Neither does the Toyota worker, or most people. Why not go to parity there ?
I think you meant “employer” Toyota operates in the same system and their accounting for $48.00 per hour likely amortizes future benefit disbursements as well.
Its apples and apples and the UAW should have been more considerate in past “negotiations” when holding up GM for more money.
It is an employee benefit foisted on the company by the UAW and now the taxpayer is expected to subsidize this perk.
Legacy costs are not wages. You are putting that cost on the back of todays factory worker. That is wrong. Wages are almost dead even.
American companies are burdened with health care costs. That alone makes them at a competitive disadvantage. Toyota provides a retirement but is has relatively few retirees since they have not been around here all that long. Their costs will go up as time goes on.
Foisted,sure thing. They sat at a table and negotiated their best deal. They were raking in money. Since then the workers have given back a lot. The company foisted renegotiation on them several times.
Too bad. That money could have been used in research and development and held for future retiree benefits. But nooooooo. The unions sucked the company for all its worth.
:rolleyes: Good grief you’re an idiot. Someone like you can’t even be debated when you start off with such half-assed notions of “UAW holdups” and employee benefits being “foisted” upon the once-largest corporation in the world. You can argue about how concessions need to happen now for the good of the company, but when you use lanugage like this, it shows that it all just boils down to union busting for you.
Seriously, there’s no debating left when the other side thinks a race to the bottom is okay for the middle class. We’re not even in the same room here. Health insurance and not living hand-to-mouth in retirement isn’t a “perk” in my book. However, in yours, it is. Therefore I can understand how you think that the UAW members are living way too large and need to be taken down to less-comfortable lives. I happen to disagree. Bully for you, bully for me, whatever.
There was once a time in this country when earning more and having benefits and being able to retire was the American dream. Now, it’s apparently making sure some workers get less so that we’re at-par with Asian companies. Or rather, making sure unions cease to have any sort of power.
So we can argue legacy costs, and wages, and parity, and concessions and VEBA all we want. We’re just never going to see eye-to-eye. Some of us believe in a strong middle class with a right to healthcare and retirement and a voice on the job. You don’t. You think that the UAW has, through “hold ups” created such a burden upon the Big 3 as to be the root cause of their near-failure. I don’t. I don’t think it’s a good idea to take away the healthcare and retirement benefits for millions of people, only to have them fall into government programs to cover them when they get sick. You do. You’re a slack-jawed howler monkey. I’m not. See? It’s just apples and oranges in this debate.
Bullshit. I don’t see any of those millions that Jacques Nasser and Jergen Schrempp and Bill Ford Jr. and Rick Wagoner raked in going toward research and development or future retirement either. The people in the UAW continued to do their jobs well while earning their paychecks and benefits, can those suits say the same? Fuck no.
Nuts to that. The companies are in bed with the unions, they allow one-for-one exchanges for jobs, they allow a lot of backroom deals to be cut that wouldn’t be available without the presence of the union. The unions have been more recently shortshighted regarding their membership and the companies, but the fact remains that the companies allowed this when times were fat without regard for the growing life expectancy. Retirees of my father’s age (80 when he died) were usually in the ground five years after they left the plant. That’s not happening anymore. Just like social security, people are living longer and it’s costing all of us more to support them. The good thing, if it can be called that, about the automakers is that we can allow them to protect themselves under the law created for just such a thing. It’s too late now of course and we’re severely screwed, but both the companies AND the unions are to blame. On the otherside though, the companies will surivive, the unions, not so much.
I agree. Its going to be a hell of a 25 billion dollar government program to continue to cover them when they are retired and sick.
So what is the answer. We can not put the legacy on the employee. They make about 25 after a while on the job. New hires are in at 14. They have had their retirement and health benefits pared back a long way. They will not eventually get to the amazing unearned and overly generous 25 or so.
Note : When Toyota moved in to America the state gave them about a half billion in tax relief and training costs. Training costs you understand means they are not off the street nut turners. They require a lot of training which is on going when they have the job.
I seem to recall that Obama called upon all the stakeholders to sacrifice. That includes all the suppliers and their workers, GM workers, retirees, management personnel ,shareholders, and local governments. If everyone were to agree to take 10% less until the government money has been reimbursed from the “golden” egg, that would go a long way to make the bail out more palatable.
Right to healthcare?
You no more have a “right” to healthcare than you do a “right” to a job. You can EARN those things, but you have no “right” to them.
Unions ceasing to have power?
Look, the place unions have in the modern American jobscape is dwindling and quickly. Workers need protections, no doubt about that, but companies need to be competitive as well and no one wants to balance that. I have personally been involved in a negotiation with a union that lasted 3 years. Throughout the process the union was shady, underhanded and attempted, on more than one occasion to obstruct the process because of petty political infighting. The fact is that the people, the ones we truly care about, were the ones in the middle, screwed by the union. In the end, we came with a solid comp package, excellent benefits and time off and it took the absence of the union reps (only lawyers and negotiating teams) and the upper management to get the deal done. The management has been burned by the unions, the unions have been burned by the management and no one gets anything done and because the unions have such a “powerful voice” (read: dues from the members funding pacs) in legislatures.
In my estimation, any company or group of companies that have their hands out ought to be forced under the terms of that handout package to start from zero and work back to present day. Contracts ought to be voided, salaries for ALL personnel capped to market minimums and benefits examined with a fine toothed comb and plenty of red ink. The companies must survive. The companies cannot do so without employees. The employees must survive employees cannot survive without the company. Everyone needs to move to interest-based bargaining and be as agile as is possible. Failure to do that means failure of the company. Further, this “bailout” would be a great opportunity to force automakers, if they want any American tax money to buy ONLY and exclusively from American suppliers. Further, that the money the US tax payers “give” only goes to US operations/factories.
The right to healthcare is not relevant. Healthcare should be provided by the government. The cost of medical puts American companies at a disadvantage. With the world economy ,there is no way to make that up. It has to be changed for our distorted capitalism to survive.
Just about impossible. We got trade agreements, we got those trade agreements so they would buy our stuff. So we had to agree that if they made steel better and cheaper than we did, we wouldn’t add tariffs and taxes to make them less competitive. (Do we even have any national steel production anymore?)
So we got treaties, and treaties are big hairy ass deals. Gotta keep your treaties. Plus we got mechanisms to enforce treaties, which seemed like a real good idea when we were the ones with all the money and it was gonna be like that forever.
Guess what? If healthcare was provided by the government, the companies would still have to pay for it! Hiding the costs doesn’t make them disappear.
It would be spread on the huge taxpayer base. It would not be centered in business. That is a crappy model for us to have.Our costs are huge and millions go without medical coverage.
I posted this earlier in the thread.
(in reference to costs of healthcare)
Also note in my cite the boosts in life expectancy, and infant survival rates. Universal HealthCare works. Making our current model work is like trying to build a super sonic propeller driven plane.
It seem many of you do not know what you owe to the unions. It probably is at least partly due to the news papers eliminating them a couple of decades ago. After 911 ,the unions were deeply involved in supporting the workers on the ground. For some reason that was not covered.
Six corporations own the media nowadays. They are able to criticize the unions with no responses allowed. It was clear that they could feed enough propaganda to the unenlightened to convince them unions are evil. I know kids in their young 20s who absolutely hate unions. They really do not even know why. It is shameful ,but I knew the truth could not trump the onesided news.They are remaking the country into something the powerful want. They do not want a strong middle class or employee rights. That determination is theirs.
Help! I’ve been brainwashed! Oh won’t some Union Member come riding to my rescue on a white horse!
You could use it.
It does not take a lot of training at all. Cite? Come on man.
No Deposit Bonus Codes at Silver Oak in the USA Shame ,you people do not understand what is involved in working in an Auto plant. Your vision is so 1930’s. It is not like that anymore. Dearborn has ercted training schools for auto workers. They are affiliated with community colleges.