-
While much conversation has already occured...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Can you please link us to some articles where a union has cost the US Taxpayers 700BILLION?
I don't understand this request. Shouldn't you be asking where the articles pointing out corruption in the top management positions of unions, that have over their lifetime cost taxpayers easily 700BILLION are? It would take more time to research than I'm willing to devote to it and even then I'd probably only spend that much time if I were doing a thesis for college. Nevertheless, all you have to do is drive an American made car, then drive a foreign car. This is what I mean by mediocrity and this point is as old as the hills. I'm not breaking new ground with my statement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Are you suggesting that somehow the sins of the UAW are worse than those of say Enron, Worldcom, or Tyco? Executives in those companies have destroyed the financial futures of millions of citizens.
What makes you think I am? Sins? You mean crimes right? The only difference I see here is that Enron et al got caught. Meanwhile the unions are getting away with raping the economy by making unrealistic demands of the automakers. I think my statement was within the context of FA's original post. You OTOH took a pretty broad stroke with your attack of my post, don't ya think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Look at AIG- they gambled BILLIONS on finacial instruments that are not even regulated, and you want to lay the nations ills on a line worker who may/may not pay a premium on his healthcare?
NOPE! I lay the blame on union management. I wonder how big the houses of the union leaders are, built on the membership's dues?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Please. That is sour grapes, and completly innappropriate.
Completely inappropriate? Really? So you're saying I shouldn't be participating in this conversation beef?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Lets keep the focus on the inequity of the financial bailout so far.
Yeah. Let's do that. You need to use a smaller paintbrush.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
Irresponsible, overpaid financial CEO's can make/made terrible decisons and completly froze credit markets across the globe, causing massive uncertainty throughout financial markets.
Get $700 BILLION w/out strings other than the CEO's cannot make more than $400,000 per year. No oversight.
Thick headed, overpaid auto exec's that made poor decisions in years prior. Ask for $14 Billion in LOANS, and are denied unless the workforce agrees to massive wage concessions. Chiefly driven by GOP as "payback" for union workers voting Dems into office. Must also subject their compaines to a new government "Car Czar" who has the sole discretion to decide how the money is spent.
This is clearly bull****.
Hate the union if you want. But if the car compaies go under, you and are are screwed. Canada, you make plenty of cars, kiss those wages, and the people that go with it away. You can go back to fishing, and ice sculpting.
You seem to have some anger issues beef. But just as a way to keep you from blowing a gasket, I'll take my views and opinions elsewhere. Sound good?
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by kexodusc
Whether that's reasonable or not, I guess it depends if you're the worker giving up 30% of your compensation or the bond holder being asked to convert your paper to stock?
I suspect if I was a GM line worker, I'd be arguing Management foolishly leveraged itself into excessive debt and that concessions on that end should at least equal any concession on my part.
Reasonable?
There it is.
That's what I was gettin' at when I laid the bait on that one earlier but nobody wanted to bite. The fact of the matter is that nobody in this is without fault, management or union.
There has been a failure at every level to engage in consensus planning, analytical problem solving...whatever other new-age bull**** Zig Ziegler/Nakatomi peoplespeak you wanna use...a complete failure at every level.
Does CEO compensation need to be redressed? Absolutely. But the UAW was a willing co-conspirator/causal condition of the overall set of circumstances which brought this about and they need to understand it.
Again, it's a PR issue. The only reason Congress is even looking twice at this is the inundation of tens of thousands of letters from angry constituents...constituents who are tired of taking it up the tailpipe during "Bailout 2008: An Afterschool Special Gone Wrong"...
...that, and I could be wrong on this (feel free to correct me), but isn't true that there are no provisions preventing the automakers from either moving production overseas or declaring bankruptcy immediately after paying out the usual inappropriate bribes/bonuses?
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas
You seem to have some anger issues beef. But just as a way to keep you from blowing a gasket, I'll take my views and opinions elsewhere. Sound good?
No, not really.
Here's where I am angry. It upsets me that the finacial "bailout" has been implemented without any real idea of what to do, or the ramifications of such actions.
The crux of my frustration however, rests on the inequity of the "bailouts". My main arguement has been that while the congress rushed to spend $700 Billion of taxpayer money, there was little/no oversight on the plan. In fact, Bush just gutted the rules regarding oversite, and the language limiting executive pay. So, in effect, these financial companies were given money, without strings, and no way to make them spend the money to help the country.
In contrast, when the 3 largest manufacturing employers in the company come asking for a LOAN for a combined total of $14 Billion they were rebuffed. Why? Because lawmakers for southern states represented by Foreign Automakers feel that this would be a good time to break the union/higher wage disparity. So, the lawmakers put 3 million good paying jobs on the line during terrible economic uncertainty because of a clear conflict of interest.
On top of demands for lowering wages for the line workers (incidently not an issue with the profitablity of the companies. That lays more with the underfunded pensions, and health care expenses), the congress sought to appoint a "car czar" to oversee EVERY expenditure of the LOAN.
Why is it ok to pump money into a white collar profession without limits, but it's the "prudent" thing to put a chokehold on one of the remaining manufacturing bases in the US?
That's all I'm saying. I'm not in a union, and frankly are'nt particularly fond of them. But I just see the hipocracy of the congress in it's implementation of "bailout money". And it makes me angry. If the automakers fail, we will no longer be in a recession. We will be in a depression. And everyone will be f*cked.
I'm off my soapbox now.
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Groundbeef
...That's all I'm saying. I'm not in a union, and frankly are'nt particularly fond of them. But I just see the hipocracy of the congress in it's implementation of "bailout money". And it makes me angry. If the automakers fail, we will no longer be in a recession. We will be in a depression. And everyone will be f*cked.
I'm off my soapbox now.
I'm not fond of them either, and that's the only point I was trying to make with the statement you quoted.
As always though, topics like this quickly turn into political feuds, which IIRC, you don't agree with me on, so off I go to make merry somewhere else.
Cheers.
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas
As always though, topics like this quickly turn into political feuds, which IIRC, you don't agree with me on, so off I go to make merry somewhere else.
Cheers.
Whats IIRC mean?
-
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas
If I Recall Correctly.
I can't remember.
-
FA asked :
Quote:
Originally Posted by FA
Is it unreasonable for the Union to be asked to play a part in saving the auto companies?
I think people are forgetting, even in 2004 work was well underway to address any disparity between non-union and union compensation levels.
The UAW agreed to unprecedented concessions in 2005, and again in 2007. What's more, it also agreed to more concessions in 2011. 2 years away. The stumbling block was that 2 year gap, during which the UAW offered some interim concessions.
The UAW is putting a different spin on the reason for the collapse (which is likely as biased as side opposite). It claims it negotiated a deal they were lead to believe would be accepted by both parties in the Senate that would require bond holders and the Trust corporation that oversees the health benefits exchange any debt owed to them for stock in the companies, dramatically relieving a huge financial burden. These were stumbling blocks for said Senators.
I'm not privy to these negotiations but it sure sounds like eveyone is pointing their fingers at the Union, expecting this problem to be fixed completely at their expense instead of also addressing some of the capital structure issues the auto company's have.
Whether that's reasonable or not, I guess it depends if you're the worker giving up 30% of your compensation or the bond holder being asked to convert your paper to stock?
I suspect if I was a GM line worker, I'd be arguing Management foolishly leveraged itself into excessive debt and that concessions on that end should at least equal any concession on my part.
Reasonable?
-
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, a 30 percent pay cut would be a heck of a lot better than a 100 percent wage cut.
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerall
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, a 30 percent pay cut would be a heck of a lot better than a 100 percent wage cut.
For sure...that's the million dollar question too. Every bargaining round the UAW here's the threat of job losses. There have been many sent overseas, but for the most part the threats of job losses, have turned out to be grossly exaggerated, they always lost less than they were threatened with. If the union had conceded to demands all those times its members would be a lot worse off, and still in this mess today. They're probably looking at the history now. I think they're holding out until the things are at the brink, then they'll accept whatever is left. It might still be 30% but they're probably betting there's money left on the table.
In a bankruptcy there's strict rules about preferential treatment of creditors. In the deal I spoke of above, bond holders and other lenders won't be guaranteed to get such treatment in a bankruptcy, so they're probably willing to put some money on the table. The Union pension and benefits plans will have claims greater than bond holders and other lenders. I'm not a lawyer and don't know all the details and to what extent, but I've been involved peripherally in other cases where bankruptcy was actually a better option for the majority of union members because it preserved more pension/benefits value (this union had an average age of almost 50 years old). It got pretty messy though, the 20 and 30 somethings were screwed over pretty hard but were only a quarter or so of membership.
But overall they were better off on unemployment, finding other work and preserving those packages than accepting huge pension cuts and wage concessions. In some cases we're talking about hundreds of thousands per employee, ie. $15-30K per year for the rest of their life. A few of my co-workers think that could be the case with Chrysler, which means this could drag on if bankruptcy happens. (GM has a younger workforce I guess). Things are never simple in bankruptcy protection negotiations and with the auto industry, the dynamics are magnified exponentially.
-
GM announces today its new engine cover for the impala SS (5.3L v8 Displacement on Demand)
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...et/53motor.jpg
-
You WISH you had that motor. <wink>
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobsticks
Does CEO compensation need to be redressed? Absolutely. But the UAW was a willing co-conspirator/causal condition of the overall set of circumstances which brought this about and they need to understand it.
You nailed it. Lot's a finger pointing with no one willing to admit fault. In their eyes, it needs to be said that the 'other guys' are at fault, before one side or the other accepts a concession.
|