American Me

Ford and UAW Working Together

The President of the UAW came out of the Ford department and has a much better working relationship with their management. Also, most of the benefits contained in the UAW contracts came from Ford negotiations. Ford was much more honorable, and easy to deal with when negotiating. GM always looked for a loophole in what was contained in the contract. GM agreement will likely mirror Fords' with a few changes, pertaining to funding of the VEBA. Their should be protections to keep the UAW from accepting too much of the funding in GM stock!! Otherwise, the VEBA could end up just like Enrons' retirement fund,totally nonexistant!!

On Automakers' Deathbed Unions Finally Make Concessions

Excellent point tjirish. Japanese automakers are subsidized by the Japanese Government which realizes the value of their industry. Also, medical benefits in this country are covered under the Japanese plan.
The "legacy " cost for American auto manufacturers exists because they have been producing vehicles in this country for 100 years, as opposed to 25 like the Japanese. On average without being unbalanced by those costs the American auto worker makes 3 dollars more per hour than the transplant counterpart, and with the perk of the benefits provided directly to the worker, makes 18 dollars more. Include production benefits and the Transplant worker makes more, than both figures.
Your take ON THE jobs BANK is RIGHT ON, they were established to keep the manufacturers from outsourcing a significant number of American jobs to Third world countries so they could make more profit. The workers assigned there were supposed to be reassigned to other facilities that needed employees, the manufacturers failed to do that.
One last point is that the Japanese transplants assemble vehicles in this country, on the most part, out of parts made in Japan. .85 cents of every dollar of profit returns to Japan. They are also subsidized by the states in which they locate.