Tran Harry

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

I meant to grab the reply for g.pincheot not missing link, sorry.

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

It's called no one will buy it if they don't get paid that wage, because so many people have been trying to live above their means.

Go to anybody's house, and I been to quite a few seeing as how I use to work door to door for a research company, and you'll see regardless of what kind of income their pulling in whether they are retired, working at Mcdonalds and Target, or they're a small business owner and all the furnishings look the same.

By looking at a person's home and not asking them what they do in their lives you would not be able to tell someone who is earning middle income from someone who lives below poverty. They have the same digital camera, two computers, and a flat screen.

So you're saying that these people should continue to be paid $70 an hour to do bad work, and by bad work I don't mean they aren't qualified to do their job well, but I mean bad work as in the final product isn't competitive?


On Nov 12 11:39 AM missing link wrote:

> Actually, (TJIrish) indirectly, the unions share the blame for the
> big three not developing fuel efficient cars. The costs associated
> with the wages and benefit packages demanded by the unions is so
> great that the big three have had to divert most (if not all) of
> their research and development dollars into paying these excessive
> costs., so there is little money left to pay for research and development.
> In addition, the Japanese government paid for the research to develop
> the hybrid electric technology, then they gave it top their car companies.
>
>
> The big three have been placed in a position where they need to sell
> the big SUVs and luxury cars, because the profit margin on those
> vehicles is much greater than it is on small economy cars - and they
> need the extra profit margin to be able to pay the high union wages
> and benefits and CEO salaries.
>
> TJIrish: wrote
>
> "I work in a union. Not Auto workers. Soo hey full disclosure. But
> I want to ask anyone reading these posts a question. Is it the union's
> fault that the Big 3 did not develop energy conserving automobiles
> like the Prius? Is it the union's fault for the lack of imagination
> at the Big 3 in developing automobile's people want to buy? Oil is
> under $60 a barrel. We are in a terrible mess. People aren't just
> buying cars. Look what Best Buy said today. Toyota stock has taken
> a huge hit along with the Big 3. It's not just about wage cost per
> car. It's management imagination and creativity that is also part
> of the issue. I read along time ago in an auto magazine a critic
> who said none of Big 3 have any original ideas and just copy others.
> Witness the bailout proposal. Where did they get that idea from?they
> saw the banks get bailed out. Now they want to be bailed out. What
> happened to GM's plan to ride out the storm til 2010 when it would
> save billion's from union managing it's own healthcare? Which is
> also around time of the VOLT being mass marketed? So don't just blame
> the unions. Blame should be placed everywhere with the Big 3! "

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

I think that the author is not so concerned with what a person makes per hour as long as the product is of value.

Which is where the line gets drawn in two ways, the automobiles being produced by the big 3 aren't competitive yet the wages they are paying are way beyond competitive. At other industries if your product is not competing well than labor gets laid off, they don't get retained in rubber rooms like the big 3's labor force.

Than you got the fact that these people are asking for a bailout when they're already making 2.5 times the earnings of your typical worker, and this number is 4 times higher than someone living at the poverty line. A bailout shouldn't be used to help fund their living situation if these people who earned $70/hr wage and benefits, couldn't figure out how to live a life well within their own means.

And that is exactly what we're trying to bailout, whether it is the worker, or the entire company, we are bailing out people who aren't competitive and don't live within their means, or as a company doesn't use that money to remain competitive.

I agree that the CEO's salary is way too high for an uncompetitive company. If a company is dying the CEO's salary and those of his upper management should be the first to suffer in a forward thinking society, yet it is the opposite way around, the CEO stays til the ship sinks while all the workers are being forced to lighten the load.

But seriously, do we really need the big 3 if they don't remain competitive? Which is hard to see them being so after their recent failures.