Waiting for UAW shoe to drop?

[Crissa]

Well, that may be true but the overall cost to the manufacturer is still the same with employees getting less. This is because the Union extracts a significant cut from the employee's pay.

In other words, Ford should model what Tesla does: pay the employees well, and give them healthcare, but don't have a union in the middle.

The amount a Union 'costs' is made up by having cheaper training costs, fewer liability cases, etc.

It's easy to ignore long tail benefits and insurance. You know, until it comes back to bite you.

that makes no sense.... threaten to strike because you want a battery plant to pay their staff more. Pretty sure that's not legal.

No, it's totally legal. The plant was unionized before the company changed the widgets they were making. Why would the change in widgets matter?

-Crissa

Sponsored

 

[Arctic_White]

The amount a Union 'costs' is made up by having cheaper training costs, fewer liability cases, etc.

It's easy to ignore long tail benefits and insurance. You know, until it comes back to bite you.


No, it's totally legal. The plant was unionized before the company changed the widgets they were making. Why would the change in widgets matter?

-Crissa

I would've given you the benefit of the doubt regarding unions and then I think about all the waste and corruption that has happened whenever a union is involved.

Nothing comes free, and you know it. More money gets allocated to union than you realize. Ford/GM will be hard-pressed to stay relevant until they can figure out a way to control their costs.

 

[PilotPete]

I would've given you the benefit of the doubt regarding unions and then I think about all the waste and corruption that has happened whenever a union is involved.

Nothing comes free, and you know it. More money gets allocated to union than you realize. Ford/GM will be hard-pressed to stay relevant until they can figure out a way to control their costs.

Union dues are subtracted from the employee’s pay. Yes, it means that the employee then asks for more money from the company. In the US, the company has NO choice as to whether or not the employees are unionized. The only way to prevent a union, is to keep the peeps happy. It is said that the only companies that have unions, are companies that need unions.

Most union contracts have a “picket line” and “sympathy” clause in the contract. Those clauses prevent the company from forcing an employee to violate and cross another company’s picket line. They also allow employees to walk off the job and strike for other locals within the same union, or within the same or related business. There are so many different clauses that most unions (not covered by the RLA in the US) can strike any day for any reason. And when they do, a smart union has a “war chest” with enough money to pay the employees all or most of their regular pay for a period of time. The largest of the unions (like the UAW) can use current working members to help finance the paychecks of the striking members.

 

[hridge2020]

Wondering how much the looming UAW strike might be playing into the dragged out release details on Cybertruck? Big product launch...thinking that if I was making decisions on pricing and rollout, a small detail like having Ford, GM, and Stellantis workers in a bitter strike might be a factor. Thoughts? What are the implications for CT if there is a drawn out strike?

shoe dropped

 

[Crissa]

I would've given you the benefit of the doubt regarding unions and then I think about all the waste and corruption that has happened whenever a union is involved.

...And you missed the waste and corruption whenever a corporation is involved?

C'mon. Those fines don't pay themselves (actually they do, we let them deduct them from their taxes!)

-Crissa

 

[Love2Cyber]

I’ve never seen anyone say how much of the wage increase could be funded by lowering CEO, CFO salaries. You can pay a lot of employees with the $ they make.

Yea I know benefits add significantly but It could help. Besides if they were worth the $ they’re getting the company wouldn’t be in this to begin with.

Great idea - pay less for the people creating strategies that keep these old mules kicking...and workers comparatively overfed. Check China's EV production costs. Takes some seriously smart folks to lead these companies to compete with $25k electric vehicles...particularly with the bloat that their employees are looking for. Reality though - might not make sense to produce cars in the US any more. Time to move on like Apple did and make them in China?

 

[jerhenderson]

The amount a Union 'costs' is made up by having cheaper training costs, fewer liability cases, etc.

It's easy to ignore long tail benefits and insurance. You know, until it comes back to bite you.


No, it's totally legal. The plant was unionized before the company changed the widgets they were making. Why would the change in widgets matter?

-Crissa

through the purchase. an old plant doesn't have to have new union staff.

 

[HaulingAss]

I’ve never seen anyone say how much of the wage increase could be funded by lowering CEO, CFO salaries. You can pay a lot of employees with the $ they make.

Yea I know benefits add significantly but It could help. Besides if they were worth the $ they’re getting the company wouldn’t be in this to begin with.

I agree with lowering managements pay, because it was management that got the legacy automakers into this bind, and allowed little upstart Tesla to own the best-selling car in the world, the Model Y. And, after being told by legacy auto that Tesla's are too expensive for "regular" people to buy, it's ironic that Tesla's best-selling model is not the Model 3, the most affordable model of them all, but the considerably more expensive Model Y. That is the car that displaced the Toyota Corolla as the best-selling car in the world.

The American media is complicit in this too, they should be letting Americans know that a real American automaker has finally taken back the coveted crown of the best-selling car in the world. How many decades has it been since an American automaker held this title? Yet, they do not publish stories informing their readers of this momentous achievement by a tiny upstart. Oh, sure, they will loudly tell us about every single EV that catches fire, anywhere in the world, but they will not tell us that an American auto company has finally, after many decades, taken back the crown of the best-selling car in the world.

However, I disagree strongly that the UAW workers are to blame for the mess GM, Ford and Stellantis find themselves in. The union workers just build the cars, they don't develop corporate strategies and select which models to develop. GM could have continued development of their revolutionary EV1, but they chose to stop development and keep building legacy gas cars and trucks.

I also blame the corrupt union management, not the workers, for unions becoming a ball and chain on legacy auto. Sure, they elected them, but the entire process was corrupt and too political for the workers themselves to do much about it.

 

[Mini2nut]

Bringing back pensions? 32 hour work week?

The Big 3 also have a powerful tool that can be used at any time. It’s called a lockout.

 

[charliemagpie]

Funny, both GM and Ford are up in early trading, and TSLA is down.

 

[cal]

Clearly senior US automotive management is not worth what they are and have been paying them. They've clearly missed everything related to their changing industry. UW is advertising that CEO pay went up 40% since the last raise. I seriously doubt anyone can justify any increase much less that much. Not one of the big three are world class leaders in manufacturing, design, or vision.

 

[PilotPete]

I agree with lowering managements pay, because it was management that got the legacy automakers into this bind, and allowed little upstart Tesla to own the best-selling car in the world, the Model Y.

Bringing back pensions? 32 hour work week?

Clearly senior US automotive management is not worth what they are and have been paying them. They've clearly missed everything related to their changing industry. UW is advertising that CEO pay went up 40% since the last raise. I seriously doubt anyone can justify any increase much less that much. Not one of the big three are world class leaders in manufacturing, design, or vision.

"You don't get the compensation you deserve, you get the compensation you negotiate."

This is true of workers and managers the same, too much or too little.

 

[Mini2nut]

So true…

“You don't get the compensation you deserve, you get the compensation you negotiate."

 

[Crissa]

through the purchase. an old plant doesn't have to have new union staff.

You can't sell a manufacturing plant to yourself.

Takes some seriously smart folks to lead these companies to...

There's no evidence that high executive compensation is associated with better outcomes.

-Crissa

 

[PilotPete]

There's no evidence that high executive compensation is associated with better outcomes.

-Crissa

Not directly.

However, as a general rule, better outcomes are associated with better high level execs. And better high level execs tend to get paid more.

Sponsored