2023 Auto Strike

[brycejones]

They sure did and they will also have to pay for it. Look at what happened to the Lightning plant and expansion plans. Ford is looking to cut them out of the company's future. Same can be said for Stellantis who also shed workers right after the contract.

Working for the company is a privilege not a right.

Hmmm…so your theory with the lightning is the issue is labor costs?!?

 

[Fenixgoon]

They sure did and they will also have to pay for it. Look at what happened to the Lightning plant and expansion plans. Ford is looking to cut them out of the company's future. Same can be said for Stellantis who also shed workers right after the contract.

Working for the company is a privilege not a right.

Yeah, why won't the lightning truck sell when dealers mark it up $20k on top of the already high MSRP? Those damn rogue workers messing up Ford's business plan!!

 

[iRONic]

Narrator: A tentative local agreement has been reached on a new contract. There will be no strike.

KTP won’t walk out

 

[akugami]

At first, I thought the auto-worker claims for more compensation were ridiculous. If you just look at it from a raw compensation perspective without looking at the overall situation. I'm pro-union but I'm of the belief that auto union workers are practically at the max of what the industry can sustain. However, I cannot fault some of their arguments for better pay and other types of compensation when you look at what the C-suits are being paid.

It all boils down to why should C-suits get increases of a gazillion percentage every few years, why they get paid scraps (relatively speaking). There's no reason Ford's CEO is paid $20+ million a year. GM's CEO is $29 million a year. It's just insane. The C-suits at times get 20+ percentage increases in annual compensation. The auto-workers have to fight tooth and nail to get not better compensation, but just the same increase in compensation.

There's also greed on the part of auto manufacturers. Lately, it seems they only produce high priced. I'd love to buy a new vehicle. Preferably a plug-in hybrid. But I can't justify spending $40k+ on a new car. And while I'm not rich, I can at least make the payments, if absolutely needed. How many other families can't even afford a new $20k car, much less one for $40k+ which is what it seems the industry is pushing us to. We need more options in the lower range that aren't complete shit.

We know the C-suits aren't going to cut their own pay. So the answer is simple. Move to a country with lower labor costs. Screwing over local economies. Because heaven forbid I reduce my salary from $20+ million a year to only $10 million a year so the little people can get a few more scraps. And that's just the CEO. We're not even including the rest of the C-suits yet.

I don't see the situation changing. There's no way the C-suits decrease their own salaries. The move to places like Mexico for car manufacturing is coming. It's not a probability but a certainty.

 

[Fenixgoon]

At first, I thought the auto-worker claims for more compensation were ridiculous. If you just look at it from a raw compensation perspective without looking at the overall situation. I'm pro-union but I'm of the belief that auto union workers are practically at the max of what the industry can sustain. However, I cannot fault some of their arguments for better pay and other types of compensation when you look at what the C-suits are being paid.

It all boils down to why should C-suits get increases of a gazillion percentage every few years, why they get paid scraps (relatively speaking). There's no reason Ford's CEO is paid $20+ million a year. GM's CEO is $29 million a year. It's just insane. The C-suits at times get 20+ percentage increases in annual compensation. The auto-workers have to fight tooth and nail to get not better compensation, but just the same increase in compensation.

There's also greed on the part of auto manufacturers. Lately, it seems they only produce high priced. I'd love to buy a new vehicle. Preferably a plug-in hybrid. But I can't justify spending $40k+ on a new car. And while I'm not rich, I can at least make the payments, if absolutely needed. How many other families can't even afford a new $20k car, much less one for $40k+ which is what it seems the industry is pushing us to. We need more options in the lower range that aren't complete shit.

We know the C-suits aren't going to cut their own pay. So the answer is simple. Move to a country with lower labor costs. Screwing over local economies. Because heaven forbid I reduce my salary from $20+ million a year to only $10 million a year so the little people can get a few more scraps. And that's just the CEO. We're not even including the rest of the C-suits yet.

I don't see the situation changing. There's no way the C-suits decrease their own salaries. The move to places like Mexico for car manufacturing is coming. It's not a probability but a certainty.

Don't forget the billions in stock buybacks.

IMO wages and benefits are investments in your employees. Same as any other kind of large "capital" investment

 

[akugami]

I'd like to clarify that I'm not mad that auto-workers want better compensation. My first reaction was thinking in terms of the average Joe who is told he should be happy with his 1 to 3 % annual wage increase.

But with how high the C-suite salaries are, the increase in compensation to auto-workers, and factoring in the increase in material costs, it seems like there doesn't seem to be a way for cars to be made in the USA that doesn't retail at a sky high price. And it doesn't seem like the car manufacturers care about making economically priced cars either.

As I said, I'm in the market for a new car. But I'm not desperate to buy one. With so many changes in car models lately, I feel like I should wait. I'm also lucky in that I can afford the monthly payments needed to buy a $40k+ car. The missus and I would have to scrimp here and there, but we can make it work. So many people do not have this luxury.

The average Joe has a problem making a living wage, much less a thriving wage. How are they going to be able to afford these $40k+ behemoths? Hell, they can't even afford a used 10 year old car at this point.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Job cuts, plant closures, production shifts and automation in coming at UAW facilities. Same is underway at the suppliers who felt pressure to raise wages by extraordinary large margins under UAW pressure. The current status quo is not sustainable.

 

[pcgeek11]

Job cuts, plant closures, production shifts and automation in coming at UAW facilities. Same is underway at the suppliers who felt pressure to raise wages by extraordinary large margins under UAW pressure. The current status quo is not sustainable.

Worked for a major worldwide automotive supplier (gas and diesel fuel injectors) as a electronics tech for 28 years (retired in 2022). Those last 12 years the automation has soared upwards at an amazing rate mostly due to computer, robotics, lasers and advanced vision inspection systems improvements. Life is still good for those people that maintain and repair those systems.

Inspectors, assemblers and operators not so good.

They are currently are getting into the EV market building the EV Motors...

 

[IronWing]

Job cuts, plant closures, production shifts and automation in coming at UAW facilities. Same is underway at the suppliers who felt pressure to raise wages by extraordinary large margins under UAW pressure. The current status quo is not sustainable.

I missed your posts covering excessive corporate officer compensation, skyrocketing health insurance costs, and share buybacks.

 

[akugami]

Worked for a major worldwide automotive supplier (gas and diesel fuel injectors) as a electronics tech for 28 years (retired in 2022). Those last 12 years the automation has soared upwards at an amazing rate mostly due to computer, robotics, lasers and advanced vision inspection systems improvements. Life is still good for those people that maintain and repair those systems.

Inspectors, assemblers and operators not so good.

They are currently are getting into the EV market building the EV Motors...

Sounds like the job markets just shift the work to another job type, based off what you said. So it's overall a wash, or only a slight decrease in the number of workers, and where they actually work in the chain. Instead of more physical laborers, it moves the job type to more technical work. Not to say physical laborers in something like automobile assembly and manufacturing isn't highly skilled work. I'm kinda OK with this, as long as in general, there are the same number of workers, even if the actual jobs are shifted to different areas.

I'm still of the opinion that building extremely expensive automobiles that push the very edge of affordability for general consumers is bad for everyone in the long run. Coupled with higher than sustainable C-suite salaries it just leads to an unsustainable cycle. What we're seeing is unaffordable cards leading to less car sales, which leads to less auto-workers. At the end of the day, the general auto-workers are the ones hurt, because the C-suites sure as hell aren't blaming themselves for their failures.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I missed your posts covering excessive corporate officer compensation, skyrocketing health insurance costs, and share buybacks.

That's all true at all facilities, however, if you were management where would you focus your attention at? If facilities A and B are both producing the same products but the UAW is raising costs at A making B the lower cost producer plus it has additional capacity available that could cover the products produced at A you are going to switch production to B and close A. I worked in manufacturing for over 16 years and witnessed this approach time and time again pitting plants against each other for orders.

If you have access to the logistics system and I did I would look at the orders coming down and see where they were going and when you see a particular facility's orders getting cut and/or their products being sent to another plant you become alarmed. I'm all for unionization and the benefits they bring to regular workers but sometimes you have to know where the line is and the UAW didn't care producing this result. When I was in the IAM they did a pretty good job of keeping things in check so the company and workers would mutually benefit from a contract.

 

[pcgeek11]

Well no that isn't how it is going at all.

The reduction in fuel injector production does get made up in the newer products EV Motor assemblies. Automation has taken over many of the jobs that existed on the assembly lines which are more and more automated.

For instance when I started the average assembly line workers were 2 setups, 4 operators and a pack-out person per assy. line.

When I left there were 1 or 2 setups on the line all other functions were done via a robot and vision system. They had roaming material handlers that kept the bins for the feeders filled with o-rings etc...

 

[brycejones]

The good news is when Kroger workers strike the CEO will be able to replace 135,000 of them based on his pay.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Job cuts, plant closures, production shifts and automation in coming at UAW facilities. Same is underway at the suppliers who felt pressure to raise wages by extraordinary large margins under UAW pressure. The current status quo is not sustainable.

Why is it always the wages that are being paid to the workers that is the problem and never the top management and owners who are raking in Millions every month?

 

[brycejones]

Why is it always the wages that are being paid to the workers that is the problem and never the top management and owners who are raking in Millions every month?

Some people just like to simp for millionaires and billionaires and blame workers for management failures.