Detroit CEOs fly private jets to Capitol Hill beg-fest

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Corporate tax rates are the 2nd highest in the world, this hampers

profitablility in our economic system, we need to look at Ireland
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Flying home from Chicago, I read an article in the USA Today about Ireland.



They are in deep doo-doo. They are facing record unemployment numbers. 30% of housing are not sold.



Ireland, known as the "Celtic Tiger", is dead.





Tom
 
Bunch of idiots. I'm so sick of the media bashing the domestic auto industry.
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And, congress also jumped down their throats. These CEO's get millions of dollars per year, not that they do not work hard, but their employees that work just as hard or harder get a mere fration of that. These CEO's are not just idiots, but dumb a$$ jurks. That's my judgement around it; and do NOT deserve the millions of dollars and the private jets.



 
tom,



this how i explain it. they are not greedy and expect everything handed to them and that they are owed a job.



those days are over bud. you can live in your world and see how far you get.
 
those days are over bud. you can live in your world and see how far you get.
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I am 35 years old. I never went to college. I have no formal education besides learning NDT hands on. I am a foreman and make in excess of $60,000 a year.



My world is treating me fine, thank you very much.





Tom
 
Caymen said:
Yea, you are right about that. You agree on a wage with your employer. They say "You work for me and I will give you this".



Years later, they tell you, "Yea, i told you that, but I wasted the money flying around on private jets, throwing lavish parties, giving myself million upon millions of dollars in bonuses, and making us to continue to build things nobody wants to buy, I just can't afford to pay you what I said I was going to pay you".
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That's one way to look at it.



Here is another...maybe the HR dept of the company calls up the pensioners and says:



I have some bad news. Back when it was commonplace for companies like ours to offer a pension we, and others like us did so assuming that the success we had in our business in the past would continue into the future. We based all our accounting, both to pay current employees and past employees on that assumption. Well, we were wrong. Now we have a problem. So, we all have to roll up or sleeves and solve this problem.



Here is what we are recommending from a list of choices. Please pick one:



a) Take a lump sum payout of $x



b) Continue to get a pension but at a reduced rate of $y/year



c) Do nothing and this whole house of cards falls down in 6 months
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If America's big three go under they claim millions of jobs will be lost? Even if they get bailed out, there will be such a huge layoff to mke the companies fit into and new industrial model that millions of jobs will still be lost and the union claims they will make no more concessions. No matter what happens, it's a loose-loose situation, wy throw another $25 Billioninto a sinking pit? Perhaps so the fat cat executives can get a nice bonus and severence package.



If the existing companies go bankrupt, they will be reorganized. Their union comitttments go out the window, and so do most of their debts. Management gets canned and the company is reformed into a new leaner and better company without all that legacy debt. They can cut must of the old models they made and reinvent themselves into somthing far better than they would be had they received the bailout money...It would just be business as usual.



Poor managment and the unions drove the US automakers into bankrupcy, they are the ones who should suffer.



...Rich



 
I don't know, Bill.

They said it took approx $20K per plane to fly from Detroit to DC in a $17M plane.

I think they could do it cheaper.

So did Congress.

I heard they sent them packing without even taking a vote for giving them the money.

Congressional spokesman said the planes were 99% of the reason for it.

 
bill,



i am reffering to tjr mentioning richrad l's quote.

the domestic airlines took a huge hit from the unreasonable unions
 
Tom, those contracts were negotiated with a union that had a monopoly of labor in the auto industry. The big three all were prevented to negotiated collectively against the union BUT the union could as a monopoly pick the company that could least afford a strike and work them over for a very lucrative deal. With benefits they get about $75 an hour. Some are in a labor pool (FORD) that don't do anything but play games, read the paper etc. Hard to be competitive with that cost. I believe Toyota is in the neighborhood of $45.00 an hour.
 
Tom, those contracts were negotiated with a union that had a monopoly of labor in the auto industry. The big three all were prevented to negotiated collectively against the union BUT the union could as a monopoly pick the company that could least afford a strike and work them over for a very lucrative deal. With benefits they get about $75 an hour. Some are in a labor pool (FORD) that don't do anything but play games, read the paper etc. Hard to be competitive with that cost. I believe Toyota is in the neighborhood of $45.00 an hour.
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Speak of what you know, not of what you think.



Do you know the details of the contract designed "To save the American Auto Industry"?



Did not think so.





Tom
 
What he knows, and not what he thinks? He's right in that it's a monopoly of labor. Could you or I walk in to any of the big three and negotiate our own individual deal to work there, right alongside a UAW member on the assembly line? Nope. You must belong to the UAW, and accept whatever contract they have. So is it fair that one person works his butt off on the line, while another gets to sit in a climate-controlled room all day watching TV and playing games for the same wage?



November 12, 2008



Labor reform, not bailout, is GM's answer



Remember when Democrats lamented the growing budget deficit and spoke of the burden our children and grandchildren would face if we didn't put our fiscal house in order? That was when Republicans ran the federal government and Democrats opposed tax cuts. Now that Democrats are about to be in charge, concern about the deficit has disappeared and spending plans proliferate, even though the national debt passed $10 trillion in September and we added another $500 billion last month.



The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union (UAW).



Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased. While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2006, "on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers." Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65. GM, now facing a head-on collision with reality, has taken an important first step toward fiscal responsibility by announcing the elimination of lifetime health care benefits for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees at the end of this year.



Contrast this with non-union Toyota, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are about $48 per hour. Those lower labor costs mean Toyota enjoys a cost advantage over U.S. automakers of about $1,000 per vehicle. Is it any wonder that Toyota is outselling American automakers and from plants that have been built on U.S. soil? According to James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation, Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: "The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime."



While many in the Democratic Party have focused on "corporate greed" and "fairness," according to Sherk, "competition, not corporate greed, is the real problem facing labor unions. When unions negotiate raises for their members, companies pass those higher costs on to consumers." Americans used to tolerate those increases, but no more. Competition has brought lower prices for Japanese cars and Americans are buying more of them, taking a pass on those from Detroit.



The argument made by those favoring a bailout of Detroit is that it will save more than 100,000 jobs in the auto and related industries. But what good does that do if people are not buying cars in sufficient numbers to allow the Big Three to make a profit? This becomes the kind of corporate welfare Democrats decry when it comes to Wall Street. But, then, Wall Street isn't unio
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Another example:



GM Spends $17 Million Per Year on Viagra



By Joe Benton

ConsumerAffairs.com



April 18, 2006



Lifestyle drugs -- chiefly Viagra -- are costing General Motors $17 million dollars a year and the cost is passed along to car, truck and SUV consumers. The blue pill is covered under GM's labor agreement with United Auto Workers, as well as benefit plans for salaried employees.



GM executives estimate health care adds $1,500 to the price of each vehicle but they do not break out how much of the premium is caused by erectile dysfunction expenses. GM provides health care for 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependents and is the world's largest private purchaser of Viagra.



GM recently raised the co-pay for erectile dysfunction drugs to $18 under a new agreement with the UAW and the company has also pared benefits for salaried workers.



The automaker spends almost $5.6 billion each year on health care. While lifestyle drugs are a small fraction of the total medical bill, every health care expense is added into the price of every new vehicle and is a drag on the struggling goliath's earnings.



Given the large number of aging autoworkers in the U.S., the industry's Viagra tab and bill for other erectile dysfunction drugs is certain to continue rising.



Neither Ford nor Chrysler will disclose the amount spent on erectile dysfunction drugs.



While many government and company health plans have eliminated impotence drugs from coverage plans, GM has more than two retirees for every active worker on its rolls and must negotiate eliminating the drugs from the union health plan with the UAW.
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:wacko:



I'm not saying that the management of these companies is without fault, but the UAW bears just as much blame in this. Not the average worker on the line, but the leaders of the union who seem to want to do nothing more than squeeze as much as possible out of the companies without regard to the long term effect on the companies, or the very union members they purport represent.
 
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Well crap. I have a tech school certificate, a Bachelor's degree, and two Master's degrees, and 32 years of continuously increasing responsibility work experience, my current job I manage a section of eight people, two of whom have PhD's and are 15 years older than me and I am directly responsible for a six-million dollar annual budget-- all this and I make about 3/4 of what Caymen and several others here make. Oh yeah, I work for the Government. Oh well, at least I am happy...:(
 
Last years UAW negotiations, the labor force took it on the chin to help their employers survive. I guess it was not enough. You just need to work for free. I am sure the bill collectors will understand.



He's right in that it's a monopoly of labor. Could you or I walk in to any of the big three negotiate our own individual deal to work there, right alongside a UAW member on the assembly line? Nope. You must belong to the UAW, and accept whatever contract they have. So is it fair that one person works his butt off on the line, while another gets to sit in a climate-controlled room all day watching TV and playing games for the same wage?
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I see nothing wrong with that. Why/how could you negotiate yourself a better deal than the Union could negotiate. An even better question is why would the company WANT to pay you more than they could pay someone else? Federal law says that if you work in an open shop, you must work under the same agreements at the unionized labor works. You get the benefits and do not have to work for it.



How is that fair?





Tom
 

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