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Steve Myers
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| UAW members started picketing at Flint, Hamtramck, Lansing and Orion and other locations when the union’s 11 a.m. deadline for a new labor agreement with General Motors Corp. passed. |
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Steve Myers |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:32 am |
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JBToolFist
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Drove by the Truck and Bus plant today and saw all the union brothers sticking to the man.
All I could think to myself was..........."hmm, I wish I could make $30/hour, with great benefits just for tightening a screw............AND HAVE THE BALLS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!
Do these people NOT see the correlation between the state Flint is in right now and the fact that it has been such a strong Union town for decades?
Oh yea, forgot, we have to blame the evil corporate empire for Flint's downfall. We can't blame our generations of "never get an education and wait for the high paying union job" mentality.
Damn corporations. How dare they make a profit. Don't they know they're in business to keep their employees happy and spoiled? And when they can't turn a profit, well then, that's when we should raise taxes on the rich so the government can bail the failing industry out. (Do you realize people actually believe this sh*t)
And these same people shop at Wal-mart to save 50 cents on a 12 pack of coke or $50 on a big-screen TV (sony at that). And they're too god-damned stupid to see their own hypocrisy. |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pLGIgyfjw
"If you ain't from Flint, then it's like straight up F*&^ You!" - The Dayton Family
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiV_ue-PbL4 |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:16 pm |
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FlintConservative
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| Yeah, but JB...tell us how ya really feel about it. |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:14 pm |
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Dave Starr
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quote:
JBToolFist schreef:
Drove by the Truck and Bus plant today and saw all the union brothers sticking to the man.
All I could think to myself was..........."hmm, I wish I could make $30/hour, with great benefits just for tightening a screw............AND HAVE THE BALLS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!
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A bit more than one screw - Tire & wheel assembly comes down a chute to the line. Take the assembly from the chute & put it on the spindle. The lug wrench has 5 sockets and tightens all 5 lug nuts at once. It's counterbalanced, but it's still heavy and very awkward to maneuver. Each socket has a lug nut in it that you put there after the previous wheel. Position the wrench so each socket is over a lug on the spindle. Hit the trigger & hold the wrench against the wheel until each socket stops turning. Load a new lug nut into each socket, get the next wheel assembly & do the rear axle. Repeat 60 times per hour. In an 8 hour shift, you'll put 960 wheel & tire assemblies on.
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Do these people NOT see the correlation between the state Flint is in right now and the fact that it has been such a strong Union town for decades?
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Sometimes unions spend too much time fighting for the 5% that are troublemakers than they do for the 95% of good workers. As in ANY organization, like management, there are occasional abuses of position. Some locals and managers work together - Powertrain South's new engine plant, and some don't - Powertrain North (old Buick complex) don't.
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Oh yea, forgot, we have to blame the evil corporate empire for Flint's downfall. We can't blame our generations of "never get an education and wait for the high paying union job" mentality.
Damn corporations. How dare they make a profit. Don't they know they're in business to keep their employees happy and spoiled? And when they can't turn a profit, well then, that's when we should raise taxes on the rich so the government can bail the failing industry out. (Do you realize people actually believe this sh*t)
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Profits are good; no profit = no business. Executive salaries 500+ times the hourly pay isn't good. Delphi coming out of bankruptcy and wanting to pay 30+ million in executive bonuses is an example.
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And these same people shop at Wal-mart to save 50 cents on a 12 pack of coke or $50 on a big-screen TV (sony at that). And they're too god-damned stupid to see their own hypocrisy.
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I've only bought ONE thing at Wally World - several years ago i bought a TIVO there. They were closing them out; $399.99 marled down to $129.00 |
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I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:34 pm |
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Biggie9
F L I N T O I D
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my take [no profound insights]:
the UAW wants a small strike as cover for a large dose of castor oil the membership will be asked to swallow when the contract proposal is presented [allegorically & relatively speaking of course]...
this way all the "testosterone/estrogen" induced emotion is expended on the picket line, directed at their traditional foe "management"...
and not at their leadership. They can all slap each other on the back at the union hall and say "we sure showed them ba$tard$ didn't we"...a classic bit of misdirection in order not to realize they just took your wallet.
I think the International, with their departments of economists, & hired financial & benefit advisors realizes the host is seriously ill, and its better to take less and keep the membership working, and keep the company able to maintain the pension funding versus defaulting and turning it over to the gov't who will then pay all the retirees pennies on their dollars...[quick be first to turn in a resume to be a greeter at Wal-Marts!]. $.75 or .80 cents is better than a dime.
but I don't think the membership is there yet. All the older guys who were concerned about losing their jobs have left with the previous rounds of buy-outs; another slug of people are probably within 3-4 years of retiring...their interests are markedly different from employees have 10 years or less.
I don't think anyone believes killing the golden goose is in anyone's long term best interest.
Given the difficult and complicated issue of the VEBA, I doubt the traditional issues are "real" sticking points; i think they are issues mainly to provide cover. |
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Biggie |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:37 pm |
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FlintConservative
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| The strike is probably a win-win for both sides. Gettelfinger can appear (for a change) to be a tough guy while GM can reduce inventory stockpiles. |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:05 pm |
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Biggie9
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quote:
FlintConservative schreef:
The strike is probably a win-win for both sides. Gettelfinger can appear (for a change) to be a tough guy while GM can reduce inventory stockpiles.
that is very true.
I've heard they have a ton of some vehicles in the field. like 100+ days.... |
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Biggie |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:24 pm |
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Tegan
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| i heard they have a three month surplus.... and for the past two months, my mother has been working crazy overtime, like 10-11 hours a day, plus saturdays, so it almost seems like the surplus was planned... so gm could survive any long strikes.... |
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:35 pm |
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Biggie9
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
Tegan schreef:
i heard they have a three month surplus.... and for the past two months, my mother has been working crazy overtime, like 10-11 hours a day, plus saturdays, so it almost seems like the surplus was planned... so gm could survive any long strikes....
you got it.
standard operating procedure. Mitigate the damage from a tactic and it becomes less attractive for the other party to employ that tactic.
i remember many years ago, prior to a contract negotiation, the corp was worried they had so much cash laying around, the union would use that fact to support the contention the company was robust and thus could afford the demands....the word went out to prepay for goods/services et al...even if the things we were procuring weren't due until the next year, if effect, pre-paying for planned purchases. That way there would be fewer funds and the company could plead poverty.
ahh, the games people play....I was much younger and more naive then. |
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Biggie |
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Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:02 pm |
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Public D
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Live Bait & Ammo #100: Highball the Strike
At the press conference to announce the UAW strike against GM, Gettelfinger stood before the microphone like a deer in the headlights and said he didn’t want to strike. He felt “pushed off a cliff.” He said, “No one wins a strike.”
Should rank & file members have to remind the president of the UAW that everything we ever gained—from union recognition to Cost-of-Living-Adjustment and Thirty-and-Out—was won in a strike?
Gettelfinger reiterated concession after concession after concession that he has negotiated on behalf of GM. Then, he expressed surprise that the sum total didn’t add up to a positive, and that GM wasn’t more cooperative. How is it he never learned that when you roll over, again and again, management takes you for a punk not a partner?
How should we regard a union leader who waves the white flag in the first hour of a strike?
Gettelfinger turned to Cal Rapson, UAW Vice-President in charge of the GM department and asked him if he wanted to say anything. Rapson sat on his hands and shook his head “no”. I have never seen a more abominable lack of leadership. Rapson put 73,000 workers out on the street and he had nothing to say to them? Rapson should be taken off the job, denied Workers Comp, and placed on extended disability for loss of backbone.
Gettelfinger suggested that he had been “naive” about GM’s intentions. The loss of innocence is tragic in children not old men. Everyone in work boots knows GM intends to take back everything they can.
Gettelfinger admitted that he had approached GM about a union controlled health care plan—“VEBA”—two years ago. He never consulted UAW members and retirees about his VEBA idea. He consulted with Lazard Ltd. and came up with a plan to help the folks on Wall Street who live off unearned income, and union office rats who need a desk to put their feet on.
Local Union leaders shouldn’t have to field all the phone calls from distraught retirees. The retirees who won strikes back in the day deserve to have an information meeting where Rapson and Gettelfinger explain how an underfunded health care plan is going to protect them. They deserve answers to their questions straight from the horse’s mouth. Anybody who wants to screw around in the backroom and deliver Rosemary’s baby should be prepared to attend the baptism by fire, not pass the buck off to local officials.
Reporters, analysts, and rank & file UAW members have openly speculated that the strike is a ploy. If it’s short and sweet, we should be suspicious. We gave up $2,000 a year minimum for the last VEBA. We stand to lose more in four years of a concession contract than we would in a sixty day strike.
Ask yourself some questions while you picket. Does a VEBA make you eager to retire or determined to work as long as you can? Can you trust a scheme that’s long on promises and short on cash? Can you keep your head above water without COLA? Is it a good idea to sell out new hires? Can we retreat to victory?
The corporations want to take away everything we ever earned. The union president responds by calling a strike, and then saying, “No one wins a strike”.
That’s a set up.
If we want to win, we have to highball the strike and demand no end until VEBA is off the table, full cost of living is restored, retirees get the health care they earned from the company, temps win equal status as union members, and we retain the right to strike over outsourcing and subcontracting.
Don’t back down. Send bargainers a message. Bring hand made signs to the picket.
[Singler-payer Universal Healthcare NOW!]
[VEBA Short Changes Retirees]
[Concessions Don’t Save Jobs]
[Equal Rights for New Hires]
[COA is DOA]
[Don’t Rock the VEBA, Sink It]
[No COLA No Contract]
[Fight to Win]
And if they come back with a tentative agreement in a matter of days, be prepared to send them back to the table. Nothing like a boot to the backside to straighten a spine.
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com
http://www.futureoftheunion.com |
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http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html
http://www.hr676.org
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php |
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Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:53 pm |
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Adam Ford
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It's over:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070926/ap_on_bi_ge/auto_talks
DETROIT - The United Auto Workers and General Motors Corp. agreed Wednesday to a tentative contract that ends a two-day national strike — the first against the automaker in 37 years — and puts responsibility for retirees' health care into the union's hands.
ADVERTISEMENT
GM and the UAW confirmed that the deal creates a GM-funded, UAW-run trust to administer retiree health care. The two sides gave no other details, but a person briefed on the contract told The Associated Press that it also would give workers bonuses and lump-sum payments and would pay newly hired workers at lower rates. The person requested anonymity because the contract talks are private.
The union said the agreement with the nation's largest automaker was reached shortly after 3 a.m. The UAW canceled the strike about an hour later and some workers could return as early as Wednesday afternoon.
The contract must be reviewed by local UAW presidents and will then be subject to a vote of GM's 74,000 rank-and-file members. The agreement is expected to set a pattern for contracts at Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.
The deal means UAW workers will head back to their jobs at around 80 GM facilities across the nation. The union went on strike at 11 a.m. Monday when talks broke down, ending GM's production and causing layoffs and shutdowns at parts factories.
It was the first nationwide strike against GM during auto contract negotiations since 1970. The UAW last struck GM in 1998, when a 54-day strike at two plants shut down production across the country.
GM said in a statement that the deal will make it significantly more competitive and provides "the basis for maintaining and strengthening its core manufacturing base in the United States."
The company went into the negotiations seeking to cut or erase what it said is about a $25-per-hour labor cost disparity with its Japanese competitors.
"This agreement helps us close the fundamental competitive gaps that exist in our business," Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said.
The deal includes GM's top priority in the negotiations — shifting most of its $51 billion unfunded retiree health care obligation to a UAW-run trust. GM would pay about 70 percent of that obligation, or $36 billion, into the trust, called a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association, the person briefed on the talks said.
The union would then invest the money and take over the health care responsibility for about 340,000 GM hourly retirees and spouses.
"I'm pleased to say that we have a VEBA in place that will secure the benefits of our retirees," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said at an early morning news conference inside the union's Detroit headquarters.
Gettelfinger said he's confident of ratification and that voting could start begin this weekend.
The UAW's national negotiating committee and executive board for GM both have unanimously recommended ratification, Gettelfinger said.
"We're very comfortable with this agreement, and we're happy to be able to recommend it to our membership," Gettelfinger said.
Union leaders will be briefed on details Thursday and Friday, he said.
The UAW may also decide Thursday whether to begin talks first with Ford or Chrysler. Those talks can begin before the GM contract is ratified, Gettelfinger said.
After ratification, the VEBA memorandum would have to be approved by the courts and would be reviewed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, GM said.
"There's no question this was one of the most complex and difficult bargaining sessions in the history of the GM-UAW relationship," Wagoner said. He thanked the UAW bargaining team for its work in reaching the agreement.
The person briefed on the talks said that because GM's pension fund has more money than its expected obligations, both sides agreed to tap into it to fund the trust.
Retirees would get a pension increase, but it would be offset by an equal increase in health care contributions, the person said.
Wages would stay the same for the length of the four-year deal, but workers would be given a bonus or lump sum payments every year, the person said. The size of the payments was not immediately available.
GM made no specific commitments to build cars and trucks at U.S. factories, but generally agreed that with the reduced costs from the new contract, investment in the plants would work, the person said.
The pact also includes a lower wage structure for newly hired workers in certain non-manufacturing jobs, the person said, adding that in order to make way for new hires, GM would offer early retirement and buyout packages to veteran workers.
The deal also includes language that mitigates the impact of the jobs bank, in which the company pays laid-off workers most of their salary and benefits, said the person.
Lloyd Coleman, 64, of the Detroit suburb of Taylor, was working his first picket line shift when he got word early Wednesday of the tentative agreement. He said he was withholding judgment until further details were released.
"I'm just wondering what we are giving up," said Coleman, a 31-year GM employee who for about the past year has worked as an electrician at a plant in Hamtramck. He said his biggest concerns include health care and bringing new products to existing GM plants.
Coleman said the VEBA holds promise.
"It's a big burden off the company," he said. "If it's managed right, it will be OK."
Negotiations between GM and the UAW officially began in July. Talks broke down Sunday night and workers walked off their jobs Monday when the strike deadline came and went.
Gettelfinger said the strike broke a logjam in the talks.
"I think the strike probably helped our side more than theirs," he said.
Industry analysts had predicted a short strike, saying the two sides had too much to lose from a prolonged work stoppage. |
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Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:40 am |
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FlintConservative
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Wed Sep 26, 2007 3:01 pm |
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Public D
F L I N T O I D
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Vote to Send Bargainers Back to the Table:
Gettelfinger dropped it into reverse, popped the clutch, and drove "over the cliff".
Seventy years of progress ended in a solidarity shattering two tier crash.
In 1970 the UAW won a 67 day strike at GM. The struggle paid off: 30-and-Out and uncapped COLA.
In 2007 after a 2 day strike Gettelfinger capped COLA, froze wages, cordoned off a two tier zone for new hires, and gave GM a 30% discount on retirees' health care -- $35 billion for a $50 billion debt.
Which leads us to the 15 billion dollar question. Who will make up the difference?
GM execs laughed all the way to the bank.
"While the devil will be in the detail, our first reaction is that GM captured a much broader set of concessions than we previously anticipated," JP Morgan analyst Himanshu Patel said in a note.
GM shares "rose as much as 9.7 percent." [Bloomberg 9/26/07]
Indeed the devil is in the details and GM workers know they will not know those details until after ratification. The rush to ratify is a sure sign that the Concession Caucus doesn't want members to examine the contract too closely or debate it among themselves before they cast a vote. Hence the slogan, "Vote NO until you KNOW the whole truth."
Don't imagine that GM will pull up to Solidarity House with a Brinks truck and pile cash into wheel barrows for the mystic VEBA. GM is expected to fund the union controlled trust with a combination of cash, stock, and promissory notes. As VEBA fund managers the UAW joins the sharks and parasites in the insurance industry and will assume GM's role as the gatekeeper-- the collector of tolls which will be automatically deducted from your pension, or extracted in copays.
The Wagon-Finger Accord amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from retirees to GM coffers. "In effect, the new agreement allows GM to cap and move off its books to an independent trust, a more than $50 billion debt owed to the UAW for retiree health care...." [Wall St Journal 9/26/07]
Retiree health care will no longer be a defined benefit. Instead it will be a defined contribution capped at approximately 30% less than its projected cost. A nice discount if you can get it.
(Do you think GM will pass the savings on to the customer?)
"For GM, restructuring the UAW health care legacy burden should help free the company to pursue Mr. Wagoner's strategy of accelerating growth outside the U.S." [Wall St Journal 9/26/07] Labor's legacy wealth will be transferred to assets overseas and GM's job security pledges will go in the trash with the rest of their promises. In 1980 there were 350,000 UAW members working at GM. Today there are 73,000. Job security pledges littered every contract we've had since 1980.
Job security in the Wagon-Finger Accord will "depend on whether local unions at the factories agree to local contracts that make the plants more competitive. GM has been pushing local unions to agree to money-saving work rule changes, or so-called competitive operating agreements," company spokesman Don Flores said. "The local deals ....... cover a wide range of topics, including the number of job classifications and restrictions on non-union labor allowed to work inside plants." [Detroit News 9/26/07]
There's a reason that COAs at Delphi have not been implemented. They don't want us to see how bloody the practice of cutting jobs to save jobs can be. Trades will hit the streets in droves.
Active workers will give up the cost of living that our retirees fought and won for us in 1970. The COLA has accrued $2.08 in the last contract. COLA adds a dollar in overtime pay and amounts to over $83 a week in straight time. A bare minimum of $4,300 a year which will not accrue in the new contract. But that's just the beginning of the UAW's transition to non union conditions.
"GM will implement a two tier wage system for workers not doing core manufacturing." [Detroit News 9/26/07] Two tier is a symptom of union decadence--a blatant act of discrimination against a whole class of workers. In the old UAW there was no such thing as non core workers. We were union to the core. A union that degrades workers is self destructive, not competitive. If sacrifices are necessary, they should be shared equally by all classes and all generations starting with the captains of industry.
COLA diversion coupled with a wage freeze means that top tier workers will enter negotiations in 2011 at the same base rate as 2007 but surrounded by lower tier workers hungry for a piece of the pie.
Divided, we beg. United, we vote NO. Send bargainers back to the table with a clear mandate: from new hire to retired, we are one union.
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com
http://www.futureoftheunion.com |
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http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html
http://www.hr676.org
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php |
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:36 pm |
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FlintConservative
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The union management team has sold out the workers....again. The more I learn about this deal, the more confused I am as to which side of the table Gettelfinger was on. GM execs have to be laughing all the way to the bank. 70 cents on the dollar VEBA? Instant $15 billion profit? Good for 80 years? Huh?
"While details of the deal are being withheld pending union ratification, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said Wednesday that GM would provide a large enough cash infusion to ensure the trust can pay out benefits for the next 80 years.
But the UAW has been burnt by VEBAs in the past: a 33 million dollar fund negotiated in 1998 with Caterpillar Corp collapsed in 2004, leaving retirees to pick up the cost of health insurance if they weren't covered by federal Medicare plans."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070928/ts_afp/usunionautocompanygmchryslerfordtalks
"A hard-fought contract deal hammered out between Caterpillar and the UAW in 1998 also included a VEBA trust funded by $32.3 million the UAW had set aside in special training and overtime accounts.
That trust, however, was depleted in just six years."
http://www.examiner.com/a-958969~Caterpillar_workers_skeptical_of_tentative_UAW_GM_deal.html |
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:27 pm |
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Biggie9
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The "missing" $14B is neither profit, or shortchanging of the trust.
To my understanding, the current projected liabilities going into the FUTURE is $51B for retiree's healthcare.
Giving $36 B in 2007 dollars is the discount rate that apparently both sides feel comfortable will cover those future obligations. i am sure both sides used expert advisers and complex computer models that would do trend projections of the demands out into the future under a wide spectrum of assumptions [interest rates, economy, market fluctuations]. If 70% funding in 2007 did not cover the possible eventualities [we use to forecast sales in a spread of outcomes that covered 80% of all possible outcomes, but that can fine tuned] I doubt the UAW would have agreed to $35B.
i saw a mention, IIRC, by Cal Rapson that the VEBA projection was for 80 years of life[ My interpretation of that is under the expected of outcomes they appear solid to remain viable for that length of time]. The article mentions that that exceeds the life span of all current employees [barring some miraculous breakthrough in medical science]...but what about employees 50 years from now, or do we expect GM et al to be gone by then?
Anyway, there was a good observations of the impact of the VEBA by a money manager [parasite or shark, they DO provide a valuable service to people who try to save for retirement but don't have the motivation or the time or ability to understand the complexitiesof investing their savings for the best results]. he mentioned the positive benefit of removing the unknown impact of the retiree insurance off of the balance sheets and into a separate entity. To the extent that it allows GM to raise money more efficiently, is a good thing eventually to their ability to compete in the market place, and yes, they spend a lot of analysis on "prices" and "costs" especially as compared to the competition and the market in general.
There may be parasites and sharks in the insurance industry, but I doubt they are any more prominent than say in politics, the media, industry and society in general.
Some of those sharks are known to inhabit the waters of Flinttalk.com. |
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Biggie |
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:43 pm |
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