Laugh at the cartoon all you want, but I find zero good reasons why line workers should be making more and have better benefits than the degreed engineers designing the cars they're building. I've talked to Ford engineers, it's common.

Yeah, that cartoon implies that the worker deserves X amenities. If the job doesn't offer what you think you deserve, don't take it. If you are a good worker, then you will be able to choose between several jobs, creating competition for your services, unless you are performing a task that already has a surplus of skilled labor....

The cartoon doesn't make me laugh really. I think it is illustrative.

I have been a degreed professionally-licensed engineer in manufacturing for over 20 years, and have worked with many many "line workers" in 20+ factories in the US, Canada, France, and Germany - some union, most not. I have also done things like "production manager", "maintenance supervisor", "machine shop supervisor". For the first 10-12 years of my career some of those workers, if not most of them, made more in annual pay than I did, even though they barely made it out of high school (or didn't). Usually this happened because of most or all of the following reasons:
- they rotated shifts which you know really really sucks if you have ever done it
- they worked overtime, often a lot, sometimes too much
- they are physically spent at the end of their shift, and then also when they retire.
- they had been with the company for 20 or 30 years (8 weeks paid vacation plus 10 paid holidays too compared to my 2 + 10). Imagine the 30+year guys working for me - the snot-nosed know-it-all kid out of college - always good for a laugh.
- they were not mindless quasi-robots "operating an air ratchet". They had to be semi-skilled, and versed in quality control, production procedures, machine or die set-up, and even minor maintenance. The better ones could operate different machines in different areas of the plant.
- they were supervised to death and couldn't get away with taking kids to doctor, showing up late now and then, cutting out early on Fridays, staying home with a sick child, 1-hour lunch breaks, composing diatribes on internet chat forums during work hours, etc.
- the reason they were supervised to death is because when they don't show up or fall down on the job it has direct measurable consequences that very day. Sometimes engineers don't show up for days and nobody notices... sometimes.

Them getting paid more than I did pissed me off at first too... until I spent time rotating shifts with them, and actually living in their world for a while. Faak dat.

The company where I saw most of this is an auto-related company that is still in business and still successful despite fierce global competition. Most of these workers were *not* unionized.

Now I'm not an power-to-the-proletariat type guy, but people are barking up the wrong tree if they think that the US automakers' troubles stem from the line workers and their union wanting to keep the middleclass lifestyle for their hard work (like their parents had) or maybe even do a little better.

That's all I meant by posting the cartoon.

Don't confuse "deserve" with "want". I think the use of the word "need" in the cartoon is meant to be ironic.

Maybe those Ford engineers that ALM mentions - the ones bitching about the line workers' pay should take your advice. Sounds to me like they might be the ones thinking they "deserve" something.

The real problems with the union labor is not providing fair (or some would argue, over fair) wages for line workers. The problem is that the Big 3 are still paying massive pensions for line workers that haven't built a car since 1975.

When an engineer retires, he's pretty much off the books. When a union worker retires, he's basically making a wage for the rest of his life due to the great negotiation skills of the union reps back in the day. For every guy building a car today that's making more than an engineer, there's also another guy that used to put the hubcaps on Gremlins that's still getting paid as well.

Plus, as all those pensioned workers age, their medical insurance costs go up... costs that are still getting paid by GM/Ford/Chrysler. I'm sure that back in the 60's when these contracts were created, no one then thought folks were going to be living into their 90's with crazy high medical expenses. People used to just die. Now people go through 4 years of expensive procedures to stay alive just a bit longer... all the while still collecting for a job they had 35 years ago.

The use of the word "deserve" is applied because of the mentality of the Union (and to a large extent, the populace of the USA). I come from a family of SFO Teamster's Union leaders, I'm kinda familiar with the worship of the Working Man.

The next sequence in the cartoon should by rights be the skilled worker dropping the tools in the top zipper of the Golden Parachute.

As far as pay rates go, there is no reason why a line worker should not be paid $100,000 an hour, if he is the only mechanically skilled person in sight when Paris Hilton's golf cart breaks down (based on a true story, minus the $100,000 part).

I should note also that I got the same pension as the production people. I am fully vested and even though I haven't worked for Michelin in 8 years they owe me $750/month when I retire. Not much by then, but still something. Companies (and governments too) that give pensions are supposed to manage the pension funds in such a way that they remain solvent despite things like an increase in life expectancy (predictable - it's been on the rise for 100's of years). Maybe easier said than done.

Also don't take me as a super pro-union guy. I am trained in "union busting" and have some experience in it while supervising 40 maintenance guys during a mildly-nasty union organizing campaign. The unionizing failed because the company was generally good to the people and they realized they could be worse off by unionizing. Would the workers be as well off without the threat of a union hanging over the company's head? I dunno. Unions gave all of us anti-child-labor laws, the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, etc. and they have their place still even today. But the UAW is prolly one of the worst I guess, and they will need to give concessions to the automakers to pull out this mess. Like they said in FMJ, "Basically it's a big shit sandwich, and we're all gonna hafta take a bite".

Beautiful idea....until the oil company's release a statement that would go something like,
"Due to the financial hardships we have recently faced after bailing out the automakers, gas prices will be $5.00 a gallon to offset losses."
We will pay for it one way or another.

First of all, I believe that oil companies report profits higher than any other industry or something along those lines. They can do it because we will pay it. It seems to me that the price of gas rarely has anything to do with the cost of doing business. They can most likely afford to bail out the car companies without passing on the cost to us...doesn't mean they wouldn't use it as an excuse if forced into it, but the proposal was that they would do this voluntarily to promote demand, down the road.

2nd, keeping the gas guzzlers coming is going to keep demand high which is in the oil companie's best interest. So bailing out the car companies would likely raise the cost of gas, but only down the road when we continue to have gas guzzlers on the road sucking up the supply with their demand.

I haven't researched it, but I bet gas prices are low right now because demand has gone down due to the high costs forcing people to change their vehicles and driving habbits. We're starting to curb our oil addiction so they're making it cheap again.

That's my take anyway.

The root of the problem wouldn't be solved by an oil-cartel bailout, because it's a lack of demand for American cars. NOBODY outside of the US buys American anymore, and we're steadily buying more and more imports for a variety of reasons- some tangible, some purely in our heads- that the bailout won't fix. That's why the question in Congress isn't whether or not Detroit should get the bailout, it's whether or not one would do any good, and are the Big 3 ready to finally learn what Japanese and German manufacturers figured out 30 years ago? If they really are going to restructure and shift responsibility back towards R&D and engineering/design and away from marketing and accounting, then I would be in favor of giving them whatever they need to get there. If they're going to continue sitting on their ancient marketing models for selling cars, no dollar amount in the world is going to stave off their slow, strangling death.

35 years ago Honda and Toyota figured out how to beat us at a game we invented. All we have to do is copycat them right back with just a dash of innovation and we can return to being the 800 pound gorilla of the industry.

Oh, as for current prices- it's a direct result of the giant crap the worldwide economy is taking, not from reduced demand. Demand has barely fluctuated in the last year.

Oh yah, I'd say let them crash and burn and rebuild or get overtaken by new startups that foster innovation and dependability. But isn't one of the arguments for bailouts that these companies/industries are so large that if they fail, they can take the whole economy with them?

Sorry, but the big 3 are doing quite well in every country but the U.S. and sales are expanding, not contracting overseas.

Okay, please don't bring the 800lb Gorilla term here, I can't take it. There is a salesman at my company from Toronto who uses it at least three times per conversation. I think he's full retarded, during a conference call, I asked him to find a new overused catchphase. He got laid off.

Matt, will you come work for IGT? We need managers with some balls. :lol:

I know at least two have since moved on to greener pastures..

..partially because Ford is a shit company that paid them less than UAW line workers.

Unions have served very useful purposes in our history, but they have also gotten incredibly greedy at times, particularly in the auto industry. Steadily giving factory workers fat raises until they're making $80k/yr running the same air wrench they were 20 years ago is fucking stupid. Paying that same factory worker a fat pension 30 years after he stops doing any work for the company is fucking stupid. I'm sorry, but it just is. I'm not going to get a pension from anyone working as an engineer, I'll be lucky to even collect social security when I "retire", not that I'll ever be able to actually retire. I pretty much figure I'm going to have to work until the blissful day that I finally die, to make ends meet. Am I bitter about it? You're goddamned right I am.

Now, that's not to say that the UAW is solely responsible for Detroit's woes, because it's clearly not. The management at these companies for the last couple of decades has been a fiasco at best, and the two have combined to put the entire industry in a screaming nosedive right into a filthy, truckstop quality toilet. And they deserve every second of the massive chocolate swirlie they're getting right now, because of the horrible decisions of everyone involved.

I will be FLAMING PISSED[tm] if my tax dollars are used to bail out these assclowns, especially if it's done without significantly restructuring all the deals they have with their unions. :mad:

The economy has me sceered, I don't want to make any moves right now...:cool:

Haha. Yeah, our salespeople know they need to be on their best behavior with us logistics folks, or we call them out, throw them under the bus and insult their intelligence in one single swoop. :D


On topic though, many of our large customers have notified us that they will be closing for the last 2 or 3 weeks of December, due to lack of customer orders, or inability to make payroll, etc. Scary times.

And yet, complete and utter disaster on the bottom line. Their success overseas in developing countries is largely a result of buying smallish foreign manufacturers and continuing to sell their shitty cars to populations that don't know what a good car is and/or can't afford them.

Show me where an true American car (core Detroit product, manufactured in North America if not the US) is competing successfully overseas with its Japanese, Korean and German competition. If you can, I'll cede the point that it's solely in the US that the Big 3 are sucking ass. But I think it will prove difficult.

Win.

You know not of what you speak... Watch CNBC, read an annual or quarterly report, listen to a shareholder conference call or try Google... The big three are kicking ass in developing nations and have been for a number of years.

I never claimed they were US manufactured, but some are.

The reason they are competitive and growing overseas is the lack of legacy costs as has been previously stated in this thread as the major issue in this country.

Looks like it'll be $15B for the auto industry

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...-hearing_N.htm

This thread needs more flamebait

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/6012/bailoutyk2.jpg

Saw an interesting option. Have the unions and their members take a large equity stake in the companies if they think they are so great and should not fail.

UPS did something remotely similar when they went public, although in different times and circumstances.

If the UAW thinks the little 3 companies can survive, then put your money where your mouth is! Save your own jobs.

The investment banks did not beg Washington for money, they were all but forced to take money. The investment banking industry is dead and some actually failed and all the others made drastic changes in business models in a matter of DAYS, and many thousands of jobs are gone.

GM mostly just doesn't understand how drastically they have to change and how fast...

Serberius can save Chrysler if they want to.

Ford can probably survive if their suppliers can survive GM's failure.

Ironically, I'm currently shopping for one of those vans for Lisa's parents, though I think the Chrysler T&C would be a better value than the Ford... the Ford is certainly nicer.

Ya because that's real constitutional. How about we let them fail, retool, and comeback with some products people actually want. Any "void" in the market will be filled. I'm sick of this b.s. about "if the auto industry fails America will fall".

Don't get me wrong I love the oil idustry as much as you all do, but things like this would only in the long run give them more power and girth.