Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Tausend
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First of all, the American worker is all of us. There is no significant difference between UAW workers and any of the rest of us blue-collar workers. We are not bad guys. We work hard. The same fine people that work in America are the same people that brought home the Gold from the Chinese Olympics.
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Actually, UAW workers earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits--almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker. Detroit autoworkers have substantially more health, retirement, and paid time off benefits than most Americans. These benefits, and a JOBS bank that pays UAW workers nearly full wages to not work, have been a major force driving the Detroit automakers' current fiscal woes. Consequently, Congress should not force all Americans to pay for high wages and benefits for UAW workers.
The average private sector worker earned $25.36 an hour in 2006--$17.91 an hour in cash wages and $7.45 an hour in benefits such as pensions, paid time off, and health insurance.
The typical UAW worker at the Big Three earned between $71 and $76 an hour in 2006. This amount is triple the earnings of the typical worker in the private sector and $25 to $30 an hour more than American workers at Japanese auto plants. The average unionized worker at the Big Three earns over $130,000 a year in wages and benefits.
Most of the Big Three's UAW workers' compensation comes as benefits, not cash. Only 38 percent of the $75.81 an hour that Chrysler's UAW workers earned came as base wages. The rest came as benefits (though some of those benefits, such as overtime premiums and paid vacation days, are paid in cash). Health care costs are the most expensive benefit, accounting for over a quarter of total compensation.
Health care costs the Big Three so much because the UAW negotiated gold-plated health benefits that include medical, hospital, surgical, and prescription drug coverage. These benefits also cover durable medical equipment (e.g., hearing aids), dental benefits, and even Lasik eye surgery. For all this, GM workers and retirees must pay monthly premiums of $10 for an individual and $21 for families. As a result, UAW workers and retirees have some of the most comprehensive and least expensive health care in America.
These gold-plated health care benefits put the Big Three, and especially GM, at a competitive disadvantage. For example, GM has three times as many retirees as active workers, and health care costs for both groups cost the company $4.6 billion in 2007. The UAW's lavish health benefits added $1,200 to the cost of each vehicle produced in the United States.
The Japanese automakers, by contrast, provide standard health benefits to their American employees. Consequently, health care for active workers cost Toyota $215 per vehicle in 2006.
UAW employees also receive the following extraordinary provisions:
30-and-Out contracts. UAW employees work under a 30-and-Out contract that allows them to retire with generous pension benefits after 30 years on the job, irrespective of age.
Seven weeks' vacation. A Chrysler worker with 15 years' tenure was entitled to 34.5 paid holidays and vacation days in 2006--seven weeks in paid time off. This is three weeks more paid vacation than the average private sector worker with similar tenure.
Paid not to work. Under UAW contracts, workers whom the automakers let go when plants close are not laid off. Instead, after exhausting regular unemployment payments from the automakers and the government, they are transferred to a JOBS bank where they are paid nearly full wages to not work.
Same as the typical American worker? I don't think so......
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