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Originally Posted by SoonerCamaro
was watching fox news just now
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That was your first mistake...I'm
not saying there's any 'good' station to watch, but Fox? Good lord....
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Originally Posted by SoonerCamaro
UAW that build gm cars make 150 dollars an hour with benefits and everything!!!
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That's FALSE...no room for error. The highest estimates (also misleading), have wages, benefits, AND retiree benefits (hence the misleading part) have the price at ~$75/hr. I bet you've also heard of these evil 6-digit yearly pay...Guess what? It's called senior employees plus overtime, and it's not a new concept. It turns out that factories like to pay less people more, than more people less...they'll keep one guy on for lots of overtime hours, and send a few others home for the night...don't ask me why...just realize that this is not common practice, and all UAW workers aren't making six-digits.
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Originally Posted by SoonerCamaro
Most of these people just have high school degrees!
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Also false, and what does it matter? Am I better than my neighbor because I went to college? Please. MOST UAW workers went to some sort of a trade school to learn certain applied skills. You may be surprised to learn that, but it's true.
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Originally Posted by SoonerCamaro
GM got themselves into all this mess with all this,
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GM, through the mid 1900s to the 80s was making a healthy profit and living the high life. As employees, the UAW bargained for higher wages and benefits to reflect that time of prosperity. Unfortunately, they kept those benefits and wages well into times of loss...So yes, GM did get into this situation. However, don't think they were foolish to do it in the firstplace. They were doing well when the UAW got what they HAD.(more on "had" later)
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Originally Posted by SoonerCamaro
I would rather make some money than no money...sorry for ranting just venting about these huge companys with their rediculous spending.
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Would you? Surely...it's true. But how would you feel if your employer said "we're going to cut your pay 50% because we can. Deal with it, and have a nice day."
Anyway; my comment about "had". Negotiated and ratified in 2007, the UAW agreed on a plan to transfer the entire health-care burden off of GM, and onto their own shoulders. This was called VEBA and it was supposed to take effect in 2010. This may have been delayed or changed slightly what with the current government loan situation. But in any event, it stands to save GM billions of dollars a year.
Next; in that same contract, GM and the UAW agreed to cut pay for new employees from $35 and hour to about $14. Okay? That's more than half. Benefits were reduced, to my knowledge...and they bought out tens of thousands of workers. While at first it seems like they are throwing away millions to get rid of these people, it's actually a good way to replace close-to-retirement workers with lower-paid, entry-level workers.
Finally, the actual pay + benefits,
as per GM, of UAW employees is somewhere around $35/hr. NOT 70-something. That higher number is including retiree costs, which is misleading because you need to understand something first: GM has employed tens of millions of employees in this country for 100 years. Toyota, Honda, etc...have barely been here for 30, and don't even have fraction as many employees. That burden is nobody's fault. It's simply a factor of time, and scale.
You might think I'm pro union after all that. I'd like to clarify that I'm not; I simply understand SOME (most definitely not all
) of the complexities and misnomers surrounding this issue. The cold-hard fact is that General Motors and the UAW have actually made great progress in the direction that most people want to see them go.