Originally Posted by
chief31
First, the average UAW worker's salary is nowhere near $40 an hour. I am not sure that there are any UAW workers that make $30 an hour. I am pretty sure that the top of the scale is at $28 an hour.
And the benefits would generally round to less than $10 an hour. Far from $33.
But I absolutely agree have to admit, if you make up crazy numbers, then it looks like a lot.
As a six year veteran with The UAW, my hourly wage, with benefits factored in, is at $25.20 an hour. That is the top end here, and includes the two advancements that I have made to a better job and labor grade.
But that is dealing in reality. If you prefer to go with that $73 an hour estimate, then I have to include that that still isn't enough for each employee to own and maintain the unicorns that are required to keep their jobs.
Deal in fantasy, or deal in reality?
As for the laziness claims, I worked as a non-union construction worker for about ten years prior to landing with The UAW.
Nobody who has ever worked with, or around, me has ever tried to make any claims of laziness at me. A lot of things could be said of me. But that has never been one of them. I have always been extremely competitive with what I am working on. And always managed to be as good as the very best.
I see the same thing that everybody else does, with workers sitting around.... reading the paper during their work hours... and everybody just goes straight for the easy target, of laziness.
The vast majority of the time, that isn't the case at all. And I will explain.
On an assembly line, which is how most big businesses build their products, an employee is put in one location, and asked to do a specific job when the product gets to them.
But, what are they asked to do when they finish and the next product isn't there yet? Clean?
Well, there is almost always an outsourced cleaning company that does that every day. And there is rarely any cleaning that an employee is even allowed to do.
Sweep? Mop? Then what?
As for places like The DMV, they too have a veary slow process to deal with. Such and such of form has to be passed by some manager, who happens to be dealing with such and such other issues, leaving the employee waiting and waiting. Then, they have some other issue to wait out.
But, from an outsider's perspective, it's so much easier to just assume that the worker is lazy, as opposed to actually finding our all of the details.
In most cases, it isn't employee laziness that is responsible for what we are calling employee laziness. It's ineffective, or slow processes, set-up by poor management.
Now, the reason that management doesn't work to improve that is because those at that level who could be deemed responsible for an ineffective process just blame employee laziness.
And we all know how popular it is to accept that employees are lazy, don't we?
As I said, I know laziness. And I do see lazy employees. But, with the way the processes are being set-up, even the laziest employee won't be able to have an effect. And, as a leader of a crew about to go hang drywall in a new house, nine out of ten of the "lazy" UAW workers I have seen are diligent enough to make up a top notch drywall crew.
Now...
The belief is that The UAW protects those lazy employees and forces the companies that they work for to keep them employed.
That is flat-out wrong.
If an employee is bad at their job, and even if they aren't, the company can, and will, get rid of them, if they want to.
The UAW only persists that the employee be given a shot to prove that they can be useful to the company in another spot on the job. Afterall, not every 90 lb. woman is going to excel at lifting hundreds of 30 lb. parts all day long. But they might well be able to keep up with tightening a thousand bolts in that day.
I can't begin to tell you how many lazy workers I have seen get themselves fired, or just quit, since I have been with The UAW and Caterpillar. But it is far harder to be lazy and keep the job. Those people are quite rare.
When an employee needs to be gotten rid of, they can be dealt with. But it is easier to just claim that "the workers are lazy". Easier, or as some may say, lazier.
I know laziness when I see it. Just stop by my house when the sink is full and dishes need to be done. :lol:
But I also know a hard working person when I work with them.
And, if you need a house built quickly, and your choices are to have a crew of thirty from management, or from labor, there is only one way to get the house built.
If you assemble a team of thirty workers together, with no management, a couple of the workers will show their managerial skills.
If you assemble thirty managers together, a couple will show that they have labor skills.
If you need a job done, what do you need more of?
Unions are more vital when things are going bad.
Look, who gains from having massive unemployment levels?
Is it the government, who has to find a way to help millions out of work, or expect crime levels to bring the government down?
Is it the workers, who will do just about anything just to find even the crappiest of jobs?
Or is it employers who now have hundreds of applicants willing to do just about anything, and accept just about any kind of treatment, for the crappy job that they are now offering?
Hard times are when worker solidarity is needed the most. Now, when the employers are at their greatest advantage, is when people need to demand be treated like a part of the team, instead of like tools that are cats aside when a cheaper tool comes along.
Stand together, as opposed to preparing to fight amongst ourselves for whatever scraps the owners are willing to allow us, or we can prepare to compete against the price of Chinese labor.
Who is ready to go to work for $1.25 an hour?
As for Wisconsin, raise taxes.
People demand to get their kids educated, but the teachers have to make a living.
We demand free usage and frequent repairs to our roads, but no one can do that work for free.
You have to pay the people to do the job. And you have to pay them right. The fact that someone is willing to do the job for less than what it takes to make a reasonable living should not factor in at all.
When Caterpillar Inc. had their last contract talks, the same type of offer was made, either take pay-cuts, or watch as the jobs moved away.
The UAW voted to accept the pay-cuts.
Then, the jobs went away, as threatened, anyway.
As a newer employee, I was laid-off for almost a year and a half. I got called back just before the plant moved the final part of their assembly line.
Had it not been for the number of UAW employees with higher seniority having retired, they would have been laying me off again.
Thank God I had enough seniority to cling to a job, because hard work makes no difference to large employers. They have no way to gauge that. Unless you want to count low-level managers' friendships as a measure of working ability.
Not only are owners willing to lie, cheat and steal to get what they want, it's basic practice.
But if a company can not compete while paying fair wages to employees, then they should not be competing. That includes every company that has moved operations overseas. If you have to move your operations to use slave labor, just to compete, then you should not compete.
Unions certainly play a part in pricing themselves out of business. Just as non-union labor does.
But taking wages that do not provide for the employees to a part of what America is all about is hardly something that any worker should be forced to do.
Make no doubt about it, employers are dying to get you to take the blame off of them, and focus it on the working men and women of the unions.
They can't wait to not have to pay fair wages to employees.Alls o that they can make a better profit for the stock-holders.
Good business, right?
Just remember that those are the same people who told us all that you have to work for everything you get. But, how hard does a stock-holder work for it?
The trick is to get other people to work hard for everything you get. Just ask a stock broker.