Posted on 10/17/2005 9:26:26 AM PDT by WmCraven_Wk
12,000 paid not to work
Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.
By Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News
WAYNE -- Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.
"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."
Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.
As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program.
With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner.
"It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook."
*snip*
source: http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/17/A01-351179.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at detnews.com ...
and Unions cry because their jobs have been sent to Mexico and China?
Is someone implying that a union member might be getting paid for not working? This is simply appalling and unheard-of.
We should look into whether we can pay their folks less to be idle. They could probably also complete the crossword a lot faster as well.
The "executives" that allowed this piece of crap in the contract should be hung from the nearest tree.
Unions had a place in our society many years ago to deal with obscene corporate greed. But they have been corrupted by socialists and ciminals and now simply destroy every industry they "organize".
"Is someone implying that a union member might be getting paid for not working?"
Implying!?!
The aricle maintains that the worker 'pool' is written into the UAW contract.
Unions are like Welfare: they create people stuck on lazy and stupid.
My brother works for the People's Republic of Rhode Island.He can tell ya stories that would send your blood pressure through the roof!
Inflation = People paid for no work
And the businesses send more jobs overseas where there are no unions to cause a situation like this.
"The "executives" that allowed this piece of crap in the contract should be hung from the nearest tree.
"
Amen!
What kind of a person would accept that for years on end? I'm as lazy as the next guy, but the sloth and lack of any accomplishment would drive me crazy!
I remember after a particularly tough college/work year, I decided to take a month off. I slept in, sat around the house, etc., in a most dedicated fashion. At the two-week point I was about to pull my hair out -- I started working for a non-profit until school started up again.
The proper word is hanged. Sorry one of my pet peeves.
Unions have made their own bed, now it's time for them to sleep...............
.....then they blame it on Bush, though unions have been actively destroying US industry since the 1970's when they succeeded in destroying the US steel industry and nearly bankrupted the US automotive industry.
It is quite obvious why they tend to always support the liberal/democratic candidates.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this, but the port actually came out way ahead in the deal because having those workers sitting at home all day (or more likely holding another job) actually reaped substantial benefits for the port -- due to the dramatic decline in theft from the piers that resulted.
>> We the many pay for the lucky few. <<
You own stock in GM? No? Then you're not paying for it. As a consumer, you are free to buy a less expensive car somewhere else.
GM wanted to introduce new tachniques which would harm job secuirty. Job security is a real benefit with a real value. the workers said, "we chose to work here, and we signed a contract, with the expectation of job security." GM could have offered them higher wages, like other positions with compensatory payments for low job secuirty (like CEO). But GM gambled that this arrangement would be the most profitable. Now they don't like it, and they want to reneg. Frankly, unless you work for GM, or own stock in GM, It's none of your business. If you do own stock in GM, your beef is with the management who struck the deal.
From an economic viewpoint, it is counterproductive to be paying a worker to do crossword puzzles. Maybe GM ought to do the same things with these workers that they would do with executives: offer them golden parachutes, so they can seek new work. But neither you nor I can make such a decision not knowing more specifics, so maybe there is a good reason GM doesn't do that, such as GM suspects they really WILL need more workers soon and wants to hold on to those they have.
Ever hear of companies demanding higher productivity fomr their workforce? That company is acknowledging that they have allowed workers to do less work then they think their workforce is capable of. Apparently, GM decided they didn't want employees learning non-productivity while on the line, so they concentrated non-productivity among certain workers off the line, so that when the workforce needed maximum productivity again, these workers wouldn't have poor work habits.
In Brazil the big three are selling Hybrid cars that run on 85% ethanol - 2of3 cars sold there are this type. But the big three think we are not interested in these cars.
The stories that tell why the big three have lost the market never stop. Quality is still not job ONE with far too many people in Detroit. Even the Koreans are building more reliable cars. What is wrong with the management??
The guy across the street from me works at the local Ford plant, and he seems to spend about half of his time doing this. They call it the "gin pool", and they justify it by claiming that they are on hand to be assigned to work if somebody is absent. But most of the time, it's just paid waiting.
Forget the complaints, do the math! 12000 x 40hr/wk x 31/hr x 1.3 for benefits x 52 = $1,005,888,000 annual.
You'd think if he was bored enough, Ken Pool might wander down to the line, maybe help put a couple trucks together - but there's probably some union rule against that!
"Frankly, unless you work for GM, or own stock in GM, It's none of your business. "
It's the business of every American to stop the socialist and criminal nightmare of unionization - a direct cause of job exportation.
"GM wanted to introduce new tachniques which would harm job secuirty."
A parsite has 'job security' only until the host dies.
Funny you mention that. My "American Dodge" truck was made in Mexico by non union Mexicans, and my "Japanese Toyota" SUV was made in Tenessee by non union Americans. The unions better wake up. Their hammering the nails into their own coffins.
And they're right - you could own a dual-fuel vehicle today if you wanted one.
But I'm betting you don't.
You don't have the foggiest notion of what ethanol would cost without massive government subsidies, do you?
Management can only do so much with union-protected labor - they don't actually build the cars. Firing a laborer for poor quality/productivity is just as hard as it is in the Fed. Govt. Unions are a direct cause of that, in all industries.
And actually, quality is NOT all that bad these days - my Ford is fabulous.
Will someone explain the difference between the UAW and the Mob again to me? Oh yes, the Mob is far less lucrative.
"Apparently, GM decided they didn't want employees learning non-productivity while on the line, so they concentrated non-productivity among certain workers off the line, so that when the workforce needed maximum productivity again, these workers wouldn't have poor work habits. "
Whoa, dude. You need to either up your meds, or lower them. That's some interesting logic.
Remember: "What's good for GM is good for America?" Well, we all have a stake in this. It IS our business, stock holder or not. It effects tax base, and our neighbors.
Unions will never go away, because abusive management will never go away. However, the union became too strong, and too corrupt. It's time for adjustment.
Maybe, just maybe, with their butts on the line too... unions will learn to work WITH management, instead of AGAINST them?
This might seem like a valid statement on its face, but it became "our business" once the pension and health care obligations for all of these workers were guaranteed by the Federal government under the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).
And make no mistake about it -- the U.S. taxpayer is eventually going to pick up the tab for every one of these workers at some point in the not-too-distant future.
There are no non-union workers in Mexico. Every laborer in Mexico is part of a union. Mexico is a socialist country.
The "executives" that allowed this piece of crap in the contract should be hung from the nearest tree.
---
They can't do anything. Blame the lawmakers that pass labor laws that make it impossible to fire these workers.
Until and unless American Unions become the guarrentor of an appropriate sized, highly skilled, efficient and dedicated workforce, they will forever be a thorn in the side of America's economy. Rather than anti-competetive, unions could become an indespensable component of our global sucess story.....but they won't!
Ford, for example, might employ 2,000 union workers at $35 per hour in a plant in Michigan -- but they can only do so by having another 5,000 workers outside the U.S. working for $5 per hour. Toyota, on the other hand, might employ 3,500 non-union workers at $20 per hour in a plant in Texas. They can hire more U.S. workers because the U.S. workers cost less, and they only need about 2,000 workers outside the U.S. at $5 per hour in order to remain profitable.
This is one key reason why Japanese plants in the U.S. typically have more assembly-line employees than their "Big Three" counterparts.
Just keep criticizing and envying the "suits" who busted their asses and lost potential wages while in college and grad school, just to make the $60K/year or so the Yewn-yun brothers and sisters make for sitting on their own asses.......
Federal Civil Service has some of these jobs but chose not to get one.
The democratic peoples republic of New Orleans has a good system for those on the Police rolls who do not work.
And nothing has been done about the situation except send them more federal money.
That is because of government intervention.
That's probably a good point to consider, Canada for instance requires a percentage of everthing sold there to be built there. That's why there's a Zippo factory in Niagara Falls.
The auto companies don't keep factories there for the weather.
I'm not a big proponent of outsourcing and think there's some logic to Canada's trade law. I'd like to see more protection here from companies that clear the timecards of domestic workers for the sole sake of profiteering on third world labor.
I imagine you're right though, that cheap labor allows companies to pay living wages here, but there seems to be a trend to outsource more and more of those living wages to other countries. The aparent motive is greed and our trade laws are complicant.
It is the spineless weasels in the board room especially the accountants that won't let the company take a strike not the lawmakers.
Which would you prefer -- a car made by a UAW thug or one made in Ohio by a Honda Associate wearing a white lab coat?
It is the spineless weasels in the board room especially the accountants that won't let the company take a strike not the lawmakers.
"There are no non-union workers in Mexico. Every laborer in Mexico is part of a union."
You may be right. But it's not the UAW.
"I'm as lazy as the next guy, but the sloth and lack of any accomplishment would drive me crazy!"
It may do the same to them. But where else are they gonna go and get $31/hr with bennies?
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