Unionized auto workers making $73. an hour? McGruff here taking a bite out of bogus numbers.

Really?! NOT. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year) General Motors, Ford and Chrysler workers make significantly more than their counterparts at Toyota, Honda and Nissan plants in this country. Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (non unionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits. To make thing worse for the non-union workers at Japanese plants in the U.S.A, is the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies. So they are grossly underpaid. We should be looking at Unionizing these unfortunates,and not cutting hard won contracts at the bargaining table.

Now what has to be understood is The Big Three built up a huge pool of retirees long before Honda and Toyota opened plants in this country. The auto manufacture claims this ($15 per hour per worker) as a labor cost. The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are.


So where does the figure come from? The $73-an-hour figure comes from the car companies themselves. As part of their public relations strategy during labor negotiations. These are essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix — dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force.
Read the full piece, it's worth it (including the fact that labor costs are only about 10% the cost of the average car). The bottom line is that blaming the UAW as the sole party responsible for the current crisis does not pass McGruffs muzzle. It's an LLT Fatty PattyMd accounting gimmick, that wont make muster here. Maybe on some pro-employer lackey site with a dictator moderator (cbg) not here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1228885768-xrqwiUESi9xXI1rFGsSiIw&pagewanted=all
JoeC (McGruff)

I am just so frustrated and demoralized by America's attitude about working men and women. Everyone, and I mean everyone, believes everyone else is making too much money and they are making too little.
The Senator from North Carolina stated on NPR today that unions are the sole reason why Detroit is in trouble. He added that Unions are antiquated vestiges from another time that need to be eradicated if America is to thrive in the "Global Free Market".
What am I missing? Is everyone supposed to make 10 bucks an hour? Who is going to send their kids to college, buy a house, take a vacation,maybe retire?
What are we working men and women in America supposed to do? Crawl under a rock and die? I truly believe that the goal of American capitalists for the last thirty years was to take as much for themselves as humanly possible and drive down the living standards of working people.
They have succeeded. I am tired.
It is all over but the crying.
Goodnight,
Eric

The Senator from North Carolina stated on NPR today that unions are the sole reason why Detroit is in trouble. He added that Unions are antiquated vestiges from another time that need to be eradicated if America is to thrive in the "Global Free Market".

Well that guy sounds like a walking talking rectum,what an ignoramus. What does a North Carolina Senator know about building cars in Detroit? If he had his way we would have slaves making cars under a bull whip. What makes this guy think we should cut wages to what they are in Bangladesh to compete in the world market. That guy knows about as much about the "Global Free Market" as cbg knows about labor law, which is bupkas.
JoeC (McGruff)

An eleventh-hour effort to salvage a proposed $14 billion rescue plan for the auto industry collapsed as Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on the timing of deep wage cuts for union workers, killing the legislative plan and threatening America's car makers with bankruptcy.


The negotiations were based on a plan advanced by Sen. Corker (R-Tenn.Union busting rectum). His proposal sought to reduce the wages and benefits of union workers by requiring the automakers' total labor costs to be "on par" with those in nonunion U.S. plants of foreign automakers such as Toyota and Honda, according to a summary of the bill. The proposal would have required automakers to reduce their debt obligations by at least two-thirds through an equity swap with bond holders. Payouts to workers who are laid off or temporarily furloughed would be terminated.

Not coincidentally, the Chattanooga area recently landed a new VW plant and Tennessee has been attracting foreign car companies for a while thru the use of taxpayer monies. This highlights that some of the dispute is based on region rather than political party. Also, if the concern is American jobs, "foreign" automakers may be more important than the Detroit automakers.

Corker is out of step with the white house,and a majority of his party,but he is lock step with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation,The National Right to Work Committee . Groups dedicated to union busting and right to work laws.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger replied below.

http://www.uaw.org/auto/12_12_08auto2.cfm

McGruffs ansewer simple buy American buy Union! http://www.wslc.org/photos/temp/06-union-car-guide.pdf
JoeC (McGruff)

Got a P.M from a new member cyjeff he did not have the balls to post in the forum, he is a regular over at LLT trying to corner the ignorance market. Here is his profile https://joeslegalforum.forumotion.net/profile.forum?mode=viewprofile&u=116

How about the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM? How, in both cases, it was directly contributed to the automakers' inability to provide a cost positive solution after paying off union leeches? Figured out how to rationalize how CEO's of the automakers' have to work for a government mandated wage... but the union leadership is untouchable?

You are leading the way to socialism... and consider yourself proud of the act....
Have you figured out yet that your precious unions are a blight upon each and every industry they have touched... and now, when union leadership is actually willing to HELP members lose jobs to illegals, I wonder how much longer you have in your position.

This is typical of "union buster right to work types", refering to hard working men and women as leeches, and the poor CEO's who were going to buy their private island in Dubia borrowed money from the goverment and do not want goverment oversight. WAH. This guy is walking talking rectum.
JoeC (McGruff)

Your precious unions have cost thousands of jobs this year... as plants closed and the unions looked the other way as common workers lost their jobs and homes. They demanded that their position remain unchanged regardless of the economic circumstances... even as they pushed the very companies they were "negotiating" with into bankruptcy...

Because GM's bankruptcy was okay, right... as long as the union didn't take a hit.

Why? Because the leeches at the highest level of the unions (the leeches I was referring to) decided that it was better to lose 47,000 jobs of union members than to give up some of the perks that make the unions so very profitable. It took a presidential mandate from the most liberal and socialist president EVER to get them to budge even a LITTLE....

They GLADLY sold their members down the river... and you still seem okay with that. Next on the agenda is to unionize the illegal workforce... thereby making it even HARDER for those 47,000 unionized Americans to find a job.

You tell me... how does it feel when you realize that a union is just another business worried about the bottom line? When you find out that union leadership is more concerned about their jobs and bonuses than the very men and women they were supposedly protecting? When you find out the dirty tricks can be used against the membership as easily as the "enemy"... the enemy, of course, being the people that actually build businesses in this country.... those same businesses that will now move offshore...

How many GM products are going to be built at that new plant in Brazil? How about the one in China?

How does it feel to realize you are chasing businesses out of the country... and then complaining that they won't come back and take their beating like you thought they would? Will you feel victorious as you carpool to the unemployment office?

I know that the truth is hard to accept... but you got sold a bill of goods.

On the plus side, the unions now won't have to pay homeless people to picket anymore... when union members will have the time...

Myopic? Hey thats a big word for a small mind. When ever an industry runs in to trouble "if they are Unionized" the workers get the blame first amongnst union busters, this is foolish, and is really just a slight of hand for those that want to bust unions. However if workers are not unionized, and the company goes under then different factors are reviewed. Non Union comapnys run into finacial straights all the time they also file chapter 11 far more often than unionised companys. Yet do you hear anyone blaming it on the employees wages when they go under. So that arguments thin.


As far as Union excutives salarys and big three CEO's and Vice presidents salarys they are not even close in comaparison. The Union executives salarys are paid by the rank and file not the auto manufacture.

Labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The total labor cost of a new vehicle produced in the United States is about $2,400, which includes direct, indirect and salaried labor for engines, stamping and assembly at the automakers’ plants.

This represents 8.4 percent of the typical $28,451 price of a new vehicle in 2006. The vast majority of the costs of producing a vehicle and transporting it to a dealership and preparing it for sale – including design, engineering, marketing, raw materials, executive compensation and other costs – are not related to direct or indirect manufacturing labor.

The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy as blaming the Unions. If The big three were in the red no would be talking about overpaid union workers. Also Toyota recently felt the blow as well, so the Unions have little or nothing to do with the current problems facing auto manufactures.

Of course large trade unions have large costs the only one seems suprised about that is you cyjeff, executives in large unions are paid well, your acting like some how or another their earnings are ill got. That is silly.

Now as far as contract concesions not being made that is plain wrong. The United Auto Workers members voted overwhelmingly to accept concessions with General Motors Corp.UAW members voted 74 percent in favor of the deal that includes giving up cost-of-living raises and performance bonuses and one paid holiday in 2010 and 2011. The deal also suspends tuition assistance and dental coverage, and reduces prescription drug coverage.

With the propaganda you are spewing you wont be loosing your Swastika any time soon.
JoeC (McGruff)

No reply from the unionbuster? No surprise for union busting propaganda to work, first you need a thug to moderate the forum (the Nazi cbg). Remove the thug the union buster is exposed as a buffoon with little more than slogans and propaganda. This type of rhetoric is what one can expect to barraged with at work during captive audience speech's clearly the need to pass the EFCA has been well illustrated on this thread.

Once fair debate in the work place ensues union busters like cyjeff have to join the ranks of the homeless. cyjeff has just been handed his lunch he will not be back, with out the Nazi cbg to remove posts and lock threads he is just a punk.

JoeC (McGruff)