Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron61
And since ...
Edit: The way I read it is the $70 per hour is labor costs and doesn't mention benefits which I interpet to mean their pay. The colored sections below would seem to indicate their benefits are not included in the $70 dollar figure.
Elimination of future retiree health care and defined benefit pensions were also issues, the UAW said. The union also said American Axle failed to provide the UAW with information it needed to evaluate the proposed cuts.
In a statement, the Detroit-based company said the union had "singled out" the supplier by refusing to allow it to cut hourly labor costs that are three times higher than its rivals at over $70 per hour.
Ron  |
On the other hand, if the $70/hour figure was released by the American Axle company, you can pretty well figure they tacked on everything they could think of to inflate the appearance of high "labor costs".
It probably includes all the Social Security matching, Workmans Compensation and the entire salaries of all the Payroll Department, Human Resources, company nurse etc. And anybody doing something unrelated they can pack into these depts. Also figure a substancial amount of overtime being averaged in because the company is trying to get by with as few as employees as possible (and mandatory OT is norm now). Then not to forget any pension, 401k matching and other little bennies. And then the biggy, health care... which makes $70 hour charge for just about anything look like peanuts, seemingly extorting us all for more like $700/hr if we want to live.
All these above
are labor costs; I would, and did, sure count them in my own company. These represent real costs per hour per employee, though hidden from our daily "Joe Six-pack" view. Anybody out there making a mere $30/hour? Well it is a lot more than that. Enough that your company could make
your job look overpaid in
their press release. The working class apparently needs to be divided and conquered.
Now with a little Enron accounting, I think a corporate board could reason that the only reason that a company would need management ...would be to oversee hourly employees. So the financial burden of management would
also be the employees fault, jacking up labor costs yet again. And really unruly employees would require really good management, drawn from other corporate boards of course (with huge bonuses and all). The employees, them dirty bums, further gouging stockholders like that.
Three times higher labor costs than its rivals alright. In China. In Mexico. In new Delhi. I think Rick Lake nailed it.
My guess is that they are probably actually making about $28-32 hour straight time, not too bad really.
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