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Comments
That would take an group that is truly selfless....
Regards,
OW
Well, imHo, the American dream begins with the idea of everyone owning their very own independent house/apt. What irks me is the idea that kids should start living separately when they get out of high school. It is very lame brained. I like the idea of being independent, but parents can very well accommodate the needs of their young, who are on the doorsteps of becoming a responsible adult.
I have been there and done that. That is one of the most frustrating times that the assembly workers has to go through i.e. Fix the mistakes of all the the processing that has happened up the line. But then, that is also another reason the assembly worker is considered "skilled" and paid highly. If he/she were to simply bolt the pieces on, then we don't need highly skilled workers on that line. The production cost is always there. You either pay it up front i.e. better design and better tooling (that has been tested) or you pay highly skilled assembly labors to fix the problems when they come across.
Apparently GM was not paying attention up front, and expecting the assembly workers to perform to the skilled wages they were getting.
a total crap hole, if I might use that word.
>That would take an group that is truly selfless...
Remember that I spoke highly of a CNC machine operator who rose from the ranks of a sweeper to become my asst. supervisor? He was one of those. He would never tolerate quality problems. If the casting is not right, then it is not right and he will either find a way to fix it and if he cannot, he will simply take it off his machine and fight with me and my bosses to return that to the casting shop / vendor.
Two: When a problem is okayed to fix the vehicles might be on finish line or all the way in the yard to be shipped out. We have before taken trucks off rail cars our off car haulers Even some never get fixed because there are gone.
LOL ! Borat, is that you?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Regards,
OW
Exactly! Perhaps us non-UAW normal Americans would see some value from all those salaries and benefits if we also saw those UAW people fighting for some quality. Until then, why should I believe the UAW is worth any more value than the non-unionized Honda and Toyota workers in the US? In fact, if I look at the crappiest vehicles I see mostly UAW. Where is the value?
However don;t you think the concept of American dream awfully resembles many UAW workers' lifetyles? Of course the huge difference is they choose to live a dream when they need fo face reality.
And guess what, we're indirectly paying for their dreams by bailout means.
I recall someone here saying that if we have to accept reality then Steve Jobs wouldn't be the way he is now and America wouldn't have revived from Pearl harbor incident. I can't remember who said this but let me tell you this: it's the total opposite. They both emerged as winners because they accepted reality and took the next steps based on it.
When Apple tanked, it wouldn't have survived if Jobs ignore reality that his products were simply undesired. He accept reality and chose to improve his products, making products customer wanted to buy. Result? Welcome back Apple.
Pearl harbor is the better example. Before Japan attacked it America simply ignored reality that Japan was capable of invading USA. Then reality hit them, hard, Pearl Harbor went bye-bye. Then they embraced reality and react accordingly, retaliate before they could get attacked once more.
UAW definitely saw this day coming. And the reality is it's a huge factor that can make the change. Wage concession was the way, and they refused to take part. Remember that the bailout talks almost went bust for 1 reason: UAW refused to make wage concessions. It's my believe that the only reason the bailout proposal passed was because of luck, the situation worsened so much that emergency actions were necessary (hence the first wave bailout). I'm waiting for the day reality hits them, hopefully the hardest possible one, so they'll finally understand that living a dream is simply a no go.
IMO American adults live a too much convenient life in the sense that they have no need to take care for their kids once they're 18.
On one side, you see early adults who imo aren't ready for the responsibility, on the other side, parents who conveniently wash their hands off responsibilities as parents so early.
Some of them either failed or couldnt afford it, dropped out and took jobs such as the ones with UAW. Then they found out they can make easy money there and forget totally about college and further education. And the next time we all wonder why there are less and less quality workers coming from US?
You make a valid point. How many under 30 UAW workers will go sponge off mom and dad when the hammer falls and they are unemployed? For all those long time UAW workers that did not spend some of the big bucks sending your kids to college, you may be in for lots of unwanted company during this long recession. And they will probably not be that motivated to leave the TV long enough to find a job. Better stock up on beer and snacks. A second remote control would be handy. Not my idea of a pleasant retirement with screaming grandkids running through the house on a permanent basis. Those UAW retirees need to tell the Union leadership they can take care of their own healthcare.
Of course, we will have to take care of our kids until they graduate from college and fnd a job. It works both ways.
We are surrounded by it. The UAW entitlement mentality does not help at all. Laid off no problem I get as much to sit and watch cartoons as installing fenders. Now it is coming to a crisis. No more gravy train for the UAW jobs bank. My neighbor lady has her son that moved in with her. He is about 45 and quit his job as a Border Patrol agent up in Vermont. He is driving her crazy just sitting around all day watching TV. Has not looked for a job in 6 months. All you UAW retirees that pushed your kids into the UAW. Paybacks are a bummer.
Let's carry that thought the next step. At the end of your working career then, your kids take care of until you croak.
Ha Ha...right. There is a sweet spot to let the hand go. I believe that is once the kid has graduated and found a good job, and more importantly saved up some money living with parents. That is roughly age 25-27. then he should use the money he saved to buy a decent home and one that he can afford payments on.
Maybe if you canceled the satellite/cable TV service and padlocked the refrigerator there would be some motivation.
Hmm? That is also part of the chinese life. That's why I laugh at everyone who called me spoiled brat back in college (as my parents paid for tuition). They had no idea I'll have my parents, wife and kids to take care of either until they die or get a job.
I wonder how UAW people will think of the chinese way. They might balk within seconds. :P Tradition, family ties, taking care of your whole family, the shame of unemployement, and the pride in working hard, all might sound alien to them (and so many other Americans).
Publicly humiliating them as jobless slacker living in mama's house is also a good method. :shades:
Soooo, combine card check with billions to groups like acorn, and there are thousands of new job openings for community/union organizers to try and influence workers in non-union companines to sign up. This is not a farout speculation. Former staunch UAW workers with communicaton/organizer skills will be in demand.
But it's all for moot, the American dream will be effectively dead in a world dominated by globalization and corporate control. No need to cry about the unions, their days are numbered - at least in the short term, perhaps for good. And if we are to whine about bailouts unions, it might also be good to target the endlessly more expensive and irresponsible bailout given to greedy financiers (economic terrorists) and the future needs of public sector unions. Don't think they aren't going to not end up even more addicted to taxpayer funds.
The study was released today by the Canadian Auto Workers union and was
written by CAW Economist Jim Stanford."
CAW Study Finds Canadian Auto Assembly Plants Most Productive in North America
Whatever the equivalent of the Heritage Foundation is in Canada will need to provide the other hand. (It'll have to have a different name because the Heritage Foundation Canada is about promoting Canada's built heritage).
http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/31/news/companies/autoplant_productivity/index.htm
The annual ranking of auto plant productivity by Harbour Consulting found GM's Oshawa No. 2 plant is the most productive in the North American auto industry.
Agreed. But what the UAW is not doing is not providing any intangible benefits to the production line. They want everything measured and then paid based upon that.
How do you go about measuring intangibles such as honesty, eye for providing quality work, attention to minute details, etc?
In a sense, unions will provide higher productivity simply because they will do their job as described in the job description, and not stopping for providing intangible benefits to their product.
His mother says he did not get along with his supervisor in New Mexico and transferred to the other border. Then when the same boss showed up he just quit. I think he has some other issues, just from talking to him across the fence. No Union to protect him :sick:
Any company that can't make those plants productive needs to get into another line of business.
Any company that can't make those plants productive needs to get into another line of business.
Actually just the opposite. Newer platforms are engineered to be more productive than the models they replaced.
Believe me that Oshawa is very good at what they do. The plant manager and everyone below him worked very hard to earn the quality awards (pretty much every year they earned one) and productivity awards.
Even with productivity improvements at the traditional Big Three automakers, Toyota Motor led Harbour's ranking of productivity for all auto facilities, while Honda Motor had the most productive assembly plants, with an average of 21.13 hours per vehicle.
But the report showed that GM, Ford and Chrysler Group, which is being sold by DaimlerChrysler, made gains and narrowed the productivity gap with the Japanese automakers' U.S. plants.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/31/news/companies/autoplant_productivity/index.htm
But the Impala is still being built there and very doubtful it will be transferred to another plant since it is on the lame duck W platform.
But at this time I believe all 3 plants are still running. But the truck plant will probably close in May.
The Canada plants were making the wrong products at the wrong time.
Please reread. If you average all their plants Toyota has the highest productive average of the marques. Oshawa is still the most productive plant in NA of ALL automotive assembly plants. And that is the truth.
I guess I should know something about that
The Camaro and its sibling, the Pontiac Firebird, were being produced at another G.M. Canada plant north of Montreal when they were discontinued in 2002. That factory, Quebec’s last auto plant, was later demolished.
The other main candidate to produce the Camaro was a factory in Wilmington, Del.
But Chris Piper, a professor of operations management at the University of Western Ontario in London, said Oshawa’s consistently high productivity and quality ratings in independent surveys might have been decisive factors.
He also said that government-financed health care gave all Canadian auto plants a substantial cost advantage compared to operations in the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/automobiles/22auto.html
At the expense of every taxpayer in the country.....
THANK YOU!
I don't think most of the people that push for Canadian type social programs realize just how much the Canadian workers pay in taxes. I know my cousins that emigrated paid over 50%. She was a stewardess and he is a union musician. Neither made UAW levels of pay. Both have given up their Canadian citizenship and become US citizens.
Someone has to pay the bills, Unless you have these BIG printing presses like the USA. All the Feds are doing is diluting the high pay made by Union workers with all this additional debt. The UAW worker will probably still get $30 per hour. It just will not be worth as much as it was before.
GM spends an average $72 an hour on labor, including wages, health benefits and pensions. Non-union Toyota plants spend $42 an hour. Toyota hasn't been building cars here long enough to be stuck with the hospital bills of nonagenarian retirees. The company has plenty of elderly veterans back home -- the Japanese are the longest-lived people in the world -- but guess who pays for healthcare in Japan? The Japanese government. As a result of providing its workers with health benefits that everyone in this country should be getting, American automakers pay over $2,000 more in labor costs on every car they make. The best way to overcome a nut like that is to build big vehicles that you can sell for a big profit.
At more than $2 trillion, health care spending now accounts for more than 16% of the U.S. gross domestic product. In 2006, health care costs in the United States, at more than $7,000 per capita, were the highest in the developed world. Yet despite that level of spending, more than 45 million people in this country are uninsured; more than one million in Michigan. That's 10% of our state's population and more than 15% of those aged 18-64.
• First, the lack of health insurance reduces productivity, within the workforce and in the broader context of our national economy. Research tells us that people without health insurance have more health problems than do people with coverage. When people are not able to work to full capacity, business suffers -- and our tax burden increases as we care for those who cannot participate in the labor force.
• Second, high numbers of uninsured cause financial instability in our health system. Those who are uninsured -- or underinsured -- tend to seek care only when their situations become dire, often ending up in hospital emergency rooms. In Michigan, as elsewhere, this is reflected in the increased rate of uncompensated care assumed by hospitals, physicians and other providers. The rapid growth of this cost destabilizes the entire health system and limits the availability of care for all, even those with insurance. It also threatens the solvency of health care providers, often major employers in their communities.
• Third, health insurance is an issue of global competitiveness. As auto companies can attest, many of our competitors are headquartered in countries that provide universal coverage. In the United States, most health insurance for those under 65 is funded through employment. U.S. auto manufacturers estimate that $1,500 of the cost of every car is related to health care benefits. This cost significantly affects the ability of U.S. companies to compete in the global market.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html