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Notice the diet coke beside the contract. I’d say put the contract on a diet.
Labor rules for GM. Wow, no wonder their inefficient.
The unions have a vested interest in making their respective industries as inefficient as they can get away with.
Taxpayer money poured into this bottomless pit without shredding this document is not going to fly.
wonder how many of those PAGES are a contribution by organized criminal types
“wonder how many of those PAGES are a contribution by organized criminal types”
None! They don’t write any of that shit down!
While that certainly is a brick of a contract, do note what is covered in the contents, I’m sure a lot of that is of the same ilk as legal bafflegab that my (private, non-union) employer’s health plan has, or my insurance companies unreadable tome. Except in the this case it’s conglomerated together.
Not to say that THAT coudn’t be shortened too, nor the UAW contract made decent, but still..
Yesterdat Roy Green had a snipit about the Auto workers contract and their medical plan. Seems in Canada much of their medical plan is covered by the Canadian medical system, so the tax payer is already paying part pof the auto workers bill.
The UAW didn’t want to giveup any more consessions so I guess 100% of nothing is better than 70% or 80% of something.
Maybe they should read some of the news about how bad the economy is, NAW that wouldn’t matter.
It is only a ressession when your neighbour is out of work but remember it is a Depression when you are out of work.
Maybe they could learn something from Dion—REDO-REDO-REDO
The 22 pound mound could be replaced by a single page profit sharing agreement.
Do ya think that there was a stable full of lawyers involved in this?
Now go through the contract and try too find what someone gets paid an hour when they aren’t an apprentice.
Then calculate the effective wage rate, which includes add ins for holidays, classroom time, days off etc…assuming you can find it all….then go through the contract and add in the costs of benefits the company is paying….then you need to figure out all of the employer paid payroll taxes, are those lump sums or percentage of wage based….if % then the higher wages get worse.
All I was able to find was that when you are a new hire you make a base rate of 28.04 an hour, this is classified as an apprentice….the wages only go up from there. Thats about 52,000/year for an apprentice, before bennies, but including 2 weeks vacation, it doesnt include classroom and training time.
Anyone know what te starting wage is at one of those “ferign” plants in the south for an equivalent starting wage?
Finally, the claim that labout only represents 7% of cost of car. So lets take an average sale price of 30,000….lets give labour the benefit of the doubt and say they earn 7% of the Dealer cost not 7% of Retail price. So, 92% of average sale price is 27,600.
7% of $27,600 is 1932 per car.
In a bad year like this one the big three will sell about 12 million cars, they have been selling 17 million in almost all previous years.
So if we take the bottom end and assume a 20% labour reduction, acheived in however it makes sense (less workers, lower effectove wage rate, lower hourly, lower bennies)
.2 x 1932 x 12,000,000 = 4.6 Billion dollars
So how much are the big three asking for again…I believe there is a third of it right there, assuming the 7% figure is correct.
Next the pensioners and benefit pkans need to take a haircut in terms of funding…I bet yiu can get at least the same amount again, given that there are two retirees for every worker.
Finally company overhead, mgt osts and bennies, asset sales can generate the last bit.
A government bridge is fine, but I see absolutely no reason why the unions shoudnt take a hair cut…and or agree to a wage freeze for more than a decade.
These are well paid workers all around, the dealers I have no sypathy for, I should be able to buy a car at wall mart or Canadian tire for crying out loud.
No need to throw these guys out of work but a choice between lower effective wage rates and the survival of the company has to be made. Normal functioning is that the companies go bust and then the goods are supplied by someone else….it is in our best interests to force the adjustment without blowing up the system, but ultimately bondholders, shareholders, pensioners, mgt and current labour suppliers are all going to have to take major haircuts.
They all lived well when things expanded, now is the time to adjust. No need to assign blame, just apportion costs for a model going forward.
But all of those stakeholders have to take a shot to the neck…..ALL OF THEM.
Maybe it’s just double-spaced.
Maybe it’s just double-spaced.
Here’s a longish story -but totally on point- that a friend sent me recently:
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.
Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the ‘Rowing Team Quality First Program,’ with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to ‘equal the competition’ and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.
The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year’s racing team was out-sourced to India .
Sadly, the End.
Here’s something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can’t make money paying American wages.
TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. These are located in the American South, where workers in general are quite hostile towards unions. These workers have consistently voted against the UAW in govt-supervised secret ballot unionization elections. The last quarter’s results:
TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while FORD racked up 9 billion in losses.
Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses.
that’s funny C.O. !
No one who works indoors needs a union.
Great article at Pajamas Media today about how it was actually Henry Ford himself, in 1914, not the unions decades later, who instituted the 8 hour day and five day week.
Kathy, it was also Henry Ford who started paying his laborer workers $5 a day, incurring his fellow-industrialists’ wrath, instead of the then-standard $1 per day wage. Ford said he wanted his workers to be able to afford to buy one of his cars. It worked.
Wow… that pile of paper would last about a couple of weeks to a month in the mens’ room at a cheap Mexican restaurant!
I have little to no sympathy for unions.
I look at my job, how crappy it is and how little I make, without benefits. Then I look at the autoworkers’ jobs, their nice working conditions, their generous compensation packages and their ability to hold an industry hostage for even more… And from what I see on TV, their jobs look easy, attach this, attach that… they dress as they please, as if they own the place, which they don’t.
Sorry. No sympathy.
If the Big Three don’t want to be competitive, then they don’t deserve to survive. Not in a free market system. And certainly not with taxpayer money. If they get bailed out, they’re still going to end up being shut down. Without serious, arm-twisting reform and sacrifice from all, including the unions, then the Big Three will go the way of American Motors.
New American automakers can take their place. There’s already a few small, tiny ones, like Panoz, Tesla, Saleen… they’re there and they could, with new investment, grow… plus the foreign marques can always open up new factories, or buy up the old Big Three ones, and laid off workers, at least some of them, will have somewhere to go back to work. Besides, all kinds of folks lose their jobs and often have to retrain for different lines of work all the time. Why exempt autoworkers… what makes ’em so special anyway?
Surely the UAW and CAW saw this coming? If they didn’t, then they’ve no one to blame but themselves for their deial, blissful ignorance, delusions of invulnerability, lack of foresight…
By the way, it’s a MYTH that striking is a “right”. It’s a MYTH that unionization is a “right”. It’s not a right unless everyone has and can enjoy it it at the same time!
Check the Constitution; where does it mention those things specifically? Oh, and don’t tell me about “interpretation”!
Post by: Dave in Pa. at December 14, 2008 1:15 PM
That is a very good analogy of the problems today facing the ‘big 3’. In any business when management is not run efficiently they bury themselves in paperwork. This why I am pissed off about giving these ‘big 3’ un-payable money. This is going to disappear down the drain and never returned. When the government says ‘no blank cheques’, that pile of ’22 pounds of deadwieght’ will be 10 times that much if not more.
This 22 lb package requires a full time army of management and union people to administer and then add hundreds of grievances that must be argued and arbitrated by very expensive lawyers!!
On roy green today I heard a very interesting complication in what will happen going forward:
In the US should the companies go bankrupt the union contracts are (as you might expect) null and void and the dispersement o f the assets can begin. In canada the Union contracts are bound to the assets apparently. I’m not sure how that works, but if it’s true then there is a distinct possibility that if or rather when the big 3 go under that the assets in the US will be bought and continue to be used to make vehicles while those in Canada will be left to rot.
What are the odds that the HOC would pass legislation to get rid of that rule?
And what are the chances that this could be a trigger for an election?
canadian sentinel – yes, it’s a myth that workers have the right to strike.
It is true that workers have the right to join a union, which is covered in both the Canadian Charter of ‘rights’ and the UN declaration of rights.
In the Charter, it’s 2d, which just says ‘freedom of association’.
In the UN declaration, it’s Article 23-4, or ‘everyone has the right to form and to join trade unons for the protection of his interests’.
BUT – neither of these declarations also, legally or by implication, includes the ‘right to strike’. Neither of them. Our Supreme Court has affirmed that the freedom of association/joining a trade union, does not include any ‘right to strike’.
But in Toronto for example, our very own esteemed mayor, David Miller, fighting against the overwhelming wish of the citizens to have the TTC (public transit) declared ‘essential’ or not having the right to strike – declared, publicly in City Hall Council (I was there)..that..
‘it is a fact that the UN declaration of Human Rights has in it the ‘Right-To-Strike’. Canada is a signatory to this document, and we cannot, as Canadians, go against this fundamental human right’.
I wasn’t allowed to speak to inform everyone that he was lying, lying, lying. He got his way (Miller is embedded with the unions)..by one vote.
Good grief. I have never signed an employment contract that long. I think the longest one I ever signed was 8 pages … and I thought that was insane.
I sent a copy of your link to Roy Green Kate as he is having the union guys on today. Hope you don’t mind!
I have a simpler deal:
I do crappy work I get fired.
The company pisses me off too much I quit.
Nothing to it.
Check out the news report today from the CAW , they were bashing Harper on Friday while the NDP also mocked Harper for doing little during this crisis.
But today the CAW has gone back to their Gimme/Gimme mind set and now that they saw there was a $3 billion bail-out from canada they are “Demanding” job security if Harper give OUR money to bail them out.
I have already predicted that once OUR money bails them out we will see the treat of a Strike to cripple the Company financially because they will want part of the profits rather than pay us tax payer back some of the winfall money.
Here’s a thought, if the CAW is so sure of the Quality of their cars then lets give them the chance to buy GM and Ford shares to be a part-owner and set theirown salaries and enjoy in the profit-Sharing.
Or is it too easy to cry wolf about oppressive work conditions and under-paid members and then play the part of Chicken Little by using fear to tell us that canada will come to an end if we don’t pay them to make cars people aren’t buying.
Thank you for your clarification of my thinking, ET. Guess I was so pizzed that I had a little brainfart and forgot that joining a union is everyone’s right. Problem is that not everyone has the opportunity to do so all the time, making it feel that the unionists are a special, selected, elitist, first-class group or something. The real problem is when they demand more and hold industries, including the healthcare industry, with the sick and injured, as hostages, for more money. I feel that striking is unethical and immoral and ought to be illegal. Plus, if so-called “scabs” can’t be hired (thanks to fascistic Leftist politicians deeming so via oppressive legislation), or if they can, they can be intimidated and prevented from exercising their right to work, then the unions look like fascists.
David Miller is obviously one of those whom I refer to as “Hard-Left”. They are liars, period. They believe that the ends justify whatever means they find convenient to achieve them, no matter how illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, unethical.
There’s no reasoning with them. I believe that only, say, some Al Qaeda or Hamas jihadist with a gun to their head could possibly get their attention and get them to rethink whatever dogma to which they’ve been stubbornly clinging.
As the Hard-Left goes, David Miller will lie, lie, lie for the furtherance of his agenda, this time the agenda of the TTC union.
Funny how, since the Canadian and US elections started, the Left has been going around calling their opponents “liars” whenever they point out something the Left doesn’t like… another example of projection, I guess.
The silent majority really needs to start having demonstrations, protests, to picket such asshats and their agendas, so as to get the truth out there, get people to notice. Why should only the Left get to do these demonstrations?
Ordinary, non-Leftist-militant folks need to start holding picket signs in public in massive groups, signs declaring the inconvenient truth about quasi-fascist political leaders who oppress the ordinary population whilst favoring small, special-interest groups who make life harder for everyone else, just so they can be more comfortable and well-off than we are.
I suspect that the likes of David Miller might do whatever they could to prevent such demonstrations by non-Hard-Left-militants, ordinary folks opposed to the agenda of powerful bigwigs like Miller. The Left doesn’t care about the rights of the ordinary person, just the “rights” they declare they have so as to make it easier to shut up the skeptical ordinary population who’s easily intimidated by militants who scream about their “rights”.
canadian sentinel – what about the right NOT to join a union? In many many jobs, it is impossible to get the job unless you join a union. This is true particularly in Quebec – and of course, for all our auto industries, the civil service, public employment jobs and so on.
I, as an academic, certainly didn’t want to join the faculty union, which I considered totally corrupt. I had no choice – they deducted my ‘dues’ automatically, although they did me the ‘courtesy’ of acknowledging that I refused to be a member. BUT THEY STILL TOOK MY DUES!
I consider unions parasites; they feed off the work of the workers; they do nothing for the workers; they simply set up a parasitic growth off the backs of the workers – and live off all those dues.
And yes, the unionists ARE an elitist group; their wages, benefits, pensions, are the highest of all workers. They, as well, sneer at non-unionized workers. Their only interest is in their salaries and benefits; they aren’t interested in the products they produce or the state of the nation.
I have yet to see a union perform any action that was not geared to its own self-absorbed agenda of control, power, and benefit.
“then lets give them the chance to buy GM and Ford”
Good point. Back when Chrysler was for sale I remember an interviewer asking a CAW official about buying it, since he was griping about a Cerberus purchase. CAW guy gulps, turns pale, stammers out something like, uh, that isn’t our role….
Didn’t even have to read the contract to get the gist….F%$K the taxpayer and car owners….WE UNION TYPES OF SOCIALISTS ARE ENTITLED TO EVERYTHING!!! And how many trees did these greenies kill to get everything.As somebody said in the comments awhile ago….Viagra to f$#k the dog???Let them go bankrupt.We will all be better off.
‘The 22 pound mound could be replaced by a single page profit sharing agreement’.
Shaken has said it all in one line. Thanks Shaken. Success is evident: West Jet, Air North – to name two.
Unions do not ‘work’ for members who refuse to support the Bolshevik doctrine. I was fired by Dept of Hwys, in B.C., for putting a ‘Vote Social Credit’ sign beside 9 or 10 ‘Vote NDP’ signs; in the lunchroom, during an election in B.C. in the late 1970’s. I was told I was ‘laid off’ due to ‘work shortage’ but a gal was hired to replace me. Union did not go to bat for me!
Cerberus is a private equity investment firm that controls/owns Chrysler.
Cerberus, comprised of professional knowledgable investors, refuses to put one more dime into keeping Chrysler going, obviously because they see it as a black hole and is a bad investment.
So what sense does it make to use public money to do it?
The logic escapes me.
ET, you’re right, absolutely right; we obviously do have the right to not be forced to assume membership in any association as a condition of employment.
Unfortunately, at present, we are denied this right. This must be remedied, but that’s easier said than done, as the state apparatus is so overwhelmingly saturated with powerful Hard-Left ideologues as to make it a little dangerous to rock the boat without some kind of coercive power (the same kind of power they enjoy, except much more ethical, legal, constitutional, democratic, etc) to push them back into their places and stop their fascism.
I myself was automatically associated with the union when I worked, as a TEMP, on a project, for the Canada Revenue Agency. They nearly went on strike, and I really didn’t want to join them on the picket lines, especially as I had no permanent stake in anything at all there. But it would’ve been expected of me, probably. Fortunately, no strike happened.
They confiscated “dues” from me as well, though I wasn’t entitled to the same special benefits of union membership as I was only a temp! What the hell was I paying for, then??? The interesting thing is, ten years before that, I recall my boss at Public Works Canada telling me that since I was a temp, I didn’t have to pay union dues. Apparently someone changed that. The Liberals did, as the change happened sometime after they came to power (I was at PWC as a temp three separate times beginning in the late Mulroney era and overlapping the early Chretien era).
I never fit into the culture there. While they were most of the time nice, sane, intelligent folks, it was as if they had some kind of psychological disorder which has yet to be formally named.
Once I happened to walk by a bunch of co-workers standing around the water cooler, chatting it up, just chatting. I, being a funny guy by knee-jerk habituation, happened to joke, “Working hard, eh?” and one of them suddenly turned all Ms. Hyde on me, actually whacking me on the arm and said something angry, as if she thought I was slurring her being a civil servant! Talk about hypersensitivity, eh? I could’ve reported her for battery, but, hey, I’m not a wimpy, hypersensitive Leftist, and I let it slide just like that. She’s lucky, however, that she didn’t dare go for the face, or else I’d definitely have reported her, as the civil service must not tolerate such behavior.
So many things are wrong in the civil service. The nepotism shocked me- it’s surreal. It seemed like every other day or so, I discovered that there were so many folks working under the same roof who were related by marriage or by blood. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true!
The waste- so cavalier. I know, as my responsibility for the project in question was to go all over the entire complex to find unused telephone and internet connection jacks that were still being paid for. $75,000 worth per annum, in one complex! Why no one for so bloody long said/did anything about it, well… move folks from one cube to another, they get new phone/internet connections, rather than using the existing ones, and not disconnecting them, either. This happened for years, unchecked!
Like hell we’re getting our money’s worth from these entitlists in the civil service. Their attitude irritates me.
Of course, I don’t mean to offend folks trapped in the union prison as a condition of making a living; it’s not their fault that things are that way; it’s a cultural disorder that causes mental disorder amongst its non-thinking-for-themselves members.
Gord Tulk; Not sure if this will help, but when Air Canada was on the verge of going into receivership the Liberal Cabinet of the day establish a programme comparable to the U.S.A. Chapter 11 proceedings. Normally in Canada it is necessary for a company to go into receivership, but the Chretien government found a way to reorganize: force the suppliers to contine shipping Air Canada; and ulitimately the suppliers, at least the smaller ones ended up with shares of ACE Holdings (severely discounted. Possibly this is being investigated by the Conservative Cabinet. if not it could be a method of moving forward if the Detroit Three go into Chapter 11. It might be preferable to going into bankruptcy and as one who thinks shareholders; suppliers; employees (past and present) is the order of risk and penalty. The Taxpayer should only be considered in National Security situations. Where do they draw the line. if the amount of taxes and lost receivables for smaller companies puts them over the edge how they do they continue to exist?
canadian sentinel – yes, the nepotism. As you point out, it’s surreal. Whole families are on the public trough – high salaries, benefits, pensions.
Their promotions are essentially guaranteed; their bonuses guaranteed; they simply can’t be fired. And the ‘reviews’ of their work are done by friends. Hiring of new people, which requires posting and interviewing – heh – I’ve seen so many of these, and it’s the friends who get the job. Not the most qualified.
That’s why I say that the Ottawa-Montreal corridor of the civil service is an isolate bubble, a cabal, insulated and isolated from reality; no knowledge of the ‘real Canada’.
And elitist? Incredible – the arrogance, the self-defined assurance that They Know What Is Best.
Yes, I can imagine the waste. I can also imagine the under the table ‘theft’, ie, the appropriation of goods from the office to the home. The cell phones paid by the office, the trips used for a one-day conference and a five day all hotel and airfare and food paid vacation.
The lunches and dinners paid for by the taxpayer, the taxis, the cars..the tremendous waste.
And the union executives? Living off the dues paid by..we taxpayers. The thing about unions is that they are now no longer about benefits and protection for the workers as they were in the early 1900’s. Now, unions are actual corporations in themselves. Can you imagine that? A Union is actually a capitalist corporation!
Their income comes from the work done by their workers. The union seeks to increase the salaries and benefits of these workers, so that it can profit from these increases. That’s what the Union does. It wants to make money. It has only one way of making money since it produces no products, provides no services. The only way the union can make money is to get higher wages for its workers…so that it can raise its dues.
The higher wages of the workers goes..whoosh..in higher dues and higher taxes. Oh, and in higher costs of goods and services, both for their own products and the products of other companies whose unions have also increased costs.
So, at one time, a family could survive quite well on one income. And save money. Now, it takes TWO incomes, for smaller families, and these families are deeper in debt and can’t save. Reason? There’s a parasitic corporation sitting on the backs of the workers…taking their wages. Increasing the costs of all goods and services.
It’s called A Union. It costs us billions every year.
The check-in folks at First Air are members of the CAW.
Et et al:
Canada is the only english-speaking country that still has closed-shop union rules.
I’m not anti-union by any means but it seems to me that you make hay when the sun shines and you pull down the umbrella when it’s stormy. Sometimes you may have to bail out the boat. Sometimes you have to tread water. Sometimes you have to swim with sharks. These guys have just jumped the shark and they don’t seem to realize it.
Dave in PA is right. The only thing that these utterly incompetant managers at the big three ever did correctly was negotiate contracts with the unions so perfect in every aspect, subtlety, and penumbra of a nuance that not one sterling line should be even doubted, much less changed.
By the way ET. One worker could easily support a family at the standard of living I enjoyed in the 60s (by no means poor). No cable TV, No color TV, No Internet, No Computer, A slide rule rather than a pocket calculator, no cell phone, no microwave, no six air bag cars with crumple zones or even seat belts (you just hosed off the dashboard and sold the car to someone else) let alone navigation systems and satellite radio, no vacations in Euorope of the Carribean. Or even, for that matter, trips in airplanes, unless you were in the military or the economic elite…
For entertainement were certain low tech, easily manufactured articles such as fifty two pieces of stiff paper with various designes, or a folding sheet of printed cardboard and a few cheap plastic pieces. A wooden bat and a horsehide covered ball, or perhaps one made of pigskin or leather…
I think you get my point. You can’t blame the need for two incomes on anything buy our desire for things.
Is the link working for anyone else?
I get the “404 page not found” error.
who is responsible? the very first manager who thought giving the store away was preferable to a strike..
et et al. closed shops will become the rule in the usa when the big o from africa is pres.
ET as a microcosm of what you writing about look at the Catholic School Trustees. Just as you said the personal trips, equipment like computers bought and taken home and kept, meals with your friends and on and on. Yet none were prosecuted because THEY wrote the rules on what were considered expenses. The waste of money from public employees is staggering. Notice they are just about the only people that continue to strike!
Tim in Vermont, you are partly right but as a former director of payroll it was the ever-escalating cost of taxes that forced two people to work to pay for the things our parents did with one salary. Small example, my entire Old Age Security that I just started at 65 is taken by new taxes implemented by Miller here in Toronto in the last year, gone.