It's been 27 years since bellbottoms were a hot new trend, "ABC" topped the chart, and the UAW called a general strike against GM. Well, it turns out that all three are still with us, though I have friends who swear that skinny pants are the new boot-cuts.
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Ah, nostalgia
24 Sep 2007 02:43 pm
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Comments (20)
Wow, must be nice to have garaunteed benefits after you retire... I have a 401k but when I leave the company, I'm gone... I can get insurance through COBRA, if I want, but that's pretty expensive.
But then I'm just a lowly engineer with a graduate degree. I probably don't make as much money as a line worker in a UAW plant. I certainly don't get overtime and mandatory breaks or paid lunch hours.
Maybe I should quit and go work on an automobile assembly line.
EI
If it was worth it to you, you'd do it. But it's not worth it to you, so stop whining about other people who are doing it. Unless you're really bad at what you do, I'm pretty sure you will end up making much more money than any assembly line worker.
UAW workers make something like $70/hour in total compensation (pay+benefits)! I would kill to make that.
Excuse me for being irritated that unions grab more than their share through monopolistic tactics. I spend my time doing my job not trying to figure out how to strong-arm my employer into giving me more stuff. These idiots are going to finish off the US auto industry if they keep it up.
By law, my job is specifically exempted from overtime pay and other restrictions that protect hourly workers. These limits obviously aren't based on pay... those guys make more money than I do and teachers are exempted from those rules, too. I guess engineers need to organize and lobby more for compensation and preferential laws.
EI
Jeff,
"UAW workers make something like $70/hour in total compensation (pay+benefits)! I would kill to make that."-- they already have--the companies they work for.
Then I would suggest you form a union and petition the government to have those laws changed, EI.
mad6798j wrote: If it was worth it to you, you'd do it. But it's not worth it to you, so stop whining about other people who are doing it.
My, that's witty; let's try looking at it another way. These people are taking all the right steps to kill a major US employer, which if successful will ultimately put themselves and thousands of workers in non-union support industries out of a job and onto the public dole. And if not that, it will be be when they force the government's hand in a massive federal bankruptcy bailout a la 1980s Chrysler.
Either of these, I pay for as a tax-tendering citizen; therefore, I find it relevant to my own existence that a large body of American workers are behaving like spoiled dolts, attempting to bargain from a pretty good position to an even better one by wielding the blunt instruments of a past era.
It isn't union benefits that make people not want to buy American cars. The problem is that people aren't buying GM's cars, not that their workers make more money than you'd like.
It's been 27 years since bellbottoms were a hot new trend
Actually, it's been ten years since it's been 27 years, for a total of 37 years. (Yes, I know. I still remember 1970, too.)
Nostalgia... don't forget that James Hoffa is president of the union.
This anti-union rhetoric is really quite amazing. I see business schools full of kids who salivate at the mention of small- and big-time moneymakers who think that simply making money is the validation for whatever business methods Mr. X or company X uses.
Yet here are several thousand modestly educated men and women who, through collective action, have improved not only their own lives, but those of thousands of fellow workers to the point that some may not only be middle class, but that we might consider their compensation with some awe. And this we condemn?
I'd like to know how much the combined salaries of Alan Mulally and Mark Fields add to the price of every car Ford sells in the U.S., something I have yet to see in any newspaper article on the industry.
Personally, I am also opposed to the huge compensation received by executives, especially failed executives. I can't help what the newspapers report, though.
And I don't really want to form a union and drive my industry into bankruptcy. The proper response to someone else misbehaving is not to misbehave myself.
I'm not impressed by a bunch of factory workers distorting the market to grab a bunch of money and benefits. I'm also not impressed when executives do the same thing.
EI
I hope this is the final nail in GM's coffin.
The auto manufacturers, being held hostage by UAW, are going to be the primary pushers for national healthcare. They know the only way they can stay competitive with Toyota and Honda is to reduce their labor costs, and they would love nothing more than to dump the expense of their gold-plated union healthcare on the backs of the taxpayers.
The sooner GM and Ford go out of business the better.
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I can't find anyone who has any sympathy for the UAW. To mix my metaphors - they killed the goose that laid the golden egg and now it's time to pay the piper.
Posted by Jmo | September 24, 2007 3:03 PM