If the wages weren't out of spec then the cost of the vehicles would come down. Think about this, how many people do we employ at ~$20/hr in these plants? Now how many total man hours is that plant open? How many vehicles do they produce in a day? See where it goes? It boils down to if we lower manufacturing costs, then more people can afford the new car because the price won't be as much as a house.

 

Since this thread is heading to economics, I'll add my 2c here two. We Americans have it better economically than just about anyone, anywhere - don't think that's news. It ain't cause we 'protect' our jobs - i.e. don't allow others to do them, or 'force' a pay scale (in my state, we have a 'prevailing wage' law that makes it illegal - illegal! - to pay less than 'std' union wages, even to non-union workers).
In fact, I believe jobs going oversees is actually good - OVERALL - for us. Why? If someone oversees is willing to make trinkets, shoes, shirts, or cars at a lower price, it raises our standard of living since we pay less for this stuff. The challenge is creating new, higher paying jobs for those that got 'out-sourced' (create the 'next big thing') - and the will to learn them. This is another area where this country excels - a flexible workforce; Europe is suffering badly because of thier lack of it. People want to be able to do the same jobs their great-great grandfathers did, with high pay, limited hours, and with lots of holidays. Great, but the overall standard of living will suffer - someone's gotta break new ground and do the work! Maybe this is finally started to sink-in in places like France and Germany (although France is doggedly hanging on to their mandated 36 hour max work week). Its fine as long as you accept a stiffled economy where your children will likely live worse off than you. I know this may seem backwards to some, but I believe its what seperates America from so many other places, and why we continue to have one of the highest standards of living, and a economy growing faster than ANY other industrialized country. Change is rarely embraced - or easy. Learn new tricks or become second rate.

 

pfogle: If we built cars with every one in the plant making $20.00 per hr. and these happy people were then willing to put forth $20 worth of effort instead of $8.00 worth the productivity and quality would improve to the point where we would again be in the game and also able to afford the price .

When you discover how much profit per unit for 3/4 ton trucks the big 3 declare to their share holders you will soon realize why the prices are so high .

If we built vehicles that were competitive and put them on lots for sale and done away with all the carpetbeggers that live off the teat of the automotive industry that are not required to do so like the billions that is priced back into the industry for marketing and financing and employing hundreds of thousands
of engineers and technitions to totally redesign every model every year and add a new kitchen sink that the competition does not have yet and the reams of others that have nothing to do with producing a quality product for market
the price would also come down in a hurry .

As long as a salesman on a car lot can make 3 times as much take home pay as the guy building the vehicles if he is any good at all and can sustain the numbers we are always going to pay 30 or 40% to support all those on the
Gimmy Train .

Just as the packers and handlers of our food (another necessity market)that has been hijacked by the paper shufflers and Corporate America to the point where those producing our food earn less than 10% of the market value of that product we will always pay through the nose and live with the predictions put forth by many when our countries and economy were being hijacked by the banks and share holders during the great depression .

Try offering an auto worker 10% of the profit from the industry he works in and see what kind of employees you end up with at the end of the week .

Why do you think almost all big companies shun profit sharing like the plague ?

They would have to pay their workers more than they make now and they would also have to declare their actual black ink profits .

The auto industry has become nothing more than a cash consuming vacume that will continue to eat any and all profits it is fed regardless of the state of the industry .

 

United Auto Workers. This story is almost too stupid to comprehend, but here goes... It seems the 1st Battalion 24th Marines needed a place for its reservists working on a base on Jefferson Avenue, in Detroit, to park their cars. The UAW offered its nearby "Solidarity House" headquarters parking lot to the Marines as a gesture of goodwill. But when the UAW saw that some of the Marines were driving imported cars with pro-President Bush bumper stickers on them, they rescinded the offer (the union has long had a ban on "foreign" cars being able to park in their parking lot). The union released the following statement last Friday: "While reservists certainly have the right to drive nonunion made vehicles and display bumper stickers touting the most anti-worker, anti-union president since the 1920s, that doesn't mean they have the right to park in a lot owned by the members of the UAW."


I Deliver To The Ford Plant Sounds True.

 

I can believe it. My Bro-in-law said that the union where he was working was threatening NOT to pay the workers if they voted for Bush.

 

I believe the UAW then caved in under public pressure and allowed the reservists to park there, but the marines wouldn't accept the offer, and found somewhere else to park.

 

I could say a lot more then I'm going to. I do know a guy who works for "Brown", he has been fired several times and always gets his job back. But I always wonder why, he has publicly stated on multiple occasions (and I did even inform him about my press credentials) that his goal was to be the WORST in the union. I'm sorry, but for everything good the unions have ever done, putting up with this is unacceptable. These kinds of abuses and the general flaw in our economic thinking is the reason we are hurting ourselves.

 

I tend to think along the same lines of cjstang, at least with respect to several points.

IMO, the story about the Marines and the UAW is a good example of what is wrong with large unions today. They are much too politicized, both internally and externally. By that I mean that oftentimes they seem overwhelmed by problems of their own doing and absolutely blind to current events. In both cases, there is a disservice being done to their members. And a lot of union members will admit that, too. They haven’t all been brainwashed into regurgitating the party line all of the time. If the story about the Marines as told is true, then I'd have to think there are a lot of UAW members right now who are outright ashamed of their association. And I bet it wouldn't be the first time they felt this way. Likewise, I’d also bet that most union members will tell you that they despise the slackers and hangers-on among them who look at the union as some sort of “free pass” in life.

I have no problem with unions protecting the rights of workers and promoting safety in the workplace. They were first and foremost in doing that (only later did Uncle Sam and the states begin to enact fair wage and workplace safety laws) and I believe they still have an important role today in continuing to do that. To leave the immense job of monitoring and managing’ workers’ rights and workplace safety in this country solely to OSHA and/or any other federal or state agency is simply putting WAY to much faith in government. Remember, more than anything, government IS politics.

And we know that we certainly can’t rely upon Management to always look out for the well being of the working stiff, either. After all, the bottom line is what drives them, and they all freely admit to that. In fact, that’s exactly what their stockholders and investors want to hear out of them. How many times have you seen the price of a stock jump when the news hits the floor that a company just laid off another 1000 employees in order to get “leaner”?

Lots of competing interests involved here.

 

Absolutely right. The problem is a Catch-22. The Department of Labor is a Government agency that is controlled at will by the elitist rich who wield political control (via financial support) of our elected officials to suit their needs. A good example is the repeal of overtime pay for "professionals". My friend is a Medic at the E.R. in Crozier Hospital and his fiance is a Nurse there. The Union contract that they have stipulates that they still get overtime pay, despite the change in Federal Requirement. Why should the stockholders of Crozier Hospital be allowed to purposely understaff the hospital and mandate longer hours for the employhees without paying them more for the effort? Without a union, they would have to work a 55 hr work week with no time and a half pay. The stockholders, however, would not deny themselves increased dividends, however. As long as the business climate in American companies remains the same old swindle and steal from the bottom to feed the top mentality, unions will have their place. I never said that they were perfect, but then again, it is still the best defense the working guy has. The rich have money, which gives them power. The working class has organized labor, the combination of the little bit of power that each person holds individually combined together to oppose the power of the rich few who would seek to dominate and subjugate those of us without untold millions of disposable dollars to be used as campaign "contributions". I am sorry pfogle about what happened with your pop, as that was unfortunate, and is proof of what I said, and that is that unions are not perfect. However, they still beat the alternative, which is a continual decline in our standard of living untill we are serfs serving a privileged few, who would lord over us with their greedy will. As I said before, however, there would be no unions if the companies their constituents work for would have treated them well in the first place. I have worked in union and non union shops, and I can tell you this, the best shopI worked in was non-union. The worst shop I worked in was also non-union. The shops that were union became union because they were once like the wost shop I worked in. Besides, if the $20 per hour folks in the car factories went to $8.00 per hour, do you really think that these companies would cut the prices back? I don't think so. Both the unions and the management of American companies need to step back, and try to agree more and become more reasonable. By the way, the service people should be making the most money, because we need to re-engineer the engineering bloopers, fix the factory screw ups, and adapt the product for customers who's sales people over promised and then the product under delivered. Untill the American business culture adopts a real code of ethics, there will be a need for unions, who will then abuse their power and protect the morons. Either way you look at it, you loose somewhwere. But which way is the worse loss? I say the unionless way would be the downward spiral for the American worker.

 

Here is a link to the UAW parking incident
http://warnerrobert.com/ubb/ultimate...c;f=6;t=002028

 

This comment made me think of baseball, football, etc.

 

They help with the livelyhood of the everyday union worker. In the mean time the rest of us are making less money (although a fair salary) to do the same job. This tilts the economic advantage to the union worker and hurts everyone else.

That sounds great. Unfortunately, they guarantee wages for those who don't want to work as well. There is an American Airlines union plant here. Guess how often we hear the words "I'm in a union, I don't have to work but they still have to pay me" or something real close to that.

I will not deny that there was a time and a place for unions, nor that there still might be in some situations. However, most of the things mentioned above are now regulated by the government. Those that aren't are things a company must offer to their employees if they want to attract good workers.

I disaggree. My father worked at Mercruiser for about 20 years before retiring. The plant he worked at was non union and the employees wanted it that way. They had the opportunity to unionize 4 times while he was there and voted against it everytime. The only people there that wanted a union were the yankees who transferred in from up north. My point is that there is no threat of unionization in this part of the country, yet workers are still treated very well. The only reason there are unions in a few places are because the workers were forced into having a union or else be unemployed.


As you say, the door swings both ways. It is difficult for a company to survive when its workers are pompous, arrogant, ignorant and have no desire to actually earn the money they take home with them.

Nobody, which is the point. Nobody is guaranteed the opportunity to have a great job that they love. Life isn't fair. There are people out there that we could pay $100k a year to watch TV and they would complain about it.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe the people that can afford them? No where in our Constitution does it say that we have the right, privelege, etc. to have a $40-50k vehicle. What percentage of those that are sold do you think are actually fulfilling a role that couldn't be filled just as well by something else that cost half as much? Maybe 1%? People throw their money away. You can live fine on $8/hr if that's what you need to do. You just can't have all the frivolous BS that people think they have a right to own. If they want something better they should find the motivation to pursue that; not have it handed to them on a silver platter because they are in a union. And I'm not saying there aren't positions out there that don't deserve to make $20/hr. I'm talking about the janitors, ditch diggers, mail boys, etc. that are making $20/hr because the union says that's what they should make.

One last thing about a union. How much of the increased salary a union worker makes is paid to the union? That's not rhetorical, I don't know. When the union decides to strike whether the workers want to or not, what are those workers going to be taking home?

 

WRONG WRONG WRONG

The biggest reason Detroit has problems with product quality is the union driven labor cost. A lot of people keep talking about how great Japanese companies are but you really need to look at their pay scale American workers make significantly more than Japanese workers; additionally, Japanese factories are much more automated than ours. Unions force unrealistic inflation of the wage scale, protect jobs against automation, and prevent firing of unproductive employees. Because they can't control labor costs but have to be competitive in product price, American companies are forced to use less costly materials and parts. How do you get lower cost parts and materials? You use less precise lower quality stuff.

Despite that I will put my Detroit Iron up against your Rice Burner any day because they do stand up mechanically in comparison. Besides, I will not buy a foriegn vehicle unless the country of origin allows equal access to its markets and the Japanese do not, fair is fair and they dont play fair.
If you think Japanese corporations are any less greedy than American corps you are woefully uninformed. Japanese companies are some of the most ruthless cut throat outfits in the world and if you really think they treat their workers so much better I suggest you work for one, in Japan with out the protection afforded US workers by laws, I think you will change your mind,

 

Nicely said! I to have worked a union job and half the day I would read a book because I was hired to do one particular job and thats it. If I grabbed a shovel I would get my but chewed,what a waist of time and money.Lest we never forget who bombed our soil in WWll,I will always buy FORD!!

 

Japan was a cheap place to mfg decades ago. They are pretty much as expensive, overall, as the US, more so in many industries. This is only partly labor rates - which aren't cheap by any means (and Japan has just started to deal with 'lifetime' employment). Its also due to their lack of natural resources and shipping, etc (being they're on a bunch of islands) adds a non-trivial amount to cost. These are several of the reasons they build so many cars here - besides import restrictions. You don't see companies going to Japan to save cost - if anything its the other way around.

China is the prefered low-cost provider now - and they appear to be gearing up to join the auto mfg frey. This could easily impact the Japanese and Korean makers more than us, but the price pressure if this happens will be big (worse than when Japan had this distinction). Their labor practices would make the conditions in Japan, or any industrialized country, look like a party (I've been there and have seen it first hand). And it doesn't look particularly promising that the US will either severely restrict their goods or force substantial changes (be it Republican or Democrat). Unlike Japan, it will take a longer time before their labor rates rise to a more equitable rate, what with 1.3 billion people to draw on.

Japan, and more so China, certainly have their 'unfair' trade practices, but don't think the US doesn't also, particularly with food stuffs (i.e. our huge subsidaries to the farm industry). I'm not saying they're equivalent, but we play the game too. A big hurdle to foreign competition in Japan is 'discrimination' - i.e. many companies, and people, won't buy non-Japanese (sound familiar). But this has its cost, and it appears this is starting to change if for no other reason than money. Nissan is one that seems to be getting this point.