Posted on 03/22/2006 8:42:32 AM PST by carl in alaska
DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. and the auto parts supplier it once owned, Delphi Corp., announced deals Wednesday with the United Auto Workers that would offer buyouts to 13,000 hourly Delphi employees and up to 100,000 hourly GM workers represented by the United Auto Workers.
GM workers will be eligible for payouts of between $35,000 and $140,000 depending on their years of service. At Delphi, up to 5,000 workers will be eligible to return to GM, Delphi's former parent, while 13,000 U.S. hourly workers will be eligible for a lump sum payment of up to $35,000 to retire.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
then that will once and for all eradicate the UAW cancer from American Auto companies. Then they can restructure and have an opportunity to screw up on their own without anymore excuses.
GM stock gapped up this morning and is currently at 22.21, +0.21. Looks like unbiased observers view this deal as mildly positive for GM.
LOL, so cutting wages from triple the market rate is now a "race to the bottom." If they hadn't used all those strong-arm negotiation tactics and their legalized labor monopoly to goose up wages to triple the market, the UAW wouldn't have driven hundreds of thousands of jobs out of America and their membership would be better off today. I'm not saying the UAW is all bad; their work on improving workplace safety is commendable, but they've priced themselves above the level that other Americans can afford to pay for their work.
The average wage of a UAW worker is about $20.00, a third of the figure you provided, $60.00 @ hour.
http://www.uaw.org/publications/jobs_pay/01/0901/jpe12.html
Add benefits and what they receive is higher, but you wrote " . . wages from a total cost of about $60/hr,"
That's correct. I said the cost is about $60/hr, which includes all the "job bank" costs for workers who've been laid off and all health and pension benefits, payroll taxes, and GM's overhead costs for administering the voluminous UAW contract and work rules. Strictly speaking, I should have used the term "hourly labor cost" instead of the total cost of "wages." The term wages generally refers just to direct hourly payments to production workers. I pulled that $60 number from statements I recall by Steve Miller, the CEO of Delphi.
To be completely honest about it, I'm not sure if Steve Miller was including overhead costs for equipment purchases and maintenance in that hourly rate. He may have been using more of a "fully loaded" labor rate that includes factory overhead for plant and equipment captital expenses and maintenance. If so, then the UAW's portion of the total cost could be substantially lower--perhaps $40-50 per hour. But nonetheless I've seen a number of Freepers say that Delphi people are paid triple the industry rate, and I think Miller may have said that too.
Sorry, I did it again. I'm a little tired this morning; up too late last night. IIRC, Miller said something like "Delphi's labor cost per hour is triple the industry average."
Well, I guess I can't be that evenhanded! I think UAW/OSHA have destroyed and dorkified all manner of common sense.
Assembling cars and welding panels should be more dangerous than eating cornflakes.
Things like this:
...only teach people to use less common sense and safe usage, and in my opinion, make everyone more dangerous.
The reduced hot-water heater temperatures and the padding on the P-traps so handicappers don't burn their knees. All that stuff is NOT commendable in my book!!!!
The one story that sticks with me was one I read in the WSJ about a 26 year-old shop supervisor at a steel company who was crushed to death when a huge pile of steel fell on top of him. It was a tragic story of a guy who didn't have a safe place to store all the steel and kept piling it up higher in an unstable stack. He saw this disaster getting ready to happen but apparently he didn't complain enough to his boss, and it killed him. In a case like that where I saw a disaster in the making, I would have taken the risk and told my boss, "this steel has to go somewhere safe or I quit at 5 pm today." It's better to walk than to risk being maimed or killed.
I think you may have hit the core of the problem at Delphi. Just for example, if 25% of Delphi employees are now laid off and in the "job bank" at full pay, then the other 75% of the workers have to carry the 25% in their labor rate, which instantly increases the rate by a third. So if, for example, the full cost of wages, benefits, and payroll taxes is $45 per hour then the job bank workers bump that rate up to $60, which just kills Delphi's cost structure and makes them lose a lot of money. So the first step is to buy out the workers in the job bank and bring the rate down by a big step. Then work on less drastic trimming of wages and benefits to enable Delphi to be competitive. I don't know what percentage of workers are in the job bank, but with the downturn at GM it could be 20-30% by now.
I totally agree. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against safety, per se! Not dying is the best thing for living a long life!
What I'm against is OSHA, in your stacked metal situation, as a good example.
I was thinking last night how aviation safety has improved. I don't attribute that all to the NTSB and the FAA, though they are part. What really works is that the aircraft companies are involved in the investigations, and the investigations are public. Those engineers have to go back into the design process and implement lessons learned. That's a benevolent FedGov influence, but it's still left to the aircraft companies as to how they innovate in the military space and then transfer to commercial (i.e. composites->787).
On the other hand, in my little favorite steel supply place down the road (for bar stock, angle iron, sheet, etc) there's a spry young fella that loads the truck up after the kid in the office writes me up. The "kid" in the office is older than the shop kid, but the shop kid--I trust him. They've built up bar stock racks out of scrap, and they aren't approved by anyone. And those welds aren't inspected by anyone. Ok. But here's my problem with OSHA. OSHA thinks they can make enough rules to make it safe for the counter kid to load the truck. THEY CAN'T. He's just unsafe at any speed. I know it, and the shop kid knows it.....and I'm sure the office kid knows it! So OSHA would make rules about rack construction, and hoist safety locks and loading violations, etc. These things would cost the shop money. Would it finally cost so much that the shop fires the loading kid? Maybe not. But that's the ultimate aim of OSHA....dumb everything down so that nobody ever gets hurt. Well, some accidents may be prevented, but some accidents WILL happen.
I believe "failsafe" safeguards makes people soft about safety.
A kid that's seen a tractor overturn is a CAREFUL tractor operator.
A kid that's seen a rack collapse is a CAREFUL loader.
In other words, -experience- is the best teacher and safety mizer, not OSHA regulations and fines.
But I could be wrong.
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