you should have understood then but since you don't understand it even now--all your employer ever promised was to put XX dollars an hour per hour worked into a fund to provide your health and pension benefits.
Our pension was never provided by our employer, other than the hourly contributions. It was paid into our pension trust with the Alaska Teamsters. There were a lot of retirees that did get the health care benefit for a time. Then they were cut off and all future retirees with them. The only thing negotiated with the company was the size of the contribution to the Pension. Which until I retired was $7 per hour. My company fulfilled its obligation. Time will tell if your company will do the same.
big 3/uaw retirees were promised lifetime health care benefits and a precise monthly pension by the Big3.
The only real difference is when one of the automakers goes bust there goes the PROMISED health care.
canadian locals said no-- us government can't dictate terms of an agreement for canadians.
Wiki has it a bit different saying there were discrepancies favoring the UAW over the Canadians. No mention of Chrysler. As the split was several years after the Bailout of Chrysler. Then what does wiki know you were there. It also explains your adamant defense of UAW leadership.
By December 1984, significant differences in the value of negotiated contracts, and divergent union objectives had set the stage for the creation of the CAW, a process documented in the Genie Award winning film, Final Offer. In 1984, the Canadian section of the UAW, under the leadership of Bob White and his assistants Buzz Hargrove and Bob Nickerson, broke from the UAW because the American union was seen as giving away too much in the way of concessions during collective bargaining. Additionally, the UAW had been lobbying the U.S. Congress to force the transfer of auto production from Canada to the U.S. and the Canadian branch felt there was a lack of a representative voice during UAW's conventions. By 1985 the split from the American union was complete and Bob White was acclaimed as the first President of the CAW. He went on to serve 3 terms as president
So I will stick with my claim of unscrupulous tactics by the UAW against the CAW. Of course you being one of the insiders will defend UAW corruption as long as you are breathing. That is why you sidestep every issue presented that would put the UAW in any kind of bad light. Such as the recent strikes when GM was bleeding red ink. The UAW has given collective bargaining a bad name. No better than Jimmy Hoffa did with the Teamsters.
i read the story from the troy from "liberal" detroit news about the $87,000 delphi worker filing for bankruptcy when his overtime was cut. It is possible to gross that much if you work tons of overtime and weekends/ holidays. I have heard of workers doing 12 hours a day during great sale years. do the math 40 hours at 28 plus the overtime (time and half), making it 70 hours times 28 == almost $2000 a week. of course, holidays can be doubletime
not sure anyone can physically sustain that for a year or that management wouldn't get around to finally transferring in or hiring a new employee to reduce such costs. not a lot of overtime in the last year or so.
there may have been a handful of such supermen which then gives you the ability to unfairly make it seem that such efforts are common or routine --if you are comfortable with that style. . do you really think it is fair to pick out such unusual efforts and then make it appear that all uaw big three workers have such earnings?
i had heard that some of the big 3 plants preferred to have workers work overtime rather than to hire a new worker.
i had heard that some of the big 3 plants preferred to have workers work overtime rather than to hire a new worker.
How many of the 46k+ bankruptcies were UAW members in 2004? The point is very complex and gets back to the speech posted from the University of Illinois. When you pay people way more than a job is worth you are doing them a disservice. Here this lame brain lives way above his base $87k per year wage. When he loses the OT he loses his home, car, boat, cabin on Black Lake, who knows how over extended he has gotten himself. The UAW in their anxiety to get as much out of the automakers created an unsustainable model. When the first import opened a factory in the USA, the UAW should have started pulling in their horns. And let the workers know they were making more than what a car can be built for in the USA. No instead they continue their destructive ways of bargaining. They could have said look here. We want GM to gain back some of the losses they have suffered over the last 40 years to the Japanese. We will stick with our wages and go with bonuses based on individual quality and production. I am not putting it all on the UAW. I think Wagoner and the last two CEOs at GM were best taken out and shot. But the board in there fat dumb ignorance kept hiring useless management. GM and the UAW can rot as far as I am concerned. They have proven to be incapable of building a good competitive vehicle. If they do get a winner the UAW will strike the factory to make sure they lose sales.
PS On the Detroit News. I just figured the whole state was Liberal along with all the papers. They will all be bankrupt in a few months and gone. No big loss. I don't read the papers anymore. Old news before it gets set.
which is it? before you said you were promised lifetime benefits in retirement and the plan trustees stepped in to change it much to your pleasure; now you admit that i was right all along and that your were only promised a set amount per hour worked into a defined contribution or taft hartley plan . now you admit (unlike the big 3 retirees) you got everything you were entitled too. thank you for finally admitting the obvious truth.
now let's own up to the next level of your therapy:
the current great USA healthcare system, with premium costs doubling every 4-5 years, which you still love and voted for year after year and want to continue less you become a socialist like those on medicare now, bankrupted your plan and caused your plan trustees to cancel your benefits. so gagrice- you can now just acknowledge that when the trustees cut your benefits that you were one of those special people who got exactly what you voted for, deserved and wanted.
you say you will stay with your unscrupulous and corrupt tactics claims because in the canadian "final offer" film, the detroit branch of the union is depicted as "giving away too much in the way of concessions during collective bargaining".
interesting that you perceive concession bargaining as a condition of government loans to keep chrysler afloat then as evidence of unscrupulous and corrupt uaw conduct. wonder how that translates to the concession negotiations that are going on today and since 2006.
or was just the first chrysler loan concession bargaining (where the uaw had to take a double hit for us operations because the canadian locals refused to take any) evil, corrupt and unscrupulous and the current concession bargaining fine and good. take your pick?
keep working on that therapy treatment - you'll get there someday if we get national health care anyway. .
i have no idea how many of the 2004 bankruptcies were uaw members.
careful gagrice - read your news story again--it doesn't say his base was 87K it say his overtime was cut and he is now making 87K and filing bankruptcy. a base of 87k yields an hourly rate of about $41-42 an hour. all published reports i have seen, which you appear unwilling to acknowledge for some strange reason, claim that the toyota and GM wage rates are almost equivalent at about $ 28-29 an hour.
if you have been doing any reading of japanese auto news, it seems the local population doesn't want japanese cars anymore
I live in Japan, so I AM reading Japanese news And that was exactly my point - Japan has excess car production capacity already, so for the US companies to build additional capacity would not make financial sense at all.
By the way, it is not that the Japanese do not want Japanese cars any more - it is simply that they do not want cars anymore (at least the younger generation). This is being driven by the following factors :
1. Cars are now being seen as "uncool" (environmental impact etc) 2. Cost of ownership is going up (higher gas prices etc) 3. Public transportation infrastructure keeps on improving (from already impeccable levels) 4. Younger people are migrating to larger cities (where 2 and 3 above come into play significantly)
Finally, Car sharing is taking off in Japan (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/19/car-sharing-is-the-new-hip-thing-in-[non-permissible content removed]- an/), and is being promoted by partnership between condominiums (where most of the big city population lives) and leasing companies. In the building I live (central Tokyo), we are considering having plug in hybrids available for 30 min rentals (with incremental multiples of 15 min). The cars have a radius of around 150KM at full charge, which is good enough for shopping / driving around in Tokyo. Much much cheaper than owning your own car (the parking costs 350USD/month in our building....)
before you said you were promised lifetime benefits in retirement and the plan trustees stepped in to change it much to your pleasure; now you admit that i was right all along and that your were only promised a set amount per hour worked into a defined contribution or taft hartley plan
The issue was never how much the company contributed to my retirement and health care. It was the Union making changes to what our retirement plan would give us. Ours was all in one big pension fund. Not a separate agreement. When health care started going up to an unsustainable level to keep providing it for the retirees. They lost that benefit. Same as when the Union changed the age from 45 for full retirement to 57. My point that you seem to have trouble with is circumstances change and we have to live with them. No god given rights are being violated if you do not get health care. I am not thrilled with trusting the Government for Medicare. I paid into and will accept it if and when I ever need it. As much fraud as there is in Medicare and Medicaid I cringe at the thought of that bunch of losers we have in Congress now coming up with a plan that would not cost US more than buying our own. If it was practical to have Universal Health care. Why did Hillary fail so miserably with a Democrat Controlled Congress when Bill appointed her to "make it happen"?
so gagrice- you can now just acknowledge that when the trustees cut your benefits that you were one of those special people who got exactly what you voted for, deserved and wanted.
Yes, when I was informed what would be deducted from my retirement to keep full health care benefits I was happy to have that $900 in my pension and not in the pockets of some crooked HMO. Simple math, NO FREE LUNCH. A concept that the UAW will need to get a grasp of SOON.
you say you will stay with your unscrupulous and corrupt tactics claims because in the canadian "final offer" film,
Never heard of the movie. Must have been a rust belt local flick. What I am reading is the UAW tried to lobby Congress to force the automakers to pull some of the manufacturing out of Canada. Again this was 4 years after Carter bailed out Chrysler. So I do not see any tie to the CAW split being part of the Chrysler bailout. Maybe you have some pertinent documentation you can contribute to Wiki and set the record straight.
PS I was against the Chrysler bailout. Iococca was able to pull it off and we got our tax dollars back. Not likely with the bunch running GM today. Those days were much worse than now. With auto loans at close to 20% and home loans 15%, plus double digit inflation. Much higher unemployment. The American people have short memories. Maybe the Automakers did not feel the pain the rest of US were feeling. The UAW had the Democrats in Congress feeding at the UAW trough. The rest of the country was in total chaos. This recession is a piece of cake by comparison.
I just spent the weekend at a mountain resort area. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary in a very nice restaurant. There was a guy at the bar telling this lady how bad things are. All the while buying rounds of martinis at $9 a piece. My wife says he has no idea what rough is. We both remember not having food on the table as youngsters in the 1950s. What he spent at the bar we will spend eating for a week. Not because we cannot afford more. Because we are both extremely frugal.
That is why it is hard for me to sympathize with someone filing for bankruptcy when he is still knocking down $87k per year. I worked lots of OT. In fact 25 years working 21 days straight 10-16 hours day. I never spent close to my income after I got rid of an ex-wife that could not control herself with my paycheck.
My guess is a lot of UAW workers will have to learn to live on a LOT less than they are making now. The smart ones stashed a bundle away when they first started watching GM fail.
If you look at how that has played out for Japan, it doesn't seem to be a great idea. Swathes of Japanese economy (especially in agricuture) got decimated by the Chinese in this decade simply because they were protected by competition (US/Australia/Europe) for a long time, and finally when the Chinese arrived on the scene with prices a fifth of what they were charging, they had no way of responding.
So protection avoids immediate pain, but it simply postpones the inevitable. The argument in favor of protection goes like "This buys the industry time to change itself structurally (e.g. retool factories etc) and then compete in an open market", however in reality protectionism breeds complacency, and no major painful changes are made.
Now if you are talking about open ended protectionism, then that can work - but at a high cost to the consumer. The consumers being represented on this board do not seem to be much in favor of that....
You are deflecting. If AIG got the free money, doesn't mean somebody else should, too. Just because the neigbor's kid got away when he was caught stealing (due to "good nature" of police chief or for whatever other reason), doesn't mean we now let everybody steal. We may change the police chief, but we don't change the rules just because they were broken once (twice, three times, whatever).
American workers who blame everybody but themselves gladly spent the '60s, '70s and '80s refusing to pay for American made products with no regard to lost jobs (until the domino finally fell on their own head).
We have a consumer economy with no consumers, and until we recreate working wages, coupled with corporate AND personal fiscal responsibility, deflation, monitization, and public works projects may save the country and government, but we will avoid becoming a second rate nation state by sliding directly into the gutter. China can’t keep loaning us money to buy their unsafe, cheaply made products forever. Even they will eventually demand cash. And not American Dollars, cash that has value and the ink is dry when it hits their hands.
i read the story from the troy from "liberal" detroit news about the $87,000 delphi worker filing for bankruptcy when his overtime was cut. It is possible to gross that much if you work tons of overtime and weekends/ holidays. I have heard of workers doing 12 hours a day during great sale years. do the math 40 hours at 28 plus the overtime (time and half), making it 70 hours times 28 == almost $2000 a week. of course, holidays can be doubletime
I won't say that is the norm but some people do work that much. My FIL is a retired iron worker from LTV. He worked doubles 3-4 days a week for years which basically doubled his pay. He always worked 16 hours on holidays getting double time plus 8 hours on those days. Granted, with his job he wasn't tied to an assembly line. He was in plant maintenance so, many of those hours were spent reading a news paper or playing poker. Heck, he told me back in the late 70's he got a DUI on his way home from work after working a double on New Years eve and a crane operator brought in a couple coolers of beer. Nice.
I think I posted an article a while back from about a fork lift operator at Ford who had donated nearly $1 million dollars to higher education. He had been working for Ford over 40 yrs and worked all of the o/t he could get earning $100k+ a year and I believe that was in the late 90's to early '00s. I agree that most worker probably don't work 5+ 16 hour days.
i had heard that some of the big 3 plants preferred to have workers work overtime rather than to hire a new worker.
That happens at many plants. Same thing at the steel mills. It's probably cheaper in the long run to offer o/t when needed vs. hiring an additional employee with all of the benefits. Plus when things slow down it's very difficult to lay anyone off in a union environment.
My FIL had 32 years of service when LTV went belly up in late '99 and he still was near the bottom in seniority in his department.
There are MILLIONS of well paid people in the USA. The Feds and State governments employ many millions of Union workers. The UAW is a small segment of the population. There demise will have little impact on the rest of the USA. Obama has said he was going to expand civil service jobs by close to a million. To keep this in perspective. The good paying UAW jobs at GM are about 70,000. Not sure how many white collar workers at GM. My guess is they will have a better chance at maintaining their standard of living. I listened to a GM engineer with 30+ years service. He claimed each time the UAW got a fat raise the company would trim the engineers wages and benefits. No love lost between the white and blue collars at the automakers. So much for the UAW bringing the standard of living up around them.
My FIL had 32 years of service when LTV went belly up in late '99 and he still was near the bottom in seniority in his department.
I can relate to that. After 37 years in the AK Teamsters I was still number 2 on the seniority list in my unit. The senior technician retired the year after me on his 75th birthday. He could not afford to retire earlier with a 50 year old wife and 12 year old daughter. He loses over half his retirement so it will carry over to his wife. He is also getting $2300 per month SS until his daughter reaches 18 years of age. Hope he gets a few good years in retirement. I could not hang on to reach number one. I was tired of flying 3500 miles to work every 3 weeks.
Well put. No lasting good can come from protectionism. The U.S. has, overall, the world's highest standard of living because our economy is comparatively (although certainly not completely) open.
Look at Argentina. Less than 100 years ago, it was one of the world's richest countries (#4 based on per-capita GDP). But starting in the 1930s, it closed off its economy & imposed tariffs on both imports & exports. Within 20 years, it was a 3rd-world country.
Consumers suffer when an industry is protected. Prices go up while quality & selection go down. Once protected, an industry spends less time satisfying customers & more time seeking political influence so that it can continue to keep outside competitors at bay. Political maneuvering replaces the free market.
your GM white collar engineer who claims his income was cut whenever the uaw negotiated a new contract speak with forked tongue or you misheard. use your common sense--if gm engineers lost wages and benefits after uaw hourly bargaining--do you think it might have prompted some of them to join the uaw and get them back--chrysler engineers were in the uaw.
we even called the non-union white collar staff our unpaid union members. indeed the pattern of passing along the same uaw negotiated benefits to the white collar workers got so strong that we had groups of non union white collar workers suggesting what new benefits should be negotiated.
i wrote the organizing leaflets for the tech center engineers warning them that what GM gave them by fiat was not guaranteed by a written contract. I spelled out that they were getting the same or better benefits to keep them from organizing now but that some day they could be taken away since there was no contract requiring GM to pay these benefits.
well as you know they didn't listen. non union GM salaried retirees no longer have health care. GM couldn't afford it and they had no legal obligation in that regard. uaw retirees covered by a contract do--absent bankruptcy, establishing the vebas and national health care that is.
I listened to a GM engineer with 30+ years service. He claimed each time the UAW got a fat raise the company would trim the engineers wages and benefits.
As you know I was also an engineer with many years of service at GM and from the 80's thru the 90's it was the opposite of what you heard. Union got an extra holiday we got an extra holiday. Hourly got COLA (cost of living adjustment) we got COLA. etc. BUT in the early 2000's when GM started to restructure and downsize, salaried lost beni's before the UAW and then used that as a bargaining chip.
What we were unhappy about, at least the ones who saw the vehicle balance sheets, was the huge overhead that was calculated into each vehicles cost. Sure lots of it was legacy but those cost kept us from putting in content.
Here are more facts about the state of American health care and the level of satisfaction Americans have with their coverage:
A majority of Americans - 54 percent - are dissatisfied with the overall quality of health care in the United States — the first majority in three polls since 1993, and up 10 points since 2000.
Not so good, right?
Yet, among insured Americans, 82 percent are satisfied with their health care coverage. This if virtually the same percentage of Canadians who say that they are satisifed with their nationalized coverage.
American dissatisfaction tends to stem from news stories that repeatedly tell them that the nation's health care system is "broken." Yet, the Americans who rely on those supposedly awful private insurance plans are satisified with THEIR plan - basically, as satisfied as Canadians are with their national plan. This is the more important - and telling - statistic, as it reflects citizens' actual experiences with a health insurance plan.
Equally significant is that among insured people who've experienced a serious or chronic illness or injury in their family in the last year, an enormous 91 percent are satisfied with their care, and 86 percent are satisfied with their coverage. These are people who actually had to rely on their insurance coverage, and are satisfied with their coverage.
lumoy: i started down that road simply to point our how our obsolete health care system has put domestic mfgrs at a comparative disadvantage to foreign mfrs--using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs.
And I have raised three points that need a response, and still have not received one from you on any of them:
1. Please compare the benefits provided under the UAW negotiated plan to those provided by the Canadian national plan. I think we will all discover why the UAW plan costs more.
2. Please compare the cost of the health care plan provided by the transplant operations in the U.S. to the cost of the Canadian plan, along with the benefits provided by each plan.
3. If nationalized care is so much better, then why hasn't the UAW allowed the companies to shift retired blue-collar workers to Medicare, the American national health plan for senior citizens? It would save the companies a ton of money. It would allow the UAW to put its money where its mouth is and take advantage of a nationalized health care plan.
lumoy: we have no apparent problem with the fact that the top 1% have upwards of 50% of the country's national wealth and at least since 1980 that the top 5% should get tax breaks in hope that it would trickle down to the rest of us. yet let a factory rat making $28-30 an hour having access with is family to a summer retreat and family education center with a golf course paid their own dues--and the right wing goes nuts.
First, it isn't just the "right wing" that is going nuts. A recent survey showed that a majority of Democrats - 55 percent - oppose this bailout.
Second, if one reason these companies are going broke is because of their uncompetitive cost structure, and a big part of the problem is costs stemming from work rules and gold-plated health care plans, it is not unreasonable to ask that said companies and their union address these costs BEFORE receiving any taxpayer money.
Third, whether I make $60,000 a year, or $60 million a year, this is MY money the federal government is using for a bailout, so if you and your union don't like these questions, then don't ask for any government money and instead work with these companies to solve the problems on your own.
lumoy: i have for example tried to point out that the uaw is not asking the federal government to bail out its operations and help the uaw's poor financial health but no one seems to understand the distinction.
Without this loan (which is really a grant - there is no way that GM and Chrysler will ever pay it back), GM will file for bankruptcy, and Chrysler will be broken up and sold to other companies. At that point, the UAW will be hanging on for its life - especially when Ford demands the same wage and benefits package that GM pays its workers when it emerges from bankruptcy.
This "loan" is as much about saving the UAW as it about saving GM and Chrysler. GM will still exist after it goes through a bankrutpcy reorganization. Chrysler's components - Jeep, the minivans, the Dodge Ram - are valuable to other companies, and will still exist after the company is sold off to other companies. The UAW's chances for survival in these scenarios, however, are quite slim.
So, by any realistic standard, this "loan" is about bailing out the UAW as much as it is about bailing out GM and Chrysler. Without this "loan" there is a good chance that the UAW dies. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's...a duck, no matter how desperately the UAW and its supporters want to pretend otherwise.
i know that the reason for the drop in demand fro vehicles in japan is, among other things, the younger people having less interest in automobiles. the new flower children? i will have to admit, when i thin of japanese mass transportation, i think of those guys that shoved people into the subway cars. anyways, better to get the 'scoop' from you!
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
".......I was promised Medical, dental and eyecare for life also. After 20 years of expectation the reality of bankrupting our pension by giving it all to the medical industry, forced a choice on the Pension trust directors. I am glad they did not choose to bankrupt the Pension fund."
You know gagrice, all this back and forth on healthcare between you and lumoy is exactly what we see in debates all across this country, as to who should carry the burden of the costs, but we should be looking at the people who hand out the bills and say WTF with these double digit increases in premiums, when inflation is nowhere near these increases in terms of %. I don't know about elsewhere, but here in RI you have only 3 choices: BCBS of RI, United Health, or Tufts (sounds like the auto industry 50 yrs ago). No incentive to keep cutomers as there is nowhere else to go, so they have you over a barrel. Maybe we need nationwide competition between these companies, and maybe that will hold these premiums in check.
"......Here this lame brain lives way above his base $87k per year wage. When he loses the OT he loses his home, car, boat, cabin on Black Lake, who knows how over extended he has gotten himself."
Gagrice, isn't that HIS problem though???? A company does benefit paying a $30/hr employee $45/hr for the OT, as this work is being done cheaper than if they hired a new employee to do that job.
It is up to the individual to understand that if you make $x per yr for a 40 hr week and they ask you to work 60-70 per week, that is NOT normal, and probably not permanent ( we can also argue the merits of whether it's safe too), and they should spend accordingly.
>but we should be looking at the people who hand out the bills and say WTF with these double digit increases in premiums
A good point. In the cost of UAW retirees and current employees the increases in healthcare costs are ridiculous. The amount paid for a service by Medicare vs the amount billed to the Joe the Plumber who is paying is own bills is a ridiculous comparison. All payments should be at the same rate. The hospitals/providers try to make up from the paying customer what they can't get from the insurance agreements and the government payers (and the indigent to whom they provide services).
One Cincinnati doctor whom I visited every six months explained why the adjacent large hospital was building or adding on big expansions all the time. He said the more they owed for the expansions the higher the payment rate from Medicare/Medicade they got. If they had less debt, they got less payment.
A local hospital tells individuals paying their own billing to contact the office for a rate reduction on their bill if they wish--I take that to mean they'll adjust it down to what they get paid by insurance companies. The current UAW cost problem is a small example of the major problem we all face.
However the UAW has negotiated a sweetheart deal when the car company MBAs didn't realize that healthcare costs would keep going up.
i don't have the time or the information to the detailed.comparative insurance analysis you want. ( I am spending much to much time shedding light as it is)
i can understand opposition to the bailout --all of the bailouts. [ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)]
but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product.
I have also taken special umbrage at the criticisms of the UAW memberships' decision to spend some of its strike fund earning to maintain the UAW education center at black lake. everyone assumed it was some plush resort for UAW executives. at least you now know it is a forty year old member education center with a public golf course. i admit the UAW benefits, but so do the communities and thousands of other employers and entites whose futures are tied to the domestic auto industry. sorry but i see a big big distinction between between your right to tell a borrower how run his or her life and the borrower's extended family. i also see absolutely nothing sinister about the uaw hanging on to its black lake education center (anybody want a great golf course for cheap?). if the membership decided their declining dues income cannot support the center, that is the uaw's business.
i am going to make one last comment and then go back to clearing snow and cutting wood till spring comes around july.
if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped. doug fraser went back to the bargaining table three times to satisfy congress and come up with two billion in labor savings to get about a billion and half in loan guarantees to save chrysler from bankruptcy. that loan was not only repaid early but the taxpayers earned almost another half billion on their chrysler stock. more important - thousand of retirees recieved their pension and health care and even more thousands have had good paying jobs for almost 30 years. i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk.
the uaw has paid a price since 1980- its canadian region divorced from the uaw because of this and a "new directions" caucus rose within the UAW to challenge the leadership's willingness to bargain "concessions". The challenge went as far a presidential election vote and while "new directions" lost-- it is still there and making lots of militant noise right now. the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff. i hope and pray they will pull through this.The UAW is the best union with the best and cleanest leadership in the country and therefore i know they will..
That is a great question. I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care. My Mom & Dad did not have any health care coverage when I was growing up. They paid for all the kids to be born etc. etc. I don't even know if I had health coverage the first 9 years when I worked for Pacific Telephone. It was not an issue anyone seemed to talk about or worry about. First I remember it being mentioned is when we voted to have the Teamster Union represent us in Alaska when I worked for RCA. Now it seems that every conversation gets around to medical cost and who pays what. I would like to know why it costs $15k per day to stay in a lumpy hospital bed with less than attentive care. For a couple hundred a day I can stay in a nice room at a hotel with room service. Who gets the rest of that $15k my insurance company pays the hospital? I am of the opinion that two things have happened. The medical providers have found an easy target with insurance coverage and the ambulance chasers have found an easy target with the medical providers. The key to this scam working is you and I getting sick or hurt. That and the American obsession with our illnesses has given the HMOs a free ticket to rip US off.
If anyone here thinks the US government will improve the situation. I got a bridge for sale. Our Union over the 37 years I was a member went from owning their own hospital and clinics. Hiring all the staff to selling the whole mess and dumping it onto an HMO, now back to trying to administer medical payments as their own Health provider. Last contract I looked at the employer was paying over $6 per hour for mediocre health coverage.
I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care.
Absolutely with you on that. Everyone who gets medical benefits from an employer would instead get that money tax-free in their paycheck. People pay cash or credit card for medical care. The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current. The hundreds of thousands of people in hospitals and insurance companies who push paper (billing) are cut, and do go find productive jobs. The government severely limits malpractice lawsuits, and each doctor in this country can reduce their malpractice insurance about $50,000.
Or if you absolutely want medical insurance then you buy it from your paycheck. But cash, limited paperwork and eliminating law from medicine would be much better. That is probably why countries like Canada have much cheaper care.
However the UAW has negotiated a sweetheart deal when the car company MBAs didn't realize that healthcare costs would keep going up.
The AMA, big drug companies, managed care, and many others are lobby's in Washington. They represent their members well. As the baby boomers age the system will need adjustments. Why do Americans waste 650 billion in health care?
In a recent billing for an outpatient procedure my wife had done at a large hospital, they had billed for hundreds, I'm thinking $700-$800 for one part; they were paid $23 or something of that order by our insurance company.
>I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care.
I like that philosophy.
>The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current
I can hear the screaming now about how that would be unfair. Price controls don't work right and don't work well at times, but I think here I'd be willing to try it.
one of my brother in laws is a staff doctor, and he absolutely looks out for his patients. the only reason i kind of disagree about limiting malpractice is that there have been horrific instances here in ct where warped individuals have been protected by the group that was supposed to oversee conduct. otoh, i was selected for jury duty on a malpractice case, but after listening to the the lawyers for the injured party, i played my 'doctor relative' card to get out of it. i would not have given the plaintiff party one cent. the case was settled for 8 million dollars! completely ridiculous, although there was a loss of spouse.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
The taking care of your own health care is great if you don't get sick. Unfortunately I'm the guy in the pool of insureds tha they end up spending the money on. Loads of people will use the insurance very lightly but the past couple of years my medical bills are higher than my gross salary.
Fortunately with the insurance I have my costs are minimal but it is stunning how expensive this can be.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
I think that Health Care is the issue with the UAW. They are protecting their retired members health care benefits. The Big 3 did not see into the future and made promises that are now killing them. The question is: will the UAW cut wages for the working members or sell out the retirees on the health care. GM has proven over the last 20 years it cannot make any money with the UAW contracts they have signed onto.
I'm behind today and skimming fast, but I'm seeing a lot of comments that look more like political attacks and attacks on lawyers and doctors than UAW related comments.
Fortunately with the insurance I have my costs are minimal but it is stunning how expensive this can be.
I think it is important to have medical insurance. After I retired and before I turned 65 I carried a policy that would protect me against a catastrophic illness or accident. The most I would have to pay in a given year with the policy I bought was $4000. There are dozens of choices in CA. I am not familiar with other states. I paid $273 per month for peace of mind that the medical system would not take everything including my home if I were to get very ill. My Union COBRA was $900 per month and not great coverage. They only paid 70% with $1,000,000 lifetime coverage. My Kaiser plan has no limit. Most HMOs now are set at $5 million lifetime limit.
GM claims that $2000 on each car is to cover the UAW retirees Health Care. That is more than 10% of a Malibu currently selling for $15k.
"......I think that Health Care is the issue with the UAW. They are protecting their retired members health care benefits."
Gagrice, I think this is the slippery slope we have now. The one caveat that the "new hires" have in their favor as opposed to retirees or older employees in the UAW, is that they now accept the new rules as a condition of their employment, and have the time to properly prepare for how they will finance healthcare and their living expenses in retirement. The others don't have that luxury.
It is understood that you "can't get blood from a stone", but I think everyone involved understands that they have to protect the older workers and retirees at the very least to the point that you don't pull the rug out from underneath them entirely.
but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product.
I agree with you on all your points. Brilliant minds think alike. What I want to add is that we have an envy factor going on here too. Who cares what the CEO and or a forklift driver makes? If they are reduced to working Walmart jobs, we will all suffer. Instead of the upscale restaurant, they will have to suffice with McDonald's. Then Walmart will absolutely be the winner in this mindless race to the bottom. All of those other, more expensive, choices will have to cut back in the least. More jobs gone and in the end few new cars will be sold as used cars will be the middle class standard. We have no earthly idea of the multiplier effect that this race to the bottom encompasses. Good paying jobs fuel this economy and if the prevailing wage in any given area goes down, so does the purchasing power of the consumer. I'm not against progress and want competition to thrive.
However, we have no idea of what transpires at the factory in China. Certainly, we don't want to find out that children were exploited to make the very shoes were wearing? We could go on about all the products which have made the store shelves, only to later learn that they don't meet our free enterprise standard. Dog fur in coats might offend animal lovers? Lead based paint might upset parents?
This all race to the bottom is nothing but the wholesale of jobs to the third world, with some faint promise to have entry into their markets in some future date decades away. We have had competition prior and will continue to do so. However, if $10 a hour jobs by the bulk of the middle class is the vision, even those with $20, $30, and $50 and hour jobs will see a drop in business. Just do the math and see if you think this is a great idea? Once you realize were all connected, suddenly it doesn't make sense.
In closing, if you knew prior, that buying all those wonderful things at great prices, at Walmart, would fuel the consumer in China to be the second largest consumers of cars. Then those cars would require fuel/gas and that price is the rationing mechanism of gas. Would those goods purchased at Walmart, have been as attractive when $5 a gallon was nearing?
earlier in this thread there were a lot of references to 1998 and the UAW vs GM strike. i really think as far as the healthcare issues go, there have been a lot of medical advances and that coupled with the good continuous medical care has resulted in the retirees living a lot longer than anyone projected.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
>I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care.
I want special interest out of health care and their spending millions in Washington to cease.
>The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current
Your govt went along with the AMA (doctors union) to limit the supply of medical doctors/openings for future doctors at medical schools. The lower the supply of medical providers, the higher the cost of their services.
Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a government-sanctioned guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. In Free to Choose, Friedman said, "The AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopaths with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible."
Look, this is the typical UAW auto worker. Says who? Is he black? Is that the average pay? The mean, median or mode? That was put out there to get the very reaction your showing. Since, its written it, must be gospel.
Ya just can't believe everything you read. Joe the plumber isn't making $150,000 a year either. I just have that feeling.
I wasn't implying that he made $150k, but that it is possible for someone to make that kind of coin with lots of OT. I see guys here at Verizon working close to 1000 hrs OT a yr.
My point is that whether you make $30/hr or $13, to try and live off the OT like the well is never going to go dry is foolish. We've seen it happen at Verizon and guys have put themselves in quite a bind when the OT dries up.
Joe the plumber isn't making $150,000 a year either. I just have that feeling.
Don't bet your retirement on that feeling. Joe the Plumber just left for Israel as a war correspondent. If he pulls it off he could make a lot more than $150k per year.
The speech you are commenting on made a very astute observation. If you pay someone more for any given job than the average pay for that job, you are setting them up for failure. The lug nut assembler that is making $30 per hour will become accustomed to that wage. He will base his life on $62k per year plus OT. When that job comes to a halt and he finds out that the rest of the USA is only paying $15 per hour to install lug nuts, he will most likely lose his home, car and wife. The UAW has nurtured an atmosphere of entitlement that has no basis in reality, except in the rarefied air of the Domestic automakers. Now that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and laying off 1000s of workers it creates a real problem for those that thought they were worth more than they actually are. The Big 3 and the UAW have done a disservice to the lug nut assemblers and Oscar the fork lift operators by paying them MORE than they are worth in the real world outside of Detroit.
What GM and the UAW have done to the rank and file is quite similar to what Madoff did with all those investors. They promised huge wages and benefits and planned to pay them with future earnings. Madoff did the same thing and will go to jail. If the retirees lose their health care as a result of the GM/UAW Ponzi scheme should the leaders of both go to jail?
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s biggest automaker, is asking workers to accept lower pay while it extends a domestic production halt to cope with plummeting demand for new automobiles. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8jMxijVuiVE
Our UAW friends may find this interesting.....All Japanese plants are unionized....
One of the reasons medical is so expensive is that, as has been said, the money goes to the medical establishment w/o consumers even looking at the their bills when the insurance company pays for it. Up to 3 years ago we did not care what it cost because we had such good, company paid insurance. Now that we pay most everything up to a certain cut off we are a bit more concerned on what we spend on medical.
Now my point here is that one of the reasons the cost of medical is so high is that the insured and well off are paying for all those who do not have insurance. If you pay $3k for a bedroom stay that money is also paying for a bunch of emergency room work and a whole bunch of others that will not be able to pay their bills. I read a while ago that GM not only pays the medical for all it's employees and retirees but some huge number of non insured. If GM does drop medical (already did for salaried retirees) for the union retirees the cost of medical care for everyone else is going to go up. Of course if they go under then it will be alot worse.
If GM does drop medical (already did for salaried retirees) for the union retirees the cost of medical care for everyone else is going to go up. Of course if they go under then it will be alot worse.
How can it be any worse than Federally Mandated Health Care? Either way those that pay taxes are paying the bills for those not contributing. San Diego is trying to get the Feds to cough up over a billion for treating illegals in the county hospital system last year. They come across the border to have their babies born as US citizens and we pay for the delivery and some times prenatal.
I posted about the engineer that felt he was screwed over by GM when the UAW got more in a contract. It looks to me like he was right if they have dropped health care for the white collar retirees and are still paying it for the UAW retirees. Why are the UAW retirees treated like they are more important than the white collar workers? I don't know what you pay in Michigan for Health care. If you buy a plan that allows you free or 80% office visits here in CA will be at least $600 per month for an individual.
Emergency medical care for 300,000 illegal babies per year has to cost the tax payers more than half a million UAW retirees. If we do not already pay for universal health care, I would sure like to know what you call it.
lumoy: i don't have the time or the information to the detailed.comparative insurance analysis you want. ( I am spending much to much time shedding light as it is)
While our system of health care coverage isn't perfect, nationalized health care isn't the panacea that its supporters make it out to be. The UAW certainly agrees with me - it won't shift retired UAW members to Medicare, which would save the companies billions and allow it to support a government-run health care system. The UAW's inaction speaks louder than its words...
lumoy: [ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)]
That site is incorrect. Defense and security spending account for 29.2 percent of total discretionary federal spending. By far the largest portion of federal spending goes to Social Security and Medicare, which together account for 43.5 percent of total discretionary federal spending. If you are upset about federal spending, then you will need to address spending on Social Security and Medicare.
Defense spending is the responsibility of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. We can certainly debate over how MUCH it should be spending on defense, but that is its job. Bailing out failing companies and their coddled union is not its job.
lumoy: but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product.
In an industry where costs for parts are measured in PENNIES, a cost that accounts for 10 percent of the total costs needed to produce that product is a significant amount.
lumoy: if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped.
Really? Are you going to tell us that UAW members receive LESS pay and enjoy FEWER benefits than they did in 1979, before Chrysler demanded and received concessions? Do you have the figures to support this contention?
lumoy: i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk.
It was a different world in 1980. The Japanese and German manufacturers sold vehicles in far smaller volumes, and the Koreans weren't even in the American market yet. Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans and Hyundais were largely economy cars, and not real substitutes for American family sedans.
Plus, not as many people had been burned by the Big Three, so more people were willing to give Chrysler a chance.
The simple fact is that GM needs to file for bankruptcy, or have the government allow it to file for quasi-bankrutpcy protection. It owes so much money now that it would take over 20 years of record profits to completely pay off its debts.
GM is simply not sustainable in its present configuration, even with this infusion of government money. It was not profitable when auto sales were much higher, and given that it is unlikely that auto sales will return to their former levels for a few years, it is unlikely to be profitable in the future, unless it completely restructures.
Chrysler is toast. Daimler and Cerberus have basically gutted the company; there are very few new models on the horizon, and it needs more than a few billion from the federal government to keep going, let alone give its car lineup the complete top-to-bottom overhaul that it needs.
lumoy: the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff.
They needed to change their method of operating in the early 1980s. It's obvious that by 2006, it was too late. But neither management nor the union was interested in making the necessary changes at that time.
interesting how the debate on the bridge loans and the problems of the auto industry and how the high retiree legacy costs should be resolved keep coming back to health care costs.
and when national health care is mentioned, the right wing reponds with --but that would be "socialized medicine"
medicare is "socialized medicine". taxpayer funded, single payer system with an age 65 requirement--just get rid of the age 65 condtion.
by the way. health care workers, clinics, hospitals, drug companies etc. are not nationalized (gov't owned) under medicare just so we know the phrase is really nothing more that boogie man political pandering.
the per citizen health care costs (canada/usa) are based upon insurance costs, and all taxpayer generated costs (i.e medicare, medicaid , emergency room care for indigents, etc.) : the per citizen cost for usa is double that of canada. canada has a wait problem and US still has the highest caliber of health care anywhere (if you can afford it) and thus canadians with the money will come here. that's the rub not all of us can afford it. thus the true yardstick is what is the level of health care for the masses. let's assume for the sake of argument that the world heath organization is wrong about canada's system having superior outcomes in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, hospital infection rates, etc and the systems are substantially equivalent. but even if they are equal, does common sense tell you that annual insurance premium increases of 15-20 % for that last 20 or so years cannot be sustained? this hard fact alone is going to force the issue. if that isn't enough then how about the fact that there are 46 million without insurance and probably an equal or even greater number with very minimal coverage? i realize that to many the uninsured and underinsured (majority of them are children) are invisible or nearly so, but to some of us, they human beings--indeed, we are paying for national health care now for every human being in iraq. . but back to the debate:
i can assure you that health care has been the major issue on the table at every set of collective bargaining negotiations (public and private sector) that has occurred in the usa for the last 20-25 years. think about that a minute--make that 5 minutes what does that tell you?. is that really the best place to resolve the health care mess or is it really simple a place to discuss shifting the costs of a failed system?,
why should such a fundamental issue (which about 70% of consider to be a basic right) be subject to the whims of the bargaining table or worse the whims of an employer whose is structurally and understandably committed to capitalism--not providing health care.
medicare is "socialized medicine". taxpayer funded, single payer system with an age 65 requirement--just get rid of the age 65 condtion.
Here is what President elect Obama says about your idea.
President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs
If Medicare is out of control and going broke, how would it work with 200 million more Americans on the plan? If GM and the UAW were to get special treatment and allow under aged retirees to get on Medicare, every company in the country would want to dump their expensive health care plans.
If it is going to happen, why did it fail the last time there was a Democrat majority in Congress with a very liberal Bill Clinton as President and his wife pushing the plan? My guess is they looked at the cost and said OH S__T this will bankrupt America. The reason Canada spends less is they have a lot less facilities and fancy equipment to maintain. One MRI machine is over a million dollars. Doctors send you through the MRI for the smallest of ailments just to cover their rear ends from John Edwards type lawsuits. Most major cities in America have more and better equipped hospitals than all of Canada.
If you are banking on this 111th Congress to get you out of the mess that the UAW has helped to create. You are dreaming.
Comments
Our pension was never provided by our employer, other than the hourly contributions. It was paid into our pension trust with the Alaska Teamsters. There were a lot of retirees that did get the health care benefit for a time. Then they were cut off and all future retirees with them. The only thing negotiated with the company was the size of the contribution to the Pension. Which until I retired was $7 per hour. My company fulfilled its obligation. Time will tell if your company will do the same.
big 3/uaw retirees were promised lifetime health care benefits and a precise monthly pension by the Big3.
The only real difference is when one of the automakers goes bust there goes the PROMISED health care.
canadian locals said no-- us government can't dictate terms of an agreement for canadians.
Wiki has it a bit different saying there were discrepancies favoring the UAW over the Canadians. No mention of Chrysler. As the split was several years after the Bailout of Chrysler. Then what does wiki know you were there. It also explains your adamant defense of UAW leadership.
By December 1984, significant differences in the value of negotiated contracts, and divergent union objectives had set the stage for the creation of the CAW, a process documented in the Genie Award winning film, Final Offer. In 1984, the Canadian section of the UAW, under the leadership of Bob White and his assistants Buzz Hargrove and Bob Nickerson, broke from the UAW because the American union was seen as giving away too much in the way of concessions during collective bargaining. Additionally, the UAW had been lobbying the U.S. Congress to force the transfer of auto production from Canada to the U.S. and the Canadian branch felt there was a lack of a representative voice during UAW's conventions. By 1985 the split from the American union was complete and Bob White was acclaimed as the first President of the CAW. He went on to serve 3 terms as president
So I will stick with my claim of unscrupulous tactics by the UAW against the CAW. Of course you being one of the insiders will defend UAW corruption as long as you are breathing. That is why you sidestep every issue presented that would put the UAW in any kind of bad light. Such as the recent strikes when GM was bleeding red ink. The UAW has given collective bargaining a bad name. No better than Jimmy Hoffa did with the Teamsters.
i read the story from the troy from "liberal" detroit news about the $87,000 delphi worker filing for bankruptcy when his overtime was cut. It is possible to gross that much if you work tons of overtime and weekends/ holidays. I have heard of workers doing 12 hours a day during great sale years. do the math 40 hours at 28 plus the overtime (time and half), making it 70 hours times 28 == almost $2000 a week. of course, holidays can be doubletime
not sure anyone can physically sustain that for a year or that management wouldn't get around to finally transferring in or hiring a new employee to reduce such costs. not a lot of overtime in the last year or so.
there may have been a handful of such supermen which then gives you the ability to unfairly make it seem that such efforts are common or routine --if you are comfortable with that style. . do you really think it is fair to pick out such unusual efforts and then make it appear that all uaw big three workers have such earnings?
i had heard that some of the big 3 plants preferred to have workers work overtime rather than to hire a new worker.
How many of the 46k+ bankruptcies were UAW members in 2004? The point is very complex and gets back to the speech posted from the University of Illinois. When you pay people way more than a job is worth you are doing them a disservice. Here this lame brain lives way above his base $87k per year wage. When he loses the OT he loses his home, car, boat, cabin on Black Lake, who knows how over extended he has gotten himself. The UAW in their anxiety to get as much out of the automakers created an unsustainable model. When the first import opened a factory in the USA, the UAW should have started pulling in their horns. And let the workers know they were making more than what a car can be built for in the USA. No instead they continue their destructive ways of bargaining. They could have said look here. We want GM to gain back some of the losses they have suffered over the last 40 years to the Japanese. We will stick with our wages and go with bonuses based on individual quality and production. I am not putting it all on the UAW. I think Wagoner and the last two CEOs at GM were best taken out and shot. But the board in there fat dumb ignorance kept hiring useless management. GM and the UAW can rot as far as I am concerned. They have proven to be incapable of building a good competitive vehicle. If they do get a winner the UAW will strike the factory to make sure they lose sales.
PS
On the Detroit News. I just figured the whole state was Liberal along with all the papers. They will all be bankrupt in a few months and gone. No big loss. I don't read the papers anymore. Old news before it gets set.
now let's own up to the next level of your therapy:
the current great USA healthcare system, with premium costs doubling every 4-5 years, which you still love and voted for year after year and want to continue less you become a socialist like those on medicare now, bankrupted your plan and caused your plan trustees to cancel your benefits. so gagrice- you can now just acknowledge that when the trustees cut your benefits that you were one of those special people who got exactly what you voted for, deserved and wanted.
you say you will stay with your unscrupulous and corrupt tactics claims because in the canadian "final offer" film, the detroit branch of the union is depicted as "giving away too much in the way of concessions during collective bargaining".
interesting that you perceive concession bargaining as a condition of government loans to keep chrysler afloat then as evidence of unscrupulous and corrupt uaw conduct. wonder how that translates to the concession negotiations that are going on today and since 2006.
or was just the first chrysler loan concession bargaining (where the uaw had to take a double hit for us operations because the canadian locals refused to take any) evil, corrupt and unscrupulous and the current concession bargaining fine and good. take your pick?
keep working on that therapy treatment - you'll get there someday if we get national health care anyway. .
careful gagrice - read your news story again--it doesn't say his base was 87K it say his overtime was cut and he is now making 87K and filing bankruptcy. a base of 87k yields an hourly rate of about $41-42 an hour. all published reports i have seen, which you appear unwilling to acknowledge for some strange reason, claim that the toyota and GM wage rates are almost equivalent at about $ 28-29 an hour.
do you really think this style helps you?
I live in Japan, so I AM reading Japanese news
And that was exactly my point - Japan has excess car production capacity already, so for the US companies to build additional capacity would not make financial sense at all.
By the way, it is not that the Japanese do not want Japanese cars any more - it is simply that they do not want cars anymore (at least the younger generation). This is being driven by the following factors :
1. Cars are now being seen as "uncool" (environmental impact etc)
2. Cost of ownership is going up (higher gas prices etc)
3. Public transportation infrastructure keeps on improving (from already impeccable levels)
4. Younger people are migrating to larger cities (where 2 and 3 above come into play significantly)
Finally, Car sharing is taking off in Japan (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/19/car-sharing-is-the-new-hip-thing-in-[non-permissible content removed]- an/), and is being promoted by partnership between condominiums (where most of the big city population lives) and leasing companies. In the building I live (central Tokyo), we are considering having plug in hybrids available for 30 min rentals (with incremental multiples of 15 min). The cars have a radius of around 150KM at full charge, which is good enough for shopping / driving around in Tokyo. Much much cheaper than owning your own car (the parking costs 350USD/month in our building....)
But I digress.....
The issue was never how much the company contributed to my retirement and health care. It was the Union making changes to what our retirement plan would give us. Ours was all in one big pension fund. Not a separate agreement. When health care started going up to an unsustainable level to keep providing it for the retirees. They lost that benefit. Same as when the Union changed the age from 45 for full retirement to 57. My point that you seem to have trouble with is circumstances change and we have to live with them. No god given rights are being violated if you do not get health care. I am not thrilled with trusting the Government for Medicare. I paid into and will accept it if and when I ever need it. As much fraud as there is in Medicare and Medicaid I cringe at the thought of that bunch of losers we have in Congress now coming up with a plan that would not cost US more than buying our own. If it was practical to have Universal Health care. Why did Hillary fail so miserably with a Democrat Controlled Congress when Bill appointed her to "make it happen"?
so gagrice- you can now just acknowledge that when the trustees cut your benefits that you were one of those special people who got exactly what you voted for, deserved and wanted.
Yes, when I was informed what would be deducted from my retirement to keep full health care benefits I was happy to have that $900 in my pension and not in the pockets of some crooked HMO. Simple math, NO FREE LUNCH. A concept that the UAW will need to get a grasp of SOON.
you say you will stay with your unscrupulous and corrupt tactics claims because in the canadian "final offer" film,
Never heard of the movie. Must have been a rust belt local flick. What I am reading is the UAW tried to lobby Congress to force the automakers to pull some of the manufacturing out of Canada. Again this was 4 years after Carter bailed out Chrysler. So I do not see any tie to the CAW split being part of the Chrysler bailout. Maybe you have some pertinent documentation you can contribute to Wiki and set the record straight.
PS
I was against the Chrysler bailout. Iococca was able to pull it off and we got our tax dollars back. Not likely with the bunch running GM today. Those days were much worse than now. With auto loans at close to 20% and home loans 15%, plus double digit inflation. Much higher unemployment. The American people have short memories. Maybe the Automakers did not feel the pain the rest of US were feeling. The UAW had the Democrats in Congress feeding at the UAW trough. The rest of the country was in total chaos. This recession is a piece of cake by comparison.
I just spent the weekend at a mountain resort area. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary in a very nice restaurant. There was a guy at the bar telling this lady how bad things are. All the while buying rounds of martinis at $9 a piece. My wife says he has no idea what rough is. We both remember not having food on the table as youngsters in the 1950s. What he spent at the bar we will spend eating for a week. Not because we cannot afford more. Because we are both extremely frugal.
That is why it is hard for me to sympathize with someone filing for bankruptcy when he is still knocking down $87k per year. I worked lots of OT. In fact 25 years working 21 days straight 10-16 hours day. I never spent close to my income after I got rid of an ex-wife that could not control herself with my paycheck.
My guess is a lot of UAW workers will have to learn to live on a LOT less than they are making now. The smart ones stashed a bundle away when they first started watching GM fail.
If you look at how that has played out for Japan, it doesn't seem to be a great idea. Swathes of Japanese economy (especially in agricuture) got decimated by the Chinese in this decade simply because they were protected by competition (US/Australia/Europe) for a long time, and finally when the Chinese arrived on the scene with prices a fifth of what they were charging, they had no way of responding.
So protection avoids immediate pain, but it simply postpones the inevitable. The argument in favor of protection goes like "This buys the industry time to change itself structurally (e.g. retool factories etc) and then compete in an open market", however in reality protectionism breeds complacency, and no major painful changes are made.
Now if you are talking about open ended protectionism, then that can work - but at a high cost to the consumer. The consumers being represented on this board do not seem to be much in favor of that....
2018 430i Gran Coupe
We have a consumer economy with no consumers, and until we recreate working wages, coupled with corporate AND personal fiscal responsibility, deflation, monitization, and public works projects may save the country and government, but we will avoid becoming a second rate nation state by sliding directly into the gutter.
China can’t keep loaning us money to buy their unsafe, cheaply made products forever. Even they will eventually demand cash. And not American Dollars, cash that has value and the ink is dry when it hits their hands.
I won't say that is the norm but some people do work that much. My FIL is a retired iron worker from LTV. He worked doubles 3-4 days a week for years which basically doubled his pay. He always worked 16 hours on holidays getting double time plus 8 hours on those days. Granted, with his job he wasn't tied to an assembly line. He was in plant maintenance so, many of those hours were spent reading a news paper or playing poker. Heck, he told me back in the late 70's he got a DUI on his way home from work after working a double on New Years eve and a crane operator brought in a couple coolers of beer. Nice.
I think I posted an article a while back from about a fork lift operator at Ford who had donated nearly $1 million dollars to higher education. He had been working for Ford over 40 yrs and worked all of the o/t he could get earning $100k+ a year and I believe that was in the late 90's to early '00s. I agree that most worker probably don't work 5+ 16 hour days.
That happens at many plants. Same thing at the steel mills. It's probably cheaper in the long run to offer o/t when needed vs. hiring an additional employee with all of the benefits. Plus when things slow down it's very difficult to lay anyone off in a union environment.
My FIL had 32 years of service when LTV went belly up in late '99 and he still was near the bottom in seniority in his department.
There are MILLIONS of well paid people in the USA. The Feds and State governments employ many millions of Union workers. The UAW is a small segment of the population. There demise will have little impact on the rest of the USA. Obama has said he was going to expand civil service jobs by close to a million. To keep this in perspective. The good paying UAW jobs at GM are about 70,000. Not sure how many white collar workers at GM. My guess is they will have a better chance at maintaining their standard of living. I listened to a GM engineer with 30+ years service. He claimed each time the UAW got a fat raise the company would trim the engineers wages and benefits. No love lost between the white and blue collars at the automakers. So much for the UAW bringing the standard of living up around them.
I can relate to that. After 37 years in the AK Teamsters I was still number 2 on the seniority list in my unit. The senior technician retired the year after me on his 75th birthday. He could not afford to retire earlier with a 50 year old wife and 12 year old daughter. He loses over half his retirement so it will carry over to his wife. He is also getting $2300 per month SS until his daughter reaches 18 years of age. Hope he gets a few good years in retirement. I could not hang on to reach number one. I was tired of flying 3500 miles to work every 3 weeks.
Look at Argentina. Less than 100 years ago, it was one of the world's richest countries (#4 based on per-capita GDP). But starting in the 1930s, it closed off its economy & imposed tariffs on both imports & exports. Within 20 years, it was a 3rd-world country.
Consumers suffer when an industry is protected. Prices go up while quality & selection go down. Once protected, an industry spends less time satisfying customers & more time seeking political influence so that it can continue to keep outside competitors at bay. Political maneuvering replaces the free market.
use your common sense--if gm engineers lost wages and benefits after uaw hourly bargaining--do you think it might have prompted some of them to join the uaw and get them back--chrysler engineers were in the uaw.
we even called the non-union white collar staff our unpaid union members.
indeed the pattern of passing along the same uaw negotiated benefits to the white collar workers got so strong that we had groups of non union white collar workers suggesting what new benefits should be negotiated.
i wrote the organizing leaflets for the tech center engineers warning them that what GM gave them by fiat was not guaranteed by a written contract. I spelled out that they were getting the same or better benefits to keep them from organizing now but that some day they could be taken away since there was no contract requiring GM to pay these benefits.
well as you know they didn't listen. non union GM salaried retirees no longer have health care. GM couldn't afford it and they had no legal obligation in that regard. uaw retirees covered by a contract do--absent bankruptcy, establishing the vebas and national health care that is.
I listened to a GM engineer with 30+ years service. He claimed each time the UAW got a fat raise the company would trim the engineers wages and benefits.
As you know I was also an engineer with many years of service at GM and from the 80's thru the 90's it was the opposite of what you heard. Union got an extra holiday we got an extra holiday. Hourly got COLA (cost of living adjustment) we got COLA. etc. BUT in the early 2000's when GM started to restructure and downsize, salaried lost beni's before the UAW and then used that as a bargaining chip.
What we were unhappy about, at least the ones who saw the vehicle balance sheets, was the huge overhead that was calculated into each vehicles cost. Sure lots of it was legacy but those cost kept us from putting in content.
A majority of Americans - 54 percent - are dissatisfied with the overall quality of health care in the United States — the first majority in three polls since 1993, and up 10 points since 2000.
Not so good, right?
Yet, among insured Americans, 82 percent are satisfied with their health care coverage. This if virtually the same percentage of Canadians who say that they are satisifed with their nationalized coverage.
American dissatisfaction tends to stem from news stories that repeatedly tell them that the nation's health care system is "broken." Yet, the Americans who rely on those supposedly awful private insurance plans are satisified with THEIR plan - basically, as satisfied as Canadians are with their national plan. This is the more important - and telling - statistic, as it reflects citizens' actual experiences with a health insurance plan.
Equally significant is that among insured people who've experienced a serious or chronic illness or injury in their family in the last year, an enormous 91 percent are satisfied with their care, and 86 percent are satisfied with their coverage. These are people who actually had to rely on their insurance coverage, and are satisfied with their coverage.
lumoy: i started down that road simply to point our how our obsolete health care system has put domestic mfgrs at a comparative disadvantage to foreign mfrs--using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs.
And I have raised three points that need a response, and still have not received one from you on any of them:
1. Please compare the benefits provided under the UAW negotiated plan to those provided by the Canadian national plan. I think we will all discover why the UAW plan costs more.
2. Please compare the cost of the health care plan provided by the transplant operations in the U.S. to the cost of the Canadian plan, along with the benefits provided by each plan.
3. If nationalized care is so much better, then why hasn't the UAW allowed the companies to shift retired blue-collar workers to Medicare, the American national health plan for senior citizens? It would save the companies a ton of money. It would allow the UAW to put its money where its mouth is and take advantage of a nationalized health care plan.
lumoy: we have no apparent problem with the fact that the top 1% have upwards of 50% of the country's national wealth and at least since 1980 that the top 5% should get tax breaks in hope that it would trickle down to the rest of us. yet let a factory rat making $28-30 an hour having access with is family to a summer retreat and family education center with a golf course paid their own dues--and the right wing goes nuts.
First, it isn't just the "right wing" that is going nuts. A recent survey showed that a majority of Democrats - 55 percent - oppose this bailout.
Second, if one reason these companies are going broke is because of their uncompetitive cost structure, and a big part of the problem is costs stemming from work rules and gold-plated health care plans, it is not unreasonable to ask that said companies and their union address these costs BEFORE receiving any taxpayer money.
Third, whether I make $60,000 a year, or $60 million a year, this is MY money the federal government is using for a bailout, so if you and your union don't like these questions, then don't ask for any government money and instead work with these companies to solve the problems on your own.
lumoy: i have for example tried to point out that the uaw is not asking the federal government to bail out its operations and help the uaw's poor financial health but no one seems to understand the distinction.
Without this loan (which is really a grant - there is no way that GM and Chrysler will ever pay it back), GM will file for bankruptcy, and Chrysler will be broken up and sold to other companies. At that point, the UAW will be hanging on for its life - especially when Ford demands the same wage and benefits package that GM pays its workers when it emerges from bankruptcy.
This "loan" is as much about saving the UAW as it about saving GM and Chrysler. GM will still exist after it goes through a bankrutpcy reorganization. Chrysler's components - Jeep, the minivans, the Dodge Ram - are valuable to other companies, and will still exist after the company is sold off to other companies. The UAW's chances for survival in these scenarios, however, are quite slim.
So, by any realistic standard, this "loan" is about bailing out the UAW as much as it is about bailing out GM and Chrysler. Without this "loan" there is a good chance that the UAW dies. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's...a duck, no matter how desperately the UAW and its supporters want to pretend otherwise.
i will have to admit, when i thin of japanese mass transportation, i think of those guys that shoved people into the subway cars.
anyways, better to get the 'scoop' from you!
You know gagrice, all this back and forth on healthcare between you and lumoy is exactly what we see in debates all across this country, as to who should carry the burden of the costs, but we should be looking at the people who hand out the bills and say WTF with these double digit increases in premiums, when inflation is nowhere near these increases in terms of %. I don't know about elsewhere, but here in RI you have only 3 choices: BCBS of RI, United Health, or Tufts (sounds like the auto industry 50 yrs ago). No incentive to keep cutomers as there is nowhere else to go, so they have you over a barrel. Maybe we need nationwide competition between these companies, and maybe that will hold these premiums in check.
No matter what, SOMETHING has to be done.
Gagrice, isn't that HIS problem though???? A company does benefit paying a $30/hr employee $45/hr for the OT, as this work is being done cheaper than if they hired a new employee to do that job.
It is up to the individual to understand that if you make $x per yr for a 40 hr week and they ask you to work 60-70 per week, that is NOT normal, and probably not permanent ( we can also argue the merits of whether it's safe too), and they should spend accordingly.
A good point. In the cost of UAW retirees and current employees the increases in healthcare costs are ridiculous. The amount paid for a service by Medicare vs the amount billed to the Joe the Plumber who is paying is own bills is a ridiculous comparison. All payments should be at the same rate. The hospitals/providers try to make up from the paying customer what they can't get from the insurance agreements and the government payers (and the indigent to whom they provide services).
One Cincinnati doctor whom I visited every six months explained why the adjacent large hospital was building or adding on big expansions all the time. He said the more they owed for the expansions the higher the payment rate from Medicare/Medicade they got. If they had less debt, they got less payment.
A local hospital tells individuals paying their own billing to contact the office for a rate reduction on their bill if they wish--I take that to mean they'll adjust it down to what they get paid by insurance companies. The current UAW cost problem is a small example of the major problem we all face.
However the UAW has negotiated a sweetheart deal when the car company MBAs didn't realize that healthcare costs would keep going up.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
But the companies now like Toyota use parttime employees and pay them less. That lowers the cost.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
i can understand opposition to the bailout --all of the bailouts.
[ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)]
but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product.
I have also taken special umbrage at the criticisms of the UAW memberships' decision to spend some of its strike fund earning to maintain the UAW education center at black lake. everyone assumed it was some plush resort for UAW executives. at least you now know it is a forty year old member education center with a public golf course. i admit the UAW benefits, but so do the communities and thousands of other employers and entites whose futures are tied to the domestic auto industry. sorry but i see a big big distinction between between your right to tell a borrower how run his or her life and the borrower's extended family. i also see absolutely nothing sinister about the uaw hanging on to its black lake education center (anybody want a great golf course for cheap?). if the membership decided their declining dues income cannot support the center, that is the uaw's business.
i am going to make one last comment and then go back to clearing snow and cutting wood till spring comes around july.
if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped. doug fraser went back to the bargaining table three times to satisfy congress and come up with two billion in labor savings to get about a billion and half in loan guarantees to save chrysler from bankruptcy. that loan was not only repaid early but the taxpayers earned almost another half billion on their chrysler stock. more important - thousand of retirees recieved their pension and health care and even more thousands have had good paying jobs for almost 30 years. i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk.
the uaw has paid a price since 1980- its canadian region divorced from the uaw because of this and a "new directions" caucus rose within the UAW to challenge the leadership's willingness to bargain "concessions". The challenge went as far a presidential election vote and while "new directions" lost-- it is still there and making lots of militant noise right now.
the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff.
i hope and pray they will pull through this.The UAW is the best union with the best and cleanest leadership in the country and therefore i know they will..
That is a great question. I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care. My Mom & Dad did not have any health care coverage when I was growing up. They paid for all the kids to be born etc. etc. I don't even know if I had health coverage the first 9 years when I worked for Pacific Telephone. It was not an issue anyone seemed to talk about or worry about. First I remember it being mentioned is when we voted to have the Teamster Union represent us in Alaska when I worked for RCA. Now it seems that every conversation gets around to medical cost and who pays what. I would like to know why it costs $15k per day to stay in a lumpy hospital bed with less than attentive care. For a couple hundred a day I can stay in a nice room at a hotel with room service. Who gets the rest of that $15k my insurance company pays the hospital? I am of the opinion that two things have happened. The medical providers have found an easy target with insurance coverage and the ambulance chasers have found an easy target with the medical providers. The key to this scam working is you and I getting sick or hurt. That and the American obsession with our illnesses has given the HMOs a free ticket to rip US off.
If anyone here thinks the US government will improve the situation. I got a bridge for sale. Our Union over the 37 years I was a member went from owning their own hospital and clinics. Hiring all the staff to selling the whole mess and dumping it onto an HMO, now back to trying to administer medical payments as their own Health provider. Last contract I looked at the employer was paying over $6 per hour for mediocre health coverage.
Absolutely with you on that. Everyone who gets medical benefits from an employer would instead get that money tax-free in their paycheck. People pay cash or credit card for medical care. The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current. The hundreds of thousands of people in hospitals and insurance companies who push paper (billing) are cut, and do go find productive jobs. The government severely limits malpractice lawsuits, and each doctor in this country can reduce their malpractice insurance about $50,000.
Or if you absolutely want medical insurance then you buy it from your paycheck. But cash, limited paperwork and eliminating law from medicine would be much better. That is probably why countries like Canada have much cheaper care.
The AMA, big drug companies, managed care, and many others are lobby's in Washington. They represent their members well. As the baby boomers age the system will need adjustments. Why do Americans waste 650 billion in health care?
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Why_Americans_pay_more_for_health_care_2275
>I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care.
I like that philosophy.
>The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current
I can hear the screaming now about how that would be unfair. Price controls don't work right and don't work well at times, but I think here I'd be willing to try it.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
the only reason i kind of disagree about limiting malpractice is that there have been horrific instances here in ct where warped individuals have been protected by the group that was supposed to oversee conduct.
otoh, i was selected for jury duty on a malpractice case, but after listening to the the lawyers for the injured party, i played my 'doctor relative' card to get out of it.
i would not have given the plaintiff party one cent.
the case was settled for 8 million dollars!
completely ridiculous, although there was a loss of spouse.
Fortunately with the insurance I have my costs are minimal but it is stunning how expensive this can be.
I think it is important to have medical insurance. After I retired and before I turned 65 I carried a policy that would protect me against a catastrophic illness or accident. The most I would have to pay in a given year with the policy I bought was $4000. There are dozens of choices in CA. I am not familiar with other states. I paid $273 per month for peace of mind that the medical system would not take everything including my home if I were to get very ill. My Union COBRA was $900 per month and not great coverage. They only paid 70% with $1,000,000 lifetime coverage. My Kaiser plan has no limit. Most HMOs now are set at $5 million lifetime limit.
GM claims that $2000 on each car is to cover the UAW retirees Health Care. That is more than 10% of a Malibu currently selling for $15k.
Gagrice, I think this is the slippery slope we have now. The one caveat that the "new hires" have in their favor as opposed to retirees or older employees in the UAW, is that they now accept the new rules as a condition of their employment, and have the time to properly prepare for how they will finance healthcare and their living expenses in retirement. The others don't have that luxury.
It is understood that you "can't get blood from a stone", but I think everyone involved understands that they have to protect the older workers and retirees at the very least to the point that you don't pull the rug out from underneath them entirely.
I agree with you on all your points. Brilliant minds think alike. What I want to add is that we have an envy factor going on here too. Who cares what the CEO and or a forklift driver makes? If they are reduced to working Walmart jobs, we will all suffer. Instead of the upscale restaurant, they will have to suffice with McDonald's. Then Walmart will absolutely be the winner in this mindless race to the bottom. All of those other, more expensive, choices will have to cut back in the least. More jobs gone and in the end few new cars will be sold as used cars will be the middle class standard. We have no earthly idea of the multiplier effect that this race to the bottom encompasses. Good paying jobs fuel this economy and if the prevailing wage in any given area goes down, so does the purchasing power of the consumer. I'm not against progress and want competition to thrive.
However, we have no idea of what transpires at the factory in China. Certainly, we don't want to find out that children were exploited to make the very shoes were wearing? We could go on about all the products which have made the store shelves, only to later learn that they don't meet our free enterprise standard. Dog fur in coats might offend animal lovers? Lead based paint might upset parents?
This all race to the bottom is nothing but the wholesale of jobs to the third world, with some faint promise to have entry into their markets in some future date decades away. We have had competition prior and will continue to do so. However, if $10 a hour jobs by the bulk of the middle class is the vision, even those with $20, $30, and $50 and hour jobs will see a drop in business. Just do the math and see if you think this is a great idea? Once you realize were all connected, suddenly it doesn't make sense.
In closing, if you knew prior, that buying all those wonderful things at great prices, at Walmart, would fuel the consumer in China to be the second largest consumers of cars. Then those cars would require fuel/gas and that price is the rationing mechanism of gas. Would those goods purchased at Walmart, have been as attractive when $5 a gallon was nearing?
i really think as far as the healthcare issues go, there have been a lot of medical advances and that coupled with the good continuous medical care has resulted in the retirees living a lot longer than anyone projected.
I want special interest out of health care and their spending millions in Washington to cease.
>The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current
Your govt went along with the AMA (doctors union) to limit the supply of medical doctors/openings for future doctors at medical schools. The lower the supply of medical providers, the higher the cost of their services.
Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a government-sanctioned guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. In Free to Choose, Friedman said, "The AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopaths with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible."
Ya just can't believe everything you read. Joe the plumber isn't making $150,000 a year either. I just have that feeling.
I wasn't implying that he made $150k, but that it is possible for someone to make that kind of coin with lots of OT. I see guys here at Verizon working close to 1000 hrs OT a yr.
My point is that whether you make $30/hr or $13, to try and live off the OT like the well is never going to go dry is foolish. We've seen it happen at Verizon and guys have put themselves in quite a bind when the OT dries up.
Don't bet your retirement on that feeling. Joe the Plumber just left for Israel as a war correspondent. If he pulls it off he could make a lot more than $150k per year.
The speech you are commenting on made a very astute observation. If you pay someone more for any given job than the average pay for that job, you are setting them up for failure. The lug nut assembler that is making $30 per hour will become accustomed to that wage. He will base his life on $62k per year plus OT. When that job comes to a halt and he finds out that the rest of the USA is only paying $15 per hour to install lug nuts, he will most likely lose his home, car and wife. The UAW has nurtured an atmosphere of entitlement that has no basis in reality, except in the rarefied air of the Domestic automakers. Now that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and laying off 1000s of workers it creates a real problem for those that thought they were worth more than they actually are. The Big 3 and the UAW have done a disservice to the lug nut assemblers and Oscar the fork lift operators by paying them MORE than they are worth in the real world outside of Detroit.
What GM and the UAW have done to the rank and file is quite similar to what Madoff did with all those investors. They promised huge wages and benefits and planned to pay them with future earnings. Madoff did the same thing and will go to jail. If the retirees lose their health care as a result of the GM/UAW Ponzi scheme should the leaders of both go to jail?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a8jMxijVuiVE
Our UAW friends may find this interesting.....All Japanese plants are unionized....
Now my point here is that one of the reasons the cost of medical is so high is that the insured and well off are paying for all those who do not have insurance. If you pay $3k for a bedroom stay that money is also paying for a bunch of emergency room work and a whole bunch of others that will not be able to pay their bills. I read a while ago that GM not only pays the medical for all it's employees and retirees but some huge number of non insured. If GM does drop medical (already did for salaried retirees) for the union retirees the cost of medical care for everyone else is going to go up. Of course if they go under then it will be alot worse.
How can it be any worse than Federally Mandated Health Care? Either way those that pay taxes are paying the bills for those not contributing. San Diego is trying to get the Feds to cough up over a billion for treating illegals in the county hospital system last year. They come across the border to have their babies born as US citizens and we pay for the delivery and some times prenatal.
I posted about the engineer that felt he was screwed over by GM when the UAW got more in a contract. It looks to me like he was right if they have dropped health care for the white collar retirees and are still paying it for the UAW retirees. Why are the UAW retirees treated like they are more important than the white collar workers? I don't know what you pay in Michigan for Health care. If you buy a plan that allows you free or 80% office visits here in CA will be at least $600 per month for an individual.
Emergency medical care for 300,000 illegal babies per year has to cost the tax payers more than half a million UAW retirees. If we do not already pay for universal health care, I would sure like to know what you call it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/07/eveningnews/main4000401.shtml?source=m- ostpo%20p_story
While our system of health care coverage isn't perfect, nationalized health care isn't the panacea that its supporters make it out to be. The UAW certainly agrees with me - it won't shift retired UAW members to Medicare, which would save the companies billions and allow it to support a government-run health care system. The UAW's inaction speaks louder than its words...
lumoy: [ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)]
That site is incorrect. Defense and security spending account for 29.2 percent of total discretionary federal spending. By far the largest portion of federal spending goes to Social Security and Medicare, which together account for 43.5 percent of total discretionary federal spending. If you are upset about federal spending, then you will need to address spending on Social Security and Medicare.
Defense spending is the responsibility of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution. We can certainly debate over how MUCH it should be spending on defense, but that is its job. Bailing out failing companies and their coddled union is not its job.
lumoy: but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product.
In an industry where costs for parts are measured in PENNIES, a cost that accounts for 10 percent of the total costs needed to produce that product is a significant amount.
lumoy: if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped.
Really? Are you going to tell us that UAW members receive LESS pay and enjoy FEWER benefits than they did in 1979, before Chrysler demanded and received concessions? Do you have the figures to support this contention?
lumoy: i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk.
It was a different world in 1980. The Japanese and German manufacturers sold vehicles in far smaller volumes, and the Koreans weren't even in the American market yet. Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans and Hyundais were largely economy cars, and not real substitutes for American family sedans.
Plus, not as many people had been burned by the Big Three, so more people were willing to give Chrysler a chance.
The simple fact is that GM needs to file for bankruptcy, or have the government allow it to file for quasi-bankrutpcy protection. It owes so much money now that it would take over 20 years of record profits to completely pay off its debts.
GM is simply not sustainable in its present configuration, even with this infusion of government money. It was not profitable when auto sales were much higher, and given that it is unlikely that auto sales will return to their former levels for a few years, it is unlikely to be profitable in the future, unless it completely restructures.
Chrysler is toast. Daimler and Cerberus have basically gutted the company; there are very few new models on the horizon, and it needs more than a few billion from the federal government to keep going, let alone give its car lineup the complete top-to-bottom overhaul that it needs.
lumoy: the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff.
They needed to change their method of operating in the early 1980s. It's obvious that by 2006, it was too late. But neither management nor the union was interested in making the necessary changes at that time.
and when national health care is mentioned, the right wing reponds with --but that would be "socialized medicine"
medicare is "socialized medicine". taxpayer funded, single payer system with an age 65 requirement--just get rid of the age 65 condtion.
by the way. health care workers, clinics, hospitals, drug companies etc. are not nationalized (gov't owned) under medicare just so we know the phrase is really nothing more that boogie man political pandering.
the per citizen health care costs (canada/usa) are based upon insurance costs, and all taxpayer generated costs (i.e medicare, medicaid , emergency room care for indigents, etc.) : the per citizen cost for usa is double that of canada. canada has a wait problem and US still has the highest caliber of health care anywhere (if you can afford it) and thus canadians with the money will come here. that's the rub not all of us can afford it. thus the true yardstick is what is the level of health care for the masses. let's assume for the sake of argument that the world heath organization is wrong about canada's system having superior outcomes in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, hospital infection rates, etc and the systems are substantially equivalent. but even if they are equal, does common sense tell you that annual insurance premium increases of 15-20 % for that last 20 or so years cannot be sustained? this hard fact alone is going to force the issue. if that isn't enough then how about the fact that there are 46 million without insurance and probably an equal or even greater number with very minimal coverage? i realize that to many the uninsured and underinsured (majority of them are children) are invisible or nearly so, but to some of us, they human beings--indeed, we are paying for national health care now for every human being in iraq.
.
but back to the debate:
i can assure you that health care has been the major issue on the table at every set of collective bargaining negotiations (public and private sector) that has occurred in the usa for the last 20-25 years. think about that a minute--make that 5 minutes what does that tell you?. is that really the best place to resolve the health care mess or is it really simple a place to discuss shifting the costs of a failed system?,
why should such a fundamental issue (which about 70% of consider to be a basic right) be subject to the whims of the bargaining table or worse the whims of an employer whose is structurally and understandably committed to capitalism--not providing health care.
again case closed
Here is what President elect Obama says about your idea.
President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs
If Medicare is out of control and going broke, how would it work with 200 million more Americans on the plan? If GM and the UAW were to get special treatment and allow under aged retirees to get on Medicare, every company in the country would want to dump their expensive health care plans.
If it is going to happen, why did it fail the last time there was a Democrat majority in Congress with a very liberal Bill Clinton as President and his wife pushing the plan? My guess is they looked at the cost and said OH S__T this will bankrupt America. The reason Canada spends less is they have a lot less facilities and fancy equipment to maintain. One MRI machine is over a million dollars. Doctors send you through the MRI for the smallest of ailments just to cover their rear ends from John Edwards type lawsuits. Most major cities in America have more and better equipped hospitals than all of Canada.
If you are banking on this 111th Congress to get you out of the mess that the UAW has helped to create. You are dreaming.