Bye-bye Big Three, Thanks in large part To UAW

Originally posted by Duzey

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Auto Technicians truly deserve the 75.00 an hour management brings in for their labor.

Errrm, no. I worked in a dealership for a while and several things have to come out of that $75. Like rent, new hoists, payroll for the admin, service writers, warranty clerks, cleaners, water and cable for the customers, toilet paper, and the list goes on and on. Technicians are among the highest paid employees in any dealership and everyone there that supports them deserves a paycheque too.

Anyhoo, just be glad you aren't in Canada. GM underfunded the pension plan with the support of the union and now that their pension plan isn't there, they would like the Canadian taxpayer to kick in what's missing.

You are very correct Fixed Operations which are parts and service is the lynch pin of any good Retail Dealers business plan. Some dealerships with low building costs because they own the facility and do not lease or finance it's purchase can actually maintain their business in times when they are not selling cars and the market is soft off of Fixed Operations.

Title Clerks, Comptrollers, Service and Parts Department heads and personnel, utilities, office costs, and non-sales department payrolls for porters, technicians and maintenance staff all come out of Fixed Operation Profits and dealerships with Body Shops make even more on collision repair.

GM statred courting Canada during one of it's many restructuring in the early 1990's. Corporate reps confided in me that they were doing so in order to take advantage of the fact that Canada offers universal health care so GM would not have to cover that cost in their Union Contracts with Canadian Workers which would save them thousands per yer for worker...which raises a question how much does the high cost of health care in the U.S. factor in to this problem? Is that another grossly mismanaged field, and the Insurers and HMO's that control it?

Those same Corporate reps have long confided in me that GM would never build another New Assembly Plant in the United States and that was 18 years ago because of their dislike of the Unions and the high cost of having to do business with them.

Mexico, Canada and Brazil and as of late China, and a little more manufacturing in England and Europe has been General Motors long term strategy, like many other companies who could in fact afford to pay union workers but it simply eats into their bottom line and greed becomes the motivating factor along with the pressure of foreign competitors with cheaper labor and raw materials and capital at their disposal to bring their products to market. Of course if Americans didn't buy those products then well...

You have however pointed out yet another example where the Union was willing to give and take risks for the sake of the Corporation by agreeing to allow their pension fund to be under funded.

We are in fact simply paying GM and other big manufactures the cost of shutting down U.S. Facilities and transferring production to where the biggest consumer markets are now...a consumer market Americans created to America's detriment in China.

Just wait until China starts flexing their military muscles when they have all our manufacturing and our bankrolling the American Government and it's wars through an endless series of loans we can't possibly pay back with out hard durable manufactured goods to export to earn cash.

I have no idea why Americans and Canadians don't see the writing on the wall here. How it only hurts us as citizens and helps them as Corporations while our standard of living slides into the toilet.

reply to post by billybobh3


yeah...right...just type in "exploited workers in the US" in google, and you'll see how it has gone away
look, most jobs are turning into part-time, minimum-wage, no benefits jobs, why do you think people are having such a hard time buying anything? wal-mart is the king of retail for it's cheap crap. the less you pay your workers, the less they can buy. why is this so hard to understand? the middle class is all but eliminated in this country. but in your world, it's all the unions fault. those poor wealthy people have no power at all, right? they have no influence over labor in this country, right? they have no influence over government to write favorable laws on behalf of business and the wealthy, right? it's that terrible 7% of the workforce that is union, that is bringing our country down, right?

Originally posted by jimmyx
reply to post by billybobh3

 

yeah...right...just type in "exploited workers in the US" in google, and you'll see how it has gone away
look, most jobs are turning into part-time, minimum-wage, no benefits jobs, why do you think people are having such a hard time buying anything? wal-mart is the king of retail for it's cheap crap. the less you pay your workers, the less they can buy. why is this so hard to understand? the middle class is all but eliminated in this country. but in your world, it's all the unions fault. those poor wealthy people have no power at all, right? they have no influence over labor in this country, right? they have no influence over government to write favorable laws on behalf of business and the wealthy, right? it's that terrible 7% of the workforce that is union, that is bringing our country down, right?

Fantastic post.

The truth is, while everyone is looking at the economic meltdown as a step toward martial law, the truth is, it is already very close to accomplishing it's goal-THE SYSTEMATIC DISMANTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE CLASS.
It's been going on for quite a while now. Did you know they are teaching anti-union sentiment in schools now?

Once the middle class is gone, martial law is a moot point. If the majority are in poverty, they will beg you for control-they wont have to thrust it upon you.

The unions might once have been necessary, but that time is past? Are you Serious?! Since the 70's our GDP has over doubled, and yet the average workers buying power has DECLINED! The business and corporate owners have horded all the increased productivity and profit for themselves and trickled none of it down to the workers who actually do all the work. If this is not a sign that unions are needed now more than ever, i dont know what is.

I read an article last year showing how if minimum wage had increased at the same rate as our productivity had increased, that it should be around 19.50 today...but due to lobbyists from corporate power legislating business benefits at the expense of workers, it has hardly grown at all. If it had been allowed to grow naturally, we would all be making much more money and wouldnt have needed to take loans to buy basic things such as homes, cars, etc.

This, combined with the massive expansions in health costs that businesses must bear (also levied by lobbyists) are two of the main causes of our current financial straights, and the reasons as well for our failing american manufacturers. Of course, the corporate body wants to get you to blame the labor unions so they can crush what little representation the average worker has.

I have worked in many states, and i can tell you that in areas where there are no unions, EVERYONES salary is massively lower than in states where there is some representation. I work in the healthcare field, and even though i was never in a union, in towns where the unions where operating my salary would be around 40-50k annually (with overtime) while in states where there is no representation (like new orleans where i live now) we are often stuck at 20k....and this is not nearly compensation enough for a job requiring a bachelors degree, where we are skilled workers, and also deal with regular assaults from patients as well as exposures to diseases and pathogens. This is OBVIOUS abuse of employees in a system where business owners are free to take advantage of our limited representation, and is what any corporate management would do to all workers in any place where the workers are not protected by unions.