GM scores big against union members! Slash health-care costs

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diecuts

#21
Just Desserts

WWilliams,

Well said.

There is still enough manufacturing work in the USA to provide plenty of work. As you say, in a global economy, the work has to be competitive.

Heavy complicated parts give the USA the advantage. Actually not entirely true. Molds and Castings are 90% rough done in China with cheap labor, the finishing is done in the USA with highly skilled and paid labor. Everyone wins to some extent.

Benefits are expensive today, compared to the past. There is no law cast in stone that requires a company to give any heath benefits, free of charge, to its employees. In the 40s, 50s , 60s , and even 70s, health care was cheap, people worked until they were 65, died at 70, and if you had a bad heart, nothing could be done. Now, with 30 and out, retiring at 50 is no big deal, most live to at least in their 80s(my dad worked until he was 65, got bored and worked again till age 93) and just a day in the hospital for observation is $4000 or more. Not cheap anymore. Benefits are based on agreements, made in good faith under cost conditions of the time they are made. When costs go up, is it fair for the company to absorb all of the additional costs.? I could cancel my share of the contributions to health insurance for my employees today. Save a ton of money. As a result , they would leave and work for someone who provides better benefits. Freedom of choice. But not an option for me as it is a poor business choice. Instead, share the costs, and work together.
At job interviews, the hot underlying question is "what is the benefit package?" As you say, Unions won great benefits. Now they need to give them back, at least somewhat. As you say, we have to compete in a global economy where our competition pays little or no benefits, and others have national health care. It is , as you say, just that simple, be competitive or die.
 
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Don Palmer

#22
Our chains are forged!

History repeats itself (in one fashion or another). IMO, the chains are forged that will bind our financial future. Patrick Henry said it best, "Give me liberty or give me death." You may ask, what the h*ll does this have to do with this thread topic. Well, we've talked and talked and talked about it. What do we do about it that will make even one iota of difference. Is our financial future as important to us as liberty was to Patrick Henry and others of his day. Apples and oranges, maybe! But thunder without a lightening strike now and again is just noise.

Our chains are forged!
 

Al Rosen

Staff member
Super Moderator
#23
Muleskinner said:
History repeats itself (in one fashion or another). IMO, the chains are forged that will bind our financial future. Patrick Henry said it best, "Give me liberty or give me death." You may ask, what the h*ll does this have to do with this thread topic. Well, we've talked and talked and talked about it. What do we do about it that will make even one iota of difference. Is our financial future as important to us as liberty was to Patrick Henry and others of his day. Apples and oranges, maybe! But thunder without a lightening strike now and again is just noise.

Our chains are forged!
Glory Hallelujah!
 

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
#24
In today's marketplace, all workers, hourly, salaried, managers, independents must look at the product or service they provide, and ask whether it is worth what they are paid for it. If they provide less value than the payment received, it is unsustainable, and will inevitably fail. They either have to increase the value put in, or reduce what they expect to be paid for it.

If unions and highly paid executives don't learn this, they will fail sooner or later.

There is no free lunch...someone has to pay the check.
 
K

Ken K

#25
Do any of you really think the Chinese will continue to work for peanuts as the country prospers? Companies are moving work out of Mexico because wages are on the rise. The same thing will eventually happen in every other low wage country.

As far as GM taking it to the union...have any of you spent any time in an assembly plant? Not just GM, but Ford or DCX also. I beleive you would leave shaking your head wondering why the work being performed doesn't equal the wages earned. Don't blame it all on management. The unions are just as much responsible or even more so.
 
D

Don Palmer

#26
Ken K said:
Do any of you really think the Chinese will continue to work for peanuts as the country prospers? Companies are moving work out of Mexico because wages are on the rise. The same thing will eventually happen in every other low wage country.

As far as GM taking it to the union...have any of you spent any time in an assembly plant? Not just GM, but Ford or DCX also. I beleive you would leave shaking your head wondering why the work being performed doesn't equal the wages earned. Don't blame it all on management. The unions are just as much responsible or even more so.
YuP!!! In the late sixties/early seventies I worked DCX for 2 years and Ford for one. Wasn't my cup of tea. Was trying to accomodate parents wishes for me to have a good union job.:tg:
 
D

diecuts

#27
Cost leveling

As the wages in China go up, and the union wages in the good ole USA come down, eventually the Chinese will be importing goods from the USA instead of the other way around as it is now due to our 'new' competitive edge. This will provide new jobs in a market driven by costs.

I worked in a Ford plant for 3 years as a relief man, later as an inventory control supervisor, at the age of 18,19,20. Most boring work in the world.
As there was no crossing job designations, you did one function and then vegetated. Example: A job was to keep an instrument panel line stocked with washers, nuts and etc. Each box held 10,000 pieces. There are 30 boxes of different parts. The line uses 3000 pieces in a 12 hour day. I spent 1 hour filling 30 boxes full of parts, actually just topping them off, then had 11 hours to kill. I went to the roof and read a book or two each day. The guy I replaced took to a bottle instead. With cross training, I easily could have been doing something else productive. I was dumb enough to even suggest it. The Union asked me, no, bullied me into following the status quo, and avoid change at any cost. It's different in the Japanese run plants, and they are making money!! GM has not gone far enough in slashing health care costs. They will go under unless they face the reality that they can no longer afford to pay retiree health care at all, and at least split the costs of heathcare with current employees. Then GM might have a glimmer of hope.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#28
It's a 2 way street. In the late 1980's I worked with Ford on a project. The 'big boys' took me to strip clubs in Windsor after lunch in the executive dining room near Rotunda and we were generally drunk by 4 PM. We 'worked' about 3 or 4 hours in the morning and that was it.

That was upper management. They're no different than the folks down below. Blaming unions and the average worker is an old hat trick. You can stop bashing and blaming the work habits of the folks down below now. We've hear all the stories before. We get the idea.

What will be interesting is what the US will be like when the income gap is as wide as it is in China and the majority of US workers are making US$50 a week or something such. Considering the US is essentially a consumer purchases based economy, it will be very interesting. Not to mention healthcare will be unaffordable (which it already is for many, many people).
 
D

diecuts

#29
Message unheeded

Marc,

You somehow think we as a workforce in the automotive field 'get the idea'. Not so. We need more examples of ineptitude on the job that "not all others have heard before" so the reasons for change have a basis. Many workers , upper and lower, don't realize that there is a problem with the status quo of jobs, perhaps even their job, and are they really earning a honest buck for effort expended? Pointing it out to them with examples makes the reason for change very clear. Case in point. Last week at Ford an employee and also neighbor friend, after 5 months, boasted that he did not need FICA taken out of his check as he had earned in excess of 70+ thousand already this year. How so I ask? His job is in quality, checking test fixtures for parts with a no-go gage 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, in launching the 'Fusion' program. Why can't management hire someone else and split the work duties? At least bring in a temp that is trained. Not Union policy. Another case where cross training would have saved time and $. Of course you can blame management somewhere in this, probably for not outsourcing the testing program to Mexico. Playing your 'what if' game, As for $50 per week, by the time that happens, figure with deflation driving consumer goods to 1930's levels, a dime to see a movie etc, there won't be much difference, except that the $50 you mention is all that is left from a $1000 per week check after all taxes have been subtracted to pay for food, heath, housing, pay toilets, and other 'you name it' govt programs, with entertainment fighting for the scraps of discretionary income by dropping costs to almost free.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#30
More sad one sided stories. You might want to start with some upper management horror stories. We all know the ones you're essentially repeating directed at the folks at the bottom of the barrel and everythng is the fault of the unions and their members.

And as if these 'problems' were limited to the automotive industry...
 
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