While I will agree with the premise that unions are shooting themselves in the foot, upper management has to be considered in this mix, I understand the workers wanting a living wage, but if you broke down the average CEO's salary by the hour, it would be $10,000 an hour, am I the only one that see's a problem with that?

Not a problem if his business plans bring in much moola!.

Bill

I guess it is a question of charging what the market will bear.

Look at what movie stars, rock stars, or pro athletes make if you really want to see over paid individuals. We can argue that CEO's don't earn what they get but they do have tremendous responsibilities. On the other hand we pay performers rediculous amounts of money, for what? Hitting a baseball 3 times out of 10?

Wayne

There are far far fewer people that can run a major corp. than can put a wheel on a car.

All of you make good points, but my point was that everyone wants to make a fair wage, and be able to do it in today economy, so if it takes a union to get that fair wage, then that's what the employers have brought on themselves, if left to their own devices, no one would get a fair wage, pension, healthcare, overtime, and so on.
When corporations take care of their own and treat them with dignity, unions aren't necessary, but all too often they have the Wall mart mentality when it comes to their employees. I just think labor get vilified all too often for the problems that corporations bring on themselves. Look in today's economy you would need to earn $70,000 a year to qualify for a $150,000 house, and where I live the average price of the medium home is $285,000 Now I think a living wage should be ware a couple can afford to buy a house and raise 2 kids, put them through collage and afford healthcare when and if needed, and not have to go into debt up to their eyeballs to get there.

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Hi Ron,

I haven't been here for a while. Hope you and all the others on here have been healthy. I know many aren't happy over the election. I really did think McCain would win this time. I think maybe he got too Demonized the first time around. :CRY:

I think you are right about Gettelfinger being it largely for himself. Human greed may be our downfall yet. Nobody wants to own any responsibility to his fellows anymore. I read most of the posts on this thread and some good points are made.

One early sentence that really struck me in Gettelfinger's announcement was his first sentence, "The focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract," Gettelfinger told reporters on a conference call, noting the labor costs now make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the cost of a vehicle."

Eight to 10 percent? I wonder if thats true.

Here's the thing. You mentioned that the worker may make $25/hour. Later, Perry suggested $50+ an hour ($55?). Then JoeG suggested $144 an hour with benefits. This is a bit awkward if the worker costs only 10%.
Worker@10% vs Somebody else@90%
$25 vs $250 per hour or
$55 vs $550 per hour or
$144 vs $1440...

I'd kinda like to know why somebody is apparently tacking on 90% and who is pocketing this money. Do you think it is mostly all raw materials and facility costs? That much per hour per car? Geez.

Why does it cost millions to develop a normal new vehicle ...when it's usually almost like the one they built last year? And, in GM's case, they built the excellent EV-1 electric car, back in the '80's, and they can't catch up with Toyota and a good hybrid for years and years. Whats going on here?

And shortly after Stanford R. Ovshinsky revolutionized the Nickel Metal Hydride battery, back in the mid EV-1 days, Texaco ended up owning controlling interest, casually buying it from GM. Shame on you for trusting corporate GM, Stanford. :mad:

Then Lithium batteries became available, to save the day.
And suddenly there was dramatic mysterious film footage of a gentlemans laptop bursting into flame at a conference.
So now we can't use this "dangerous" technology? It's in my laptop right now as I type ...and in my cellphone. Works great ...charge the tiny little bugger up once a week.
But talk about a phone call maybe burning your ear. :LOL:

I don't have anything against unions in general. Actually corporations are unions, little business owners joined together to exert their muscle like labor does with theirs. Of course the nefarious Labor Unions have been Demonized as of late, like their greed is somehow different. Now who would promote this idea? :JEKYLHYDE Darn 90 percenters. ;)

Unfortunately, the guy left holding the bag is the consumer. But we have our consumer union too. It's called congress. And, sure enough human greed rears it's ugly head here too. And you are right about "congress on a smaller scale". Modern corporate wealth far exceeds that of our governmental budget and seems to tell our elected government "grievers" where and what color.

Unions are a pretty old idea, ingrained into us all. Way back when life on earth began in the sea, with single celled organisms, it didn't take too long before there was corral reefs. Little guys banded together sometimes sink big ships. Unions, Corporations, Congress ...the country floating on them.

Considering the economy, maybe unrestrained corporations have out-lived their usefulness. Wish we could just vote some of them out ...fire them like senators. **)

I just read Freds last post, "There are far far fewer people that can run a major corp. than can put a wheel on a car." :confused:

Heck, everybody knows the lowly paid secretaries run the offices anyway. :LOL:


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If you think that the major corporations are run poorly now, wait until the government helps.
I got a letter from the IRS telling me I qualified for part of the original "stimulus plan" and to expect a check in a few days. Why not just send me a check? did they do this for 90 million filers?, I guess the post office needs something other than junk mail to deliver.
God Help us!

Wes, I was wrong in my estimate...The average hourly compensation for the Big Three assembly line worker is $73.20 per hour. Close to my doctor visits...$90.00.

Perry,
Where did you get your information, I was just listening to a UAW REP, on the radio, and he said they now have a 2 teared pay scale that came down in 95 from the contract negotiation with the automaker and they gave up
$1 an hour for medical, and that was a 30 Billion dollars back to the auto makers a year, and the low end of the scale is $14 an hour for new hires, and the average pay is $18 an hour, no I have no doubt that there are workers that get paid more, but even with benefits included I don't see ware $73.20 is possible. I get paid $26 and with my benefits its only coming to $42 an hour so how is it possible it could add up to that much?

For those of you that think management is at fault:

Toyota and GM decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.
Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. BUT on the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So American management hired a consulting company referred to them by the US Government and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

The consultants advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized into 3 steering supervisors, 1 area steering superintendents, 1 publicity manager, 1 HR diversity coordinator, 1 union rep, and a rower.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with a lunch and a free company pen for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and performance-tied bonuses but that decision was held up in committee. BUT the next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

The money from all sales and all forecasted moneys saved from further competition was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

...andbody have one for the unions?

:)


Wes,

Nice to see you back. I had been wondering what happened to you. thought maybe Cobra Bill had banished you. :)

I think the root cause of about 90% of our problems is just pure greed on both the companies and Unions. Neither care about the people, just how much can I put in my pocket. I actually ran for a local position when I was working and got it just so I could get out of the union. Once I was out, my pay was much better, working conditions were better, and I didn't give a darn about crossing their picket lines when I had to go to another state to work on a computer or satellite system because they had no one there that could do it, but that didn't stop them from striking for more money, most of which went to the union officials in the form of more dues. I do believe there are a few places where the unions do serve a good cause yet such as mining and keeping the companies on their toes with the safety features. But in the communications field, I feel they have long since been outdated.

Ron :p

My error, according to the UAW's own website, the base pay for a worker in a UAW plant is $27-$32 an hour. The $73.20 includes health and pension as a total.