Labor Unions Preparing their Wish List -

[Stizzealth]

Landlord:

What, do you think I worship McCain or something?

[$tevie]

With 27 coal mines reporting, the average hourly wage for some of the key people at a surface coal mine are as follows: electrician=$25; mechanic=$24; welder=$24; helper=$22;oiler=$24; shovel operator=$25; drill operator=$23; truck driver=$23; and laborer=$21.

At underground coal mines, comparable people earn about a dollar to $2 an hour less. For example the average hourly rate in 2007 for underground coal mines: electrician=$23; mechanic=$23; welder=$22; helper=$21; and laborer=$21. Maybe the average is pulled down by these folk whom you do not find at surface mines: UG driller/shooter=$22; roof bolter=$23; UG loading machine operator=$22. Seems everybody tends to a wage of about $22 an hour.

http://technology.infomine.com/articles/....mine.aspx

[$tevie]

Notice how, in this article, I've constantly referred to 2007 figures? There's a good reason. In 2007, the Big Three signed a breakthrough contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) designed, once and for all, to eliminate the compensation gap between domestic and foreign automakers in the U.S.

The agreement sought to do so, first, by creating a private trust for financing future retiree benefits--effectively removing that burden from the companies' books. The auto companies agreed to deposit start-up money in the fund; after that, however, it would be up to the unions to manage the money. And it was widely understood that, given the realities of investment returns and health care economics, over time retiree health benefits would likely become less generous.

In addition, management and labor agreed to change health benefits for all workers, active or retired, so that the coverage looked more like the policies most people have today, complete with co-payments and deductibles. The new UAW agreement also changed the salary structure, by creating a two-tiered wage system. Under this new arrangement, the salary scale for newly hired workers would be lower than the salary scale for existing workers.

Make no mistake: The argument over a proposed rescue package is complicated, in no small part because over the years both management and labor made some truly awful decisions while postponing the inevitable reckoning with economic reality. And even if the government does provide money, it's a tough call whether restructuring should proceed with or without a formal bankruptcy filing. Either way, yet more downsizing is inevitable.

But the next time you hear somebody say the unions have to make serious salary and benefit concessions, keep in mind that they already have--enough to keep the companies competitive, if only they can survive this crisis.nefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?i...dfc3323682

The Return of the $70 Per Hour Meme

You might expect it from right-leaning commentators like Will Wilkinson. You wouldn't expect it from someone like Mark Perry, who lives in Flint, Michigan. And you certainly wouldn't expect to see it in the New York Times, from the likes of Andrew Ross Sorkin. But all of them are perpetuating the meme that the average GM worker costs more than $70 an hour, once you include health and pension costs.

It's not true.

The average GM assembly-line worker makes about $28 per hour in wages, and I can assure you that GM is not paying $42 an hour in health insurance and pension plan contributions. Rather, the $70 per hour figure (or $73 an hour, or whatever) is a ridiculous number obtained by adding up GM's total labor, health, and pension costs, and then dividing by the total number of hours worked. In other words, it includes all the healthcare and retirement costs of retired workers.

Now that GM's healthcare obligations are being moved to a UAW-run trust, even that fictitious number is going to fall sharply. But anybody who uses it as a rhetorical device suggesting that US car companies are run inefficiently is being disingenuous. As of 2007, the UAW represented 180,681 members at Chrysler, Ford and General Motors; it also represented 419,621 retired members and 120,723 surviving spouses. If you take the costs associated with 721,025 individuals and then divide those costs by the hours worked by 180,681 individuals, you're going to end up with a very large hourly rate. But it won't mean anything, unless you're trying to be deceptive.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mar...-hour-meme

[Mac1337]

$tevie wrote:
[If you take the costs associated with 721,025 individuals and then divide those costs by the hours worked by 180,681 individuals, you're going to end up with a very large hourly rate. But it won't mean anything, unless you're trying to be deceptive.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mar...-hour-meme

What is wrong with the formula? The individual worker may not get paid that much but it costs GM that much per hour. Who cares where the money goes?

[Black Landlord]

Stizzealth wrote:
Landlord:

What, do you think I worship McCain or something?

That's it? That's your response?

[Doc]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
[If you take the costs associated with 721,025 individuals and then divide those costs by the hours worked by 180,681 individuals, you're going to end up with a very large hourly rate. But it won't mean anything, unless you're trying to be deceptive.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mar...-hour-meme

What is wrong with the formula? The individual worker may not get paid that much but it costs GM that much per hour. Who cares where the money goes?
It doesn't cost GM that much per hour.

The fiction is that only the wages of present-day workers are used to pay for the benefits of all of the retirees.

If you're going to work it as an hourly wage/benefits equation then start with the premise that the cost of the retirees benefits originated with their hourly wages when they were working. After all, benefits are part of a person's employment package, aren't they?

The money for those retirees' benefits should have been going into a fund all along. A business that assumes worker-compensation as debt each year without paying it down is doomed to failure. It would be no more than a thinly-disguised Ponzi scheme.

[OWC Jamie]

<>

The union concession dual tier supposedly differentiates between assembly line help and non-assembly line help, with the assembly line workers retaining thier higher wages. The $70.00 per hour includes all benefits (which probably includes the per person electricity costs of the floor's soda machine) and most certainly is the pay wage of someone who is indespensable to the line - usually the guy who has been there for 20 years and can do every single job on the line - well.

[karsen]

$tevie wrote:
At underground coal mines, comparable people earn about a dollar to $2 an hour less. For example the average hourly rate in 2007 for underground coal mines: electrician=$23; mechanic=$23; welder=$22; helper=$21; and laborer=$21. Maybe the average is pulled down by these folk whom you do not find at surface mines: UG driller/shooter=$22; roof bolter=$23; UG loading machine operator=$22. Seems everybody tends to a wage of about $22 an hour.

http://technology.infomine.com/articles/....mine.aspx

You couldn't get me UNDERGROUND to do any of those jobs at ANY price. Coal miners are the toughest SOBs on the planet imo. I don't mind hard work, but I openly admit that I couldn't hack it down there. I'd have a panic attack from being confined underground and have to be dragged out.

[JoeH]

billb wrote:
<>

The union concession dual tier supposedly differentiates between assembly line help and non-assembly line help, with the assembly line workers retaining thier higher wages. The $70.00 per hour includes all benefits (which probably includes the per person electricity costs of the floor's soda machine) and most certainly is the pay wage of someone who is indespensable to the line - usually the guy who has been there for 20 years and can do every single job on the line - well.

The $70 per hour includes all benefits fro the current worker and the portion of money spent on pensions and pensioner health care. The retiree related costs should have been funded out by setting aside money over the years, but the auto companies sidestepped doing that. Now the bill is due.