The lobbyist and spin doctors against the working American have launched all sorts of anti-union websites, one of their newest is using the "stop unions" phrase. So here's a nice little spot on Blogger where I can test some nice widgets for my own site Joe's Union Review
I mean, how often does an administration lead by a Congress controlled by Republicans for years (unitl 2006) allow deregulation of the financial industry, arguably causing issues like Madoff:
They join a list of more powerful investors that have come forward, all worried about the extent of their losses. The roster of names include former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services, among others.
So, in a climate of DEREGULATION, a well respected captain of financial markets gets to pull off the scam of all scams, including DEFRAUDING the likes of GM (GMAC is a subsidiary of GM and provides financial services, including mortgages). Now that GM is out BILLIONS (Madoff scammed at least $50 billion that we know of now), does it make it more likely that Republican Senators will be willing to assist the ailing auto industry? Afterall, helping GMAC is a financial services company and seemingly so much more Republican like, as opposed to dirty, hard working, loud, uneducated, unskilled autoworkers represented by a union.
Hmm, the only ones here I think of as dirty, uneducated and unskilled are Republicans in the Seante lead by the likes of Senators Corker and Shelby. Just writing their names makes me want to go take a shower. I feel so dirty.
The UAW worker speaking is from American Axle and the staffers at the table have never heard of American Axle. NEVER HEARD OF IT. Why is that important? An 11 week strike this past winter.
How can we expect the Republican Senators to be able to pull their heads out of their asses if their staffers can't even keep up on an 11 week strike that SHUT DOWN GM plants all over the country, in Mexico and also hit Canadian autoworkers? Are these rely the people who should be making policy about how and if money should be loaned to manufacturing in this country?
Idiots and asshats. Because of them, there's no money out there in the form of a LOAN for the auto industry!!
I got this in an e-mail but had to go and read it for myself mostly because at the same time I got this, someone else sent me a link to what states receive the most in Federal aide and those states that utilize the least. And not surprisingly, Republican Senators who receive the most in federal funding are also the senators who voted against a BRIDGE LOAN for Chrysler and GM. Oh and of course the Republicans from Alaska, too (receiving loads, but clearly want to screw Michigan and the rest of the midwest).
Take what Mitt Romney said on Meet the Press this morning, blaming a $2k "disadvantage" on labor, labor benefits and labor legacy (retired workers). Governor Granholm hit the nail on the head when she made sure that everyone knew that this "disadvantage" is about how other countries provide for their citizens. Here, we have companies that must, as in the Detroit Free Press editorial
December 12, 2008 Hey, Southerners: Detroit 3 helped you to survive
BY TOM WALSH FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana and Alabama on Aug. 29, 2005, the automobile companies of Detroit did not harrumph that the gulf coast should have been better prepared.
They didn't sit back and wait for New Orleans to submit a detailed plan for future repair of the ruptured levees.
General Motors Corp., on Aug. 30, donated $400,000 to the American Red Cross 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund, pledged to match up to $250,000 more in employee contributions, and sent more than 150 vehicles to the stricken area for use in relief work.
Ford Motor Co. and the UAW quickly made a joint donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross. The Chrysler Group gave $150,000 to the Red Cross and $200,000 to local New Orleans charities. DaimlerChrysler Services chipped in $200,000 for the Red Cross and pledged to match employee donations up to $50,000.
The three Detroit auto companies together gave more than $18 million in cash and vehicles to the Katrina relief effort in the ensuing months. No strings attached.
The U.S. Senate's most adamant naysayers about whether Detroit deserves rescue loans should have thought about that before now. It might have made Thursday's futile wrangling over a compromise to get $14 billion in emergency rescue loans for GM and Chrysler a bit less tortuous.
U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., for one, might have dialed down his earlier rhetoric.
Vitter said Wednesday that he plans to vote against the rescue because, in his words, it is "ass-backwards" to give money to the distressed companies before Congress sees more detailed survival plans.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., should think about Hurricane Katrina, too. He has threatened a filibuster against the bill, calling it "a bridge loan to nowhere" and stating that Detroit's automakers should undergo a fundamental restructuring before they ask Congress for money.
None of the logical arguments made by, or on behalf of, Detroit's auto industry seem to resonate with certain congressional critics.
Not the fact that GM, Ford and Chrysler have slashed billions of dollars in costs. Not the fact that they have the nation's top-selling pickups and minivans. Not the fact that they have lots of high-mileage vehicles and more on the way. Not the fact an auto company bankruptcy would have a horrible ripple effect, wiping out scores of suppliers and making hundreds of thousands more U.S. workers jobless.
No, to the most adamant auto-rescue opponents in the Senate, Detroit doesn't make cars people want. It's a dinosaur not worth preserving.
Could the opinions of these senators be colored by the fact that the foreign-owned plants of Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Nissan and Volkswagen -- which compete with the Detroit Three -- are located in their states?
Nah, let's not even go there.
Let's just say that since logic hasn't worked, we should fall back on a simple moral argument.
If you see a fellow American is drowning, gasping for air, do you quiz him for a while about whether he's drunk or why he never learned to swim better? Or do you throw him a life buoy and ask questions later?
That, it seems to me, is where we are with America's car companies.
You have done nothing and failed them, senators.
So now it's up to President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to, hopefully, rush in with emergency aid from the $700-billion Troubled Assets Relief Program.
They could still hold the Detroit Three's feet to the fire afterward, empowering a strong auto czar to bring all stakeholders together to forge business models for these companies that can withstand future shocks.
Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.
Just one more time, Damn, Mitt Romney is an ass...ah, and a liar. Wow, glad he's not going to be president. Why are there always more Republicans on the Sunday talks than Democrats? Come on, the CEO of Wal-Mart? Please, focused on working people? Yeah, working them for as little as possible with the smallest wages as possible and then, with little or no benefits. Great model to compare to GM and Chrysler. Why would this joker even be on Meet the Press? Is this what we really want to expand as a model for growth or prosperity?
You motherfuckers, you toss trillions at killing in war, a trillion to your cohorts in banking and when it comes to one of the last American industries which is manned by American workers, union American workers who have agreed to give concessions, who's new hires only make $14 at the highest wage and whose companies have asked for a loan of a mere $15 billion, you turn your backs.
Make no mistake about it, this bill was killed by Republican Senators, they are your enemy, and for all of those working in the deep south in the Foreign auto manufacturing, which does not have any legacy costs for retirees yet, be prepared, if the big 3 are gone, your pay is gonna drop like an anchor.
With 1 in 10 US jobs attached to the big three you have tossed our country into a tailspin, the dollar has dropped overnight and how much longer before we have another 3,000,000 unemployed, while you close your eyes and leave the border open and let all help the corporations continue to force undocumented workers into servitude to feed you.
The people have shown that they are getting tired of it at the Republic window and door factory in Chicago, unfortunately it's like alcoholics anonymous, we might all have to hit the bottom before we look for change.
How long will you all bury your head in the sand before you realize that there is a war against the American worker? That's ALL American workers, they will continue to pick us off one at a time..
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar slumped below 90 yen for the first time in 13 years after the U.S. Senate rejected a $14 billion bailout for the nation’s automakers.
The U.S. currency headed for a sixth week of declines versus the yen as General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC failed to obtain the funds they need to survive until next year. Japan isn’t considering intervening in currency markets now, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters in Tokyo today.
“The dollar is dropping like a rock,” said Masahiro Sato, joint general manager of the treasury division in Tokyo at Mizuho Trust & Banking Co., a unit of Japan’s second-largest publicly listed lender. “This is a big blow to confidence in the U.S. economy. Bankruptcy protection for U.S. automakers may be the only option left.”
Nellie I was deeply disturbed at Sen. DeMint's comments about the Unions being the whole problem facing the auto industry. The Unions do not determine what vehicles are to be built or engineering of vehicles, management does. They assemble the vehicles they are directed to assemble. No one seems to think there is anything wrong with CEOs negotiating the best salary and benefits package they can, but somehow its wrong for the workers to do so. Remember, without the workers, the Union members, there would be no product to sell. Further, no one seems to remeber that Toyota, Honda and other foreign auto cos., got a free pass when they negotiated manufacturing their vehicles in the U.S. They were not required to deal with the Unions. Therefore, there is no level playing field. The NPR staff needs to educate itself about Unions and the roll of Unions in the history of this country so they can challenge such outrageous statements from the likes of Sen. DeMint. Unions were prominenet in the most prosperous times of our country. Because of Unions, there are weekends, laws requiring a safe workplace and other standards we all take for granted now. An attack on Unions is an attack on the common working woman and man of this country
And did anyone else notice that not only is this guy an idiot, he also had several moments where it seemed difficult for him to form his thoughts? Is he more than just an idiot, is he also a blithering idiot?
I headed over to John Cole's Balloon Juice for some talk about Republican Union-Bashing and I found this nugget in the comments:
Exactly. But when it comes to union busting, there’s no lie too big. Romney said what he meant in that editorial, though:
The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end.
The only way, from an executive’s perspective, to make that enmity stop is to bust the union and give all the power to management. As a union member, I respond with "Fuck you very much."
This comment was based on the posting about Republican union-bashing and their disdain for working Americans represented by a union. From Cole:
this is union busting on a grand scale. There have been dozens of signs over the past week what they really want, starting with the Mitt Romney editiorial in the NY Times:
The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”
You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.
When Mitt Romney says a “new direction” for unions, the new direction means planned obsolescence. It is important to remember what Mitt Romney does to make his money, and when he gives advice to what should happen to the auto industry, you need to understand that his vision for America is more of the same- in his worldview, everyone is working for $8 dollars an hour at Wal-Mart, getting their health care from medicare/medicaid, and barely making it.
Harris: Republicans are going to be looking-as we talk about concessions on the management side, we’re going to be looking, when you talk about bailing out Detroit, looking at reopening some of those ridiculous union contracts that have been huge, massive giveaways. *** No, I don’t-I don’t think that this is class warfare. I mean, you talk about a company like AIG or a company like Citigroup, and there was bipartisan consensus that they were simply too big to allow to fail.
Now, you haven’t heard-at least I’m not aware of any Republicans saying, no, you have got to protect the AIG management, or you have got to protect the Citigroup management. If they need to be hung out to dry, then let them hang them out to dry. But, when you talk about some of these union contracts that are really crippling the Big Three, it’s not just that they made bad cars or that they made cars that used a lot of gas. They certainly did, although their cars are a lot better now. But, if you’re going to address fundamental reform in Detroit, you have got to have the union issue on the table.
And just so you are completely clear on what the real agenda is for the Republicans, the WSJ brings it home this morning:
Consider labor costs. Take-home wages at the U.S. car makers average $28.42 an hour, according to the Center for Automotive Research. That’s on par with $26 at Toyota, $24 at Honda and $21 at Hyundai. But include benefits, and the picture changes. Hourly labor costs are $44.20 on average for the non-Detroit producers, in line with most manufacturing jobs, but are $73.21 for Detroit.
This $29 cost gap reflects the way Big Three management and unions have conspired to make themselves uncompetitive—increasingly so as their market share has collapsed (see the nearby chart). Over the decades the United Auto Workers won pension and health-care benefits far more generous than in almost any other American industry. As a result, for every UAW member working at a U.S. car maker today, three retirees collect benefits; at GM, the ratio is 4.6 to one.
Highly recommend heading over and participating in the conversation if you get a chance. Don't want anyone missing comments like this:
Let’s see…professional athletes have strong labor unions, but the leagues are doing well. Service workers like janitors have unions but I don’t see the hospitality industry dying. And there were no unions in finance industries that were run into the ground. But it’s the unions’ fault. Always is.
It's nice to see folks willing to say what needs to be said, that Unions aren't at fault in the current mess. This mess if far more complex and it starts with the letter R, Recession. Funnily enough, that's also the letter that starts the party name that brought us this Recession. Amazing how that works.
"One company employs about 100,000, the other employs millions. What’s the real difference? The people who work for AIG wake up, shower and go to work. The vast majority of people who work for the Big Three wake up, go to work, come home and shower ." -Brandon Spence
Screw the jackals in the main stream, here in a response to an article that states "let them fail" is some of the down to earth facts of what life without the "Big 3" car manufacturers would be like for all of us. Here's a response to some scumbag named Morgan Liddick's article that appeared in the Colorado's Summit Daily News, where he didn't hide his anti-union views, the original was titled "U.S. automakers have a duty to die". Many could just sit there and raed and ingest the story and go on with their lives, not caring about all the jobs that would be lost if indeed the "Big 3" went away. But wait, there is a voice of reason out there in Colorado, his name is Brandon Spence and here's what he had to say:
Re: “U.S. automakers have a duty to die,” Morgan Liddick, SDN Nov. 25 In a very twisted way, a part of me hopes Morgan Liddick and those who share his position for the Big Three to “die” get their way. Only for the sake to see what he would be writing years from now after the U.S. has slipped into an economic abyss. Would he then stand by his column that U.S. automakers have a duty to die? I somehow think not.
I am fourth-generation Flint, Mich. GM baby. My great grandfather was a part of the infamous 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike. My grandfather put in 30 years at GM. One uncle recently retired from GM. Another has been a Teamster for as long as I can remember. My father’s job, selling industrial pumps, would not have existed if not for the Big Three. And I was born in Flint with most of my family still in both the Flint and Detroit areas.
I have seen first-hand what happens when the U.S. automotive industry fails. If you want to know what America will look like if the Big Three do not get their $25 billion loan, take a look at southeast Michigan. Unemployment is approaching 10 percent and will likely eclipse that mark by the end of 2009, with an estimated 108,000 jobs being cut . This would be just the beginning. The unemployment rate during the Great Depression averaged about 14 percent. Reports indicate the nearly three million jobs will be lost if GM, Ford and Chrysler file Chapter 11. That could dramatically escalate when you factor in that one in 10 jobs in the U.S. are tied into the automotive industry: parts suppliers, truck drivers, advertising agencies, dealers, etc. Those are the obvious ones.
The steel workers throughout the Midwest would take a major hit, one they cannot afford. There are also insurance agencies that will be bogged down with health insurance claims and benefits that are tied up in bankruptcy court for years. Millions of Americans overnight without jobs and healthcare.
But yes, Mr. Liddick, you’re right the automotive industry deserves to die. You’re right. They did produce the biggest cars and trucks possible. But this is not solely the fault of the automakers. Americans wanted the biggest, and that’s exactly what they got. It’s far easier to wake up one day with gas at $4 a gallon and decide to buy a smaller fuel-efficient vehicle than it is to change all of your manufacturing plants. That takes time. And for the record, let’s dispel the myth about the current quality and inefficiency of Big Three vehicles. A J D Power quality study scored eight Big Three brands as high or higher than Acura, Audi, BMW, Honda, Nissan, Scion, Volkswagen and Volvo. Both the Chevy Malibu and Ford Fusion scored higher than the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. All of the Detroit Three build midsize sedans the EPA rates at 29-33 mpg on the highway. The most fuel-efficient Chevrolet Malibu gets 33 mpg on the highway, 2 mpg better than the best Honda Accord.
So who do you want to see punished by this? It certainly won’t be the CEOs. They’ll be fine. The other millions that don’t wear white collars, not so much. AIG was handed upwards of $150 billion. The Big Three are asking for a loan, to be paid back, of $25 billion. One company employs about 100,000, the other employs millions. What’s the real difference? The people who work for AIG wake up, shower and go to work. The vast majority of people who work for the Big Three wake up, go to work, come home and shower.
The Big Three catapulted America into the 20th Century as an economic power. During WWII Detroit halted production and turned its attention to building tanks. A quarter of all tanks manufactured in the U.S. came from the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant, a division of Chrysler. General Motors was the world’s largest employer for most of the last century. The backbone of this country was built on the labor of the automotive industry. And now when it looks bleak, people like you, Mr. Liddick, want to see them crash and burn. I’ll be sure not to call you if I’m in a bind. Finally, off point here. You said “WE” voted for change in the last election. I somehow find it hard to believe that you voted for change. Have a happy Thanksgiving.
I've been struggling with what to say about the incestuous bias in the media against the UAW through the media's repetition of Right Wing lies, distortions and avarice. Problem is that I didn't really know how to sum it up. To boil it down to what I really wanted to say or maybe it was how I wanted to say it.
Until today.
I was over at Dailykos and noticed a comment in a diary on the Bridge loan to automakers:
The lazy, overpaid autoworker stereotype is outdated and tiresome. Just like any other industry, we have our share of slackers, but the overwhelming majority of our workforce "bring it" every day.
You say the UAW needs to accept concessions to help solve this crisis. Apparently you haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years or so. The companies have been asking for and receiving concessions for the last several contracts. The most recent contract allows for a nearly 50% lower wage for the next generation of workers, while also removing health care costs from the company books.
Apparently that's not enough. You want to see us all out of work.
The bottom line is that while the UAW and management have played a part in the past mistakes, both have been working to ensure a solid future for the industry for years.
Over that same time the government has done nothing to help regarding affordable health care, balanced trade and tax incentives that reward companies for keeping jobs here instead of outsourcing. The middle class (led by the unions) tried to sound the alarm years ago. Unfortunately, nobody listened because of their anti-union prejudices.
There is so much anti-union blather out there in the ether that it’s hard to cut threw it and make sense of anything sometimes. Here, on Uniongal, we try to do that. We try to find a way to remind each reader that there is something bigger than the ether, than the anti-union comments you read or the blatant anti-worker bias in the media. There’s something so much bigger out there, it’s solidarity.
This weekend, I read a similar thread on .UnionReview and commented:
We do fight back. Everyday you remember that there are brothers and sisters in your union, you beat folks like National Review. Everytime you talk to some random person about what it means to be in a union, what it means to have brothers and sisters in the stuggle are always victories against these jack asses. Solidarity means that we come together and everytime we do, they are afraid and when they are afraid, they will take a brush and with broad strokes, they will paint us with the actions they themselves take. So, when you read their comments and they make their statements, say what you have to, clearly, loudly and with the strength and honesty of those who have come before all of us. From the women at the Triangle Shirt Factory to Wesley Everest and to the current struggles for representation so many are fired for trying to obtain. And when you do speak, know that you're not alone. We're all with you. In Solidarity Uniongal
It was something small. Nothing I haven’t felt or meant to say in the past. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve really thought about it. About what it really means to fight for workers, I just do it. It’s a part of who I am.
Fighting for my brothers and sisters in labor is just something I do, naturally. I have never stopped to think about it and I’m sure many of you haven’t either. I don’t care about the infighting, the dirty laundry, the poaching from one union to another union; it just doesn’t matter as long as workers can bargain, collectively.
Then I met someone who made me actually stop and think about it. I’ve thought about the why and this came about not through the Big 3 or through the constant anti-union sentiments about the UAW or IAM (from the Boeing strike) or how Andrea Mitchell and Tom Brokaw shill for the anti Employee Free Choice Act every chance they get. I started to think about it on Saturday.
You see, I went out with a new friend on Saturday. He's really an absolutely amazing person, just being near him makes me feel this unbelievable electrical jolt, you know, that feeling, when you remember why you do what you do? That jolt from the passion that is taking on the system, or fighting the good fight?
He’d shared some stuff on being a firefighter and me, well, I’ve never been much of a fan of IAFF. On a scale from one to 10 and 10 being my love for my former union (you all know I was a Teamster, right?) and 1 being my feelings toward Right Wingers, IAFF was about a 3, okay, maybe a 4.
But this guy out of the blue had me thinking about stuff. I’m not a retrospective girl. I like things to be clear, kind of orderly and since I’d made up my mind on IAFF, I really just didn’t think of them in the same way that I did IBEW, UFCW, UFW, UNITE-HERE and many others, I just didn’t.
So, he’s read my blog and he and I have had a couple of side conversations about the IAFF. He's told me about the The Secret List. and how he's seen too many firefighters injured due to new construction issues. He’s talked about how industry standards are so low now, that during a fire, you can’t always head into a building because the materials used in new construction are so flimsy that you fall threw floors or ceilings collapse and roofs as well. Just yesterday, a Firefighter on Staten Island lost his life while battling a blaze when the roof collapsed.
But this weekend for me was different. It started out like any other weekend, busy and then, he sent me an e-mail about solidarity.
Solidarity.
IAFF is as much a brother in the struggle as the 29 year veteran of GM.
Today, I’m reminded of what it is I fight, for my brothers and sisters and there’s no rest on the horizon for any of us and yeah, I also mean you right wingers who idolize the likes of Rick Berman. Be prepared to fight, because I am.
I am now, more than ever, clear that what we need is just a little concept called solidarity.
To my brothers and sisters in Labor, Uniongal Salutes you. And yep, I mean you all in IAFF, too. You’re now a 10 in my book.
The corporate war against unions and American workers in general has taken an awful turn, in 'if you repeat it people will believe it is true fashion' the stooges against us are creating more anti-union sentiment with making us think that only unionized autoworkers are making far too much money as opposed to the rest of us here in the U.S.
Alas their fear of the possible passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is making them slam the unions as hard as possible, getting catch phrases like "73 dollars an hour" to become a household phrase, but you my dear reader are much smarter than those who believe this to be true. Finally the numbers have been scrutinized and the sensationalistic numbers have been brought to our attention, the average union autoworker makes around $28 an hour as of 2007 and the new contract signed in early 2008 will limit the top wage of many non-core new hires to roughly $14 an hour with a lower degree of benefit costs also. That's a whole lot less than what a Toyota worker makes here in the US, but it was done to create American jobs.
The average UAW autoworker at the 'Big 3' makes roughly a little less than $60,000 a year and the average non-union autoworker in the U.S. makes roughly $52,000 and considering that most of the nonunion plants are in lower cost of living areas, I would say that both are quite competitive with one another. Basically no one is getting rich who is a general worker at any U.S. auto manufacturing plant. The anti-union forces along with the corporate right are spinning this to create more anti-union sentiment in our country. They fixate on a number that sounds outlandish and just keep repeating it until you say "greedy union worker", when in fact with the way the world is changing even the nonunion manufacturers here will be cutting back and need help eventually as it is very hard to compete globally when places such as Mexico have a minimum wage of $2 an hour, Bangladesh is only $0.06, and Vietnam is $64 an month.
So the choice is your, keep listening to their horseshit, keep hating your fellow American workers, keep letting them get away with outsourcing all of our industry or open your eyes and let them know that you know they are misinforming us. Remember "unions force jobs overseas" or at least that's what they want you to believe.
Yes these are bad times, really bad times, but don't take it out on the American workers, not the union ones or the nonunion ones, we are all hurting, don't let them get away with driving a bigger wedge between all of us, the collapse of GM, Ford and Chrysler will cost us 3 million U.S. jobs, add that to the 50,000+ Citibank workers, and all the others who have recently been laid off and you can see now we as the American working class need to rely on each other now more than ever.
Debunking the $73/hour Myth
Here's the scoop on the pay at the 'Big 3', from the pages of The New Republic
Why Are We Bailing Out Auto Workers Who Make $70 An Hour? by Jonathan Cohn Debunking the myth of the $70-per-hour autoworker.
If you've been following the auto industry's crisis, then you've probably read or heard a lot about overpaid American autoworkers--in particular, the fact that the average hourly employee of the Big Three makes $70 per hour.
That's an awful lot of money. Seventy dollars an hour in wages works out to almost $150,000 a year in gross income, if you assume a forty-hour work week. Is it any wonder the Big Three are in trouble? And with auto workers making so much, why should taxpayers--many of whom make far less--finance a plan to bail them out?
Well, here's one reason: The figure is wildly misleading.
Let's start with the fact that it's not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income--hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.
More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren't that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can't be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don't make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these "transplants"--as the foreign-owned factories are known--was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker's annual salary at $52,000 a year.
So the "wage gap," per se, has been a lot smaller than you've heard. And this is no accident. If the transplants paid their employees far less than what the Big Three pay their unionized workers, the United Auto Workers would have a much better shot of organizing the transplants' factories. Those factories remain non-unionized and management very much wants to keep it that way.
But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.
Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just "not true."
Of course, the cost of benefits for those retirees--you may have heard people refer to them as "legacy costs"--do represent an extra cost burden that only the Big Three shoulder. And, yes, it makes it difficult for the Big Three to compete with foreign-owned automakers that don't have to pay the same costs. But don't forget why those costs are so high. While the transplants don't offer the same kind of benefits that the Big Three do, the main reason for their present cost advantage is that they just don't have many retirees.
The first foreign-owned plants didn't start up here until the 1980s; many of the existing ones came well after that. As of a year ago, Toyota's entire U.S. operation had less than 1,000 retirees. Compare that to a company like General Motors, which has been around for more than a century and which supports literally hundreds of thousands of former workers and spouses. As you might expect, many of these have the sorts of advanced medical problems you expect from people to develop in old age. And, it should go without saying, those conditions cost a ton of money to treat.
To be sure, we've known about these demographics for a while. Management and labor in Detroit should have figured out a solution it long ago. But while the Big Three were late in addressing this problem, they did address it eventually.
Notice how, in this article, I've constantly referred to 2007 figures? There's a good reason. In 2007, the Big Three signed a breakthrough contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) designed, once and for all, to eliminate the compensation gap between domestic and foreign automakers in the U.S.
The agreement sought to do so, first, by creating a private trust for financing future retiree benefits--effectively removing that burden from the companies' books. The auto companies agreed to deposit start-up money in the fund; after that, however, it would be up to the unions to manage the money. And it was widely understood that, given the realities of investment returns and health care economics, over time retiree health benefits would likely become less generous.
In addition, management and labor agreed to change health benefits for all workers, active or retired, so that the coverage looked more like the policies most people have today, complete with co-payments and deductibles. The new UAW agreement also changed the salary structure, by creating a two-tiered wage system. Under this new arrangement, the salary scale for newly hired workers would be lower than the salary scale for existing workers.
One can debate the propriety and wisdom of these steps; two-tiered wage structures, in particular, raise various ethical concerns. But one thing is certain: It was a radical change that promised to make Detroit far more competitive. If carried out as planned, by 2010--the final year of this existing contract--total compensation for the average UAW worker would actually be less than total compensation for the average non-unionized worker at a transplant factory. The only problem is that it will be several years before these gains show up on the bottom line--years the industry probably won't have if it doesn't get financial assistance from the government.
Make no mistake: The argument over a proposed rescue package is complicated, in no small part because over the years both management and labor made some truly awful decisions while postponing the inevitable reckoning with economic reality. And even if the government does provide money, it's a tough call whether restructuring should proceed with or without a formal bankruptcy filing. Either way, yet more downsizing is inevitable.
But the next time you hear somebody say the unions have to make serious salary and benefit concessions, keep in mind that they already have--enough to keep the companies competitive, if only they can survive this crisis.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic.
My apologies to my readers for the lapse of writing on my behalf, I needed some time after the election to rest, work has been very satisfying also and I have been trying to have more free time with my family. Fear not I have a lot to say and a ton of ammunition on really bad shit happening against workers in today's America, I even have about 4 stories in the sandbox that need final editing to go forward and get published, but I need some time to focus and get the facts correct and intact.
More child labor in our backyard, more unscrupulous employers rejecting us in favor of undocumented workers with little or no rights and even a touch of good news, a story on more clothing made in the USA.
Update #1: Michael Moore, Moore on the $73 Myth and the anti-union ties to it, just like I wrote and spoke about last Thursday at the NYC Central Labor Council meeting
Michael Moore on the arrogance of the Big 3 this is from CNN on Nov.19th.
It's more like $41 for the entire package Another update on the myth from Media Matters (11/22/08), in a story entitled "Media figures falsely assert or suggest autoworkers make $70/hour without noting figure includes benefits paid to current retirees" (In part, entire article at link above):
In a November 18 post on his American Prospect blog criticizing Sorkin's reporting, economist Dean Baker wrote that the $70 figure Sorkin used is distorted by conflating "legacy" costs -- medical benefits and pensions paid to retirees -- with current labor costs:
The New York Times told readers that GM's autoworkers are paid $70 an hour (including health care and pension). This is not true. The base pay is about $28 an hour. If health care cost per worker average $12,000 per year, that adds in another $6 an hour. If the pension payment takes up 25 percent of base pay (an extremely high pension), that gets you another $7 an hour, bringing the total to $41 an hour. That's decent pay, but still a long way from $70 an hour.
How does the NYT get from $41 to $70? Well the trick is to add in GM's legacy costs, the pension and health care costs for retired workers. These legacy costs are a serious expense for GM, but this is not money being paid to current workers. The person on the line in 2008 is not benefiting from these legacy costs.
Rick Berman, the US Chamber Of Commerce and their agenda against the Employee Free Choice Act
I called this one last week, I spoke in front of my fellow New york City Central Labor delegates and noted that the $73 an hour myth was perpetrated by anti-union forces seeking to discredit unions. Here's the payoff, Rick Berman, the corporate lobbyist and spin doctoring lawyer, who's past efforts were defending animal torture by trying to make PETA look bad, defending cigarette companies, trying to lower the legal drinking age and higher the breath test levels for the alcohol companies and trying to defend the fish industry against claims of mercury levels that are dangerous. He is also the creator of The Center For Union Facts, a biased attack site against unions which is funded by McDonalds, Smithfield Pork and others who I cannot name due to court papers being locked.
One of Mr.Berman's front groups, the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee has been showing commercials which attack unions. Are we gonna let this corporate shill distort the facts? Here's the scoop from The Hill in a story by By Ian Swanson entitled "Business group blames unions for carmakers’ woes" (full story at link):
Unions are to blame for the Big Three automakers’ problems, according to a television ad meant to stoke public opposition to organized labor’s number one legislative priority.
“Steel, auto, airlines. What do these industries all have in common?” asks the ad sponsored by the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee, which was active in several hotly contested Senate races this year. “Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and union bosses that helped put them out of business.”
The advertisement urges people to fight the Employee Free Choice Act, which unions hope will be taken up quickly by the Democratic Congress and President-elect Barack Obama. The bill would eliminate the requirement for workers to cast secret ballots in deciding whether to organize, making it easier to form unions.
Business groups are paying for the ad to run on CNN and the Fox cable news network Monday through Wednesday, according to the group’s spokesman, Tim Miller. He said the ad buy was “fairly substantial” but declined to specify a figure. A similar ad ran in Mississippi and New Hampshire in conjunction with Senate races in those states, where business groups worked to tie Democrats to the Employee Free Choice Act.
“If Americans like what the unions did to Detroit’s economy, they’ll love what the unions will do to the country,” said Richard Berman, the business group’s executive director.
“The unions have played a significant role in nearly bankrupting the Big Three automakers with untenable inefficiencies which have put tens of thousands out of work,” Bergman said. He said the union bill, known as “card-check legislation,” would do the same to millions of jobs across the country.
Alan Reuther, legislative director for the United Autoworkers, blasted the ad and Bergman’s comments. He said the auto industry’s problems rest on a series of bad trade and healthcare policies, and that the credit crunch is to blame for the current crisis.
Reuther also said major concessions offered by unions in their 2005 and 2007 contracts will result in the elimination of the cost-gap between union and non-union plants. “We feel that we’ve stepped up to the plate,” he said.
He also pointed to a 2007 report by two auto industry consulting firms that found nine of the 10 most-efficient auto plants in North America have workers organized by the United Autoworkers or the Canadian Autoworkers.
It's called Propaganda "Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths."
You know who said that? Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany, he got the people to focus and hate other people, this cycle is repeated over and over throughout history, Goebbels also quips
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
We have seen this recently in the term "terrorism", which was used against President-Elect Barack Obama by Sarah Palin in a failing campaign.
Now these groups against workers want to use the manifestation of "greedy" union workers, those guys and gals who are making a whopping "$73 an hour", it's all propaganda and many of us are eating it up.
To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future.
I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II.
He continues (full article in link above):
It then clamped fuel efficiency standards on the entire U.S. car fleet.
Next, Washington imposed a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, raking off another 15 percent of autoworkers’ wages in Social Security payroll taxes
State governments imposed income and sales taxes, and local governments property taxes to subsidize services and schools.
The United Auto Workers struck repeatedly to win the highest wages and most generous benefits on earth — vacations, holidays, work breaks, health care, pensions — for workers and their families, and retirees.
Now there is nothing wrong with making U.S. plants the cleanest and safest on earth or having U.S. autoworkers the highest-paid wage earners.
That is the dream, what we all wanted for America.
And under the 14th Amendment, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to obey the same U.S. laws and pay at the same tax rates. Outside the United States, however, there was and is no equality of standards or taxes.
Thus when America was thrust into the Global Economy, GM and Ford had to compete with cars made overseas in factories in postwar Japan and Germany, then Korea, where health and safety standards were much lower, wages were a fraction of those paid U.S. workers, and taxes were and are often forgiven on exports to the United States.
All three nations built “export-driven” economies.
The Beetle and early Japanese imports were made in factories where wages were far beneath U.S. wages and working conditions would have gotten U.S. auto executives sent to prison.
The competition was manifestly unfair, like forcing Secretariat to carry 100 pounds in his saddlebags in the Derby.
Japan, China and South Korea do not believe in free trade as we understand it. To us, they are our “trading partners.” To them, the relationship is not like that of Evans & Novak or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is not even like the Redskins and Cowboys. For the Cowboys only want to defeat the Redskins. They do not want to put their franchise out of business and end the competition — as the Japanese did to our TV industry by dumping Sonys here until they killed it.
While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.
Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the key to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax rebates to their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last year, as trade expert Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported 700,000 cars to us, while importing 5,000 cars from us.
That’s Asia’s idea of free trade.
How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?
In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We made it.
Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?
We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.
Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on. Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of the Americans.
Mr. Buchanan points towards over-government and unfair trade. I was happy to see his views, I'm so sick and tired of reading the propaganda that is today's mainstream, the likes of the US Chamber and Rick Berman who claim more unfair trade is a good thing for America make me sick. One commenter on the above article, Kurt2208, states:
Free trade agreements work fine with countries like Germany, England, japan and Canada which have close to the same standard of living. They do not work with third world and communist countries. As the traiter Dubya leaves office he is pushing another trade agreement with Columbia. I believe he should be tried and convicted of treason and shot!!!
Hope that last line doesn't get him in trouble. They might even call him a 'terrorist". We toss $700,000,000 billion on the banking industry that got us in this mess and when it comes to unionized workers the talking points start. Do you know what the US Chamber of Commerce and Mr.Berman had to say about the banking bailout? Nothing.
Now they blame the workers. Fucking amazing.
GM sent me an E-Mail on the crisis I own a Chevy Impala
Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.
The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.
The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:
• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers • Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk • U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion • The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion
Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.
Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.
Update #2♦: Spotted a new blog by the autoworkers who are trapped in this mess, it's called Joe The Autoworker, go stop bye and show some support for our fellow American workers
I tend to read the stupidity of folks like Gerson because, it's important to know who stupid and inane they are, makes for nice entertainment and laughter. Well, entertainment until I read today's slop:
The coming bailout will be a major challenge for Obama. If he caves in to the auto unions that helped elect him and merely shores up a failing industry, he will start his presidency on a note of weakness. If he insists on a serious restructuring that creates sustainable companies -- including large pay and benefit cuts, and massive downsizing -- he could gain a reputation for toughness similar to Ronald Reagan's after his early firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
Okay, so I highlighted what I think you should see. This is the right wing talking point of folks like Brokaw and Mitchell and here Gerson does it, too. He's blaming the union.
In the case of the auto industry, these workers have given up things that someone at Wal-Mart has never had the option to ever have and things that Gerson can't begin to think about going without; from pension cut backs to two tiered hiring to health care. They've given up a lot including cutting hours, retraining to leave the big 3 or other routes to make it easier for the big 3 to survive and not only survive, but to prosper.
Consumerism wasn't fueled by GM and certainly not by the UAW. There is a major issue right now in the financial markets and it's meant a lot of people are out of work, fuel prices caused a lot of people to cut back, me included. GM has been doing cutting edge research that they have funded in terms of fuel cells (unfortunately would mean a retooling and supply of the energy industry and we aren't there yet even if GM were able to produce the fuel cell cars now enmasse) and I'm looking forward to the Chevy Volt in 2010 even with a possible $40k price tag.
Blaming workers and their union representation for the problems caused by Wall Street is not only ridiculous, it's dangerous.
The AP has an article reporting that Ron Gettelfinger, head of the UAW, says the union will not make any more concessions to keep the Big Three in business. I guess the editor cut a big chunk--because the article obviously falls short of explaining why the UAW is taking this stand. Here's what the AP left in:
''The focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract,'' Gettelfinger told reporters on a conference call, noting the labor costs now make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the cost of a vehicle.
''We have made dramatic, dramatic changes and the UAW was applauded for that,'' he said.
Instead, Gettelfinger blamed the problems the auto industry is suffering from on things beyond its control -- the housing slump, the credit crunch that has made financing a vehicle tough and the 1.2 million jobs that have been lost in the past year. ''We're here not because of what the auto industry has done,'' he said. ''We're here because of what has happened to the economy.''
And here's what the AP didn't report (I'm sure it was just an oversight, really).
In its contract last year, the UAW made painful concessions, adopting a two-tier wage structure, such that new employees make just $12 to $15 an hour. The move is projected to bring the American manufacturers in line with their Japanese rivals' non-union labor costs in the near future.
In addition, the union has taken responsibility for providing retiree healthcare, thereby eliminating one of the last remaining competitive disadvantages for the American manufacturers' unionized workforce as compared to their Japanese rivals.
With these agreements, the UAW has managed to save jobs, while still providing the superior labor force that leads most segments (big PDF, see page 10-11) in terms of the most efficient plants measured in hours per vehicle.
The UAW's workers have made deep concessions to ensure American-owned auto industry remains competitive with its foreign competitors. Now that the American-owned manufacturers have eliminated some of the structural disadvantages that gave foreign competitors a market advantage, it would be a terrible waste for its country not to do what's necessary to sustain American manufacturing though this tough financial period.
There. Now it tells a more complete story.
I actually discussed the Media's anti-union bias yesterday after watching Andrea Mitchell and Tom Brokaw shilling for the right wing on Meet the Press. Here's what I had to say yesterday:
I don't normally watch the Sunday talk shows, they just end up being so damn insulting to my intelligence. But for some odd reason I started watching it this morning and no, I wasn't disappointed, it completely insulted my intelligence and that of everyone else who happened to have the misfortune of listening.
Andrea Mitchell decided on a whim to bring up the Employee Free Choice Act, but of course, she used the Right Wing Talking Points, only to be re-enforced in those wingnut talk points.
Mitchell: ...The labor unions will be asked to make some kind of concessions, and what the uaw leaders said in an unusual press conference only yesterday was we’ve made enough concessions. So, as you point out there is the clash, the ability to organize, card check is the short term for it.
Brokaw: Without a secret ballot
Mitchell: without a secret ballot, is a BIG concession to labor. and that is gonna be one of the the early fights in this congress. And Barack Obama is going to have to make a choice on all these things as to whether he can find ways around it. And can answer the economists question as to why Toyota is successful, which is producing American jobs it’s just that their not union jobs.
Okay, I can answer that for you Andrea and let me put it into a way that your little mind can understand:
Toyota competes with GM and Ford for labor, assembly line work and precision assembly workers. Because they compete in the same market as GM and Ford and Chrysler, they have to pay the same wages. However, their benefits are not as good as those of GM, Ford and Chrysler. In fact, Toyota doesn’t provide a pension, health care to retirees and a number of other incentives that the unions which you hate have secured for their membership over YEARS and YEARS of work. But if you want to toss that out the window and ask why doesn't GM just declare Bankruptcy and gut all of their retirees pensions, health care and agreements with their employees, then Andrea, you also need to ask yourself what happens to all of those people? What happens to the pensioner who has no income or health care?
Toyota and Honda do not play on equal footing with GM and Chrysler and Andrea and Brokaw should know that. See, I think they do, they just don't really care. It's not like the economy is hurting them or that NBC is just going to turn off their spigot.
And Tom, let me also explain something else to you, something that you obviously don’t understand.
The Employee Free Choice Act makes it possible for EMPLOYEES to CHOOSE an election or CHOOSE to sign their card and leave it to that. Right now, it’s up to the BOSS and NOT the EMPLOYEE. And there is no SECRECY in today’s standards because the Boss gets to know who the employees are that have signed their cards and want a union.
But what you and Andrea also ignored as a concept is that organizing a union isn’t nearly as important as having a way to get employers to the table to negotiate. The Employee Free Choice Act provides for stiff penalties for employers who ignore the bargaining rights of their employees. I think this is what really is the heart in this fight. It's not that employees can organize, it's that the employers who screw with the results face actual penalties. There are penalties now, but it takes forever and the results of the penalties take YEARS to be realized if ever.
Despite what the rightwing says or lies about in terms of workers and unions, it is still the policy of the United States of America to ENCOURAGE UNIONIZATION:
The denial by some employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by some employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by (a) impairing the efficiency, safety, or operation of the instrumentalities of commerce; (b) occurring in the current of commerce; (c) materially affecting, restraining, or controlling the flow of raw materials or manufactured or processed goods from or into the channels of commerce, or the prices of such materials or goods in commerce; or (d) causing diminution of employment and wages in such volume as substantially to impair or disrupt the market for goods flowing from or into the channels of commerce.
The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries.
Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of industrial disputes arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or other working conditions, and by restoring equality of bargaining power between employers and employees.
Experience has further demonstrated that certain practices by some labor organizations, their officers, and members have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by preventing the free flow of goods in such commerce through strikes and other forms of industrial unrest or through concerted activities which impair the interest of the public in the free flow of such commerce. The elimination of such practices is a necessary condition to the assurance of the rights herein guaranteed.
It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.
So, Andrea and Tom, please understand that not only are you two shills for the anti-union anti-worker establishment fronted by the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh and McCain, but you two also don't seem to know your asses from a hole in the ground.
Employee Free Choice is Good For The Economy BECAUSE it is good for workers, unless of course you don't think workers are part of the economy or deserve to be represented by a union, a union of their own choosing.
Why does the Media hate workers so much? And worse, why are union production crews and writers continuing to spill out this garabage when in the end, they know it's garbage? If you're producing CBS, NBC, ABC or any other cable or network news and YOU are a union member, can you just think a minute before you write for a teleprompter anything that's anti-union and anti-worker garbage? Your brothers and sisters of the UAW would appreciate it.
The two sides engaged in intense bargaining until 12:30 a.m. Tuesday at Local 282’s headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., but then the union informed the concrete companies that it was walking out. The contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
“Teamsters Local 282 regrets that it was unable to reach an agreement,” Bruce Levine, the lead lawyer for the union, said in a statement. “Local 282 is particularly disappointed because in the past month, it has succeeded in reaching innovative, far-reaching and fair agreements with hundreds of employers” that handle demolition as well as lumber, steel and other non-concrete building materials.
Construction is continuing at nonunion projects, which are generally smaller than the unionized sites affected by the strike. Work continued at some unionized sites where all the concrete had been poured, allowing laborers to do interior work or work on heating and air-conditioning.
Mr. Greco, who is also the secretary-treasurer of the Greco Brothers Concrete Corporation, said that under the expired contract, drivers earned $33.11 an hour, rising to $59.01 when health insurance, pension contributions and other benefits are included.
He said the union earlier this week demanded raises of $5 an hour in the overall compensation package each year for three years, although the union did not specify how much would go to wages and how much to benefits..
Mr. Greco said that during Monday’s bargaining, Gary La Barbera, Local 282’s president, reduced that demand to $3.50 an hour.
“They didn’t give us a chance to answer the $3.50 package before they walked out,” Mr. Greco said.
That $3.50 would represent a 6 percent increase in the drivers’ $59-an-hour compensation package.
“That is absolutely not a correct number or a correct version of events,” said a member of the union’s bargaining team, who insisted on anonymity because union officials said they would not negotiate in the news media. “And I’m surprised that a member of management’s bargaining team would be saying these things in public.”
Local 282 had long been notorious because the Gambino crime family controlled it for decades. But government officials placed it into trusteeship, and Mr. La Barbera was brought in to help root out corruption. Government officials say the cleanup has been quite successful. More at the link above, article by Steven Greenhouse, Picture by Rob Bennett
A lockout of United Auto Worker members continues at a Peterbilt plant in Madison, Tennessee. The workers have been locked out since last Monday. Their contract expiring on Friday, June 20. The two sides have been unable to reach an agreement. The local representing the workers has expressed that it would like to sit down and continue negotiations, but no new discussions have been set. The company is asking workers to pay 25 percent of health insurance premiums, a move that could triple premiums for some workers. The company has offered to pay each worker a $1,200 bonus when the new contract is ratified, in exchange for a wage freeze until 2010. The contract would also institute a two-tier wage structure where new hires would start at much lower rate than predecessors.
Today, conservatives argue that the Social Security Trust Fund is a fiction. They are correct. The money was spent. They helped spend it.
To this debate about Social Security -- which, once one understands what has been happening, is actually quite absorbing -- the public has largely been an indifferent spectator. A surprising 2001 Pew study found that just 19% of Americans understand that the United States ever ran a surplus at all, however defined, in the 1990s or 2000's. And only 50% of Americans, according to an Annenberg study in 2004, understand that President Bush favors privatizing Social Security. Polls indicate that people are scared that the system is going bust, no doubt thanks in part to Bush's gloom-and-doom prognostications. But they haven't the faintest idea what going bust means. And in fact, the system can be kept going without fundamental change simply by raising the cap on taxed income and pushing back the retirement age a few years. Rick Shenkman, Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, New York Times bestselling author, and associate professor of history at George Mason University, is the founder and editor of History News Network, a website that features articles by historians on current events. This essay is adapted from chapter two of his new book, Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter (Basic Books, 2008). His observations about the 2008 election can be followed on his blog, "How Stupid?" His recent appearance on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" can be viewed by clicking here.
Thousands of USW members chanting “No Justice, No Peace” lined Las Vegas Boulevard outside the union’s convention hall this morning to support union taxi cab drivers who have been working without a labor contract.
USW members waving yellow placards lined the boulevard to show their support for the 5,000 member Las Vegas Alliance for Taxi and Limousine Drivers and to raise the heat in stalled contract negotiations. The alliance is a partnership of the USW and the Industrial Technical Professional Employees Union (ITPE) local, an affiliate of the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
According to a press release sent out by the Justice at Smithfield campaign:
Washington, DC Councilmembers Phil Mendelson, Muriel Bowser, Jack Evans, Harry Thomas, Marion Barry, Kwame Brown, Jim Graham and Tommy Wells will introduce a Sense of the Council resolution on Smithfield Foods today that asks area supermarkets, corner stores and other establishments to stop stocking Smithfield pork and other meat products.
"The Toyota You Don't Know" with Charlie Charles Kernaghan and Barbara Briggs, National Labor Committee
Toyota, may be known for environmentally friendly cars, but that "sensitivity" hardy extends to its treatment of its workers in Japan, U.S. , Burma and the Philippines. Building Bridges previews a new expose, "The Toyota You Don't Know" a study in abuse.
What's Driving the Price of Oil? With James Paul, Ex. Dir., Global Policy Forum
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Sunday, at a high-level oil summit that Saudi Arabia is willing to pump more oil if customers need it - will this stem the skyrocketing price of oil at the pump? Is the price of oil driven by speculators, the high fuel taxes in consuming countries and increased oil consumption in developing economies? Is the price of oil driven by the record profits of the oil companies and lack of conservation especially in the U.S?
Atlantic City Casino Workers Want to be Dealt a Fair Hand With Ed Little, dealer at Trump Plaza and Sharon Masino, dealer at Caesar's Palace
Casino dealers, slot technicians, keno and simulcast workers won six U.A.W. union representation elections at four major Atlantic City casinos. While the owners make huge profits, casino workers wages, health care benefits and working conditions have deteriorated. And, despite the overwhelming pro-union majorities in the elections, casino operators are playing Russian Roulette with workers seeking a contract.
Yesterday, I asked my readers over at Union Review to get me some of the information about the rally in Van Wert for the locked out Steelworkers at Kongsberg Automotive. Michelle obliged, from the Van Wert Independent (6/16/08) :
Kongsberg workers who are members of USW Local 1-524 march on Central Avenue this past Saturday following a rally in Fountain Park. Dave Mosier/Van Wert independent
t was a day for union solidarity and community support, but also one of bitterness and frustration, as members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1-524 held a rally in Fountain Park Saturday to thank supporters.
Hundreds of people, some of them union officials – including other USW locals and district officials, United Auto Workers officials and even representatives of the Van Wert Federation of Teachers – turned out to provide support, both emotional and financial, for the locked-out workers of Kongsberg Automotive’s Van Wert plant.
Donations from union representatives totaled between $10,000 and $15,000 on Saturday.
Several speakers angrily denounced Kongsberg management officials for what is perceived as a failure to bargain in good faith with local union officials. Kongsberg President Peter Spencer was depicted by a person in a rat’s costume as those at the rally clapped and cheered.
Van Wert Mayor Louis Ehmer, who had taken some heat earlier for not doing enough to support Kongsberg workers during a City Council meeting, spoke at the rally and said the community was behind the workers, while also commending the local union for its demeanor on the picket line.
“You people have demonstrated that you are out there in a dignified way trying to protect and secure your jobs,” the mayor said to applause, adding that he was a bit surprised at union workers’ good behavior since he was originally from Detroit, Mich., where union disputes often turned violent.
Aaron Collins, the 37-year-old president of Local 1-524, bitterly denounced both company officials – most specifically former human resources manager Tom Herman – and government officials who have allowed workers to be exploited by domestic and foreign companies.
Collins talked about how, as a child, he thought it was neat that astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, was from nearby Wapakoneta. “It seemed like, as a child, anything was possible” in America, Collins said, adding, though, that “the American Dream is slipping away from us right now as we speak.”
He angrily criticized both major political parties for their lack of support for U.S. workers, noting: “Both sides are out to get us, both are out for themselves,” and adding that a third party dedicated to middle class Americans may be the answer to make changes at the federal level.
However, he did have praise for U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, who has phoned and written letters to Kongsberg company officials in support of local workers.
John Ryan, Senator Brown’s state director, attended the rally and had words of support for the locked-out workers. Ryan outlined the senator’s actions in support of the local workers, commended non-company employees attending the rally for their support of the locked-out workers and also used the USW’s fighting slogan, “One Day Longer,” in saying the senator would back the workers “one day longer than you need” until Kongsberg returns to the table to bargain in good faith.
USW District 1 Director Dave McCall also spoke during the rally, and later to media representatives, about Local 1-524’s struggle to get back to the bargaining table. McCall said the union was working on a couple of fronts to put pressure on Kongsberg to resume negotiations. Those include a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that accuses Kongsberg of bad faith bargaining, illegal surveillance and failure to provide necessary financial documentation to union negotiators.
McCall said the NLRB had investigators in Van Wert last week to take depositions related to the complaint.
The USW district president also said the USW was working with international unions doing business with Kongsberg to put pressure on the company to resume negotiations from outside the United States. A return to the bargaining table is all union officials want, he said.
“We stand ready and prepared to go back to the table and bargain for a fair and just contract,” McCall added.
He added that the situation in America today, with companies “outsourcing” operations to Mexico, China and other countries, needs to stop.
“Workers have had enough,” McCall said. “Companies cannot continue to exploit workers like this.”
Following the rally, local union members and supporters staged a peaceful march through downtown Van Wert.
My apologies to The Independent for clipping the entire article, it just seems that this is so totally ignored, I wanted all the information I could get.
These American workers are getting screwed for corporate quarterly profits at any cost.
Today, conservatives argue that the Social Security Trust Fund is a fiction. They are correct. The money was spent. They helped spend it.
district officials, United Auto Workers officials and even representatives of the Van Wert Federation of Teachers – turned out to provide support, both emotional and financial, for the locked-out workers of Kongsberg Automotive’s Van Wert plant.
Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, was from nearby Wapakoneta. “It seemed like, as a child, anything was possible” in America, Collins said, adding, though, that “the American Dream is slipping away from us right now as we speak.”
representatives, about Local 1-524’s struggle to get back to the bargaining table. McCall said the union was working on a couple of fronts to put pressure on Kongsberg to resume negotiations. Those include a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that accuses Kongsberg of bad faith bargaining, illegal surveillance and failure to provide necessary financial documentation to union negotiators.
