Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Needless to say Honda and Toyota aren't US companies.
Its going to be far easier to fix the US auto makers (who's primarily problem is not the cars they make) than to try to build a new US auto industry. Honda and Toyota aren't going to move all production to the US.... the issue is not only domestic production but also have something to you know....trade with the rest of the world.
It doesn't matter if they are US companies or not..remember this is a "global" economy ?
Toyota and Honda already have in place what is needed to move forward.
They also do not have the spector of a union weighing them down.
They are also employing US taxpayers.
Might as well start getting used to being owned by a foreign Corporation.
Time to stir this pot. Everyone who thinks the auto workers at GM, Ford, or Chrysler makes too much, I ask you to try to do their job. Can you install 3 parts, cover 42 feet and be back at the next vehicle in 40 seconds for 10 hours a day? Believe me, I've seen these people who say that the autoworkers are overpaid walk out of these plants and never go back saying the work was too hard for the pay. Asking workers to take a pay cut when for the last 15 years they have had stagnant pay and have given up benefits and pay when the clowns running the companies are raking in millions making bad decisions is in my opinion a jerkwads attitude.
As for the nonsense about the UAW workers pay should be reduced to the ***/ import companies workers pay levels, ! What SHOULD happen is the import compannies should have to PAY UP to the levels of the UAW workers. The autoworkers are not raking in the bucks many claim. More like $50k for 10 hours a day, 5 days aweek. And this isn't 1980 anymore when 50k was alot. It's 2008 when $50k gross a year is the bottom of the middleclass. It strikes me as odd that people who make 6 figure incomes say the autoworkers are overpaid. Begs the question, "Then how overpaid are you making near or more than 6 figures a year"?
How soon people forget that the contracts last year with the big 3 put workers wages in the mid teens from the mid 20's. And stupid (but self serving I want it all for me attitude type) people want the workers to give up more?
I do think some educated people are jealous of the pay of autoworkers, but those same people won't do the work it takes to put those fenders on a vehicle. When I worked for Ford years ago, I had to train a good number of very educated people (Masters degrees) on jobs that they wouldn't/couldn't do. Like sitting in an office on one's somewhere making poor marketing decisions is worth more than the guy/gal making a real product.
Now do I think that the car companies should be bailedout? Some part of me says yes, but another part of me says let them file bankrupt, then maybe the idiots that have run them into the ground will get ousted and fresh minds will take over. Look at it this way, GM as an example had at one time so much market share, that the government was looking at forcing them to split up into at least 2 car companies. Then in the early 70's, the bean counter side of GM's brass took over from the former "gearhead" engineers that had always run GM. What has happened since the bean counters (financiers always cutting cost and looking for the quick buck return, unlike the car guys that used to run the companies)took over? Continued decline in market share and sales. See why maybe getting rid of those clowns might be a good idea?
Your "Big Two" get tax breaks from the states in which they run their operations.
If the Big 3 also got tax breaks, they would have a lot more cash in hand and wouldnt need a LOAN.
During WW2 the Detroit 3 started making planes, tanks, etc.
What if we have a war against Japan?
Will your "Big Two" help fight against their own country?
Go try to find a computer hard drive made in the US today.
Will Asian countries keep supplying equipment when it's not in their best interest ?
I would not worry too much about another war with Japan. Look at China instead and see how crippled we would become if they didn't fight with us and supply us if there were a war.
I
The thing that irritates us is that the UAW in particular, wants to continually believe that their employees are far better apparently than the rest of us and deserve to be making $70,$80,$90K for some jobs that people didn't need to go to school to do. That is not the associates fault,it is the UAW.
How can they continue to pay the wages they pay,continue to pay OT to associates and there are those on other threads who say they don't pay OT anymore, they do..
Just wanted to note that the numbers you were about US auto workers are usually ideological motivated. That is to say, they are intentionally deceptive.
US auto makers make around $3~4 more per hour than those at foreign (non-union) auto plants in the US. So yes, the unions inflate wages but not by the amounts one often hears.
Secondly, I think the whole "I have a fancy degree so I should get paid more" line is a bit...hmm....odd. How much you get paid is about supply and demand, not how much formal education you have. If too many people study X in college then jobs that involve X are going to drop in pay because there are less jobs than there are people to fill them. Also, pay is related to the desirability of the job. Working an assembly line 8 hours a day 5 days a week isn't exactly pleasant work.
The salary numbers were inflated.
I think the hourly wage is about $28/hour..throw in the bennies received by the workers and it comes to $38/hour which is in line with Toyota and Honda.
The difference is that Toyota and Honda do not have the retiree base that the big Three do.
So, letting such important companies collapse because they weren't able to deal with two very large shocks in the system is short sighted at best. Letting them collapse is going to be very expensive....and could push the economy into another major depression. Like I said...just remember your ideology when you are in the soup line.
You are missing another point - the collapse of the auto industry will occur, baliout or not, unless the U.S. government keeps them on a permanent subsidized bailout process - maybe $100 billion a year for years to come, decades to come. That's fine, we subsidize the rail industry, some farming, but do we want that for the auto industry?
Everone will support the bail out IF WE ARE CONFIDENT IT WILL WORK and they will later become self reliant. I'm not convinced of that at this stage, many others are not either. They just cannot survive with their current labor structure. It's impossible. What finally caught up with the auto industry is the incredible cost of supporting all these retired union employees, even when they close plants and layoff workers, these costs remain. In some ways those retired auto workers doomed their children with there benifit plans negotiated by the power of the unions. Now the UAW, to put it bluntly, most be crushed to face some harsh realities - either the current and retired employees are going to get much less, to fit the market, or they will get nothing.
The salary numbers were inflated.
I think the hourly wage is about $28/hour..throw in the bennies received by the workers and it comes to $38/hour which is in line with Toyota and Honda.
The difference is that Toyota and Honda do not have the retiree base that the big Three do.
Yes the original figures on labor costs were averaged out to $70 or $80 an hour by the auto industry, and then the UAW came back out with their own well publicized press aying "no, no, no...it's more like $28 an hour". Who is correct? Both are, both can manipulate figures. The UAW isn't including the incredible amount of benifits, including retirement, that the labor unions negotiated on their behalf. The auto industry's figures on the other hand is also inflated to include supplies and other variable labor costs - paperwork to mange employees, toilet paper in the restrooms, etc.
The difference also, indded, is that Japan doesn't have the huge retirement base. Not yet anyways. But I suspect they have planned for that in their usual efficient manner.
The amount of resistance to help working Americans is amazing....it says a lot about where this country has gone.
The resistance has nothing to do with "the amount of resistance to help working Americans." It has everything to do with a bloated and inefficient system of business and unions, and their unwillingness to make meaningful changes to a failed model, in return for billions of dollars of money that without changes will nothing but waste thrown down a drain.
Also, please refrain from that class warfare term "working Americans", which in the context of your statement is meant as "blue collar union workers", as if anyone who doesn't do manual labor or isn't part of a union doesn't really "work." I don't belong to a union and never will, and I work much harder than many of those union members, many of whom are paid to sit on their butts all day at a "jobs bank."
The amount of resistance to help working Americans is amazing....it says a lot about where this country has gone.
I was against the bailout of the financial institutions. They never should have gotten a dime. But once again the government used fear tactics and handed over our money anyway.
They won't help the automakers because they don't have any bribe money to pass around
You are missing another point - the collapse of the auto industry will occur, baliout or not, unless the U.S. government keeps them on a permanent subsidized bailout process - maybe $100 billion a year for years to come, decades to come.
Why is this? Is their some magical reason why the US auto companies can't restructure and become viable?
Quote:
Originally Posted by neil0311
Also, please refrain from that class warfare term "working Americans", which in the context of your statement is meant as "blue collar union workers", as if anyone who doesn't do manual labor or isn't part of a union doesn't really "work." I don't belong to a union and never will, and I work much harder than many of those union members, many of whom are paid to sit on their butts all day at a "jobs bank."
This is funny, you complain about me using a "class warfare term", yet pull out the typical lines against unions. The irony...is uncanny.
Regardless, please refrain from telling people what they mean. My statement had nothing to do with your issues with other classes and had nothing to do with "blue collar union workers". Rather working Americans, rather than say the leeches of Rentier capitalism.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
! What SHOULD happen is the import compannies should have to PAY UP to the levels of the UAW workers. The autoworkers are not raking in the bucks many claim. More like $50k for 10 hours a day, 5 days aweek. And this isn't 1980 anymore when 50k was alot. It's 2008 when $50k gross a year is the bottom of the middleclass. It strikes me as odd that people who make 6 figure incomes say the autoworkers are overpaid. Begs the question, "Then how overpaid are you making near or more than 6 figures a year"?
