If a person is making $60 an hour and can't live on that it's time to learn and live on a budget and stop living beyond your means.

If a worker really thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence they should go into business for themselves to make that easy money with free health care and a guarantee retirement fund.

 

100% On the money. I make 6 figures, but I don't make $60 an hour. I get by just fine with a large house on 5 acres, a 5th wheel RV, two nice tractors and farm equipment, 3 cars and a truck. Last I checked it was $45 an hour plus bonus and a 44 hour work week along with, at least for this month, three weekend hours from midnight to 3 AM. I live in Illinois to boot! It is all in the budgeting, if a person making $60 an hour, for a 40 hour work with and no weekend work can't make it in KY, then they are seriously wasting money somewhere.

I know for a fact there is a union that should be disbanded because it affects our childrens future and that is the CTU! Chicgo public schools are so screwed up because of the union, kids are not being educated properly, good teachers leave and are replaced with incompetent ones. In fact no school system should have a union, and their administrative departments should be cut in half or 3/4 and money focused on education. In fact the entire school system should be revamped to focus on when a child graduates high school that they have some form of a skill set to get a job instead of all the focus on testing and college prep. Bring back shop classes, teach them to weld, pipe fitting, mechanical engineering, HVAC. If they were to put as much effort into shop classes as they do sports, a good portion of graduates could head into the job market and obtain a good paying job, and not rely on Do you want fries with that!

The time for union has passed. The fact that non US automakers can have plants in the US with non union workers and the quality exceeds the US manufacturers is a big tell that Unions hold back, not move forward. Company I work for is privately held, and we have a pension as well. The company has walls full of 20/25/30/35/40 and 45 year workers. Company has been around 98 years, and is debt free. No unions needed.

Go watch assembly line workers and tell me that they need to be highly paid for what they do. Heck, they have it now that they don't need to lift anything, machines do it all for them. There is very little hands on in the engine and transmission assembly. Some of the workers sit on a stool and push a button, thats all they do.

 

And this is the great thing about capitalism - the wages will land where they should be in each geography. I manage 19 engineers scattered across the continental US. All of them have a base skill set to allow them to earn a minimum of $80,000 per year in a "standard market" area. Some who live in very rural, lower cost of living states get paid less than those that live in larger metropolitan areas. I have to offer a higher salary to someone in San Francisco than I do in Wichita.

The only benefit I've seen from the COVID nonsense this country went through is it helped correct wages. Companies had to increase wages to attract workers back after the lockdowns were lifted. One has to ask themselves how much is a particular job worth? Should a whopper-flopper make $15 - $20 per hour? Is it fair to pay someone $30,000 - 40,000 per year to push hamburgers across a grill in a fast-food establishment? You tell me.

If the owners of the franchises decide they can't pay that high without substantially increasing the menu prices then the ultimate deciding factor on whether someone is worth $40,000 per year to make hamburgers will be decided by the consumer. If sales cease then the franchise will close. If sales continue then the public is OK with the higher cost of the food. In the end a balancing act must occur for the process to continue.

I find it interesting that the union folks want to blame the management and CEO's for all of the issues, even though they vastly outnumber the management in the company. They also seem to believe that managers don't have any skills, responsibilities, etc. I promise you that the guy paid $36 / hour to put four bolts in the driver's door of an F-150 rolling down the line likely does not have the skillset required to navigate corporate America and to deal with all of the personalities, production issues, legal stuff, etc. that managers are faced with every day. I am an engineer and I used to report to someone in my position now. I've worked both jobs - the manager job is much more stressful, time consuming, demanding, etc. than the engineer job. Guess what - the company knows this and I am paid more to do the job. I am also expected to work when I need to - if that includes nights, weekends, etc. that is too bad for me. Ask my team - they will tell you that none of them want to trade positions with me. To be honest some days I feel like stepping back and just cruising to retirement doing design work. But there are very rewarding aspects to managing a team and to be perfectly honest I also want the higher compensation and perks of being a Director. Therefore I accept the terms of employment my company expects and they compensate me accordingly. Also - I planned for my retirement and do not expect anyone to do that for me.

Anyway, the reality is that the payroll costs of the union line workers is vastly greater than the payroll cost of the management and C-level executives. Trying to justify ridiculous wages because 1% of the company earns more than you think they should is not realistic. I'm not down-playing the role of the line worker but it is important to keep it in perspective. They say there would be no trucks to sell if they didn't assemble them. True. There would be no trucks to sell if they weren't designed either... Or if the materials to build them weren't procured... Or if there was no marketing to make the public aware... Or if there weren't any investors to help grow the company...

 

I was once in a major motorcycle plant and was able to tour and watch the assembly. There was 5 people sitting around a motorcycle and every 10 or 20 min they rotated to not get burnt doing the same thing all day. Not a job worth the money they were getting.
After reading all the way thru this I believe the originator has been outnumbered.
Maybe we should do a poll, might be interesting, but would not accomplish anything.
GREED is what is slowly stopping this world from turning.

 

Once upon a time, I got paid to write process control software for a steel coil treatment plant. I was gobsmacked to learn that we could not take our computer equipment into the plant and get it running ourselves. We had to wait for an oh-so-valuable union porter (an unskilled job) to carry the stuff upstairs for us. Once it was up there, we could not touch it until a union electrician--who knew NOTHING about connecting computers together with cables--wired it up. Then and only then could we undo what the union electrician did, wire it up correctly, and test it.

These incredibly valuable union employees added tremendous value by delaying the project for WEEKS.

I support collective bargaining for fair wages and safe working conditions. I do *not* support it for make-work bullcrap, protectionism, or phony job safety that insulates the dead wood, which you find everywhere, union or non-union. It's a lot harder to fire them when they're union.

 

It took a BS degree in engineering, 13 years working in the field, busting my butt the whole time through school and many late nights at work, managing projects, and earning a professional license (where I am legally liable for the work I sign off on) to clear $60/hr. UAW can take a hike as far as I'm concerned in this matter! I'm pro manufacturing in the USA and paying workers a decent wage, but if I was in Ford's or any other manufacturer's shoes I would seriously be looking at investing in automation or sending those jobs over the border. I'm sure the severance packages are steep for sending all those workers packing, but there is a breakover point somewhere where it doesn't make sense to employ them anymore.

I fully understand that unions have their place. However, I think their time has passed in a lot of situations.

 

it is odd that all the experience and education a skilled person has can be overridden by sheer numbers and strong arming, mafia style. And make no mistake, uaw is a completely unskilled labor force. Within a few hours anyone can be shown how to perform their job.

 

I believe everyone is entitled to realize their dream and be fairly compensated. So my reaction to every striking worker who says they are worth x dollars per hour and that a competitor will scoop him up in a hearbeat: "Go right ahead, quit and show your current boss what's what."

 

How hard would it be to fire them all and go non-union? If they can be trained in a few days, I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd like a decent paying job on the line.

 

as much as I dislike unions, especially unskilled, it would cost the company unfathomable amount, which is the power of the union. Even long term slow integration of non union is difficult as the union fights back even if their commitments are met. Treating non union like crap and demanding non union are payed much less and not able to participate in benefits.

 

then get ready for more cars imported directly from say, Korea or China.

 

Like the Trailblazer? Check out the parts content and assembly point on this window sticker....

https://www.steveschevroletchowchill...9MVSL5PB188574

 

GM has been selling Trax/Encore made in Korea for quite a few years now, as well as Envision made in China. No one seems to care.

Volvo sells a lot of Chinese made cars here too.

 

Funny you say that.... I saw a clip from one of the UAW strike locations a couple of days ago, they had a guest speaker, and that guest was everybody's favorite socialist senator.

What I got out of the 30 seconds or so that I watched, from both the UAW speaker, and the other guy, is that this is the billionaire class vs the working class 🙄.

 

in a way they are right, it is the billionaire class vs everyone else.

what they fail to mention or want to comes to terms with, is that the working class now includes most people in the world. Pax Americana has made much of the rest of the world suitable places to make things.