The UAW Ad for the Auto Industry Bailout

[Gaspar]

that is so silly.

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

Actually, something HAS changed about their business, and that's the complete unavailability of credit for both them and their customers.  Customers can't buy the product without it, and the company can't survive the downturn without it.  The financial industry would normally be the ones providing that credit but, you know, they're the ones hoarding their own bailout funds, the funds that were provided to them to reliquidate those credit markets.

Creditors are still granting auto loans to consumers.  Interest rates have not changed, nor have qualification requirements.

quote:

The fact that this entire argument has come down to whether or not the workers can play ball immediately (during the worst economic times since the Great Depression) or in two years is testament to how a lame duck rump of Republican senators can control the legislative process to serve their ideological needs. It's even more transparent if the amount of time and money in question is equal to union dues.  That pretty much proves that the sticking point is the existence of the UAW, and that the GOP sees a golden opportunity to break the the union.  The tragedy is that they're willing to destroy an entire American industry to do it.

We are so so so far from " the worst economic times since the Great Depression."  Credit markets are sore.  Interest rates are still low, but my parents bought their last home during the 12.5% interest rate period caused by the Carter administration (went as high at 19%).  We also had a corresponding 9.7% unemployment rate, a gas shortage, and a massive drop in new industry, home starts, and poverty soared.

quote:I really can't fathom this hostility to organized labor, unless it's something in the conservative genes.  A reflexive suspicion of the guys and gals who make your stuff, maybe. The irrational fear that they might demand so much that they drive their employers out of business, perhaps. Either way it's typical Objectivist hysteria, based entirely on slippery slope logic that posits the worst that can happen, rather than real world cause and effect.

Say what you will, but that will not change the fact that the consumer is in control, not the union, not the companies, not the government.  Thank God.

quote:

[cannon_fodder]

Wevus, your entire position is an emotional please for the proletariat.  The GOP and anyone against the deal hates the workers and wants to see them fail.  The failure of the company is not their fault but the fault of the bankers.  Anyone against bailing out the auto industry is hostile, suspicious, irrational, using faulty logic, and spreading hysteria.  The workers are fighting for their rights and being thrown out on the streets by the bourgeoisie.

A very odd Marxist defense of giving tens of billions of tax payers money to the pinnacle of US private industry.  I'm not calling you a Marxist, a commie, or anything.  Just pointing out that your statement can be summed up as stated above.  

You never addressed the sustainability of paying a high school grad $75.  The market forces at work.  The viability of the companies.  Of the management and labor decisions that doomed these companies.  Sorry for the prolonged response, but emotional please just scream at me to reply.




1) GASPAR:  There used to be an effective Attorney's union called the ABA.  It set "quotas" for how many new attorneys could be admitted.  By limiting supply it artificially inflated the cost.  

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled some 30 years ago that such an action deprived many people the constitutional right of access.  The AMA still operates with much success under the same principle though - limit supply and you will increase wages.  Poor me, I just have to wait for older attorneys to die off.

2) WEVUS:

I am not hostile to labor in any way, shape, or form.  Organized labor has and continues to do very good things for the American worker and the American economy as a whole.  I have study the history of the American labor movement very closely and taken classes on organized labor from a noted author.  I have worked for a union shop, run a union shop and negotiated with labor unions. I am not ill informed nor short selling labor.

3) HOWEVER:

quote:The irrational fear that they might demand so much that they drive their employers out of business

Why is this fear irrational?  Airlines, coal mining, the steel industry and yes... the auto workers.  All the great union shops have shed tens of thousands of workers and are/were floundering.  I would say it is a realized fear.  

Real world cause and effect:  increased cost with no added value = lowered demand.  Organized labor increases cost to the auto industry while adding no product value.   Therefor, organized labor decreases demand for US made automobiles.  

I fail to see what is reflexive, hostile, objectivist, or hysterical about that logic?  I'm not positing hypothetical situations, it has happened.  The airlines nearly all went bankrupt.  Hardly any steel is made in the US.  Tunnel coal mining is a rare breed.  And the auto industry has failed.

4) Furthermore, the problem is not that the auto industry is in danger of going bankrupt.  Every automaker but those using UAW labor will be just fine.  The credit crunch is merely a great excuse to beg for funds for companies that were already failing.  They've been shedding BILLIONS of dollars per year for a very long time.  If you handed out $10,000 to every American they would still fail as Toyota, Nissan and Honda make money selling cars and the Big 3 LOSE money selling cars.  

Credit crisis or not, they are not making money.  It may have hastened the end but certainly was not the cause of their problems.

5) $74 an hour.  Whoa be the poor working man and the evil GOP who is out to get them.  DAMN them for standing on their ideological grounds.

The cold hard fact is, again, you can not pay a high school graduate $74 an hour and expect to be a profitable company.  They should have "played ball" 10 years ago when it became clear that the big 3 lost their edge.  The UAW chose to press the issue in hopes of the company being able to make up the losses later. They lost that bet.

6) Breaking the union?

The automakers are failing because of poor business decisions.  The UAW depends on the automakers.  If you don't give $15,000,000,000 to the automakers you are a union breaker.  

That is a failure of logic.  My opinion that failing companies should fail is not to spite the union.  I would very much LOVE IT if the Big 3 could pay such wages and survive.  It would be fantastic for the US economy as a whole.  It merely is not a realistic possibility.

7) Any decision to not give tens of billions of dollars to the Big Three is NOT a decision to destroy the industry.  The US Auto Industry is thriving.  The Big Three are not.   The Big 3 have been working diligently to kill themselves for a generation.
- - -

[Gaspar]

quote:1) GASPAR: There used to be an effective Attorney's union called the ABA. It set "quotas" for how many new attorneys could be admitted. By limiting supply it artificially inflated the cost.

Darn! I wanted to be a big boss and meet the president.  My hair looks good all slicked back.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder


Why is this fear irrational?  Airlines, coal mining, the steel industry and yes... the auto workers.  All the great union shops have shed tens of thousands of workers and are/were floundering.  I would say it is a realized fear.  

...

4) Furthermore, the problem is not that the auto industry is in danger of going bankrupt.  Every automaker but those using UAW labor will be just fine.  The credit crunch is merely a great excuse to beg for funds for companies that were already failing.  They've been shedding BILLIONS of dollars per year for a very long time.  If you handed out $10,000 to every American they would still fail as Toyota, Nissan and Honda make money selling cars and the Big 3 LOSE money selling cars.  

..

5) $74 an hour.  Whoa be the poor working man and the evil GOP who is out to get them.  DAMN them for standing on their ideological grounds.

...

The automakers are failing because of poor business decisions.

The automakers are failing because they are cash poor. Have you looked at the sales declines of Toyota and Honda lately?

$74 an hour, like any other figure an employer throws out for what they pay their worker is around twice as much as what the worker actually gets. Between overhead, benefits, and taxes, it makes the wage look excessive when it's really not.

(http://mediamatters.org/items/200811220004?f=h_top) God love the right wing think tanks who mislead us all!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=1
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682

And if you haven't noticed, it's not just union shops that have been shedding jobs for the last 20 or 30 years. Look at basically any large american company. It's easy to blame the unions, but at&t (long before the current mess), the banks, companies like IBM, basically everybody has been slashing and burning jobs since at least the 80s, union or no.

Of course, we remember the union shops better, because the unions actually put up a fight. You know, wage givebacks and trying to force the company to cut costs in other areas before cutting 30% of the workforce.

Wage earners have been cast as the sole source and sole solution of any problem with any company for the last 30 years.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder


Why is this fear irrational?  Airlines, coal mining, the steel industry and yes... the auto workers.  All the great union shops have shed tens of thousands of workers and are/were floundering.  I would say it is a realized fear.  

...

4) Furthermore, the problem is not that the auto industry is in danger of going bankrupt.  Every automaker but those using UAW labor will be just fine.  The credit crunch is merely a great excuse to beg for funds for companies that were already failing.  They've been shedding BILLIONS of dollars per year for a very long time.  If you handed out $10,000 to every American they would still fail as Toyota, Nissan and Honda make money selling cars and the Big 3 LOSE money selling cars.  

..

5) $74 an hour.  Whoa be the poor working man and the evil GOP who is out to get them.  DAMN them for standing on their ideological grounds.

...

The automakers are failing because of poor business decisions.

The automakers are failing because they are cash poor. Have you looked at the sales declines of Toyota and Honda lately?

$74 an hour, like any other figure an employer throws out for what they pay their worker is around twice as much as what the worker actually gets. Between overhead, benefits, and taxes, it makes the wage look excessive when it's really not.

(http://mediamatters.org/items/200811220004?f=h_top) God love the right wing think tanks who mislead us all!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=1
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682

And if you haven't noticed, it's not just union shops that have been shedding jobs for the last 20 or 30 years. Look at basically any large american company. It's easy to blame the unions, but at&t (long before the current mess), the banks, companies like IBM, basically everybody has been slashing and burning jobs since at least the 80s, union or no.

Of course, we remember the union shops better, because the unions actually put up a fight. You know, wage givebacks and trying to force the company to cut costs in other areas before cutting 30% of the workforce.

Wage earners have been cast as the sole source and sole solution of any problem with any company for the last 30 years.

Wow.  Not even worth the energy to respond, but I can't resist because I have no self control.

Please define the hilarious talking point term "cash poor".  I love it.  

"hey guys, I'm not broke, I'm just cash poor"

"I'm not short, I'm vertically challenged"

"I'm not bald, I'm cranially unornamented"

"She's not ugly, she's visually destitute"

"He didn't max out his credit cards, he's simply credit challenged"

Perhaps the auto industry is simply "Credit Challenged".

Oh, oh, oh!  I got it. . . They are:

"Sales Disadvantaged"

Aww. We should bail them out.
[}:)]

Come on. Get real.  

[Gaspar]

Oh this has got to make even the most crazed wild-eyed liberals mad too.

Harry Reed is tagging earmarks on to the auto bail-out bill.  I guess he and Pelosi think that no one is looking.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the automaker loan measure, which is the only item of business on Congress' lame-duck agenda.

Delicious. He's tagging on a pay-raise for federal judges.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar


Delicious. He's tagging on a pay-raise for federal judges.

I guess you aren't mad that the Republicans wanted to tack on a pay cut for auto workers?

And cash poor means the fundamentals are fine, but the downturn is causing losses that can't be absorbed by existing cash reserves. The foreign makers have substantial cash reserves in addition to governments that have been subsidizing them for years.

GM is failing because of problems in non-core businesses. Even with the extreme handicap put on them by retirement benefits, their core auto business is profitable. (or was earlier this year, I don't know how last quarter looked)

[Gaspar]

Yes Republicans wanted the UAW to make some concession, any concession.  

A small pay cut of $5 an hour (cutting worker pay to an average of $69 an hour) would save the auto industry nearly 5 billion dollars a year and stop the bleeding, but no. The hatred between the Unions and the industry they serve is so great that they are willing to take it down.

So be it.

[guido911]

I did not realize the opposition to the bailout using taxpayer money was in excess of 60%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4645892

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Yes Republicans wanted the UAW to make some concession, any concession.  

A small pay cut of $5 an hour (cutting worker pay to an average of $69 an hour) would save the auto industry nearly 5 billion dollars a year and stop the bleeding, but no. The hatred between the Unions and the industry they serve is so great that they are willing to take it down.

So be it.

That's not quite right. The UAW didn't want to unilaterally take big pay cuts while management didn't think they should have to be inconvenienced. If the entire pay of UAW labor was eliminated it adds up to only 10% of the cost of a GM car. Hardly enough to stop the bleeding.

You're playing with figures. The average worker does not make $69 hr unless you include benefits. That pay average is skewed toward the older, more experienced workers who are paid well while newer employees often find better paying jobs outside the industry.

The real problem here is two fold. Southern Republicans playing politics with their supposed enemies, labor unions, who are primarily Democratic supporters. Because of those southern Senators' intransigence, its likely labor will continue to support their opponents each election.  And foreign competitors whose health care benefits are subsidized by their governments. Even when they locate factories on American soil, they profit from having lower labor costs in the south along with good cash reserves from their home operations.

The enigma is why southerners keep voting for leaders who despise them so.

[cannon_fodder]

Cash poor?  They LOSE MONEY by the BILLIONS every month.   The non-Big 3 car companies are still profitable.  They are cash poor because they lose money and have been for a very long time.

Cash poor.  Like this is a sudden crisis.  They've been failing for a generation.

PAY:

You're article is wrong.  Please note how the source I cited had 20 footnotes and your had none.  The entire premise for the argument is "nah uh" with nothing to back it up.  FACT:  UAW members cost the company $74 an hour.

Why are facts so hard to comprehend?

You are failing to grasp something in the argument at a fundamental level.  Instead of trying to logically figure out the issue, you are attempting to justify your position.  On a guttural level, Big-3 Good, Union Good, anyone that doesn't think that = bad.  

UAW labor adds $2500 to most Big 3 cars that the competition doesn't pay.  Therefor, they are not competitive and are failing companies.  No bailout will solve that basic problem of LOSING MONEY.
- - -

Per the Judicial raise bullcrap, it is totally unrelated to the automakers.  A great example of what is wrong with government... while testifying that they NEED TO GET THIS PASSED they then shove it full of other crap.   But as many strings on the "loan" as any lender would (show me you are profitable) but why tack on other garbage?

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

You're playing with figures. The average worker does not make $69 hr unless you include benefits.

How can you not  include benefits in the cost of an employee?  I don't see anyone here claiming the base pay of an autoworker is $138,000. per year (approx $69/hr). Every place I have worked has clamied that direct salary is about 1/2 the cost of an employee.  $138,000/2=$69,000.  That's about what some are claiming for employee (gross) income.  That's still not too shabby for a high school grad.  It sometimes makes me wonder why I spent all that time, effort and money to go to college.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Cash poor?  They LOSE MONEY by the BILLIONS every month.   The non-Big 3 car companies are still profitable.  They are cash poor because they lose money and have been for a very long time.

Cash poor.  Like this is a sudden crisis.  They've been failing for a generation.

PAY:

You're article is wrong.  Please note how the source I cited had 20 footnotes and your had none.  The entire premise for the argument is "nah uh" with nothing to back it up.  FACT:  UAW members cost the company $74 an hour.

Why are facts so hard to comprehend?

You are failing to grasp something in the argument at a fundamental level.  Instead of trying to logically figure out the issue, you are attempting to justify your position.  On a guttural level, Big-3 Good, Union Good, anyone that doesn't think that = bad.  

UAW labor adds $2500 to most Big 3 cars that the competition doesn't pay.  Therefor, they are not competitive and are failing companies.  No bailout will solve that basic problem of LOSING MONEY.
- - -

Per the Judicial raise bullcrap, it is totally unrelated to the automakers.  A great example of what is wrong with government... while testifying that they NEED TO GET THIS PASSED they then shove it full of other crap.   But as many strings on the "loan" as any lender would (show me you are profitable) but why tack on other garbage?

While I don't have time to do more research into the balance sheets of the big 3 for the last ten years now (I have a christmas party to get ready for), suffice it to say that the benefits they're paying retirees are included in the $70 an hour falsehood. Look at the references in your article. Just because they are there doesn't mean the article isn't stretching the truth of them.

Oh, and the payscale thing? The UAW is already taking cuts that are being phased in and will become fully effective in either 2010 or 2011. Those cuts will make UAW labor (not counting the retirees that the foreign makers have very few of in this country) less expensive than the non union labor in other factories.

This claim that neither the companies nor the unions have done anything to save themselves is complete and utter bull**** fed to us by people who have an ideological problem with unions and want to see the big 3 go under for no reason other than to break the UAW. (That would be the Heritage foundation)

Sadly, nobody bothers to do their homework, so the utterly misleading numbers put out by partisan think tanks are parroted as truth in news sources around the country. As far as I'm concerned, I have no more reason to believe the Heritage Foundation than I do the UAW's claims regarding their salary and benefits.

(and it was three articles, not one)

[waterboy]

Red Arrow, you went to college to get a better job. Hopefully it doesn't include logic. When you compare foreign automakers profitability and labor costs to American, you have to understand that their home governments pay for the health care costs of their domestic employees. We don't. Since most of their employees are overseas, it is an advantage. They also receive help in research and development. Here, its on your own dime. They locate their American factories in low wage states where the senators hope for lowering their constituents pay even more. Unlike Detroit automakers who pay wages competitive with northern cost of living.

Throwing around figures like $69-74 hr. is not accurate or a fair comparison. For one thing its an average, not a mean, not a mode, just a stupid average. Average IQ in America is around 106.

Why should labor carry the entire brunt of stupid national policy and greedy, self-serving management?

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Red Arrow, you went to college to get a better job. Hopefully it doesn't include logic.

Anyone who says the cost of an employee isn't such & such a price unless benfits are included could use some lessons in economics. The cost of benefits are always part of the cost of any employee. I got the $69/hr from your post. You can pick any number you want, benefits still cost the employer and are part of the cost of labor.

Notice: No where in here did I say that management is worth their salary either.  The purpose of management is to lead the company.  If they lead the company down a hole they should be fired.. no benefits, no parachute (unless it is lead).

My logic is just fine thank you. I often question the logic of Union lackeys and 5 year plan Harvard MBAs.