Give me a break...

[Ron61]

Steve,

Here is a link that will take you to the Auto Workers Contract. It is broken down by articles and there is a link to click and read the whole thing. Have a good day.

http://www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/laborrel/index.uaw.html

Ron

[jhv48]

I think we can ALL agree that there needs to be a complete overhaul of these behemouths in order for order for them to survive and competitiveness to be retained.

And that means EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is up for evaluation and review. The pork needs to be cut from the top on down. It's going to hurt and everyone is going to have to compromise somewhat.

If not, it's BK time! (Not Burger King)

[HI Cobra]

That sounds like something that should be one with our government.

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by VRM

I'd be happy to read it. I've looked for it before and have not been able to find it online. Can you post a link or send a copy? I work with the facts I have - if you can prove them wrong (a contract could certainly do that) I will be happy to say so. Try proving your case instead of trying to convince me that you know everything there is to know about everything. Show me the data that you are working from and I may come to the same conclusion that you have.

Steve

Steve,

Don't worry about reading the contract.
It isn't relevant to the original first post I made on this thread:

Originally Posted by Wes

So Labor makes up a paltry 10-15 percent of the cost of autos and this is where the deepest cuts have to be made?

I don't know where I lost Jamo, or anyone else, but rest assured that President Ron Gettelfinger didn't get his 10% from the pages of the contract. Nor did anyone get the bogus $76/hr figure from reading the contract. For a lead to the $70 "shocking earning" source, check out this appalling propoganda: http://www.uaw.org/auto/12_01_08auto1.cfm . Prepare to be shocked and appalled. Just kidding.

Or, on second thought, maybe you should worry about reading the contract ...in the possibile instance that my thread whining about the "paltryness of 10%" has been successfully, and completely legitimately, hi-jacked and has turned the thread into a contract-reading-fest. I realise these are brutal words.

For a while there, Jamo completely lost me as to why the contract was so important to my original point. And I still don't see it. Of course it's important, but not to my point.

As an example, a contract is a very basic thing. It is most often a piece of paper, with writing on it, that is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do, or refrain from doing, an act which is enforceable in a court of law. With very little stretch, a dollar bill is a contract of sorts. It's paper, it has writing on it, and promises, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." Is it fair? Beats me. It's an agreement at the time.

Now, if I were discussing drug smuggling, prostitution or political bribery, I would not insist that my fellows read the dollar bill to gain insight. The writing on the dollar bill has no bearing on its destiny in moral turpitude. While the piece of paper, the dollar, is involved by anyones count, the printing on it is not paramount to where it goes in any given instance.

Steve, I hope to God that you and/or others can follow me because I haven't had much visable luck in my scientific(?) quest for truth ....except for Stentor directly questioning some rather simple math.

And, as for Jamo, should he be reading your mail...

Originally Posted by Jamo

Wes...no flame or disrespect intended, but you have essentially made yourself totally irrelevant to this discussion.

Jamo, I have never been told in such a totally pleasant manner that I was pretty much rendered a worthless poop. So I want to thank you for your kind words and apologise for my prior beating around the bush that opening the pages on the exact words on the contract weren't a big deal, at least to me. As usual, I'll assume that each side plans to spring a surprise interpretation on their opponent soon after it is signed. That accounts for the all-around wry smiles during the signing process.

I should have come right out, like a man, and said that the contract, although a minor contributing factor, wasn't directly relevant to the discussion I started with. Now if we could open the accounting books at GM, I think those would be worth reading, and very relevant, to determine if labor really cost only 10%. I highly suspect that the accounting books, not the jello-clad contract, also hold the secret to the real calculated cost, in dollars per hour, of the average employee.

So, while I fully appreciate your law degree and astute verbal comprehension, Jamo ...where's Bernie, aka Beancounter?
Not that I believe he would side with me here, or have an inside scoop.
Well, maybe an inside scoop, divulged to a sharp accountants eye in the GM etc public annual report(s).

Or maybe I should just move on from this 10% vs $76/hr thing before I dig any deeper. I'm probably the only one here that would be shocked and appalled that corporate influenced congressmen would blame 10% labor and be willing to scuttle the country over it.

Check this out: http://www.uaw.org/auto/12_16_08auto1.cfm . Yeah, I know ...lyin' liberal ba$tard$.
I have this adopted theory (from AARP) why segments of corporate America would like to go bankrupt and press politicians on both sides to bring it about. It involves the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), http://www.pbgc.gov/ . Hang on to your wallet, Joe six-pack.

WES


...

[nevermind65]

Chick car? Matters not to me. My company pays for it, the insurance, maintenance, and gas. It's an 05 with now over 90k.

When somebody else is paying, I could care less. Gives me a LOT more money to mess with the Cobra.

[J. T. Toad]

Originally Posted by nevermind65

When somebody else is paying, I could care less. Gives me a LOT more money to mess with the Cobra.

your defining moment.

[Jamo]

God help me...Ron, did you read what you linked him to? It's a contract between the UAW and a tech college. Is there some overwhelming reason for you to be involved in this particular give and take which goes beyond this subject?

Steve...you impune my integrity as an excuse for your lack of research abilities? You know my background and the fact I do not rely on hearsay or blogs...I derive facts from source materials. I have no reason to try to help someone who throws out unfiltered opinions against the wall to see what sticks.

No disrespect intended, but your opinions are worthless in this discussion.

[Dan40]

http://www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/forms/2...AWcontract.doc

[Ron61]

Jamo,

My bad. You are right, I have no business in this thread and the link that I posted wasn't one that I had intended to copy. My apologies and I will stay out of this thread.

Ron

[Jamo]

Don't care about you being in the thread...my remarks had to do with Steve constantly throwing something out there and standing back while demanding everyone else disprove it. It's been a rather boring posting approach of his for several years here.

The link you provided? Well...you obviously weren't the only one...see Dan40's post.

Actually, I'm rather enjoying this.

[Ron61]

Darn, it is nice to see that I am not the only person that screws up. That post of Dan's wasn't the same link that I read what little I did on either. I did a search and then read just a page of what I think was their contract and went back to the search page where all the links were listed and didn't copy the one that I was looking at. And I am not even sure that it was the complete contract either. I also saw a link for their contract with GM, but never looked at it.

I can see where a person like you would enjoy watching the rest of make fools of ourselves. You have to know and understand all of these contracts and I tend to just look at small parts that pertain to something I am interested in. But I have followed this thread with interest and am learning. What I am learning is somewhat embarrassing.


Ron

[Jamo]

Just to show you how helpful I can be without charging a dime...it all started with this one.

The First UAW-GM Agreement
February 11, 1937
Agreement entered into on this 11th day of February, 1937, between the General Motors Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation) and the International Union, United Automobile Workers of America (hereinafter referred to as the Union).

The Corporation hereby recognizes the Union as the Collective Bargaining agency for those employees of the Corporation who are members of the Union. There shall be no discrimination, interference, restraint or coercion by the Corporation or any of its agents against any employee because of membership in the Union. The Corporation and the Union agree to commence collective bargaining negotiations on February 16th with regard to the issues specified in the letter of January 4th, 1937, from the Union to the Corporation, for the purpose of entering into a collective bargaining agreement, or agreements, covering such issues, looking to a final and complete settlement of all matters in dispute. The Union agrees to forthwith terminate the present strike against the Corporation, and to evacuate all plants now occupied by strikers. The Corporation agrees that all of its plants, which are on strike, or otherwise idle shall resume operations as rapidly as possible. It is understood that all employees now on strike or otherwise idle will return to their usual work when called and that no discrimination shall be made or prejudices exercised by the Corporation against any employee because of his former affiliation with, or activities in, the Union or the present strike. The Union agrees that pending the negotiations referred to in Paragraph Two, there shall be no strikes called or any other interruption to or interference with production, by the Union or its members. During the existence of the collective bargaining agreement contemplated pursuant to Paragraph Two, all opportunities to achieve a satisfactory settlement of any grievance or enforcement of any demands by negotiations shall be exhausted before there shall be any strikes or other interruption to or interference with production by the Union or its members. There shall be no attempts to intimidate or coerce any employees by the Union and there shall not be any solicitation or signing up of members by the Union on the premises of the Company. This is not to preclude individual discussion. After the evacuation of its plants and the termination of the strike the Corporation agrees to consent to the entry of orders, dismissing the injunction proceedings which have been started by the Corporation against the Union, or any of its members, or officers or any of its locals, including those pending in Flint, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio, and subject to the approval of the Court to discontinue all contempt proceedings which it has instituted thereunder.
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION
/s/ William S. Knudsen
/s/ J. T. Smith
/s/ D. Brown
UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS
/s/ Wyndham Mortimer, First Vice-President
/s/ Lee Pressman, General Counsel, CIO
/s/ John L. Lewis, Chairman, CIO

[Ron61]

Now if you had the original copy of that it would most likely be worth a fortune. That has to be one of the shortest contracts written.


Ron

[Jamo]

Note that the UAW was part of the CIO at the time (pre-merger with the AFL...and Joe Namath). CIO was full of Commies...John L. being the loudest of them. One of the reasons some folks were not anti-Hitler at the time was how he treated the Communists which were infiltrating labor organizations in Europe and the United States.

[Steve...you want to be "educated" right? Well, we're starting at the beginning. Now pay attention.]

[Jamo]

So, given your position on reading the contract, might I presume there's no chance in hell that you'll be reading ERISA and the MPPAA with regard to any points you wish to make about the PBGC?



As an aside...gettin a might cold up there in the early morning hours?

[VRM]

Wes,
I'm actually interested in reading the contract. The UAW seems to post highlights, and not the actual contract. There is one part that I found that says:

"The proposed agreement maintains the Independence Day week shutdown at GM. During the week of the Independence Day holiday, seniority UAW workers will receive four days (32 hours) off at their regular rate of pay, including shift and seven-day operation premiums. Eligibility is unchanged from the 2003-2007 agreement.
Over the term of the proposed agreement, the 32 hours of shutdown pay are worth an average of $950 each year for a typical GM assembler."

This breaks down to a little under $30 per hour 'for a typical GM assembler'. Perhaps they have other job categories that I am not aware of, perhaps they have a handful of members that make $300 per hour - I don't trust the UAW to freely provide any information that is going to make them look bad to the public.

Jamo,
You have my attention. I enjoy history (I think you know that); I'm familiar with Hitler and the attitudes of American businessmen of the day.

I saw the line in that first contract forbidding union recruiting on company grounds - when/how did it become all union - they don't have a choice if they want to work in a union plant, right? A friend of mine at NET was a union worker, but refused to go on strike during the big one in '89 or so. She still had to pay union dues afterwards, but she said she no longer had union protection.

Steve

[Don]

The definition of " entitlement " :

" AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the nation's largest organized labor organization was "thrilled" that Solis would be the next labor secretary. "

"We're confident that she will return to the labor department one of its core missions -- to defend workers' basic rights in our nation's workplaces," Sweeney said. "

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by Jamo

So, given your position on reading the contract, might I presume there's no chance in hell that you'll be reading ERISA and the MPPAA with regard to any points you wish to make about the PBGC?



As an aside...gettin a might cold up there in the early morning hours?

Yeah, colder than a witches... ...in January.
Part of my time went to looking for a $300 Toyota Smart Key that I ran through the snowblower.

I have a simple statement about the PBGC at the bottom. But...

Jamo, the teacher in you never quits, does it? I think you enjoy teaching more than law. Teaching even if it's free. Students, read your assignments etc.
And the whole time I'm struggling to amateur pro-bono for labor ...struggling which in itself is eating into considerable time ...time that I naively never expect to spend, duh. Talk about self delusion.

If I were a trial lawyer, which I'm not, and this discussion was a trial, which it's not, I'd try to redirect unfavorable focus.
I'd try to redirect focus from some troubling testimony, to some less volatile area or bury it altogether, concerning some striking unfavorable incongruent numerical figures.
Or, if I were a teacher of law, I'd make everybody read everything ad nauseum so we could pick, as a good lawyer should, through some obscure details that may or may not arise.

Nice try. Read-fest, geez. I got a day job you know.

Never-the-less, for the benefit of the "court", here is a condensed version of PBGC, ERISA and MPPAA from wikipedia.

PBGC:
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (or PBGC) is an independent agency of the United States government that was created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at the lowest level necessary to carry out its operations. Subject to other statutory limitations, the PBGC insurance program pays pension benefits up to the maximum guaranteed benefit set by law to participants who retire at age 65 ($54,000 a year as of 2009).[1] The benefits payable to insured retirees who start their benefits at ages other than 65, or who elect survivor coverage, are adjusted to be equivalent in value.


ERISA:
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) (Pub.L. 93-406, 88 Stat. 829, enacted September 2, 1974) is an American federal statute that establishes minimum standards for pension plans in private industry and provides for extensive rules on the federal income tax effects of transactions associated with employee benefit plans. ERISA was enacted to protect the interests of employee benefit plan participants and their beneficiaries by requiring the disclosure to them of financial and other information concerning the plan; by establishing standards of conduct for plan fiduciaries; and by providing for appropriate remedies and access to the federal courts.

ERISA is sometimes used to refer to the full body of laws regulating employee benefit plans, which are found mainly in the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA itself.

Responsibility for the interpretation and enforcement of ERISA is divided among the Department of Labor, the Department of the Treasury (particularly the Internal Revenue Service), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.


MPPAA:
Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 . Not available in wikipedia(?). As a common serf, I have added unrelated expert info to wikipedia ...and this is your most welcome wikipedia chance to teach as an expert, if you haven't already. Yeah, I know wikipedia's a commy site. Center it, if you can.

**********************

Back to PBGC:

Now my adopted theory from AARP, regarding PBGC, is that corporate accounting has discovered they can conveniently shirk pension liabilities by simply "re-organizing" in bankruptcy. As the fund collapses under escalating unexpected claims, the pensions then become the responsibility of the federal government. Those of us on this forum are the working class. We pay all the taxes, one way or another. We are, in effect, the responsible part of federal government along with our wallets. So that's PBGC as I see it. But...

As if that weren't enough, cities (perhaps states) cannot go bankrupt in the same manner. To pay pie-in-the-sky promises to employees and bonds, cities generally simply raise property taxes.

So those of us eligible for pension (me, never), first get a "lower" on our fixed paycheck ...as income taxes and taxes on our paid-for home go up. Reaching the American dream is not a problem. Keeping it is, of late.

And I'm beginning to wonder if some weasels haven't found a way to grossly raid 401K. Economics 101: Whenever somebody loses wealth, somebody makes wealth.
The law of conservation of wealth in the universe, perhaps.

Sweet, eh? ................Not.

Man, can't leave money lying around anywhere anymore.


Wes


...

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by VRM

Wes,
I'm actually interested in reading the contract. The UAW seems to post highlights, and not the actual contract. There is one part that I found that says:

"The proposed agreement maintains the Independence Day week shutdown at GM. During the week of the Independence Day holiday, seniority UAW workers will receive four days (32 hours) off at their regular rate of pay, including shift and seven-day operation premiums. Eligibility is unchanged from the 2003-2007 agreement.
Over the term of the proposed agreement, the 32 hours of shutdown pay are worth an average of $950 each year for a typical GM assembler."

This breaks down to a little under $30 per hour 'for a typical GM assembler'. Perhaps they have other job categories that I am not aware of, perhaps they have a handful of members that make $300 per hour - I don't trust the UAW to freely provide any information that is going to make them look bad to the public.

Jamo,
You have my attention. I enjoy history (I think you know that); I'm familiar with Hitler and the attitudes of American businessmen of the day.

I saw the line in that first contract forbidding union recruiting on company grounds - when/how did it become all union - they don't have a choice if they want to work in a union plant, right? A friend of mine at NET was a union worker, but refused to go on strike during the big one in '89 or so. She still had to pay union dues afterwards, but she said she no longer had union protection.

Steve

--------

Steve,

As you know, there are many ways to make over and above hourly wages in unions. Benefits are one. Normally many are penalty claims, originally designed to encourage agreed-upon reasonable working conditions by the only method corporate understands ...the bottom line. So penalties are both abused by employees with phony claims and abused by corporate that just flat out refuses to pay legitimate claims. Philosophically, I don't see a good guy-bad guy scenario. A little human greed perhaps.

It's a contract cluster for me, especially after 100+ years of railroad re-writes. Normally the union spins average earnings minimal (only 10%) and corporate spins them exaggerate(say $76/hr). I will say corporate have had much better press releases at contract time ...management isn't as dumb as we know it is. First press opinions are lasting ones.

Don't the public deserve the truth?? As Clint Eastwood said to Gene Hackman in UNFORGIVEN, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it".

In the past, I've pointed out that just about every organization is a union of sorts, with it's own aspect of corruption. Labor union, corporate union, Bar Association union etc and even government itself is a union, the Citizens Union. Everybody's a socialist when it behooves them. And I will submit that any form of democratic government at all ...is socialism itself.

And then there are the unions within unions, sometimes just a political party. As any special interest, such as any "union" gains power, power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Balance is an elusive quality and corruption on a siver platter.

So I feel the greatest threat to America now is corporate union. Years of Big Business lobbying congress to pass favorable "union contract" conditions.

If Barry Goldwater, aka Mr. Conservative, were alive today, he would now be fighting the military industrial complex and all corporate power abuse. He would be fighting the extreme power of Big Business, that which he once loved when the britches still fit. Labor has been relatively beaten.

Fear the growing military industrial complex threat, that Ike warned us about after he saw the vast power of corporate America win wars.
Not that I'm not grateful to corporate America for allowing me to read this forum in English.
I just want them to tone it down a bit before somebody rolls up my sidewalks and ships them to China.

Wes


...

[imagine2frolic]

There was a time when a union was needed to protect a worker. Now we have the frivolous lawsuits, so we can drop the unions........lololololol