UAW and Ford reach tentative agreement

[turinswift]

yeah, that’s fair

I get paid a salary, not a wage. So my pay is for "40 hours" a week. But if I meet my billables and keep my clients happy and I happen to be _efficient_ often times my work week is around 30 hours of actual work. Sometimes less, sometimes more, especially in emergency situations.

The old model of 8 hour days and 5 days a week was an innovation...100+ years ago. But we live in a post-scarcity economy. All scarcity is artificial. 4 day work weeks have a proven track record of the same productivity as a 5 day week. Sometimes MORE productivity. Though our pay hasn't kept up with our productivity, so that's also a concern.

The idea that we HAVE to grind and don't deserve more leisure time is a bill of goods we are being sold by the executives pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars for not working NEARLY as hard as we do at the bottom or middle of the structure.

Why do we insist to ourselves that we HAVE to work 40, 50, 60+ hours a week just to scrape by?

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[bbhaag]

My thoughts on this. I think someone screwing a car together should get decent pay, but let's be realistic about this. All that $40 an hour is going to do is offshore more of the domestic manufacturing to mexico. Case in point, GMs legacy costs add roughly $7,000 to each vehicle currently made. So let's say I'm 18 and get a job for GM sticking carpets in Buicks. I do that for 20 years and retire with medical bennies and a pension till I die. I can walk out of there at 38 years old, done my 20. GM is obligated to pay that pension till I croak. Sounds like a sweet deal if you ask me. Those pensions are the legacy costs. People live into their 70s and 80s now.

Full size pickup trucks are now between $50k to $100K. Plus the 16% - 18% interest rates on borrowers, and these vehicles will not sell. They sure as hell arent going to sell when the prices get hiked even higher to cover these costs. This will eventually force cut backs on the lines and plant closures. Not to mention dealers doing fire sales all the time to ditch the unsold iron. This works short term, but long term your dealer network dies out. Specifically the smaller dealerships in the smaller towns. This forces people to either drive to a bigger city to get their vehicle or just buy whatever else is local because of necessary maintenance and warranty. I call this killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I live in Texas, or fly over country as its known to you east and west coasters. Sometimes the distance to the next town with a dealership is 1.5 to 2 hour drive one way. Most people are not going to do that. They will buy what's local. And that's how you lose your nameplate presence and dealership network in small towns.

But hey maybe the japanese will buy them shuttered U.S. plants to make more Tokyo Tonkas here. I bet they will be non union then. I tend to maintain and keep my vehicles a looooong time. I'm still driving my 94 silverado i also bought new, and that's pushing 30 years now. I'm 55 and both this maverick and my wifes impala are payed off. I will maintain them both for the next 20 years. No need for anymore cars for us. Good luck with your future plant closings UAW. Your gonna need it.

Pension benefits and healthcare benefits ended for all new hires in 2008. Retirees lost their health care benefits in 2008 as well. So nice rant but it starts off incorrect and goes off the rails even further the more you type......

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206105208/autoworkers-retirement-pensions-health-care-uaw-gm-motor-ford-stelllantis#:~:text=In 2007, the UAW agreed,health care plans for retirees.
From the article.

Hobbled by years of losses and malaise, the Big 3 were soon brought to their knees. In 2007, the UAW agreed to the creation of a second tier of workers who would do the same work for lower wages and far fewer retirement benefits.

For new hires, gone were the company-funded pensions, replaced by 401(k) retirement accounts. Gone were the Cadillac health care plans for retirees.

 

[Barracuda340]

Pension benefits and healthcare benefits ended for all new hires in 2008. Retirees lost their health care benefits in 2008 as well. So nice rant but it starts off incorrect and goes off the rails even further the more you type......

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206105208/autoworkers-retirement-pensions-health-care-uaw-gm-motor-ford-stelllantis#:~:text=In 2007, the UAW agreed,health care plans for retirees.
From the article.

I stand corrected. Thank you

 

[azadv]

I get paid a salary, not a wage. So my pay is for "40 hours" a week. But if I meet my billables and keep my clients happy and I happen to be _efficient_ often times my work week is around 30 hours of actual work. Sometimes less, sometimes more, especially in emergency situations.

The old model of 8 hour days and 5 days a week was an innovation...100+ years ago. But we live in a post-scarcity economy. All scarcity is artificial. 4 day work weeks have a proven track record of the same productivity as a 5 day week. Sometimes MORE productivity. Though our pay hasn't kept up with our productivity, so that's also a concern.

The idea that we HAVE to grind and don't deserve more leisure time is a bill of goods we are being sold by the executives pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars for not working NEARLY as hard as we do at the bottom or middle of the structure.

Why do we insist to ourselves that we HAVE to work 40, 50, 60+ hours a week just to scrape by?

 

[MavTime]

Good on Ford for paying up, we need to quit punishing working Americans with lower wages and crap benefits at all levels if we want to encourage working. People whine about taxes, but that's our collective American fund. Our main problem is we worship the grifters of America who exploit and make money from other people's work or money and take a lion's share doing it. Of course people at the higher positions deserve more, that's fine, but not the obscene amounts they currently take and at the expense of the people that got them there. They promote the false notion of making as much as possible while working as little as possible, and that's unsustainable and puts their work work on us as well as our own work. They also over inflate their importance or role and gatekeep to hide their incompetence, and a lot of their "risk" is mitigated today. Push back on the grifters, push back on the CC companies, push back on monthly fees, push back on digging your own grave to make salespeople wealthy. Yes it takes hard work and saving and pushing yourself to achieve things, DUH that's a given, we know, we have been doing that since our first Lemonade stand. The problem is never us working folk, or the poor or disabled who can't work, the problem is always people taking too much for doing too little at the top. They don't care about you, so quit worshiping them.

 

[Scott Asheville]

"Autoline After Hours" has done a great series of in-depth shows on the strike. And the Detroit newspapers have done a lot of coverage.

I think most observers think it worked out reasonably well for both sides. The Big Three won't go bankrupt unless they botch the BEV transition. Workers got a great package. The non-union factories will now raise wages to keep the unions out. Costs (around $1,000 per vehicle) will be passed on to the buyer. As they always are.

 

[Barracuda340]

I get paid a salary, not a wage. So my pay is for "40 hours" a week. But if I meet my billables and keep my clients happy and I happen to be _efficient_ often times my work week is around 30 hours of actual work. Sometimes less, sometimes more, especially in emergency situations.

The old model of 8 hour days and 5 days a week was an innovation...100+ years ago. But we live in a post-scarcity economy. All scarcity is artificial. 4 day work weeks have a proven track record of the same productivity as a 5 day week. Sometimes MORE productivity. Though our pay hasn't kept up with our productivity, so that's also a concern.

The idea that we HAVE to grind and don't deserve more leisure time is a bill of goods we are being sold by the executives pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars for not working NEARLY as hard as we do at the bottom or middle of the structure.

Why do we insist to ourselves that we HAVE to work 40, 50, 60+ hours a week just to scrape by?

I work a 10 hour day 8 day shift and get 6 days off. That 8 days gets a little rough the last 2 days, but that 6 days off is sure great. When I take 8 days off for vacation, and book end it with 6 weekend days on either end it's pretty great. 20 days off in a row lol.

 

[The Cyber Orange Guy.]

I agree. We have had our shares of ups and downs in my household. Sometimes I would get to wondering why everything seems to happen to me, but in reality everyone is dealing with their own shit sandwiches called life. I could go into it with the issues I had to deal with, and times where I would work 60 hour weeks to keep my head above water, but people would never believe it. Through all of it, i stayed the course as best as i could. Honestly these days, I find my inner peace by doing stuff that makes my wife happy, spending time with my youngest kid who has not turned into a crappy teenager yet, and enjoying the company of our 2 spoiled house cats,

Well I'm happy that things start getting your way, about your wife, is awesome when someone can find happiness in make others happy, it speaks volumes of your character as a person and as a partner. About the kids, where enjoy it while it last.hopefully those teenagers years gonna pass soon. Lol

 

[icegradner]

But we live in a post-scarcity economy. All scarcity is artificial.

Just one question, where can I get what you are smoking?

 

[turinswift]

Just one question, where can I get what you are smoking?

Our productivity, especially in the US, is enough that no basic need (housing, food, healthcare) is required to be scarce. If some need is "scarce" or hard to acquire, that scarcity is artificial. Whether by regulation, profit focus, cultural influence, etc etc etc.

Even if you step back from any political or economic preferences, there is more housing than people who are housed, we throw away a LOT of food from fields and grocery stores every day. Maybe the economy can't absorb the difference in cost between throwing away food versus donating it, or letting food be destroyed at the field is necessary. Maybe the consequences of forcing empty housing to be available for the homeless would cause ripples that would disrupt too many things. That's all possible.

But the resources aren't scarce. The access is. That's artificial scarcity.

 

[TrailMaster]

The old model of 8 hour days and 5 days a week was an innovation...100+ years ago. But we live in a post-scarcity economy. All scarcity is artificial. 4 day work weeks have a proven track record of the same productivity as a 5 day week. Sometimes MORE productivity. Though our pay hasn't kept up with our productivity, so that's also a concern.

This philosophy could fly in an environment where actual productivity isn't determined by an assembly line (such auto manufacturing) and a finished product. In those cases, if the lines aren't moving, cars aren't being produced. If extra hires are required to cover the day gap from each employee's 32 hour week, that's extra expense to the employer. I guess they could invest in robots that work round the clock.

These "evil" billionaire CEOs some speak of aren't going to start eating Top Ramen to pay their workers 26% higher wages. They won't sell their mansions so everyone can continue getting "cheap" Mavericks. Consumers will inevitably pay a higher price. They always do.

 

[fossil]

I guess they could invest in robots that work round the clock.

Trust me as someone who had been installing and maintaining robots since 1980 to do auto assembly. There are very very few human jobs left that can be done reliability by robots. Even in "low" pay Mexican auto plants robots abound. That scare ship has sailed, hit the rocks and sunk.

As for working around the clock, not without a skilled higher pay scale dedicated maintenance crew. Everything I own free and clear is a testament to that.

 

[Barracuda340]

Our productivity, especially in the US, is enough that no basic need (housing, food, healthcare) is required to be scarce. If some need is "scarce" or hard to acquire, that scarcity is artificial. Whether by regulation, profit focus, cultural influence, etc etc etc.

Even if you step back from any political or economic preferences, there is more housing than people who are housed, we throw away a LOT of food from fields and grocery stores every day. Maybe the economy can't absorb the difference in cost between throwing away food versus donating it, or letting food be destroyed at the field is necessary. Maybe the consequences of forcing empty housing to be available for the homeless would cause ripples that would disrupt too many things. That's all possible.

But the resources aren't scarce. The access is. That's artificial scarcity.

Forcing empty housing to be used. I'd love to see em try that one. If I had a summer bungalow and the Gubmint tried to force me to put homeless in it, I'd sell the damn thing first. I have seen first hand what renters do to homes, much less squatters. The amount of lawsuits that would abound from that would be epic.

Now about the food getting thrown away that could be still consumed, that right there is a sin. Its unbelievable what restaurants and supermarkets toss in the trash daily that could be donated. A lot of that also has to do with protecting themselves from lawsuits as well.

 

[TrailMaster]

Our productivity, especially in the US, is enough that no basic need (housing, food, healthcare) is required to be scarce. If some need is "scarce" or hard to acquire, that scarcity is artificial. Whether by regulation, profit focus, cultural influence, etc etc etc.

Even if you step back from any political or economic preferences, there is more housing than people who are housed, we throw away a LOT of food from fields and grocery stores every day. Maybe the economy can't absorb the difference in cost between throwing away food versus donating it, or letting food be destroyed at the field is necessary. Maybe the consequences of forcing empty housing to be available for the homeless would cause ripples that would disrupt too many things. That's all possible.

But the resources aren't scarce. The access is. That's artificial scarcity.

In the case of housing, if a person has the means to purchase a second house or cabin, that is their business. I remember recently the gubmint proposing that single family housing is a bad thing. I guess if a single man can chooses to live in a large home he is a hopeless sinner? Give his home away, move a homeless family in, and stuff him in a studio.

Since when has equity been a guaran-damn-tee? If equity is the dream, it is a pipe dream.

If the only solution proposed to find "equity" in society is socialism, we're in trouble. There are lots of homeless, addicted, and unemployed who want what others have earned. Some simply take what they can't get. Millions of new migrants will soon be jumping on the equity bandwagon. That's a lot of housing folks would need to relinquish! Maybe if we have a spare car we can give them one of ours as well. People have needs, ya know?

 

[Barracuda340]

In the case of housing, if a person has the means to purchase a second house or cabin, that is their business. I remember recently the gubmint proposing that single family housing is a bad thing. I guess if a single man can chooses to live in a large home he is a hopeless sinner? Give his home away, move a homeless family in, and stuff him in a studio.

Since when has equity been a guaran-damn-tee? If equity is the dream, it is a pipe dream.

If the only solution proposed to find "equity" in society is socialism, we're in trouble. There are lots of homeless, addicted, and unemployed who want what others have earned. Some simply take what they can't get. Millions of new migrants will soon be jumping on the equity bandwagon. That's a lot of housing folks would need to relinquish! Maybe if we have a spare car we can give them one of ours as well. People have needs, ya know?

Yup, I agree. Sounds like creeping communism to tell somebody what and how they are gonna do things, or spend their hard earned cash. If somebody wants to donate an unused property then that's on them. The Gubmint already does a whole bunch of stuff i detest already, however forcing private citizens to give up homes, vehicles, or investment properties "for the greater good" usually ends badly. Theres a reason we have 1st A rights. It's part of a check and balance to severe government overreach. One also has to remember that the individual states have rights that actually take precedent over the federal gubmint not the other way around. The Fed Gov can write into law whatever their hearts desire is, but the individual states do not have to follow it if they vote against it.

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