Daily Thoughts

The gravy train has jumped the tracks, and the UAW is being toppled off of its throne. Just as the Steel Workers union and the Textile Workers Union destroyed their own industries, the UAW has just about done the same for the auto builders.

Auto workers in the American based Toyota and Honda factories make an average of $48 an hour in wages and benefits, as opposed to $70.51 for Ford, $73.26 for GM, and $75.86 for Chrysler. Even at this, the Japanese autos are better built, and they have kicked our butts where hybrid vehicles are concerned.

But the most outrageous statistics at all are these:

When a D3 (Detroit 3 carmaker) lays an employee off, that employee continues to receive all benefits - medical, retirement, etc., etc., PLUS an hourly wage of $31/hour.
Here’s a typical story….
Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working — on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.
“We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper,” he says. “Otherwise, I just sit.”
Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers as demanded by the United Auto Workers Union - UAW - as part of an extraordinary job security agreement.

In addition to this nonsense, retired workers also cost the company $31.00 an hour in pensions and benefits. That’s over $1240 a week, or almost $65,000 a year, per retiree. Since retirees now outnumber working employees 2 to 1, that’s quite a chunk of money.

Living in Florida, we have a lot of these retirees in our midst. Having lived here for 12 years, and worked in retail most of that time, I can tell you for a fact, that the retired Michigan auto workers are some of the rudest, most obnoxious people we have to deal with. They also have the strongest sense of entitlement. I guess that comes from making way too much money for way too long without having to get an education.

I, for one, will be happy to see the auto workers and the UAW get its comeuppance. It’s long overdue, and maybe it will humble some of these retirees that make our lives in Florida so miserable.

Sources:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?52,862419,862509
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm

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