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Old 12-18-2008, 12:33 AM
Wes Tausend Wes Tausend is offline
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Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Bismarck, North Dakota, USA,
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Talking

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamo View Post
Wes ol buddy...eh...dare I repeat myself for the zillionth time...read the contract. You're simply refusing to deal with the facts. In times past, folks kept to the line that the world was flat.

Steve...the costs for retirees are NOT part of the wage/benefits being cited. You always ask for sources, so read the contract. And BTW, GM and the other two pay an excessive amount of overtime. There have been work stoppages by the UAW when the companies sought to control overtime.

I know...facts just screw up the flow of your preconceived notions.
Jamo,

Read the contract? That's a lot of work. Could you be more specific?
Are you asking me to passively accept $76/hr, because UAW obviously gets so many benefits besides wages, as outlined in said 2007 contract, that it must be true?

I'm basically questioning the relation of three figures in my posts.
One: is $76/hr(thereabouts) real ...or exaggerated spin?
Two: is labor cost really only 10% of a vehicle ...or exaggerated spin?
Three: if 10% labor is accurate, and $76/hr is accurate ...then one may logically derive that each auto brings in $760/hr as it moves down the line. Where does all this very significant amount of money go?
Why are we all focused on the minor $76/hr amount? Is labor the only significant fat in the plant, if at all? Or is it all we hear?
Hard for me to believe, and I think it should be hard for all of us to believe ...once we have all thought about it. How could a variation of 10% reduced to, at best half, for a total 5% cost reduction, make or break corporate OEM? Give me a break.

I'm not sure what clarity you expect me to gain by reading the contract. I'm sure it's full of minor penalties on both sides.
I'm kind of assuming that an exact total hourly figure for an average employee is not directly quoted in the contract anywhere. In many cases of benefits, not even a specific amount is mentioned. All are contingent on sets of unique circumstances. As an example, my own cash rail compensation is almost never the same from trip to trip. It's always the same per mile ...plus or minus all the minor variable BS that goes with it. Benefits such as health are based on the calendar, independent of trips. None are added nor subtracted to total, until they hit a pay stub or white sheet.

It is my assumption that the $76/hour UAW figure is a vague, yet tearful, press release from corporate OEM. There is a good chance that no explanatory pie chart ever accompanied the figure, and yet it is accepted as a cruel "self-evident truth" by just about everyone. Except me.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that I would like to see how OEM arrived at the seemingly astounding $76/hr(thereabouts) figure. It's quite possible that if we do similar creative math, within any of our employers, that forum members will find that the claimed cost of their own labor also commonly approaches 2 1/2 times actual wage, day to day. Or in the case of UAW possibly being excessively imbursed by 1/2, perhaps we only manage 2X etc.

I don't automatically think the claims of over-cost of labor has diddly to do with the imminent failure of US manufacturing. Faithful Labor is just taking the heat ...yet again.

Opportunity knocks and the exorbitantly priced, yet talented, "welfare recipients", at the top, don't miss a beat. And the majority of us buy it ...as we sign away our personal sovereignty to the fruit of our own efforts.

Well, I could be wrong, but that's my scientific theory how the top 1 percenters got on top. Unless there actually resides an undisputed fact to the contrary in the contract. Enlighten me.

The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact ...Thomas Huxley

Wes


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