NOTE: Allen wrench extra!
Posted on 05/29/2009 12:17:50 PM PDT by re_tail20
The United Auto Workers union has ratified a package of concessions designed to reduce General Motors Corp.'s labor costs.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said at a news conference Friday that 74 percent of GM's 54,000 U.S. production and skilled-trade workers voted in favor of the deal.
The vote comes before an expected Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing by GM on Monday. Bankruptcy experts say having the labor agreement in place will help move the process through court more quickly.
The UAW says the cuts will save GM $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
They were at their membership high 30 years ago - in 1979 - with 1.5 million members.
In the last 30 years, they’ve lost 66% of their peak strength - down to about 500,000 members now.
It’s like pulling teeth, but their membership and relevance keeps on going down slowly.
It just takes our society time to realize it.
I wonder how many of these employees will be needed once they go to exclusively producing 4 wheeled Segways?
NOTE: Allen wrench extra!
“It just takes our society time to realize it.”
Naw, it just takes THEM getting beat down the same as they beat down the hand that fed them. (granted there were some times/places/reasons for that union)
Society didn’t give a crap, they either bought the cars or not.
So 26% of these morons would rather GM went into bankruptcy....you can’t cure stupid!!!
Yeah..no CPLA, no dental for retirees. big frickin’ deal.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
The Union is making a big mistake. They can’t run the company and you can’t get sap out of a dead tree. The Government will have to keep giving them money to make the Union payroll until a Republican gets in and sells off what is left of GM. Then the Union will have NO jobs.
If they had done this a few years ago, GM might not have had to borrow so much money and maybe they wouldn’t be going bankrupt.
The government will probably use GM to pay off part of their debt...to Red China.
Giving up dental as well as vision IS a big deal for us. Plus we pay a hefty amount now for our medical. We counted on a certain amount of retirement. Just like Post Office workers do. Just like nurses, policemen, teachers, you name it. Little by little it gets chipped away.
I don’t know whose fault it is. We’ve never voted lock step with the Union the whole 30 yrs my husband was a union member and I think you’ll find that many union members aren’t voting democratic.
Our dental we got was $1600 per year and our vision was 1 exam and glasses every 2 yrs. We now pay 80% of our dr’s visits. Btw
30 yrs ago everyone modeled their health plans and pay according to the big 3. I wonder how many of them will NOW model their pay after them now.
My dental costs me $11.00/week. Maybe the UAW should shop harder.
GM made money back when the SUV craze was going on. They had advantages in that market—for the time being, although it was only a mater of time before Honda, Nissan, and Toyota caught up (which they were trying to do, their vehicles were getting larger and larger). But small cars? Forget about it—lost money on every one of them. When gas prices went up they stopped making money. The new CAFE standards are a death sentence.
I used to work at a GM plant and left for a different industry in 1999. It was apparent that things could not go on like they were. There was blame on the management side as well: multiple layers of do-nothing jobs that added no value. Being at a plant was heroic, and after the requisite number of years at a plant it was off to carpet land until retirement. Engineers used for what amounted to arts and crafts projects. The whole computer services agreement with EDS was stupid—paid double what PC’s were worth, for what? Higher-up managers who would show up at the plant once a year for a grand tour, complete with entourage (contrasted to a plant superintendent I saw at a Toyota plant once who was helping to run a spot welder). At GM the plant manager didn't know his way through his own plant; he also once mistook a washing machine for a lathe. For much of management inputs, not outputs were measured. In short, it looked a lot like a job with the government, which I suppose is official now.
I didn’t make that very clear now that I re read my post.
Our dental plan states that we get $1600 toward our dental needs each year. We pay 10% on certain procedures. For the first several years I never even used our dental except for cleanings etc. Now I find I use every last bit of our allotment. Must be cause I’m getting older.
The UAW didn't have anything to do with the dental plan. What dental plan are you using, or does your company offer?
The UAW says the cuts will save GM $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion a year.The real questions are, what are the cuts, how long do they *last*, how much more does GM need to cut its costs, and what's going to be the actual (rather than the claimed estimate) bottom line? :') Thanks grellis.
Af;ac
Thanks.
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