Re: Big strike at GM
 

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i think the point is that if they can't avoid putting lead into children's toys and toothpaste, they'll have a tough time with the quality control required to build a car

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Those GM pensioners better hope that you're right, but it seems like a huge assumption to me. China has designed and built their own fighter jets -- there's nothing supernaturally difficult about building a reasonable car for less than GM can do it.

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the fact that china built is own fighter jets is completely irrelevant due to the fact that they aren't built on the cheap. not to mention they're fighter jets. have you been paying attention at all to news about chinese product recalls lately?

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Oh I see -- fighter jets are totally different, since they're fighter jets, but lead paint on Barbie dolls is proof that their brand new cars in the $4000-$9,000 range are poorly engineered and will never sell. Anyone else feel like investing for the long haul in GM right about now? I know I'm going to.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

I find this argument very interesting. Here we had a company GM that made an agreement with its workers in return for their labor to give them a certain salary and deferred benefits in the form of pensions. This was to the benefit of the company management (performance oriented bonuses) and shareholders (access to cheap fund for their company growth).

Now due to incompetence of the company management of allocation of its management responsibilities to incompetents, the funds (rightly the employees) cannot provide the benefits , not only envisaged, but promised.

I think that the suckers, the ones at the bottom of the wealth hierarchy got done once more! GM ought to be sold to some company that will pay the workers their past entitlements, or the directors and all those responsible for their false promises, should be sued for everything they have!

PS withdrawal of labor is the only recourse left when employers default on their obligations

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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Now due to incompetence of the company management of allocation of its management responsibilities to incompetents, the funds (rightly the employees) cannot provide the benefits , not only envisaged, but promised.

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You have this wrong. The employees own a contractual promise from the company to get a pension benefit. The plan sponsor owns the fund, which an entity created specifically to aid them in providing the benefit. While poorly conceived laws may agree with you, it is fundamentally wrong to say the employees own the pension fund, because they don't own the risk of the pension fund underperforming. Management must add money to the fund to address shortfalls, so they bear the risk of poor returns in the fund, so they must own the fund. The employees bear the risk of the pension promise not being fulfilled (from the money currently in the fund or through additional contributions to the fund). You MUST assign ownership and risk bearing consistently or the system will be a disaster.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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I find this argument very interesting. Here we had a company GM that made an agreement with its workers in return for their labor to give them a certain salary and deferred benefits in the form of pensions. This was to the benefit of the company management (performance oriented bonuses) and shareholders (access to cheap fund for their company growth).

Now due to incompetence of the company management of allocation of its management responsibilities to incompetents, the funds (rightly the employees) cannot provide the benefits , not only envisaged, but promised.

I think that the suckers, the ones at the bottom of the wealth hierarchy got done once more! GM ought to be sold to some company that will pay the workers their past entitlements, or the directors and all those responsible for their false promises, should be sued for everything they have!

PS withdrawal of labor is the only recourse left when employers default on their obligations

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If people don't like their jobs they should find something else. Profound indeed.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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If people don't like their jobs they should find something else. Profound indeed.

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A bit late if they worked for 20 years of their life expecting certain promises (should we call them contracts) to be held to.

Which is very much what GM promised to their employees when they needed to attract them!

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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If people don't like their jobs they should find something else. Profound indeed.

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A bit late if they worked for 20 years of their life expecting certain promises (should we call them contracts) to be held to.

Which is very much what GM promised to their employees when they needed to attract them!

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The collective bargaining process is supposed to be about negotiating compensation for the upcoming period. If they were promised deferred benefits in prior periods but didn't get them or expect not to get them, they should maybe stop negotiating for deferred benefits. The deferred benefit they have not received was in respect of work in a prior period, not for work in the upcoming period. If they want, they can quit and sue the company for the compensation they didn't receive for past work and work somewhere else for future work.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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The collective bargaining process is supposed to be about negotiating compensation for the upcoming period.

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I can assure you that is NOT the way it presented to the workers at the time. Are you denying the contracts in place 20+ years ago and the basis for them? The workers skill base was not based on legal expertise, the negotiators on behalf of GM surely were very well skilled and/or briefed in legal obfuscation.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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I find this argument very interesting. Here we had a company GM that made an agreement with its workers in return for their labor to give them a certain salary and deferred benefits in the form of pensions. This was to the benefit of the company management (performance oriented bonuses) and shareholders (access to cheap fund for their company growth).

Now due to incompetence of the company management of allocation of its management responsibilities to incompetents, the funds (rightly the employees) cannot provide the benefits , not only envisaged, but promised.

I think that the suckers, the ones at the bottom of the wealth hierarchy got done once more! GM ought to be sold to some company that will pay the workers their past entitlements, or the directors and all those responsible for their false promises, should be sued for everything they have!

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GM ought to be sold? To whom? You would force someone else to buy it, and to make good on these promises which are economically impossible to fufill?

Basically it sounds like you're advocating a bailout for the "bad guys" here.

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PS withdrawal of labor is the only recourse left when employers default on their obligations

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Duh.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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The collective bargaining process is supposed to be about negotiating compensation for the upcoming period.

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I can assure you that is NOT the way it presented to the workers at the time.

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Communicated by whom? What are you talking about? Are you saying that 10 years ago someone at GM said "If you agree to work for the next 3 years, we will give you pension benefits payable 10 years from now that will be available in exchange for work provided 10 years from now. So it's not actually in exchange for work to be done in the next three year. But sign this agreement saying you'll work for the next three years in exchange for this benefit. But the benefit is not provided in exchange for your work in the next three years."

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Are you denying the contracts in place 20+ years ago and the basis for them? The workers skill base was not based on legal expertise, the negotiators on behalf of GM surely were very well skilled and/or briefed in legal obfuscation.

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So you're saying the union failed to represent the interests of their members. And it's the employer's fault.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

I thought Iron was leveling. Now I'm confused. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: Big strike at GM
 

Iversonian, no I wasn't leveling. Is it really that hard to believe there is a union supporter around here?

Ike, the primary reason for declining unionization rates is the decline in manufacturing. Much of the remainder is due to anti-union labor law changes like right-to-work and corporate resistance to unions. You've heard the stories about Wal-Mart closing stores that went union? The reason why right-to-work is bad is that it makes it much easier for the corporations to exert pressure on their workers to not join unions: its going to look very suspicious and probably result in a grievance if a closed shop union loses a member, but not so much in an open shop.

AJackson, I agree that high wages are useless if they put the company out of business. Unions are aware of this as well and that's why they're giving wage and health care concessions in the GM strike in exchange for job security promises. To be honest, I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through wages. Unions help steer money from the upper-class investors toward middle class assembly workers and I think that's a good thing.

Mosdef, Midge is right about the terms of the contract. GM entered into successive collective bargaining contracts over the years promising UAW workers health care after they retired in exchange for their labor today. GM puts money aside to ensure that this benefit will be funded. So basically, GM is paying today for their current employees future medical problems, as they agreed to.

All, the strike is over. Some highlights from the Detroit Free Press:

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In addition to the (union taking over GMs health care plan), people familiar with the tentative deal say it includes:

• No base-wage increases, though workers will get a $3,000 signing bonus and an annual lump-sum payment of 3% or 4% in the other three years of the contract.

• New hires into non-assembly jobs will earn less than current workers. Those workers are expected to earn an average of $27 per hour in wages and benefits, compared with the current average of $73 per hour. People now in those noncore jobs will be offered buyouts and early-retirement offers similar to those offered to workers last year.

• Future cost-of-living increases will be diverted to pay for the health care of active and retired workers.

• The jobs bank, the controversial program that allows workers who have lost their jobs to keep getting paid, remains but the rules will change. The area in which workers would have to move to an open position or face losing their incomes is to be expanded.

It also is believed that at least 4,000 temporary workers will be made permanent GM employees.

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<Sigh>
 

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the primary reason for declining unionization rates is the decline in manufacturing. Much of the remainder is due to anti-union labor law changes like right-to-work and corporate resistance to unions.

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1. True manufacturing jobs are declining in the USA.
2. &lt;Sign&gt; You have things ass-backwards....
Right-to-Work laws are NEUTRAL. They prevent workers from being FORCED to pay union dues. They give the workers the option to join unions or not. Job shops effectively FORCE workers to join unions (they force the payment of dues). It is laws like these which KILL American manufacturing jobs. Right-To-Work laws help to keep mfg jobs in the USA. But even in right-to-work states like Texas, union thugs will threaten non-union employees. A fellow worker once told me a story where 4 union thugs cornered him in the back of truck trailor threatening to beat him if he did not join the union by the end of the week. Another acquaintance of mine was sent to New York to help out with telephone/circuit wiring. His first day he did 5 times the work as his fellow union workers who purposely worked slow so their union bosses could request more job slots from the company. The next day a union foreman told him he was making the local boys look bad and he needed to slow down or otherwise he was going to make a lot of people mad. He felt extremely intimidated and he slowed down. Then there are other scum-bag union tactics like "sick-outs".

American unions killed themselves with help from:
1. Spineless executives that caved in to excessive demands favoring next quarter's profits over long-term company survival. The GM retirement plan supports *SEVEN* workers/widows for every *ONE* current worker. You can NOT run a competitve company with this type of overhead.
2. Well-meaning politicians which passed laws which interfered in the free market negotiations between mgmt and the union. Laws which HEAVILY favored the unions.
3. Trial lawyers. Look at the small airplane market (Cessna) which use to mfg solely in the USA. Today because of lawsuits, these planes are now mfg in countries like Brazil. One place crash and USA companies on the hook for HUNDREDS of MILLIONs even if the fault may been because of poor maintence. Now if a Cessna crashes, the trial lawyers sadly shake their heads because they can not sue Brazil and are forced to shake down other honest American companies. The US workers which held these mfg jobs, lost their jobs...

Add all these factors up and you create a hostile environment for USA manufacturing. Politicians are the main cause of these job losses. They never understood the law of unintended consequences....

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I agree that high wages are useless if they put the company out of business. Unions are aware of this as well and that's why they're giving wage and health care concessions

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Yeah......about 20 years too late.
These union bosses killed a lot of union jobs due to their greed.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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Mosdef, Midge is right about the terms of the contract. GM entered into successive collective bargaining contracts over the years promising UAW workers health care after they retired in exchange for their labor today. GM puts money aside to ensure that this benefit will be funded. So basically, GM is paying today for their current employees future medical problems, as they agreed to.

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Actually, I think what you just said is the same as what I was saying, not what Midge was saying. When you look at the deferred benefits that are due to employees and former employees now for service that was rendered years ago, whether or not those deferred benefits are being paid is only relevant to the current contract to the extent that current actives think it says something about the value of deferred benefits. What the current active employees negotiate now for service in the upcoming bargaining period should not (theoretically) include demands that previously deferred benefits be paid. I think this is a terrible position for the union to assume. What they are saying is: If you carry through on your promise to pay us what you owe us for work already done, we'll do more work. The employer should JUMP at this and continue to offer as many deferred benefits as the employees will take because they will always be able to get more work in exchange for just paying the employees for what they've already done! The employees MUST not allow this to happen by accepting deferred compensation if they are not prepared to bear the risk that the compensation will not be paid in the future as promised.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through wages.

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Do you play poker to provide the means for dealers to make wages? Do you think investors open cardrooms for the same reason? What about other businesses?

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Unions help steer money from the upper-class investors toward middle class assembly workers and I think that's a good thing.

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Yes, because profit isn't an incentive for upper class investors to continue creating jobs... oh wait

Re: Big strike at GM
 

so you want the governement to prop up some monopolies (those on labor) and you want governemt to dismantle other monopolies?
wtf bro

Back in the USSR
 

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I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through wages.

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Do you play poker to provide the means for dealers to make wages? Do you think investors open cardrooms for the same reason? What about other businesses?


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Agreed.....they tried this type of incentive program in Russia. The results were not good....

Re: Back in the USSR
 

Its sad. Iron is a good guy with a big heart clearly. It's a shame he can't get past his good intentions to see the logic in this. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Its sad. Iron is a good guy with a big heart clearly. It's a shame he can't get past his good intentions to see the logic in this.

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Agreed.... He is intelligent and I think he is younger than 35 so I think he might eventually come around. After a person turns 35, their beliefs start to harden where it is unlikely they will change. Hell, during my radical days I use to have a poster of Karl Marx in my room.....but I wised up... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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To be honest, I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through wages

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In Ford's philosophy, the benefits of mass production were intended for the consumer, which includes labor, since all wage earners are also consumers. In his scheme the consumer was more important than the producer; and if this seems a bit dialectical you may consider the fact that while you may dispense with the wage earner by putting a machine in his place, the consumer, who buys the products of the machine and makes mass production possible, is indispensable. The wage earner is more important in the aspect of consumer than in the aspect of producer, and it follows that in order to be a good consumer he must have high wages.

But when labor itself has the power to say what the wage shall be and how much it will give for the wage received, it claims for itself the first benefits of mass production; the consumer is forgotten. Thus the true economic ends of mass production are defeated, and all you have left is a method of producing goods. You may say it another way: that the intentions of mass production cannot be realized unless management and labor are both free. So long as that freedom existed in the motorcar industry, the cost of an automobile went lower and lower until it became, pound for pound, the cheapest manufactured thing in the world, not the Ford car only but all cars; and automobile labor at the same time was the highest-paid labor of its kind in the world.

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web page

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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To be honest, I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through wages. Unions help steer money from the upper-class investors toward middle class assembly workers and I think that's a good thing.


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This was literally mindblowing to read, and I dont mean that in a good way.

Re: Big strike at GM
 

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Unions help steer money from the upper-class investors toward middle class assembly workers and I think that's a good thing.

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Iron,

I find myself in almost total disagreement with you on every issue, which isn't a good sign for one of us. Would you care to explain why this is a good thing? If you disperse these profits, where do the savings come from to invest in new technologies and advance civilization? Do you think there would be a problem with new entrepreneurs not having the incentive to start new projects and create new jobs if they know that the government will institute policies to force them to redistribute their profits?

Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Also,

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Unions get the government to forcefully steer money from the upper-class investors toward middle class assembly workers and I think that's a good thing.

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fyp

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Its sad. Iron is a good guy with a big heart clearly. It's a shame he can't get past his good intentions to see the logic in this. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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iron really doesn't understand economics that well so he falls back on what he believes is liberal ideology. Of course John Kerry would have problems with iron's statment let alone Bill Clinton.

As an aside the Wall Street Journal had a good analysis of this agreement reached between the UAW and GM done in several articles this morning. Well worth reading IMO. FWIW I believe that unions are the strongest these days in the public sector and thats not too surprising. Contrast what government can do to guarantee benefits for retirees and what the private sector can do. That's basically the most important issue in the GM-UAW negotiations, retiree benefits. I think it's clear that being in a union in the public sector is much better.

And for MidGe, foreign automakers do have manufacturing plants in the U.S. and so there are alternatives for auto workers here. I read an article last week stating that VW wanted to start manufacturing cars in the US again and is coming with a plan to do so.

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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I see business as a means to an end: to provide the means for people to make a life for themselves through profit

[/ QUOTE ]FYP

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I read an article last week stating that VW wanted to start manufacturing cars in the US again and is coming with a plan to do so.


[/ QUOTE ] Not to mention Honda is building two plants, Kia is building one, Toyota is building another two, and BMW is doubling capacity in its existing plant.

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Not to mention Honda is building two plants, Kia is building one, Toyota is building another two, and BMW is doubling capacity in its existing plant.

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Iron, do you support the efforts of Japanese, Korean, and/or German workers/unions protesting this outsourcing of domestic jobs to the US?

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Not to mention Honda is building two plants, Kia is building one, Toyota is building another two, and BMW is doubling capacity in its existing plant.

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Iron, do you support the efforts of Japanese, Korean, and/or German workers/unions protesting this outsourcing of domestic jobs to the US?

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Good question.

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Iron, do you support the efforts of Japanese, Korean, and/or German workers/unions protesting this outsourcing of domestic jobs to the US?

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Sure, why not? They have free speech and the right to walk off the job. However, I would prefer that those factories be built here.

Re: Back in the USSR
 

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Iron, do you support the efforts of Japanese, Korean, and/or German workers/unions protesting this outsourcing of domestic jobs to the US?

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Sure, why not? They have free speech and the right to walk off the job. However, I would prefer that those factories be built here.

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So why do you hate Asian people?