Interesting read on Big 3 bailout.

Easy Bischof.. I am only relaying what I know from talking to the employees themselves. I have no desire to quit being a QA Software Engineer and start working on an assembly line. It's simply the way it is and has been for a long time. I actually have never met anyone around here that will say different in either plant. A simple example is my father-in-law.. Worked at GM for over 30 years.. Worked 15-25 hours of overtime each week for over 30 years as well. He worked on the robots when they went down. Many if not most days he surfed the internet and read the paper. They were fine with that because he is just there if something breaks.

A different approach would be to staff accordingly and keep OT to a minimum. In the downtime there would be other productive jobs to do. But again it's just not the way it has been for years. My other friend is one that worked for Chrysler.. He was there just long enough as a part time employee to be brought on as a fulltime before they had layoffs. He ended up working there for just under 5 years and actually worked just under three. Never received less than 90% of his salary. Sure it's a great deal, but no way to run a profitable company. Heck the shipping guy at my work now makes 10 bucks an hour and then goes to Chrysler part time and makes mid 20's to put the same part in over and over at a slow pace... He too laughs all the way to the bank. He is the one they usually send home and pay anyway. He himself doesn't understand why they can't be more organized and not have them make the drive in so they wouldn't have to pay them.

Just my experience. Sorry to offend.. It's just known around here. It would be good to see a worker write in that see's it differently.. Maybe other plants are ran more efficiently.
 
I have never worked in a union and I can honestly say that everyone feels the cuts made over the last 10 years - bonuses reduced /eliminated, 401k benefits reduced and higher prices of consumables - most important energy and food!

That being said I think the trickle down of the big three failing would be a kick in the nutz to the country on a whole. We need to help the industry out and we to get more manufacturing jobs back in the USA. That is what is REALLY needed to turn the economy around. I would make it a requirement that upon bailing any industry out we require the need for US based jobs. Let's get lean in manufacturing and become #1 again!
 
1. don't bash on unions if you have never been part of one
2. study history and see why they are revelent part of history
3. remember all pay is aggreed upon in a contract between the company and
the workers

i have belonged to two seperate unions and both were about the same, and yes there are those bad apples that get away with murder that the union protects and the older members are usually the ones because of some issue from there past so they coast..blah,blah...a case can be made everywhere in any job...

Typical work day on a machining line...18lb casting loaded on a merry-go-round type of machining center...load part, unload finished part place on pallet to left, turn pick up raw casting off of pallet to your right and load machine in the place where the finished part is removed....repeat this to machine 700 parts in a shift, just h0pe when you get to work that the forktruck driver shows up for work so your not having to move your finished and raw castings yourself...

$22/hour now there is an incentive to do more and recieve more pay

if the machine runs at rate which is 83% for 8hours you do 500 parts and get paid $22 x 8 = 176
700 parts = 33% bonus = $29.26/hour, breaks and lunch at machine many times areas have team bonus, and if the line as a whole does well and you make the number for production over 30/hour is not uncommon and now add in overtime with saturdays(time 1 1/2=33/hour) and sunday(double=44/hour) work and yes you can make 80-100,000 a year.

base pay on this job is $45,760.....

this is my example to explain high pay..and well deserved
 
Same where I'm from...local paper mill…same production incentive as coldplay stated…did so well they rented all the storage warehousing space the city had to offer & paid big bucks for it too. Then well you guessed it, we have to much paper…one line shut down, the two, workers laid off…affected everyone…& guess what, the internet was born, full speed ahead…PLANT CLOSED…no bail out! $10.00 or $22.00 an hour, union or non-union won’t fix the problem when profit is all that matters to “BIG CORRPRATE PIGS” If I had a business it would be for profit not for a loss & not to just get by, to become wealthy! It’s the big “ AMERICAN DREAM” isn’t it…Take banks for instance on a mortgage is 5% or 7% enough profit to make, who knows…My opinion is 1.5 % would be plenty, 1% going back to the banker for profit & .5% going to stabilize losses…this is the key here people “STABALIZE LOSSES” but no… “BIG CORRPRATE PIGS” want all profit at all cost. I do how ever agree that the “ BIG 3 “ need help…we all need help…myself I scrapped & worked hard for over 25 years to put funds away for my children higher education…I want something better for them. I took a loss on them funds, will I get a bail out or should I say will they? We have to stop pointing fingers & work together union or non-union…the old saying “divide & conquer” is already in play, by who…”THE BIG CORRPRATE PIGS” of our world driven by greed! God speed to us all for a brighter tomorrow…
 
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....base pay on this job is $45,760.....

Seems kind of paltry compared to GM's CEO's salary last year of $8.9 million!!! - Ford's CEO got somewhere around $12 million I think!!

It is not so much the wage as it is the benefits - these automakers have alot of retirees now that are draining down pension money and continuing to cost the companies for health care expense - the foreign companies that have set up shop here have done so in "non-union" states and have a younger work force - compounds the problem the older domestic companies have in competing - some of the NAFTA moves to Mexico have resulted in quality problems - you see how complex it starts to get - I think they can turn around, but it will take alot of work in alot of areas!! :dunno:
 
Good point Yammi, health care benefits are a major component of the legacy costs. If the health care system in this country could be reworked we would relieve a major capital drain on not only the auto makers but a great majority of employers in this country. IMHO it would be a great way to make all industries more compeatitive. It's a complicated matrix of factors that are the cause of the slide in manufacturing.

The pay issue is a funny thing as well. The unions are an easy target but look at the compensation to the upper levels of management. I'm kinda pulling numbers outa my a** here from memory but I'm betting they're not far off. In the 70's upper management made something like 3 or 4 times the average line worker, now it's something like 200. I'm betting if the unions were eliminated you would see that number go to something like 600 times the average laborer's salary.

Edit:

I found this after I posted. It was 30 to 40 times in 1980 and now it's just under 400 times.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/08/25/ceo-compensation/
 
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Coldplay97 said:
1. don't bash on unions if you have never been part of one
2. study history and see why they are revelent part of history
3. remember all pay is aggreed upon in a contract between the company and
the workers

i have belonged to two seperate unions and both were about the same, and yes there are those bad apples that get away with murder that the union protects and the older members are usually the ones because of some issue from there past so they coast..blah,blah...a case can be made everywhere in any job...

Typical work day on a machining line...18lb casting loaded on a merry-go-round type of machining center...load part, unload finished part place on pallet to left, turn pick up raw casting off of pallet to your right and load machine in the place where the finished part is removed....repeat this to machine 700 parts in a shift, just h0pe when you get to work that the forktruck driver shows up for work so your not having to move your finished and raw castings yourself...

$22/hour now there is an incentive to do more and recieve more pay

if the machine runs at rate which is 83% for 8hours you do 500 parts and get paid $22 x 8 = 176
700 parts = 33% bonus = $29.26/hour, breaks and lunch at machine many times areas have team bonus, and if the line as a whole does well and you make the number for production over 30/hour is not uncommon and now add in overtime with saturdays(time 1 1/2=33/hour) and sunday(double=44/hour) work and yes you can make 80-100,000 a year.

base pay on this job is $45,760.....

this is my example to explain high pay..and well deserved
Click to expand...
'


There's alot of warehouse jobs that move just as much, if not more material than you and make half of what you get paid. I was a victim of this exact example and YES this WAS a UNION based company. Top pay for this job was $14/hr but it took you 5 years to get it. My job was to unload 48-53ft semi trailers PACKED with thousands of box's(1000-2000)weighing from nothing to 300lbs, on a typical day we would unload 4-6 trailers, each weighing from 20,000-50,000lbs. Each trailer would take about an hour to an hour and a half, now you wanna talk about moving some weight compared to your 18lbX700=12600lbs in a 8hr day.....Theres alot of people out there that do alot more for alot less than you do.....BTW alot of the top pay guys I worked with had a normal living styles: house, family, newer vehicle's, some toys and is still able to stay above water till this day.
 
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A lot of good points. I don't agree with the pay in Coldplay's example though...

Basically if you have a hard worker they should make between 80-100 thousand per year??? How many americans wish that was the case especially with no College education...

What if rate was 500 and goal was 700... If you were bringing the team down on rate you lost your job and were replaced with a new worker that was willing to work harder to make the numbers? Your salary was 45,000 all year long and OT was great when it was available, but the company usually used temps to fill the fluctuations in business because they didn't have to pay them as high of a wage and could let them go at any time without having layoffs to their fulltime employees. Also no benefits to the temps. Temps work out because their are enough unskilled positions that can be filled and because the company crosstrained the full time employees they are flexible..

Maybe a simplier way to put it is if you have a business where your line workers make 80-100,000 a year, there is going to be another company that will come along that is going to have a lower cost per unit. You have to keep labor rates low to be competitive today. Doubling ones salary for working hard and working OT just won't hold up in today's economy. Letting a good worker go to keep a lazy one doesn't help your business either. I don't think anyone would say that is a well run business.. That being said that is why it is hard for me to support the loan.

We could talk about how we would all run our own business all day right?? The reality is this is much larger than we can comprehend. The number of manufacturers outside of the big three is where I really see the problem... Basically the big three have the government right where they want them... If it weren't for all the small business suppliers it would be much easier to let them fold. The way they are structured now it is hard not to give them the loan. Still.. I'd like to see at least one fold and wake up the other two and change business practices that more closely match probably where most of us work today. I know I don't get a 33% bonus for working hard any day of the week. :) It's expected everyday. We don't have OT that goes on for years costing us millions.. We react to the business and staff accordingly.
 
these same jobs i mentioned in my example are going to china for .60 an hour, and there is no way to compete even if we took no benefits, and worked for $5.00 an hour....add i shipping costs to get the parts back to the states and its still cheaper, that is why we had tarriffs to keepthe playing fied equal but now were a service country, instead of manufacturing, with parts on cars that are so inferior than that we had 10 years ago...

have you done a brake job on you car lately, parts are junk
 
Agreed. That is why I no longer work for Motorola... It just wasn't possible to get the labor costs down to what Nokia could do and they closed my plant. It was an impressive facility and only 6 years old. I also felt it was very well ran.

Competing overseas is a whole nudder conversation...I just think you run as lean as you can here in the states that's all.. Who knows what will happen. I defintely wish the best to those effected. For me it changed my entire career path... and it was some rough times...but in the end I feel it was for the better. Never hurts to take a second look at your future.
 
snowdust said:
Agreed. That is why I no longer work for Motorola... It just wasn't possible to get the labor costs down to what Nokia could do and they closed my plant. It was an impressive facility and only 6 years old. I also felt it was very well ran.

Competing overseas is a whole nudder conversation...I just think you run as lean as you can here in the states that's all.. Who knows what will happen. I defintely wish the best to those effected. For me it changed my entire career path... and it was some rough times...but in the end I feel it was for the better. Never hurts to take a second look at your future.
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Yea if GM goes under and our dealership goes under, Ill be going back to school to finalize my certifications in GMAW(MIG) and SMAW(Stick) welding. Which more than likely will force me to relocate to another state but you gotta do what you gotta do to stay above water. Im hoping for the best though cause for the first time in my life I actually enjoy my job alot. Being a Parts Manager at the age of 23 is something Im fortunate for cause if you walk into any other dealership, 9 times out of 10 the manager is 40+ yrs of age.
 
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What makes me sick is that any article you read on this problem they always mention the overpaid workforce or the high benefits. What about all these overpaid executives that are raping these companies? Wasnt it just a couple years ago it was published that the ford CEO maid over a million a day in one year with all his bonuses and stock options? Doesnt anyone else feel this is ridiculous!
My biggest problem with all these bailouts is that the money just ends up in the "fatcats" pockets once again and this time all of us working class are paying for it!
I am a union worker myself and yes i do see some problems with unions but on the otherhand they are the only reason we still have respectable paychecks. With everthing going to china and elsewhere we cannot compete with their payscales regardless. The way things are going the working class will be making walmart wages sooner or later.
 
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what you guys think of the 3 big car manufacturer CEO's flying to Washington in their Private Jets with tin cups in their hands asking for money.Now that is a real kick in the a$$ if you ask me.They really don't care about the little guy,they just want their pockets lined and that is it.Taxpayers I think should all be disturbed with that stupid move.And when they were asked if they would sell their Jets for the better of their companies,there was no reply.There should be no bail out here as far as I am concerned.They got their companies in the position it is in now because they didn't care and they would lead you to believe that with a bail out that they would start to care now.It is a little to late I would say.Because of their greed,millions upon millions of regular workers will pay the price and the ripple effect will be unbelievable to say the least.Hang on to your hats because the ride is about to get a little rougher.
 
This might be nothing more than a Dog and Pony show by the automakers and the Congress - they come begging, Congress says no, they file bankrupcy, and bing - no more Union - once they file, they can re-write their contracts and the UAW as we know it will be gone - high wages were not their demise - it was letting foreign automakers come to this country and build their cars with non-union labor - I think it shakes out to something like $35 per hour to build non-union compared to $79 per hour to build union - pretty big advantage - we are rapidly becoming a third world country in this global economy - remember, EVERYTHING is relative!!!
 
What we have at GM is 100,000 middle class people about to lose their jobs.
You can argue all you want about weather or not they're over paid but the fact remains that these people contribute a great deal to our economy and standing back and letting one of the largest manufacturers in our country go down is going to have a negative impact on all of our lives. The line worker making around $50K is paying for a house, food, clothes, college for their kids, they take their families out to dinner on vacation, they buy tv's, boats, SNOWMOBILES, the list goes on. Taking 100,000 well paying jobs out of the economy is going to impact many industries and you know what? Those industries will start laying off workers and the money fromthe workers at that level of the economy will drop off as well. See where this is going? And this is just the hourly workers at GM, it doesn't include the workers at their suppliers. So all you guys that like to rail against the unions just remember to be careful what you wish for because you just might get your wish and in a couple of years even though you don't have a job you can take comfort that those Union guys got what you think they deserved.

As for the big 3 CEO's flying into Washington in private jets, well what do you expect? Everyone that's saying how unions had their place but don't any more need only look at this. The purpose unions serve is to check the power of the management over their employees and here's a great example, the workers have given up major consessions in the last contracts, the companies are teetering on the edge and yet the guys in charge can't be bothered with taking a commercial flight and saving the company about $20k. What the fu*K do you think these people would be doing to their employees if they weren't unionized?
 
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...What the fu*K do you think these people would be doing to their employees if they weren't unionized?...

I think we might just find out - I hate to see it - I have a union construction business and it will be next - unfortunately it is out of our control - it is the effects of a global economy - we are being pulled down to the rest of the worlds level

Think about something else that I mentioned when we were talking about the bank bail out - what if EVERYTHING deflated? - autos, food, clothes, right down the line? - we are seeing alot of it now and if it continues to happen then at the end of the day our buying power would not change - if everything went back to the price it was 10 or 20 years ago, what would it matter? - the key would be for everything to come down equally - health care will be our last frontier!! - I think the key to that is creating a healthier society and TORT reform - my 2 cents!! ;)!
 
I hear ya Bischof... I don't reference Union or non-Union in any of my posts. For me it's not about that.. .It's about running a company poorly and therefore losing market share....sales...etc... and then asking to be floated a loan to get bailed out.

What are your feelings if the loan is given... we go two years and they run their business the same.. lose even more market share... and then ask for another loan... In your opinion do you ever let them go under?

I don't disagree on the impact on the economy and that something has to be done to lessen it... But I also don't think the big 3 can blame our poor economy as the reason they need this loan... Market share was steadily going in the wrong direction when the economy was much better.
 
yammiman said:
I think we might just find out - I hate to see it - I have a union construction business and it will be next - unfortunately it is out of our control - it is the effects of a global economy - we are being pulled down to the rest of the worlds level
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This is why I hope I'm still alive when it comes full circle, and believe me it will, it's just a matter of time. When workers in other countries start organizing to save the lives/limbs of workers. Here's a nice youtube video for you all....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqCstvuBYAI
 
snowdust said:
I hear ya Bischof... I don't reference Union or non-Union in any of my posts. For me it's not about that.. .It's about running a company poorly and therefore losing market share....sales...etc... and then asking to be floated a loan to get bailed out.

What are your feelings if the loan is given... we go two years and they run their business the same.. lose even more market share... and then ask for another loan... In your opinion do you ever let them go under?

I don't disagree on the impact on the economy and that something has to be done to lessen it... But I also don't think the big 3 can blame our poor economy as the reason they need this loan... Market share was steadily going in the wrong direction when the economy was much better.
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Loans should come with very tight controls. I would propose the loans be issued in stages and additional money can only be accessed if preformance goal are met. So to answer your question, no I wouldn't continue to pour money into the GM pit if they don't demonstrate they are capable of turning the company around. Ath that poin you let them go and hold on to your tukus. I just feel the stakes are too high to just let them go under without getting a last chance.
 
As I said before I am not pro bail out or anti bail out, I will leave that to the smart people in corporate Jets, but Bischoff is 100% correct about the trickle down effect if something is not done. I am already a victim of the times with our Company shutting the doors, this downswing is already running rampant in the Motor City. I cannot believe how many people fail to see that if the Auto Industry crumbles that it will spur a widespread effect and it will be devastating to our economy.

Whether its a Government Loan or not, some resolve has to take place to save this from Happening. I am already done and you would think that I would be bitter towards these people, but I can see very clearly that the pending outcome of closure will hurt the entire country - this is just the beginning.

To those that hope for its demise? I wish you well in your little world of denial.
 
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