Ford layoffs: how much responsibility does the UAW have?

Great Debates
61

Sort of a hijack, but I agree with control-z. As long as we are telling Ford how to conduct its business, ceasing advertising is not among my recommendations.

They need new, innovative products in conjunction with advertising.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/06/A01-50668.htm; U.S. Carmakers Bleeding Market Share - ABC News

They plan to introduce new models. Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

But they’re probably screwed no matter what. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060127/UPDATE/601270412/1361 ; http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/060116/b011616.html; http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/former-king-of-the-road-stuck-in-reverse/2006/01/27/1138319451036.html; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002736924_fordcredibility13.html

When this happened to Chrysler, the feds bailed it out and organized labor made concessions.http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17956960%5E5001942,00.html; http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/feb2001/chry-f14.shtml

Not this time. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060127/BUSINESS01/601270340/1014/BUSINESS

They certainly don’t account for the shortfall (poor sales and product choice accounts for much of that), but they also aren’t helping things. And they may help explain labor’s unwillingness to make concessions. Although I still think that this is closer to the mark.

62

As a Ford employee, I’m very interested in this topic so I thought I’d offer a little guy-on-the-street perspective.

Production workers don’t make $50K without lots of overtime. Skilled trades workers, electricians and pipefitters etc, do make that amount, but they account for less than 10% of the workforce. Skilled trades workers are always given the most overtime, which always skews the average.

Sure people got accustomed to living on their inflated overtime wages and are having trouble adjusting, consumer debt is rampant everywhere. Why would any single group of people be the exception to that?

Would the UAW accept reduced hours, wages or benefits to help save the company, the plant or some jobs? In as much as they represent us, I’ll say probably. My plant had ten weeks of layoff last year, and more scheduled for this year, if we had the opportunity to vote on wage and/or benefit reductions to keep jobs I’m pretty certain it’d pass. Our last two contract negotiations included things like increased health-care co-pays, decreased job classifications (premium rate classifications) and lowering retiree benefits and they passed. No walkouts, no strikes, both local contracts passed with over 70% of the membership.

When you talk about enormous cuts like what was proposed at Delphi, 50% or larger hourly rate cuts, sure people freak out. Going along swimmingly for years making phat cash working 20+ overtime weekly to less than 40 hours making half the hourly rate, who wouldn’t freak? I don’t foresee us striking over any proposed cuts in the near future, however, since the auto industry is the major economic influence in this area and the trickle down from shift reductions and plant closings means there isn’t anything remotely comparable out there.