Congrats UAW - you dumb, greedy bastards

[K-9]

You go to banks for a loan.

 

Where did the banks go? Oh, yeah. And it wasn't a loan. But now that we have a socialized banking system, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we realize those great returns on our (euphemistically ours, anyway) equity shares from that great bastion of free market entreprise known as Wall Street.

[WVUFootball29]

wow about 30 seconds after my post. Pretty quick there pB

 

My question is, why someone who is turning nuts and bolts and doing a few welds here and there is making 75 an hour while another union guy doing the same thing for a non UAW union is making 28 an hour? Is that fair? I'm sorry, you can twist it anyway you want, but there is no reason in the world someone with a high school education or less should be making 75 an hour, even with benefits included. Hell my fiance is currently making $10 an hour with minimal benefits as a CERTIFIED NYS teacher with a bachelors degree and trying to finance her Masters. You still want to try to justify that a bolt turner should be making 7 times more than that?

 

The auto companies and unions are both to blame for piss poor management and allowing this situation to come about. GM produces the same care 5 times with slightly different bodies and multiple levels of options and calls it variety. Why do we need 5 versions of the same car with 3 different names? Maybe bankruptcy is the best option here...clear the market, let some investors come in, pick up the pieces and rebuild from the ground up.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Oh, and don't forget to factor in time and a half becuase it's raining on a Wednesday or whatever other crap they've forced into the deal.

 

Isn't it ironic that the guy who's most vocal in criticizing the ratio between other workers compensation and their work ethic is a nerd who has accumulated over 11,000 posts on a single message board, most of which were written while he was supposed to be working?

[pBills]

wow about 30 seconds after my post. Pretty quick there pB

 

My question is, why someone who is turning nuts and bolts and doing a few welds here and there is making 75 an hour while another union guy doing the same thing for a non UAW union is making 28 an hour? Is that fair? I'm sorry, you can twist it anyway you want, but there is no reason in the world someone with a high school education or less should be making 75 an hour, even with benefits included. Hell my fiance is currently making $10 an hour with minimal benefits as a CERTIFIED NYS teacher with a bachelors degree and trying to finance her Masters. You still want to try to justify that a bolt turner should be making 7 times more than that?

 

The auto companies and unions are both to blame for piss poor management and allowing this situation to come about. GM produces the same care 5 times with slightly different bodies and multiple levels of options and calls it variety. Why do we need 5 versions of the same car with 3 different names? Maybe bankruptcy is the best option here...clear the market, let some investors come in, pick up the pieces and rebuild from the ground up.

 

 

First off your numbers are incorrect. Secondly the UAW has altered their contracts to being them down to be very comparable. Some republicans in none US automaker states and right to work states want more. Really they want to crush/remove the union. How do you know their education levels. Just assuming?

 

Most teachers do every well with their salary and benefits, their union has set them up well.

[DC Tom]

Is the bailout really a good solution?

 

On the one hand, GM (and to a lesser extent Ford) really needs to reorganize under bankruptcy protection.

 

On the other hand...right now, at the depths of a very bad recession, is it wise to dump about a million more workes on to the unemployment rolls?

 

Personally...I hate the idea of bailing out the auto makers, but think it makes sense from an overall economic point of view. Giving them $25B right now (and yes, it's supposed to be a loan...the auto makers will never pay it back, though) might be the less expensive option in the long run.

[KD in CA]

Secondly the UAW has altered their contracts to being them down to be very comparable.

 

But not quite comparable enough. I notice you choose to ignore this post. Big surprise. Keep dancing around the issues in an attempt to keep your personal gravy train running. GREEDY.

[WVUFootball29]

First off your numbers are incorrect. Secondly the UAW has altered their contracts to being them down to be very comparable. Some republicans in none US automaker states and right to work states want more. Really they want to crush/remove the union. How do you know their education levels. Just assuming?

 

Most teachers do every well with their salary and benefits, their union has set them up well.

 

Ok, now my numbers are wrong...right after I got them from YOU. Did you not say on page 1 that the 75/hr wage included the value of the benefits? Or am I just making that up too?

 

Second of all, I work for a company here in Jamestown that is Machinists union and UAW, we make cooling parts for many US and Foreign automakers. We have plenty of union guys here and yes, most of our production personnel have high school educations or less. I'm not assuming, I'm stating facts.

 

Keep living in your dream world, because its about to become a nightmare if you don't wake up and make the changes necessary

[K-9]

On the one hand, GM (and to a lesser extent Ford) really needs to reorganize under bankruptcy protection.

 

On the other hand...right now, at the depths of a very bad recession, is it wise to dump about a million more workes on to the unemployment rolls?

 

Personally...I hate the idea of bailing out the auto makers, but think it makes sense from an overall economic point of view. Giving them $25B right now (and yes, it's supposed to be a loan...the auto makers will never pay it back, though) might be the less expensive option in the long run.

 

The rumor is they're going to get some of the TARP money. Now THAT'S intelligent. Give 'em a grant instead of a loan.

 

If precedent means anything, I can't agree with your assertion that the Big 3 would not have paid back a loan. Chrysler did it within two years WITH INTEREST. I'm too lazy to do the adjustments, but how does 2 bil in 1980 dollars look against 25 bil in today's dollars?

[KD in CA]

Wow, this is it? This is your grand rebuttal? Like I said, can't support your arguments.

 

Ok, I had to do one last one because KD is a dickweed.

Ah yes, this is key point to the auto industry. I thought there was a gentlemens' agreement to keep this sort of thing on PPP.

 

KD you talk about being blind to discussion yet all you have done is bash the union. You have not once that you even understand any part of their side. Talk about being blind. Example "Kill the unions"

What "other side"? The side that wants to keep the sweetheart union deals in place that helped get us to this point in the first place? Once again, why are these people entitled to taxpayers money to fund higher wages and better benefits than the taxpayers themselves?

 

 

I have always said that things have to change with the health care plans. If they can't reduce the costs, people should put may into their coverage a bit.

 

I do not believe that there is any problem with these men and women making on average $6 more than the non LOAN asking companies. They have already taken a huge hit in both health care, pensions and eventually in wages. Plus, the problem with these companies is not all the unions fault.

Of course you don't, that's cause you're part of a greedy union so you support the greed of all unions. There is zero justification for these people to make more than other autoworkers who are not asking for a BAILOUT. Once again, go back and review ACor's math.

 

Oh, and contributing "a bit" (union code for 'almost nothing'), isn't going to help the benefits issue. What's wrong with 20%? That's what the average American pays. Why are these people entitled to better than the rest of us?

 

In my desperate grasp? Such a tool. I threw out Walmart because as people should know or in your in case probably blind to it. They undercut their employees, kill small town stores and import more from China than some nations. Yet, people like you praise them.

Where not talking about Walmart. We're talking about automakers. And you still can't explain away the fact that tens of thousands of non-union autoworkers make a good wage and whose companies are not begging for taxpayer money.

 

Have you realized that if the big 3 go under those other companies you love will be negatively affected as well? And you also keep ignoring that if they file for bankruptcy it will still kill the company. Who would buy from a bankrupt company? Especially when people still believe that their product is bad?

Who will buy from a bankrupt company? Millions of people, everyday (certainly all your union brothers). Companies go in and out of bankruptcy all the time. But that's not the point. The point is that we can't just prop up this industry forever on the backs of the taxpayers while the management refuses to come up with a workable business model and you and your ilk refuse to give up your sweetheart union deals. As someone said on page 1, those idiots bluffed and got called on it.

[Kevbeau]

Hmmm.....

 

$6.00 per hour x 40 hrs x 52 weeks = $12,480 per employee

 

600,000 active members x $12,480 = $7,488,000,000 per year!!!!!

 

Not to mention that the efficiencies of American Auto Manufacturers still hasn't caught the competition, although I'll give you the gap is closing.

 

Higher wages for inferior work? Brilliant!!!

[Heels20X6]

Have you guys seen this....?

 

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/6012/bailoutyk2.jpg

 

P.S. Unions are worthless in today's society. We have worker's laws that replaced their significance decades ago

[SDS]

While reforming the autoworker unions is definitely necessary, let's not forget about all the other stupid union/union rules that pollute our nation, like when you got to set up a booth for your trade show, but you can't plug a light into an electrical socket because some rule states you gotta have a union electrician come and do that for you. Which takes around an hour or more to make happen. Or that your gear sits on the loading dock for hours until some union guy comes around to load up the 3 smallish boxes on a dolley to wheel 20 feet to your stall.

 

I'm sure people here have tons of examples of stupid union rules they could tell.

 

 

Over here at my place, we have a location in Baltimore that is unionized. Here are two examples of mind-numbingly counter-productive union deals:

 

1. Engineers are NOT ALLOWED TO TOUCH THE EQUIPMENT. Only "technicians" are allowed to touch the equipment. So, instead of one guy who may have his BS/MS/PHD tweaking the knobs in the lab - they have to sit in the lab and bark orders to a union employee: "change power supply voltage to 0.5 volts. Nope, too much: change it to 0.4 volts." etc... Real efficient.

 

2. Mechanical engineers are forbidden to draw parts in AutoCad. The union mechanical designers are only allowed to do that. So, the MEs have to draw parts with pencil and paper and not with their computers and high powered drawing programs and then hand the sketch to someone else to draw on their computer.

 

But, somehow this is guarding against 10 year olds working 16 hour days... or so we're told.

[SDS]

Especially when people still believe that their product is bad?

 

This is probably the greatest argument for letting them fail. If no one wants to buy their cars then the end is inevitable. Why throw good money after bad if the end result is the same?

[plenzmd1]

Looks like the Union won the bet

 

After falling more than 200 points at the open, the Dow Jones industrial average began to pare its losses as the White House and the Treasury said they were considering diverting money from the Wall Street rescue fund to stave off bankruptcy filings among the carmakers.

[Beerball]

This is probably the greatest argument for letting them fail. If no one wants to buy their cars then the end is inevitable. Why throw good money after bad if the end result is the same?

Wouldn't you hope that once their cost structure is more in line they can begin to improve their cars? If one of the reasons for an inferior product (IMO) is that they have to compete at the sticker reducing the costs to build the cars should actually allow them to make a better product. Too simplistic?

[Gavin in Va Beach]

Looks like the Union won the bet

 

After falling more than 200 points at the open, the Dow Jones industrial average began to pare its losses as the White House and the Treasury said they were considering diverting money from the Wall Street rescue fund to stave off bankruptcy filings among the carmakers.

 

And we fall deeper into the rabbit hole.

[GG]

Looks like the Union won the bet

 

After falling more than 200 points at the open, the Dow Jones industrial average began to pare its losses as the White House and the Treasury said they were considering diverting money from the Wall Street rescue fund to stave off bankruptcy filings among the carmakers.

 

Which will not fix the real problems, yet be enough for them to call a victory and be back 3 months later.

 

Of course no one is talking that GM hired a major bankruptcy law firm and restructuring advisors as it's pitching to be TARPED. My guess is GM & Chrysler file Sunday night, get $25 billion in TARP money and merge in the process.

[ACor58]

I do not believe that there is any problem with these men and women making on average $6 more than the non LOAN asking companies. They have already taken a huge hit in both health care, pensions and eventually in wages. Plus, the problem with these companies is not all the unions fault.

 

What skills or qualifications do they have to entitle them to earn $6 more per employee than Toyota, Nissan, or Hyundai?

 

(Your failure to respond says it all.)

[molson_golden2002]

On the one hand, GM (and to a lesser extent Ford) really needs to reorganize under bankruptcy protection.

 

On the other hand...right now, at the depths of a very bad recession, is it wise to dump about a million more workes on to the unemployment rolls?

 

Personally...I hate the idea of bailing out the auto makers, but think it makes sense from an overall economic point of view. Giving them $25B right now (and yes, it's supposed to be a loan...the auto makers will never pay it back, though) might be the less expensive option in the long run.

Bingo. This isn't about saving union jobs, its about saving the economy now

[SDS]

Wouldn't you hope that once their cost structure is more in line they can begin to improve their cars? If one of the reasons for an inferior product (IMO) is that they have to compete at the sticker reducing the costs to build the cars should actually allow them to make a better product. Too simplistic?

 

Seems like a lot of people are shoveling "hope" this season... Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath. My guess is that if they ever got their cost structure in line, they would still produce unappealing cars that large portions of Americans would never buy.

 

GM $%#@% up Saturn when they had people dying to buy those cars. They burnt through that good will faster than their cash reserves and now Saturn will go away. Ineptitude is in their culture and it will remain there long after any deal has been brokered.