[UPDATE: Automotive News [sub] reports that Linc workers voted “overwhelmingly” to authorize a strike, noting
With the strike authorization, the local can send notice to LINC that workers could strike after five business days if progress isn’t made toward a contract.
Ninety-eight percent of the 88 workers who voted yesterday agreed to authorize a strike, a representative at the union hall said this morning.
We’ve been watching the drama at GM’s Lake Orion plant unfold for some time now, as an “innovative labor practices” agreement between the UAW, GM and the government has already drawn UAW protests and NLRB complaints, as well as increased backlash against the union’s two-tier wage structure. Thus far GM had been able to prevent Tier One workers from being forced into the second tier, by shuffling them off to the Flint HD pickup plant. But with GM’s truck inventory soaring to “Old GM” levels, Flint is being idled, and those “Tier One Gypsies” are once again facing the choice between moving to some other plant or accepting a 50% paycut to return to Orion. And now, another labor issue is raising its ugly head, as Crainsdetroit reports that
About 125 workers for a critical supplier [Linc Logistics] inside the General Motors Co. Orion Assembly Plant are taking a strike authorization vote today as a means of accelerating contract talks.
GM has been tooling up Orion for production of its Sonic subcompact, which replaces the Aveo, ahead of a launch this fall. But the supplier workers, who are being paid even less than the second-tier GM hourly assembly workers, may just be able to wreak havoc on The General’s launch schedule.
The Linc workers agreed, by card check, to join the United Auto Workers this spring. So far the UAW has been unable to negotiate a contract with Linc, said Pat Sweeney, president of UAW Local 5960. The local represents hourly workers at Orion and workers from the third-party parts suppliers operating there.
The union is fighting for what it calls a “living wage” for Linc workers, who currently earn less than $10 an hour, the UAW’s Sweeney said. The straight-time annual wages for a worker earning $10 an hour is $20,800, less than the federal poverty line for a family of four.
Sweeney said a strike authorization would give the UAW the option to strike after a short waiting period, although the union wants to resolve the issue without a work stoppage. He said the number of Linc employees at Orion could double by the time the plant reaches full production.
Not only does the Linc workers’ move towards a strike vote inflame GM’s hottest labor trouble spot, but the “innovative labor practices” at Orion also mean the workers there are more likely to take a stand with their recently-unionized supplier bretheren.
GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said the automaker does not expect the strike authorization vote and UAW’s negotiations with Linc to affect the Sonic launch.
But it’s unclear how many UAW workers at the assembly plant would be willing to cross a picket line if a strike is called…
Orion has about 800 traditional workers, 500 of the entry-level workers and 200 people employed by the parts suppliers. Other GM plants have only a handful of entry-level workers, if any.
With the market moving towards smaller cars, GM had better hope that the Linc dispute doesn’t snowball into a wider disruption at Orion, but the high percentage of lower wage workers, and the plant’s history of rancorous labor relations make conflict highly likely. And based on GM North American boss Mark Reuss’s comments on the matter, it appears that The General’s management is in denial about just how charged the Orion workplace is [Ed: Do you work at Orion Township? TTAC wants to hear from you. Please drop us a line at our contact form]. We’ll be watching this latest flare-up closely to see if it touches off the powderkeg that the bailout-era “innovative labor practices” set to smoldering.
Hey, is that Ric Ocasek from The Cars?
My thought exactly!
Edward….A lot of times the local has in own web site. Sometimes there is even a “non union sactioned” message forum.
I’m too busy right now or I would do some digging.
If you watch the video, the folks interviewed seem mostly concerned about keeping Orion going. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the autumn.
I hear ya, geo, IMHO “keeping the place going” will override all.
I really hope that some day, rust belt employees will wake up to the realization that $38/hr (total compensation – wages and healthcare) can support a manufacturing job below the mason dixon line.
The north can use Timken and Milliken as great examples on how to keep your plants union free, shut down inefficient union shops and keep your employees happily employed with competitive manufacturing sites. There’s a reason why manufacturing has shifted to the south and forced the rust belt’s self entitled ‘blue collar’ workforce to sell their lake houses and snow mobiles.
The thrilling thing about this sequence of events is unions workers are going to directly affect the union worker (owners) of GM. Remember the UAW was given board seats (and ownership) on the new GM. The UAW is part of management now. Let the follies begin!
Any ideas if there are other suppliers who can deliver the products? I know this vehicle will be built elsewhere, so it might be interesting if parts are shipped in to build the cars.
The UAW employees who work for at GM and not the supplier are under a no strike clause. This will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
The Orion Assembly Plant held a public open house just yesterday guided by plant employees. Work stations of suppliers such as Linc are integrated into the manufacturing system in an innovative new arrangement. It was fascinating and remarkable to hear a UAW employee explain that these jobs were once GM UAW jobs, but the necessity to create a competitive enterprise through such means is understood. Quite a different tune than many expect from UAW members. Most of these folks were laid off for 26 months and are simply delighted to see the plant up and running again. The wooden practice assembly line was used to reacclimate returning employees to general line practices. It is rather unusual looking!
Only new hires are being paid at tier 2 rates as GM has found places for tier 1 rate employees in other plants. Over time, their ranks will thin through attrition as more employees retire. I recall the average seniority of UAW employees being around 26 years in the late ’90’s.
This 82 air conditioned acre factory was one of a number of greenfield plants built by GM in the early ’80’s as they spent more than the cost of the Apollo space program to develop and build CAFE mandated smaller cars. The plant has been completely re-designed inside with a bit less than 1/2 being used for Sonic and Verano production. Plant managment is pursuing other products in hopes of utilizing the whole facility.
Linc union action’s will have a big influence on the success or failure of this innovative new system that is an enabler for GM to be the first and only carmaker to build a subcompact in America.
“It was fascinating and remarkable to hear a UAW employee explain that these jobs were once GM UAW jobs, but the necessity to create a competitive enterprise through such means is understood.”
Yet so ironic that their own cancerous organization is responsible for possibly shutting the place down through organization of said ‘competitive enterprise.’ Everyone will always vote for more money, and they’ll keep voting for themselves until they push their plant to a more competitive landscape and push themselves into a “Michigan Works” waiting line.
Yeah, they should just take their non-living wages and be happy with them, while the company makes billions in profits. Silly them.
You’re right. They should keep voting money into their pockets until we have another vacant eyesore to look at in MI. Drive down woodward, I75 Flint to I94 in Flatrock and look out the window. Silly MI, thinking that ‘tribal knowledge’ isn’t replaceable by fresh foreign soil or a hard working southerner. I’m not saying $10/hr is fair, but if it wasn’t fair, why would they have applied for the position in the first place? I don’t take a job and expect to get paid more. I try my best at work and if I get more, I’m thrilled. No one forced them into these positions.
Last time I checked, Linc isn’t making billions. So WTF are you talking about?
FreedMike,
Who said anything about a non-living wage? I’m involved in an investment group buying rental properties in depressed areas of the country, and the rents are about what people pay for cable and internet here. If a single guy can’t live off of $21K while paying $300 for rent and getting to work in a beater car, then there are reasons beyond his wage. Did you notice that they trotted out ‘family of four’ to overstate the plight of the worker? Who supports a family of four with an entry level wage? If they’ve made choices that put them in a situation where they had to, how is that their employer’s fault? Here’s an idea, how about if both parents work? Mine did. A living wage doesn’t mean being the best customer at the Polaris dealer, paying for a cocaine habit, shopping for vacation properties, or driving a $50K pickup truck. Sorry that the UAW lied to you.
@CJinSD
Wow. $300 rent? Where on earth is that in the United States for a one bedroom where you’re not sleeping with bars on the windows and a gun under the pillow killing the free roaming cockroaches from the apartment next door. But since you think it is so easy to live on $21,000 a year CJ.
$1,750 a month before taxes
6.2% SS Security tax = $108.50 a month
9.0% Federal Income tax = $157.50 a month
2.0% State Income tax = $35 a month
Individual health insurance premium for health, dental and vision = $120 a month, employer provided, employee contribution
2.0% 401K contribution = $35 (dude, you talked about life decisions and doing the right thing)
$1,294 take home wages per month
RENT: $300 a month (ya right but OK, I’ll use your number)
GAS: You said beater car, but well go with an early 90’s Honda Accord 4-banger and say combined city/highway MPG is 25 – driving national average of 13,000 miles a year at $4 a gallon = $173.33 a month
AUTO & RENTER INSURANCE: $70 a month ($50 for car, liability only, $20 for apartment – again, personal responsibility
FOOD: Not eating out, grocery store, say $5 a meal, three meals a day (pack lunches, never go out to eat). Again, you said personal responsibility, now we could make our worker a fat, diabetic slob with an unhealthy diet at $7 a day (try it CJ, try to eat on $7 a day three meals a day) – but we want them healthy right. This includes toliet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, shampoo, etc. etc. $454 a month
UTILITIES: Well assume we live in a tepid climate, keep the math cheap, all electric for heat/ac, water and sewer included with the rent. So say $50 a month for electric including heat, AC, and running the fridge, and well be really generous say that $300 a month apartment includes an in unit washer and dryer. Well go with the most basic cable TV package at $20 a month. We’ll go with the most basic internet connection at $20 a month. No land line, and a month-to-month cell phone plan through Virgin for $40 a month. Guy needs a phone – right – how can you even look for a job without a phone? So that adds up to $130 a month.
SAVINGS: $25 a month – you know for those emergencies
Now never mind the fantasy of the beater car that never breaks down, never needs oil, never needs tires, and the license plates are forever free and has no excise tax, or other property fees. Never mind the fantasy of a $300 a month rent in a safe one bedroom apartment that is clean, includes water, sewer and trash, and comes with an in unit washer and dryer. Never mind never needing clothes. Never get sick. Never go out. Never even rent a movie on Netflix. Never need a hair cut. Never break a plate. Never need a pot. No gym membership. No travel. Not even a trip to McDonalds. Even though you have health insurance you have deductibles – get even a simple chronic condition that requries medication and the co-pays now kill you.
In this dream world, this nirvana you’ve created at $21,000 a year – you are left with $142 a month for all of the above. You are replacing a pair of tires away from cash flow negative. You are getting the flu away from cash flow negative. You sure aren’t even going to be able to send mom a Christmas card – but hey – that’s being responsible baby!!! Shoot, at the savings rate and disposable income number how on earth did they buy the beater Accord in the first place? Or provide first/last and security for the apartment???
$21,000 a year in the United States is not a living wage, not even for one person. Move the rent to $500 a month and you can’t afford to live. I find it amazing how more and more people in America think everyone else is overpaid; except themselves.
@Holden: Sign me up for the $120/month health insurance.
I pay that much per week.
And we’re not (considered) old, my wife and I are under 50. No major health issues, except for old football injuries…
Anyone who thinks that the starter wages are low, you’re right. But there are two things to consider: it is a starter job that is probably worth not much more than that to the employer and the most important, the people in those jobs aren’t slaves. They can take the job and leverage the experience into a better job when one comes open. Besides that, if they didn’t unionize they might actually be judged by the quality of their work and get merit raises.
@Holden
Ditto on the health insurance. I consider my health insurance inexpensive at $233.33/mo. I’m lucky that I locked in my rate a few years ago. Obamacare lowered my rate as well. To get the same insurance now would be at least $100 more per month.
try it CJ, try to eat on $7 a day three meals a day
Macaroni and cheese is less than $1/box. Yogurt is 37 cents. I’m sure that with a budget of $50 I could buy enough staples, meat, produce and dairy products to eat rather well for a week. I might have to have leftovers a couple of times, but I won’t starve.
For $7 you can make a pot of spaghetti big enough for a family and have leftovers (mmmmmm leftover spaghetti, yummmy).
As for $300 rent, that’s about what’d cost to share a 2 bedroom apartment with one other person around here, maybe $350. I think my daughter pays $650 for her 2BR.
@Holden:
I worked in a plant making 12.75/hr in SC (~$26,000 per year). It was common place to have dual income families working on the line. If we didn’t cross the 36k threshold in wages after OT (I think it was 36k), we would hardly pay any taxes. Management made sure if we crossed it, that we worked enough OT to compensate the $5K or so increase in taxes, which was hardly worth it. Not everyone gets a posh life style. I made ends meet and could afford the little things like a jet ski to hit the lakes with. I think your perspective/experience is vastly different.
My point is: the work is going to move wherever it is cheapest, and if the company can’t feasibly do it, another will.
I’m back in detroit and housing is super cheap here. But the standard of living is skewed. Energy costs are a rip off. The weather sucks. Roads suck. Crime is high. There’s too much blight around here and it isn’t as safe so in my opinion, it’s better to send jobs down south. This place is hardly suitable for living if you can’t clear a job making $40k plus. The only reason why any manufacturing is left up here is because the unions have everyone by the balls and have kept these dinosaur plants in operation. There’s old school cultures in many facilities I’ve been to that would cause any plant in any other company in a right to work state to shut down. It’s amazing how much negativity exists in these sites. It’s sad and I wish people had as much perspective as I’ve been lucky enough to experience. It’s miserable and inefficient.
And ‘management’ and the unions share the responsibility as to why this area is a terrible place to live. It was a relationship born with violence so it’s fitting it’s come to this. I love the rust belt and it’s a damned shame there’s still this aura or self entitlement that just drives manufacturing into the ground.
It’s not often I agree with CJ (or disagree with Holden), but I think he has a point. Hell, you can buy a house in Pontiac right down the road from Orion, for $5k.
$10/hr is the starting wage. It’s better than WalMart. Get a roommate or two.
That job would be in Korea or Mexico if it weren’t for the agreement that all parties agreed too.
The consumer society model breaks down when you figure out what percentage of consumer products are made in the US. Obviously, HoldenSSVSE has binged on the entitlement KoolAid, but nobody is rounding up people and making them slave in a factory in the US. People take jobs because their other options are not better. Maybe you need roommates working as a drone in the beginning of your career. Maybe you really can’t eat out at places where they bring you your food, or watch recent movies in HD using only a remote control. We make our choices and we take our rewards. The alternative really is slavery.
I lived very well on less than $21k a year when I was a student <10 years ago.
No debt, no help, no source of funds besides my job; and I had what I considered to be a very good quality of life and saved enough each year to go on vacation.
I rented a room in a nice house in a safe neighborhood for $200 a month with utilities included; in a midsize midwestern city. No need for your own apartment – that alone would free up several hundred dollars from your budget each month.
My income has increased dramatically since I graduated, but I still probably don't spend much more than $7 to feed myself on a normal day.
And seriously, nobody needs cable. If you're struggling to make ends meet and are paying for premium TV service, you're doing it wrong.
+1
OK, so take $20 a MONTH off for not “premium” cable – $20 a month is going to get you the local affiliates, Discovery, the Weather Channel and the local yokel watch the town meeting channels. Nothing premium.
Your $21000 in 2001 would require $27000 today adjusting for CPI! You’re looking back with nostalgia of your days renting a room from 10 odd years ago as if the price of nothing has gone up. We also aren’t talking about a college student, as you were, happy in a room, we’re talking about a fulltime employee working on a job where the discussion is $21,000 a living wage in 2011.
My “person” in the above example also had zero debt, I didn’t list any car payments, student loans, credit card debt, fixed debt, or anything else.
Lets explain this in the most simple of terms. America is a consumer oriented economy. Seventy percent of our GDP comes from consumer spending. A lot of that consumer spending is tied to the so called American dream of owning a home. If the new world order in America is living in poverty one broken arm away from bankruptcy with almost no savings is going to be the new world order. If the new America is people renting rooms and living off of $7 a day to eat then who is going to buy the consumer goods to fuel the economy? Who is going to pay into the tax base to fund the government? Where is future growth going to come from.
I get we need to be globally competitive and sweetheart deals with union bosses to pay people $50 plus an hour after wages and benefits to do nothing is the other extreme – but there has to be a balance. If not the economy is going to collapse on itself. If that day happens, and you think your snug in your six-figure job with a major corportation you’re very wrong. They’ll toss your butt out on the street and replace you with an employee in a profitable emerging market; it’s already happening as it is.
You can’t live on $21,000 a year in 2011 America.
Clearly, you and I are approaching this from very different perspectives. “Premium” TV service is TV service that costs any amount of money, and it is a luxury – not a need.
I haven’t even had a TV since I moved out of my parent’s house a decade ago – I don’t think I’m missing very much. I’m surprised that you think somebody who is “living in poverty” should own a TV or pay for TV programming of any sort.
Read what I wrote again, I said less than $21k less than 10 years ago. It was closer to $17k in 2005, which is less than $21k in 2011 any way I compute it.
You don’t get to stop living like a poor student because you grow up and “deserve” nice things and a good income. You stop living like a poor student because you convince somebody to pay you more money. Unionizing and striking used to be an effective way to do that. Nowadays, it doesn’t seem to work so well.
Unionizing and striking was done because children were working in the clothing mills as “monkeys” getting snagged in the looms and torn to pieces. People were indebted to the mills through the company store and were basically trapped in indentured servitude. Silly stupid concepts like fire escapes, proper training for the job, ventilation, light, and basic protection for fingers, toes, eyes, and ears were completely ignored. I too long for the good old days when workers rolled in absestos, got burned to death in pots of boiling iron, where women died in their twenties from making matches due to sulphur poisoning, and workers burned to death by the hundreds because really basic safety was complete ignored.
THAT is the legacy of unions. Today we sit in well lit, ventilated, safe working environments. But along the way the unions mission was done – but they still needed a “reason” to exist. That reason has now become as calcified and crooked as the system they fought against at the turn of the previous century.
Have we already forgotten our early history? Henry Ford paid a LIVING wage, far more than most manufacturing jobs to attract the brightest and the best.
CJinSD loves to throw out the entitlement Kool-Aid card – niiiice. Nowhere have I ever said anything about entitlements. Hey CJ, care to compare 1040s from last year, top 5% wage earner and I even had to pay into AMT. A bleeding heart hippie liberal I’m not. But I am a student of economics and this country is on an incredibly dangerous slope of becoming a nation of, “do you want fries with that,” and, “may I help you.”
As the living waged jobs get chipped away, and not replaced, as we’re already seeing, the economy is going to flounder. People like me who essential pay the taxes of the $21,000 a year workers out there will have the screws put on us further. I’d rather they be paid a living wage and instead of arse raping me at tax time, they contribute to the system. A national economy where 50% of the wage earners don’t even pay into the federal tax roles is reaping a disasterous harvest. If the US government followed the same accounting rules the require corporations like General Motors to follow – this country would already be completely insolvent. We just keep printing money and moving the goal posts to “solve the problem,” and kick it further down the curb.
When it all comes down like a house of cards, my job, your job, all of it is at risk. Think Greece or Iceland – only worse because then we’ll be answering to our Chinese overlords and supplying THEM with cheap goods at the fair market value that the Chinese peoples and currency dictates. Give it another 25 years on our path, and this great Republic will be a shadow of itself.
Entitlement Kool-Aid – I’m getting madder the more I think about it. How about someone else step up and carrying the damn load. $21K a year is not a living wage.
If you think it is go ahead and show me in your break down. You can touch the top line of taxes and insurance and you have to show at least 2% in retirement savings and 2% in e-fund savings. You have to fund a beater car with an average of 25 MPG and a driving average of 13K a year (that was CJ’s model).
CJ also talked about responsibility. So you need to provide health insurance, renters insurances and liability only auto insurance. Fine, cut out $20 a month for TV. No stealing internet from the neighbor, and in 21st century America you’re not going to convince me or anyone else that internet access is a necessity. Go to the library, OK, bulk up the mileage on the car because that’s going to take more time. And what happens with budget cuts and the library is closed, or the computers are broken???
You know who thinks you can live on $21K a year as an adult. Anyone who hasn’t actually tried it. The other brain surgeon post above was how easy it is to live on $7 a day. Lets see Kraft Mac & Cheese. Yes a box of fat and empty carbos – so healthy. For dinner, spaghetti, a box of empty carbos covered in sodium laden cheap tomato sauce. Ya – real healthy eating there. As I said, we didn’t want to kill off our dear citizen or make them fat.
Think it is so easy to eat on $7 a day? Hey, take the hunger challenge then.
http://www.uwkc.org/news-events/event-calendar/haw/hunger-challenge.html
Show me children being eaten by clothing looms and I’ll join you on the picket lines. Hell, show me anyone working on a clothing loom in the US. The unions shut them down, increasing all the real problems that you mentioned in your post. Maybe some day you’ll see the connection, but I’m not holding my breath.
CJinSD apparently failed reading comprehension in school also.
Where did I say that kids were getting ripped apart in textile looms in the United States TODAY – or even recently??? Where on earth did I say that???
Globalization shut it down – where do you think your Nikes came from? Kipchogie will be 10 next week but hey better them then us. Oh wait, we’re on a path to flip it around. Too bad you won’t see it until its too late and your children children’s are the ones working the looms, paying 40% income tax to a calcified, irrelevant government.
“Unionizing and striking was done because children were working in the clothing mills as “monkeys” getting snagged in the looms and torn to pieces.”
The obvious point I was making is that there are no longer US children getting ripped apart in textile factories, so we don’t need strikes any longer. We have too many people out of work, and we’ll only have more if we further drive up costs domestically. It is true that we have little influence over working conditions where all the things we no longer make are now made. Why don’t we stop driving production overseas with ridiculous demands for compensation? If you don’t think they’re ridiculous, then you must be perfectly happy paying huge taxes on your income to a government that is consuming the economy as an ever greater percentage of Americans become entitlement dependents or government employees whose productive days are forever over.
@CJinSD
And thank you for making my point that you failed reading comprehension – twice now. From my same post, I’ll repost it to get it through your head…
“…But along the way the unions mission was done – but they still needed a “reason” to exist. That reason has now become as calcified and crooked as the system they fought against at the turn of the previous century…”
But along the way the unions mission was done. See – WE AGREE.
But they – they as in the union, still needed a “reason” and I put reason in quotes because they didn’t have much of a reason to exist in the post-war era but they created them. See – WE AGREE.
Now what did I write – a third time to get it through your head.
“…That reason has now become as calcified and crooked as the system they fought against at the turn of the previous century…”
I don’t know how I can word it any stronger.
But the part you’re ignoring is workers rights are swinging the other way in this country, and we’re applauding that change. Oh we get pissed off when we hear about the Wall Street architects our financial collapse getting nine-digit annual bonuses, but again, everyone in this country thinks everyone is overpaid, except themselves. This me me me view of the world is going to destroy this country.
If we don’t change the path we’re on 25 years from now we’ll be well on our way to becoming a crumbling second world nation and the Chinese, Indians, and Brazilians in that order will be calling the shots.
I’ve already made the conclusion that retirement for my generation will be basically impossible; we’ll need to keep working as social security completely collapses and stagnant investment growth due to stagflation, along with a decade plus of housing prices stuck in the mud makes growing a retirement nest egg very difficult – never mind the coming massive federal tax increases to pay for far less of what we get. That means the next generation is going to have to wait for me to become to old, feeble, or literally die to take my job – and I’ll have to be willing at some delta point to take less and less of a wage.
We have a sad future ahead of us
Holden, actually you did say that unions were needed to keep chilren from being killed. Using that as a reason leads the reader to believe that you think that will happen again without unions even though you didn’t come out and say it. So you did imply that. I think that’s what they call the old straw man arguement. You can’t make a good case for unions without resorting to that, you should give up. Also, congrats on doing so well in an unfair, unjust society. Now you need to donate everything in excess of you basic needs to the IRS or the poor before I take your class-warfare crap seriously.
@Dr olds…..Thanks for telling the real story. For many here it won’t register. The message isn’t 100% lost, there is some of the B&B that can think for themselves.
@mikey- You are welcome. It was ironic that I hit TTAC the day after the open house at the Orion plant.
….Here’s an idea, how about if both parents work? Mine did. A living wage doesn’t mean being the best customer at the Polaris dealer, paying for a cocaine habit, shopping for vacation properties, or driving a $50K pickup truck. Sorry that the UAW lied to you…
Wow, that was pretty sad, CJ is implying (here and in other posts) that union folks are drug addicts that waste their money on snowmobiles, pickups, vacations and that all families should have to have both parents working. Remember when George Bush was talking to a woman who worked three jobs just to keep her daughter fed. George’s response was “wow, how uniquely American that is”. Man, three jobs just to survive. That is not the America I want. No doubt the income of two of those jobs were to pay for the cocaine, eh CJ? I just can’t fathom the hatred you have for “working class” people. You talk of them as if they are all lazy drug using subhuman pieces of crap that are “tumors” and deserve to die. In college I had an assignment that I had to integrate myself with a working class poor family. For three days I lived with them. Being that I was raised in a rather well-off family the experience was quite a shock. These were honest, hard working people who were struggling to survive and the one and only thing they saved for was to send the oldest child to college in hopes that their child would break out of the poverty cycle. I looked at working people very differently since then.
Sorry golden2husky. I wasn’t raised in a rather well-off family, so people having to earn a living and set priorities doesn’t constitute a reality check for me.
“GM to be the first and only carmaker to build a subcompact in America”
First? All the Americans who built Chevettes, Rabbits, Omnis, Escorts, Cavaliers, Civics, Corollas, Sentras, etc. might differ on that point.
True. While the cars still in production from your list have grown to be considered compacts, there is no way to go back in history and turn the Chevette into a compact.
Oops! I stand corrected. First was a poor choice of words. I forgot about Chevette and the others. I do think Sonic is the only car of its class being built in America today, as Civic, for example is now bigger than the original Accord.
I’m not writing here to side with either party on this labor issue, but it seems pretty dumb to me that after you’ve finally, finally gotten GM to actually build small cars in America and not Korea or Mexico or Timbuktu, you consider going on strike, at a time when doing so could threaten the launch date of said car.
The segment is cutthroat and the Aveo was never particularly competitive. Chevy needs the Sonic bad, and it needs it now. I don’t care how, but work it out, people!
Well, thats the UAW for you, and unions in general, never misses a chance to shoot itself in the foot while milking the Co. for all its worth. The Union leaders don’t give a crap about making cars, they care about more wages, and therefore more dues.
The only reason Orion got the Sonic in the first place was b/c the union agreed to allow the mix of wages – otherwise known as the “innovative labor practice”.
The car is already coming out of the box more expensive than Fiesta and the Mazda2 – this could not only get ugly but Very expensive with no known manufacturing plan B.
Maybe Daewoo has excess capacity. Don’t they build the Aveo?
One of these days someone in GM is going to grow a pair and just shut a plant down and move it somewhere were the UAW isn’t. It seems no one ever taught these union reps ‘a man reaps what he sows’ in sunday school I guess.
Plan B; San Luis Petosi, Mexico. Plan C Bogota Colombia.
With the real unemployment rate where it is that’s a ballsy move. And by ballsy I mean stupid. The workers are now just taking advantage of GM’s implied govt bail out guarantee.
It would be interesting to know what the potential strikers want. At $10/hr and the ability to delay Sonic production I can’t imagine a better time for those workers to increase their wages.
Old GM management has been over this barrel many times before, given how little difference there is between the old and new GM one would think that someone would have seen this oh so typical bit of arm twisting as a possibility. This is what got them in such a mess to begin with. No, of course not, the UAW is still making the old management dog do the same old tricks. That is the only reason why this is going on, it worked before, and it will work again.
Less than $10/hour isn’t much but in an area with 15-20% unemployment these people should be happy with what they’ve got. I’m sure there would be a line around the block for these jobs at their current wages should they happen to come available. Then of course you have Mexico where they’d gladly do the job for a dollar an hour.
Okay….boy&girls “labor negotiations 101″… a strike mandate of less than 95% is unheard of.
It means squat.
Its just a little bit of rhetoric. Think of a couple of boxers,trash talking at a pre fight press conference.
“Sabre rattling” would be a better anology.
We’ll see if you’re right. In the thread on UAW ‘performance pay,’ you said, “There will be no labor related UAW work interuption this fall. You can take that to the bank.” We’ll see if you’re right. With the melt down looming on the near-horizon, the UAW struck at the Malibu plant in May of 2008. There was strong initial demand for the Malibu, so they saw a pressure point instead of an opportunity to strengthen their employer’s chances of survival.
Your right CJinSD…. Though since May 2008 a lot of water has gone under the bridge. A good pecentage of the 2008 work force have taken taken the money and run.
For sure, there was indeed a little blip on the horizon in 2008. But with the possible exception of Robert Farago,nobody else knew how big that blips was. Certainly not the rank, and file,or for that matter the UAW/CAW leadership.
GM employees had already lost about 125,000 out of their peak of 349,000 jobs in the 25 previous years. You’d think they’d have seen a pattern.
The biggest manufacturing expense in the US is meeting government regulations on environmental impact. Mexico and China and most other non-European countries have lax environmental laws allowing for cheap manufacturing.
Labor is one of the least costly line items in US manufacturing.
Maybe people should be picketing the EPA instead of their employers.
George Bush comments on a woman working three jobs.
“You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. Get any sleep?”
Obama seems to have taken care of it. Now the average American has 0.8 jobs.
“The LINC workers agreed, by card check, to join the UAW…” Is “card check” that method the unions have been agitating for in order to bypass secret ballots and allow activists to “persuade” workers one by one to sign up?
What is LINC, anyway? Apparently it’s not GM.
First off I would like to comment on our pay, we make $9.00 an hour not $10.00 The reason we called a strike vote is they want to take us down to $7.87 an hour which is Poverty Level wages and get them back to the tables to continue talks. I am a 1 income home and it’s very tough on those wages making it work. I drive 400 miles a week to and from work and with the gas prices the way they are most my check goes right back into gas for the following week, not to mention rent, lights and gas, water, phone and TV bills I’m lucky to pay just to keep things on. I worked for this company for 3 1/2 years and went from making $12.65 an hour now well under that and to take another cut is just plain insane. I have read several comments that the jobs we do use to be done by GM employee’s and that couldn’t be further from the truth. GM employee’s Sequenced the parts we supplied them nothing more nothing less. We picked the parts and shipped them to GM and it’s been that way for the time I worked for this company. I don’t feel we are asking to much but to be able to survive and support ourselves and with what we are being offered we cant. The guy that owns our company is a Billionaire and he treats his workers like crap. there is way more to this story than anyone has a clue