those kind of ridiculous wages and stay afloat. Way to go unions!

[DIE HARD 1967]

Gas rationing, unrest in the Middle East, high mileage foreign cars. I recognized these issues as a fifth grader in the 70's.

 

I have no sympathy for the Big 3. When Henry Ford introduced the Model T, all the good blacksmiths kept their jobs. The crappy ones had to learn a new trade.

 

Henry Ford had the only game in town back in those days, he could do what ever he wanted

[DIE HARD 1967]

$95 per hour (and even $47) to stand there with a screwdriver all day? As Obama's buddy likes to say, "the chickens have come home to roost." No company can afford to pay those kind of ridiculous wages and stay afloat. Way to go unions!

 

Most GM workers are now making $12 per hour with no insurance an no pension. (they are contract temps)

 

The older workers make 27.50 and I can assure the screw driver job was eliminated in 1967

 

Nearly everyone has retired and have been replaced with robots and computers.

 

The older workers have problems with the new technology and have been replaced with much cheaper labor

[KD in CA]

Most GM workers are now making $12 per hour with no insurance an no pension. (they are contract temps)

***bullsh--***

Nearly everyone has retired and have been replaced with robots and computers.

You mean "nearly everyone" except for the half a million current members of the UAW??

 

 

Doesn't matter if it's Wall street or the factory floor: people will say anything to justify their greed.

[colin]

Most GM workers are now making $12 per hour with no insurance an no pension. (they are contract temps)

 

The older workers make 27.50 and I can assure the screw driver job was eliminated in 1967

 

Nearly everyone has retired and have been replaced with robots and computers.

 

The older workers have problems with the new technology and have been replaced with much cheaper labor

 

this is nonsense.

 

nearly everyone has retired? garbage, the big three still have hundreds of thousands of employees. and no, most do NOT make 12 an hour, the average wage is much much higher than that. do you have sources to support any of this?

 

also, your garbage about needing protectionist laws or else everyone will make wall mart wages is pure tripe. do you have any education at all? unions are parasites: they target a host company making it slightly less bad to give in to them then have a strike, and get their members paid more than they would otherwise by doing that. the thing is if they feed too much on the host, the host firm will die. they are great for losers with no drive, but like any ponzi scheme they run out of chump companies to exploit.

 

you and your communist lever pullers need to step the eff up and learn to make money in the real world. you are a scared little child thinking that without your cadillac protection that EVERYONE will be on walmart wages. some people are good enough and some people aren't -- if you need the union you aren't.

[DIE HARD 1967]

this is nonsense.

 

nearly everyone has retired? garbage, the big three still have hundreds of thousands of employees. and no, most do NOT make 12 an hour, the average wage is much much higher than that. do you have sources to support any of this?

 

also, your garbage about needing protectionist laws or else everyone will make wall mart wages is pure tripe. do you have any education at all? unions are parasites: they target a host company making it slightly less bad to give in to them then have a strike, and get their members paid more than they would otherwise by doing that. the thing is if they feed too much on the host, the host firm will die. they are great for losers with no drive, but like any ponzi scheme they run out of chump companies to exploit.

 

you and your communist lever pullers need to step the eff up and learn to make money in the real world. you are a scared little child thinking that without your cadillac protection that EVERYONE will be on walmart wages. some people are good enough and some people aren't -- if you need the union you aren't.

 

This thread is not about wages and your outlook on what is fair and what is not.

 

Its about losing the Bills with a smaller market.

 

Get off the union garbage and the big BAD General Motors.

 

I know more about the auto industry then you will ever know

[Tom]

So with the potential loss of 100,000 jobs, your main concern is losing the Bills?

 

 

Tell that to the out of work auto assembly personnel. Who gives a s* about the Bills when you have a family to feed. By the way my uncle is one of the assembly men. Has been there for 12 years now. has a wife and 2 kids to feed and the last thing he worries about is the Buffalo Bills.

What do you drive?

 

BTW, this is a Bills Message Board & that's why the focus is on the Bills.

[buffalonian]

$95 per hour (and even $47) to stand there with a screwdriver all day? As Obama's buddy likes to say, "the chickens have come home to roost." No company can afford to pay those kind of ridiculous wages and stay afloat. Way to go unions!

 

Unions??? The real problem is unabated greed within the Executive class. How can you blame unions for fighting to make a living wage when the CEO of Ford made 21.7 million dollars last year.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/200...ustry-ceos.html

 

The US government should bail out the auto industry and use the bail out to force the companies to change their business models, starting with executive pay.