Now I know that Delphi is mainly a GM company, but this is ridiculous. I was watching the local evening news last night. I had my head in the labtop getting ready for work, when a story about Delphi came on. I wasn't paying attention, but then my wife asks, "Delphi employees make 78 dollars an hour?" I said, BS, so with the wonderful DVR, I hit record. Sure enough, the assembly line workers (put cards into slots) make 78 frakin dollars an hour. WTH, Thats more than tripple what I make, and I've got a college degree. I bet I could train a monkey to put a card into a slot on a mother board type thing. 78 dollars a hour is just inconcievable. No wonder they are going out of buisness.

Now, that said, I'm sure thats probably the highest paid line workers, but still, that means the lowest would probably be at the least 45 dollars. Thats still double what I make a hour with a college degree.

 

I would imagine that is with benefits like health and pension and the like.

 

Delphi workers make a average of 26.95 a hour. Delphi wants to slash that to 16.95 a hour.

 

If their agreement is anything like the general UAW agreement with GM, the lowest paid positions are probably in the neighborhood of $25/hr. $17/hr would be much more in line with reality than where the wages are now. The wage and benefit packages in place now are no more than the UAW going "pay us this or we'll walk out" type negotiating.

 

And they wonder why no one is buying their products. How can a guy making $12/hr buy something make by folks making $27.

 

Well said 4wd. I wouldn't know what do with $27 an hour. I guess the more you make he mre you spend. In other words; your debt to income ratio will be the same. You'd just have nicer crap.

 

I'm not trying to be offensive or strat anything but the attitude of many people that you have to have a degree or some kind of college education to be paid decent money is what is wrong with the world today. The "haves" as they see(the ones with the degrees) think they are of a higher class than the "have nots", In my part of the world it is the have nots that are the doers because the have are so useless they can't wipe their own asses or change a tyre for themselves. If a production line worker is getting $78 and hour don't whine about how hard done by you are because you make less than him and you have a degree, go out and join him on the line and get $78 like he does and file that degree in the junk pile where most of them belong. Now before you attack me I also have adegree but I don't publicise this, I am a tradesman and proud of it, the degree is just a worthless piece of paper to me.

 

Delphi was a GM Company, past tense. The wages aren't that far out of the norm- Toyota workers (non-union) make $25/hr, for example. There are a lot of issues that caused Delphis BK- wages are just one part of the equation.

 

No line worker gets $78/hr. That would be 160K/yr. So are you saying no degree should be required to practice law, medicine, be an accoutant, engineer, schoolteacher? With no degree you are simply eliminating a great many career possibilities. Having a degree guarantees nothing, not having one (or more) just ensures your choices are limited.

 

I'm just saying thats what the evening news was reported.

No, I'm not going to trash people that get that much money, thats good for them. My job is secure, which makes me a little happier than them. What I don't understand is why anyone on a production line would make 160K a year. Thats just ridiculous. They showed the job, it was putting cards together, and soldering. There are guys who work in an experienced RF field, a small group mind you, with a lot of specialized experience, that no one else in the world have. They make maybe 70,000 a year, and someone who puts cards together, and solders can make 160,000 a year. All I can say is, Behold, the power of Unions.

 

I'm not saying a degree shouldn't be required for lots of occupations but the people that make out that its like a ticket to some elite club are morons in my book, a degree is just a piece of paper, just like a trade certificate but from a different institution, it doesn't make you special and it certainly doesn't make you better than someone without one. As for some of the mentioned occupations, everyone knows lawyers are one of the lowest forms of life, accountacy can be learnt from a decent book without going to college, engineers.............not worth wasting letters on and school teachers, just have a look at most of the kids todau and you can see what a great job they do.

 

Partly agree, partly not. I think.

I'm a Phi Beta Kappa UC Graduate and a commercial driver, as well as a host of other white and blue callar jobs.

We have to be careful discussing this, because there are generalities which are true, yet plenty of individual examples which belie/oppose the generalities. Yet both can be "true". And I will not get caught up in discussing the minutae and get slammed by either side.

In the final analysis, the market will decide whether management and/or unions and/or individuals have made the right long term decisions...and both rarely do due to greed and myopic sight. IMO, you are almost always responsible for the mess you're in...you cannot blindly tie your wagon to any horse and give up responsibility.

Things evolve, and if you don't you get left behind.

 

I drove by a Delphi plant in Dayton, OH today and while driving by I saw five late model Cadillac's in the employee lot. That's just what I could see from the road! This was not an upper management lot but rather a union employee lot.

 

I am baffled as to how a man that claims to be educated can make such ignorant statements. It appears to me that you did not "learnt" a lot and I agree that your degree is probably a worthless piece of paper.
Dono

 

You know, I never expected my degree to get me into, "an elite club" of any kind. I'm making a point, that someone, in a union, can exploit that system, to make more than someone who spent 8 or more years in college. Now I didn't spend 8 years in college, I was just using myself as an example.

A college degree is a physical reminder of the things that you learned in your years in that institution. A trade degree can be good to, but these people don't have that, they are hourly, assembly line workers. I'm sorry, sliding a card into a board, or soldering a resistor just doesn't entitle one to that much money.