Do any of you that agree with this idea realize how long it would take to train these scabs?
GM would be out of business long before they were trained.
And I'll smack the people who say that scabs can be trained in a day; monkeys could do the job; blah, blah, blah. You people have no idea what it takes to work on an assembly line.

Look at it another way: Don't you think the auto manufacturers would have done this long ago if it were I viable idea?

 

I dunno I think I could learn how to sweep a floor real fast for $60k a year.

 

So what if it takes 5 days to train??

What is it about the UAW worker that makes them a super-human compared to the rest of us (AKA: scabs).

I guess scab is a UAW term???

 

I'm not positive but i believe if there is a lockout the workers are elligible for unemployment. I do know if they strike they can not collect unemployment.

 

GM is basically owned by the UAW. If the UAW wants to bankrupt GM by having the workers paid too much, they can definetly do it. Granted this will be a slow, gradual death, just like the one GM's been experiencing since the 1970's

The only way the UAW problem is going away is if the government intervenes.

 

How does the CAW compared to the UAW? Are they a little more lenient on pensions and salaries??

 

We have socialized medicine up here so that takes that cost mostly out of the equation. And our ratio of retirees to active workers is about 1:1 compared to ~3:1 in the US. But when it comes to negotiations, Buzz Hargrove is as big an idiot as anyone the UAW has. However we have had a lot more plants downsize, disappear, or leave the GM fold around here (Scarborough, Ste. Therese, St. Catharines, London) so perhaps the workers are a bit more cautious.

 

the UAW ARE bankrupting GM...
they gotta forget the fightwith GM and concentrate on the bigger problem getting put out of biz by Toyota..

Does Toyota employ non UAW workers in its plants? I thought I heard that.. If so that means Toyota is not faced with these problems.

Im all for americans getting what they deserve but sometimes you gotta look at the bigger picture..and explain to them the problem..

GM is not doing good..you guys are not helping and if things dont turn around soon then you can try negotiating this big contract at Wal Mart cus they will like this big facility to ship food..not cars..

but im just saying do the asian companies that build here hire UAW?

if they dont thats a big problem..

 

The cash cow that kept everyone happy for decades is dead. UAW will have to give GM and Ford major concessions in their upcoming contracts if they do not want the companies to default on the obligations madde in previous contracts. UAW seems satisfied to keep GM on the brink of bankruptcy to get as big of a slice of the pie as they can. I'm no union fan by any means, but I can't blame them for wanting to get as much as they can, just seems a bit short sighted.

 

[cough coughbull****zlecough cough]


You sir most definatly have no experience on the floor of a auto production plant. One of the PROBLEMS GM (and Ford) has created for its self, Is they have brought in new people to run the plants, That for so many years have been run by people who actually worked on the floor at one time.
Why is this a problem you may ask? The plant was run by people who knew the sytem better then upper managment. You think you can just hop on a job, Any job.. With ONLY 5 days of training? I think not.

I find it so funny how people here think a days life in a assy. plant is a walk in the park...

GM could only do a "lockout" if it shut itself down.

 

I think guesswho is right, while individual jobs may be easy, running the whole operation is not. I would imagine that it takes alot of experience to have a plant making such a complex product run smoothly. UAW is so intertwined with GMs operations now that they can not practiacally operate without them.

UAW's goal is to siphon off every bit of company profit that it can without bankrupting the company altogether. This severely limits GM's options as a company and reduces their ability to be competitive in a marketplace where other companies do not have to deal with such constraints. It's a long slow death, but with goverrnment baillouts of pensions and even whole companies (e.g. Chrysler in the 80's) the unions and management know that they can make terrible business decisions involving hundreds of thousands of workers and trillions of dollars of other people's money without having to suffer the full brunt of the consequences.

 

This is such a complicated issue. I hope for everyone's sake that GM and UAW will both negotiate it good faith and come to a good agreement. A bankrupt GM will be bad for the economy IMO and hurt alot of people.

 

I disagree the UAW is the problem. The health care costs GM is making hay over isn't the health care of current workers, it's the locked in healthcare of the old retirees. GM is trying to get concessions from current workers, but it would have very minimal effect on their costs.

GM's idea is to bring union health care coverage in line with white collar workers (union coverage has no deductables).

Foreign makers here in the US don't have union representation, and are getting paid on par with union workers. The only difference is that those workers pay a portion of their health care, and have much better relations with their employers due to more trust between them. When you have US automaker CEOs paid $10 million a year on a BAD year, it's hard to keep a certain amount of trust.

Unions live in a different age today than in the 70s and 80s. UAW members are only a fraction of what they used to be, and as a result, more prickly about preserving their benefits. Think of it as leaders justifying their existance.

As R377 pointed out, other industrialized countries have government picking up the health care tab. A worker in Japan, Germany, Korea, Australia, Canada, and even China has their health care covered by their government, not the automaker. Therefore, worker costs are cheaper, and they have the advantage over us here in the US with our minimal taxation (anyone who says taxes are high here truly hasn't been out of their own backyard).

I know plenty of UAW members, and the union has done plenty of great things in keeping automakers honest. The issue here isn't wage or benefit increases... it's about keeping what they have.

Sure, they need to be openminded about giving things up and compromising to save the company like Chrysler workers did in the late 70s and in the 80s. But while Chrysler had a CEO that worked for $1 and stock options based on profit, and even Bill Ford worked without pay for the 1st year, what is GM offering besides whining about union healthcare costs?

If GM went to the union and said "we're going to cut executives pay temporarily, and the CEO is forgoing pay this year in favor of stock options of equal value (stocks rise or fall would be reflected in the CEO's stock value, therefore compensation)" I'm sure the union would be willing to talk.

Before you can ask

 

Well, that's Canada. Notice I didn't mention the CAW. Oddly enough, the CAW isn't the problem.

 

It's a good thing that "UAW members" don't have to live in the real world.

If you're whining about a free ride, I wonder how loud the complaining would get if you were paying $15,000/year in premiums for family coverage. Yes, that's what it's like in the real world.

Of course, I still have forgotten about the "UAW members" who were making $100K+/year while working only 4 hours(!) per day. You know, the "UAW members" that still went on strike against GM.