UAW Concessions?

[dvcgirl]

That was one quarter of sales.

They've been losing market share for years and years. 45 years ago GM had 53% of the market.....now they've got 20% of the market.

 

[dvcgirl]

You think auto workers just deposit their whole paychecks in the bank?
Do you honestly think autoworkers do not help pay for their childrens college? Or that auto workers Don't have morgages, car loans, utilities to pay, food to buy etc?

BTW: NO auto workers are entering/hiring into the auto companies now and making the wages you are talking about.

I think what fkj2 meant was that UAW workers making 50K a year (plus great benefits) are usually not college graduates. They didn't put in four to eight years of college to get a professional degree........and yet in the old days, some of those guys made some big money.

For years, the salary of the UAW workers was way too high for the work that they were doing. That may not be the case now, but for many years it was....and so when the industry went global, they effectively put themselves out of business.

For what it's worth....I think all of these bailouts are sickening....but I also get that to a certain degree *some* of it is necessary. And the government is usually very good about being sure that we the taxpayers are "first in line" to get out money back. We'll get our money back if GM goes down....the shareholders, the dealers, the creditors....not so much.

We'll likely loan the Big Three that 25 Billion....but it might be a nail-biter for GM....they need the money now, and Congress may not have the votes to get them that money before January 20th.

Either way, GM, Ford and Chrysler are going to be downsizing in a big, big way.

 

[fkj2]

You think auto workers just deposit their whole paychecks in the bank?
Do you honestly think autoworkers do not help pay for their childrens college? Or that auto workers Don't have morgages, car loans, utilities to pay, food to buy etc?

BTW: NO auto workers are entering/hiring into the auto companies now and making the wages you are talking about.

You know, there's absolutely NOTHING that I wrote in my post that could possibly be interpreted as me saying that autoworkers just deposit their paychecks directly into the bank and don't have living costs--just as the rest of us do. I suggest you go back and re-read it. Much of the auto companies' problems today include poor management combined with a multitude of legacy obligations. To repeatedly point out what autoworkers make TODAY as they ENTER autoworking compares apples to oranges, and fails to address those workers who continue to draw $28 + benefit costs per hour.

But now that you brought up autoworkers helping pay for their children's education, I guess now that GM has ended the college program, autoworkers will have to pay more for their children attending college since yet another benefit has been eliminated.

I don't know of any other company that provided the tuition assistance that GM did.

Glad you brought up that point.