Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Sure get the "real facts" by going to some union web site. Maybe we can learn
about good investment opportunities in Las Vegas too. At least the UAW showed
that maybe they do have some braincells working this week though.

 

I didn't say that the UAW was the whole problem, but I did say that they
have become *part of the problem*. Overpaid and underperforming
management is also at fault.

$65/hour pay packages for factory labor is not at all a realistic or
competetive wage, assuming that this $65 number which is being reported
is accurate. $1.5M / year for the boss is also way too much.

John

 

They are a big part of the problem as wages are out of sync with skill
and job. Some management people are over paided to but they are a
smaller percentage of payroll and eaiser to "fire". This has GM labor
worried too because they see a trend and it will not be long before it
hit GM auto division too. The economy (car costs and fuel prices) has
hit a wall and can no longer support wage and benfit package and still
sell products at a profit. The days of glut are over.

 

John Horner wrote: "I didn't say that the UAW was the whole problem, but I
did say that they have become *part of the problem*. Overpaid and
underperforming management is also at fault. $65/hour pay packages for
factory labor is not at all a realistic or
competetive wage, assuming that this $65 number which is being reported is
accurate. $1.5M / year for the boss is also way too much."

What would call competitive hourly wage package? What to you think people
working in oil refineries and most major chemical plants make per hour?

Today benefits probably cost more then hourly wages. According to the
articles I read, Delphi employees make 27 dollars per hour plus benefits
that brings total wage package to 60 dollars and hour. I not sure what in
their benefit package but that equals more then the hourly wages. I would
bet the majority is health insurance cost.

Here is what Delphi agreed to in the last contract: Take a look at the last
one. Delphi has increased top managements wages during this contract and
even sweeten the severance package of its top executives while wanting the
hourly workers to take a 50% pay cut and bring in new hires at 14 dollars
and hour. Top management failed to abide by the contract in more then one
way.

Delphi Commitments
As part of those discussions, Delphi must commit in definitive, enforceable
terms to:

make sufficient capital investments in UAW-represented plants to allow them
to be competitive, improve product quality, improve operational
effectiveness, and be viable for the long term;

allocate new product, both GM and non-GM, to UAW-represented facilities;

focus on maintaining present GM business, winning back GM business lost
since the spin-off and winning new GM business;
develop enhanced retirement and separation incentives for employees;

an appropriate level of supervisory staffing, as determined by mutual
agreement, along with procedures to jointly review the supervisory staffing
level on an ongoing basis;

negotiate and implement operating practices that are competitive in the U.S.
car and truck component industry;

the principle of "equivalence of sacrifice" when establishing compensation
and benefit levels for management to ensure that sacrifices made by
UAW-represented employees are reflected in the pay and benefit practices of
all non-represented employees. Top management must take the lead by
accepting compensation and benefit reductions at least as large in
percentage terms as those sustained by new hires.

Sarge

 

Most of those jobs are unskilled and anyone could learn them in very
short order. I simply is not worth 60/hr and wages and benifits plain
and simple because I am (and others) are not going to pay for it in the
product they produce. It is simple math here. A teacher with a 10 years
experiance makes far less than this. Yhe pay has gotten out of sync with
skill level. Year ago I used to know a guy that worked at the Moraine
engine bearing plant. He used to tell me that when he first started
working there that is a bearing even looked questionable, it was
rejected. By the time he retired some time around he siad they were
passing bearings that should have been scrapped because of high labors
cost demeand high volume good or bad. TIme to rescale pay and time spent

 

Easy for you to say. I suspect you'd be singing a different tune if they
wanted to cut your pay in half.

Dave

 

you are right the days of glut are over but the exucutives will continue their
glut costing us our couintry and it's jobs

 

9 out of 10 companies fail due to poor management not from the workers
greed has taken way over
example my wife made a tubing part for gm a/c lines on the tahoe and it was
sold to them for 28.00 each complete
it's the lines that went from front to the rear a'/c
and (by the way this company exported all the work in the mid 90's to mexico)
that same part sold over the counter at a dealer with gm setting the price sold
for 465. 00 each simple put greed
over 5 times what it cost to make it was sold for
warranty costing was 255.00
now let me tell yopu about the germans at d.c the jeep xj has a drivers door
harness the fails all the time the harness use to cost 60.00 when jeep owned
jeep
then the germs took over that same harness went to 134.00 and nows it's well
over 165
now for a fact i seen what it cost jeep to make the 4.7 engine from the time it
was put on the board to the time it fired up in a jeep on i seen the cost sheet
a exc. left on his seat while i did the oil change and seen the sheet at a
dealer near the tech center
it cost jeep 1600.00 and that also included uaw folks on that sheet that same
engine over the counter as a whole long block is 10,000 thats 4 times more than
it cost to make simple put greed to the max not just making money but gouging
people out and out

 

Where did you get that stat from? You sound like a banker. Sometimes
poor management simply means that management pays the workers too much!
Did you ever hear of the N.H.L.? Or any of the North American auto
makers for that matter. And wages are often almost dictated by union
bargaining with the first company they meet at the table, to set the
pattern. Little to do with the auto company's ability to pay the
sometimes outrageous wage demands.

When you say that "greed has taken over", are you referring to your
wife? And just what was your wife's hourly wage & benefits? What was her
department's cost in making that part? Give us the full story dude!

Perhaps that's what they had to sell it for to be able to pay your wife
and the others in her department. You seem to make no allowance in your
calulations for normal overhead in your wife's department and GM's
overhead. Accounting doesn't appear to be your strength.

How much have employee wages increased during the same period? Have
Chrysler's fixed costs increased over that same time? Check it out - you
may find a direct correlation.

If you are so well informed on the costs of the jeep 4.7 engine, please
tell us how many millions of dollars went into the development of the
engine. You do realize that developmental costs are also built into the
wholesale/retail price of a product, don't you? Have you ever bought a
prescription drug? (Judging by your rant, you may have been on one or
more when you wrote your silly message!) Do you think a prescription
drug sells for the cost of the material to make it, plus the wages? Not
bloody likely dude! You pay for the development costs.

 

I wouldn't say it was a silly rant. But I wouldn't say yours was worthless
either. You are both right.

It would not be the first time management overpaid workers to their demise.
Nor will it be the last.

Price gouging on parts is nothing new. My 2003 olds has alloy wheels. One
bent. $550 for a new one.

WTF? I'm driving a POC car, the cheapest one I could afford. Did I somehow
personally insult GM or something to have them want to do this to me???

In the mid 1980's they made a pick-up truck (GM) with a gas tank too close
to the side. It was fatal to some unlucky souls. The federal government
went through it's clock cycles, juris prudence, etc. and TOLD GM to fix the
gas tank placement.

GM said no, go to hell, in so many words, and that was that.

So I'm sure they will start bitching in Detroit, asking for their hand-outs
because they are so vital to our economy, and someone is going to vote in
congress or the house or wherever to get them some free money. But I say F
them.

Like the airlines, begging for money. 911 was a catastrophe! We need
financial assistance!!!

Well F you. 9000 different fares for the same plane trip. $1000 for a
flight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. In coach, no less.

Sorry, and good night, funny man.

 

heres one to think about
we tax payers already and have for a long tiome subsudized the auto industry
by paying taxes to build the roads cars use why have a car if there no roads
have a road buy a car
if u have a horse do u need a road no

 

The taxes collected on fuel, registration fees, license fees, tolls,
etc. EXCEED the amount spent on roads. Much of the money collected in
vehicle related taxes is used to subsidize railroads, hike and bike
trails and all manner of government spending.

If you want to complain about tax subsidies, complain about Amtrak and
almost every other public transportation system. Those are the ones
which routinely take far more money out of the public treasury than they
put into it.

John

 

my complaint is exec's that make millions of dollars as base salaries and when shit
hits the fan from their poor decisions! they blame the workers and take their pay
and benefits away instead of doing whats right for the good of the company and the
country and we the people. not a chance of that happening! they claim bankruptcy
and u and i pay the bill at that point
you should be getting really really pissed off that Exxon made 100 billion
dollars and what will they do with it??they did not just make a profit but raped
every person in the usa of their hard earned money

 

philthy wrote: "you should be getting really really pissed off that Exxon
made 100 billion dollars and what will they do with it??they did not just
make a profit but raped every person in the usa of their hard earned money."

They did not make of gasoline but off the price of crude oil in which they
do not control the price. They just own the rights to several billion
barrels besides what they purchase.

Do you expect them to not pass the cost of buying crude from the open market
to the consumer? Only a fraction of a barrel of crude is used in making
gasoline. The rest goes in to different fuels and chemical stocks.

Sarge

 

Envy is one of the deadly sins

mike hunt

 

Speculators in the commodities market set the price of crude, not the oil
companies. IF the oil companies actual did the price would never come down.


mike hunt

 

They make far more than other parts makers.
If the workers don't face the real world and settle for industry wages
they will be toast.

 

Five myths about today's auto industry

by Ron Gettelfinger

Is the unionized American auto industry dead?

There are some who claim Detroit automakers are stuck in old ways of
doing business and unable to compete with their more flexible Asian and
European competitors.

It's true that today's auto companies and autoworkers face more
challenges than ever. But much of what is said about the auto industry
doesn't square with the reality of what's being done inside
today's auto factories.

For one thing, several popular vehicles that carry foreign nameplates
are actually built here in the U.S. by UAW members, working with the
same union contracts that supposedly make auto plants
"uncompetitive." Our members now build vehicles not only for
Detroit-based automakers, but also for Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota
and Volvo Trucks.

Some other common misconceptions:

Nobody builds auto plants in Michigan anymore. All the new factories
are down South.
That would be news to GM, which just spent $1.5 billion on assembly
operations in Lansing; to Ford, which spent $2 billion to rebuild the
Rouge complex in Dearborn; and to DaimlerChrysler, which partnered with
Hyundai and Mitsubishi to build a new $700 million engine complex in
Dundee.

Packed with the latest technology and powered by ultra-modern
conveyors, these facilities are flexible enough to produce multiple
vehicle and engine models - and ergonomically designed to prevent
workplace hazards and injuries.

The Big Three are going broke because their labor costs are too high.
UAW members are proud of the value we produce for employers: $463,000
per worker in a typical auto assembly plant, according to
output-per-worker calculations from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers
by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Thanks to this extraordinary productivity, the average auto assembly
worker produces far more than he or she gets paid, by a margin of
hundreds of thousands of dollars per worker. This remains true even
when overtime, health care, pensions and other labor costs are
included.

When it comes to quality, the Big Three are still way behind their
competitors.
Not according to J.D. Power's 2005 Initial Quality Study. This
influential report found that the top three quality plants in North and
South America are all unionized GM facilities - two in Canada and one
in the United States. GM produced the top-quality performer in five
vehicle segments, including the mid-size and full-size car segments;
Ford was a winner in two product categories.

UAW members recognize the link between quality and productivity and job
security, and we are working every day in every way to ensure that we
make a difference when it comes to quality. The customers who purchase
the products we build deserve no less. The quality measurement gap used
throughout the industry has narrowed to a small margin, and our members
are proud of that. But, until we are the very best, it will not be good
enough.

Detroit builds nothing but gas guzzlers.
UAW members build the hybrid Ford Escape, the hybrid Mercury Mariner,
and light hybrid versions of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra. Other
models are scheduled to come on line in 2007, and Ford recently
announced it will produce 250,000 hybrids by 2010.

The Big Three are also using new fuel-saving technologies - like
diesel powertrains, cylinder deactivation, continuously variable
transmissions and lightweight materials - which can cut fuel
consumption by 20 percent or more. These innovations aren't visible
to most consumers or the media. But they're being installed on
high-volume products like the Ford Explorer, the Jeep Cherokee and the
Chevy Malibu, which sell hundreds of thousands of units per year. Even
a small improvement in fuel economy on that many cars can make a big
difference for America's energy supply.

In a global industry, with cars coming from all over, it doesn't make
any difference what car I buy.
According to the Automotive Trade Policy Council, DaimlerChrysler, Ford
and General Motors accounted for 85 percent of the total investment in
the U.S. auto industry between 1980 and 2002, a total of $176 billion
invested in U.S. communities. These three companies alone purchase 80
percent of the auto parts now produced in the United States.

Big Three investment and purchasing supports millions of U.S. workers,
retirees and their dependents. Yet the U.S. remains the most open
automotive market in the world. Forty percent of vehicles sold in the
U.S. have foreign nameplates, compared to 22 percent in the Europe, 5
percent in Japan, and just 2 percent in Korea.

Additionally, the Big Three are faced with free trade agreements that
allow unfair trade practices like currency manipulation which give some
foreign automakers an artificial advantage. These are not complaints
- just facts.

It does matter and you will find union-made vehicles in every segment
and in every price range, from fuel-sipping small compacts to
family-size minivans. The auto industry can have a strong future in
Michigan - if we all work together to make it happen.

 

What would happen if we closed our markets to imports, and required
U.S. companies to keep jobs here? I am sure that other countries would
do the same to us, so that we would not be able to export, unless those
other countries could not buy the goods they need elsewhere. Any
thoughts or ideas on this?

-Kirk Matheson

 

wrote: "What would happen if we closed our markets to
imports, and required U.S. companies to keep jobs here? I am sure that other
countries would do the same to us, so that we would not be able to export,
unless those other countries could not buy the goods they need elsewhere.
Any thoughts or ideas on this?"

You would have a global war everyone else against the US. The US has enough
resources that it could stand alone for a while but other countries require
our resources.

Sarge