It’s amazing what you can do when a single plant strike costs in the neighborhood of $50 million/day. I’m a salaried worker at one of the Big 3, and even though we’re not union, we got some very nice bonuses out of this too. The 401k match, improved health insurance benefits, and raises all around.
I’ll be the first to complain about some of the more negative aspects of the UAW, but like anything else there are going to be people who abuse it, but it’s worth it for the huge benefits to everyone else in the industry.
Which will be passed onto the consumer in the form of more expensive vehicles. UAW should have included a stipulation that prices of cars should not suffer and the funds should come from the executives.
Jim Farley could work for free and it would equate to about about $5 per unit cost reduction. Executives, believe it or not, make difficult decisions that impact billions in revenue. UAW members make no decisions and clock out at the end of their shift. They have a hard job and should be compensated fairly, but they are in no way the same as senior leadership.
And who’s choice is that? I imagine most, if not all labor unions in the US would love to move toward a system of co-determination like they have in Germany.
That doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. The union is there to represent it’s workers not set prices. If the company finds itself entirely unable to pay the increased wages and benefits without raising prices then those prices were artificially low by taking what the actual cost should have been and subtracting how much they were screwing out of their employees.
If there is money available to pay for the increased cost of their workforce in the form of reduced executive benefits or pay, then they should either do that, or not, but suffer a market penalty for having more expensive cars than their competitors. If it starts really hurting their bottom line then they’ll have to make some actual tough decisions about compensation at the top like the “tough decisions” they pretend to have to make when they announce wage cuts and lay offs.
While unions are great, they are and should be entities for a specific purpose and it doesn’t make sense for them to be expanding beyond that. They’re not charities or NGOs representing just general social good, they’re specifically about pay and conditions for the workers they represent which hopefully will translate to a lot of social good in general. If for example there are many strong unions across all sectors with most workers as part of one then consumers would have some actual money to buy a car at a fair price that reflects the costs of labour. Where this happens, big companies don’t pack up and leave despite constantly wailing that they will, because there’s obviously still money to be made but the environment is such that their options for profligacy are greatly constrained and they have to operate with some sanity.
Same energy as complaining about getting rid of the tipped wage because dining out ‘would become more expensive’. If it does, it’s not on the workers, it’s on the manufacturer. Maybe be a bit less of a scab and focus the blame where it belongs?
This is based on a misunderstanding of how prices are set. The price is set based on what the market can bear. Costs pretty much only determine if the thing is worth making, given that.
It’s the same reason rent doesn’t go down when property taxes do. I mention this not to tear you down, but because it’s a common argument for bad policy.
See this everyone? Take note: This is how they pit workers against one another. This is how they undermine the solidarity that allows unions to even begin leveling the negotiations playing field.
Rather it should come from a mix of executive pay, shareholder dividends, and a cost increase if warranted. Last year ford paid out like 25 billion in dividends. Not sure how much the contract is expected to add in labor costs, but if I’m a worker I’d expect a good portion of those dividends to go toward the workers and not shareholders.
Labor only accounts for about 7% of the oricee if a car. Ford has made record profits the past 2 years, so theu could literally just eat the increae labor cost and still be making more in profit than any other point in the company’s history. Of coutse they wont do that because of greed, but there is no actual reason not to.
Of course, although while that 7% is added to the cost of producing the car, other factors may not be as easily negotiable (say a fixed cost of steel or other raw goods).
I actually do agree on the sentiment that a car should not cost more given the labor negotiations.
My argument was just a generalization, and more to say that executive compensation also doesn’t make up a humongous amount of the cost of a car. Moreover, if somehow there is a lack of net profit to render back to the employees, and executive pay is already well controlled, then in such a scenario it may be reasonable to raise the cost of a good in order to adequately compensate the people who make it. In fact, I wish companies did this more instead of asking “how can I exploit labor to make this good more profitable?” And instead ask “is it reasonable to charge more to adequately pay people to live in my community that I do business?” But I digress, the point is simply that profits should be paid back to workers at least as much as profits are paid to shareholders and executives.
The only way employees see that benefit though in our system is in collective bargaining. I’d like to see more cooperatives though.
Say I have a 50% contribution match from my employer. For every $2 I contribute into my 401k my employer will add their own $1.
Some employers will force you to contribute a percentage of your paycheck towards your 401k, others will allow you to contribute up to a percentage of your paycheck, not all employers match though and not at the same rate. I believe my employer allows me to contribute up to 60% of my paycheck if I wanted (until the annual IRS limit is reached) but they will only match 50% of whatever dollar amount I send to the 401k account.
IRS will only let a person add $22,500 in 2023, which means if I max out my contribution my employer will add $11,250 for a total annual contribution of $33,750.
The IRS will only allow me and my employer combined to contribute $66,000 in 2023 to my 401k. I am unable to hit that $66,000 limit because my employer doesn’t match 293% of my contribution.
I got lucky in certain areas and I try not to forget that.
Either way if it’s a contribution match limit or a paycheck limit, it has a green check mark next to it, so it’s gotta be an improvement on where they were. I’m all for bringing everyone up and I’m happy for them.
From the supplemental agreement regarding the personal savings plan (exhibit G, available at uaw.org/gm2023)
“The Company shall increase its contribution to an Eligible Employee’s Account from 6.4% to 10% of each such Employee’s Eligible Weekly Earnings with such increase to be implemented by December 31 2023, with contributions made retroactive to October 23, 2023”
It’s a straight up contribution. For every dollar paid in wages, the company also contributes ten cents to the employees 401k. No employee contributions are required.
This is kind of wild to me. In Australia we have a similar thing called Superannuation. Everyone is entitled to 11% from their employer, going up to 12% by the 1 July 2025. Unions bargain for agreements with extra contributions on top of that base percentage.
That sounds an awful lot like a socialism and from what I’ve been told just doing a socialism once will bring a dictator to your door who will genocide your entire population.
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