Well...speak for yourself. I think the UAW workers are overpaid and the fact that Ford lost $9 billion while Toyota made $4 billion suggests the same conclusion. You guys made your bed, you go right ahead and sleep in it. Just don't ask me for a financial blanket to cover up both yours and managements' excesses.
I second that emotion. Being in the logistics and transportation business, we would never schedule a delivery after 12PM because we knew we would have to wait until the next shift because the previous one would have met their quota of 7. (Compare that to a Honda plant- 40+ per shift)
It is about the economy, stupid!
Nuclear Winter In Shipping
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Freight Haulers Slam on the Brakes.
Expecting the Weakest Year in Three Decades, Truck, Rail and Ocean Shipping Firms Are Cutting Back. In a normal year, Gordon Trucking Inc. might replace 20% of its fleet of 1,500 big rigs with new trucks. But given the bleak outlook for the freight business, the Pacific, Wash., hauler doesn’t intend to buy a single new truck next year.
“We’re settling in for nuclear winter in the first half of 2009,” says Steve Gordon, operating chief for the company, which hauls everything from paper products to electronics.
He’s not alone. Some industry executives and analysts predict that 2009 could be the worst year for freight-transportation volume in three decades or more. ….
(Should I get a bailout?)
I agree, though I think the point is it isn’t for us to say who is “overpaid” or “underpaid.” They’re being paid exactly what they contracted for. The fact that they’re being paid so much that their employers are uncompetitive and unprofitable is between, well, them and their employers.
Also, I’ll note the common union argument that the $73/hour figure includes “legacy costs” beyond their base wages. No one forced them to demand hire-to-grave pensions and benefits; it’s all compensation that the union bargained for. It makes no difference whether that compensation is paid entirely through a paycheck or partially through a pension plan; it still comes out of the employer’s labor expenses.
I don’t think anyone working on an assembly line in an auto plant should make more than $10 an hour, Japanese and Korean transplants included. These people are obviously paid way too much to do something as simple as putting a car together.