UAW authorized Strike. Huge Demands!

[BadlandsA51]

This kind of sounds like...

Yup!

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[Jdc]

They didn’t aim for the moon they are shooting at Saturn

I’ve been trained in negotiating as it was a critical part of my job for 40yrs. Starting off with this ridiculous first offer makes it hard for the other side to take you serious at all.
Ex: I walk into a dealer that has a 2023 Bronco Badlands SAS. I offer them $43,900. What message does that send?
Make a very high but somewhat reasonable offer to start with.

I was a fly on the wall during a software contract renewal negotiation. My boss underbid the contract by an amount I thought they'd laugh at. It was a super awkward conversation and yet he got them to agree.
What you're ignoring is leverage. The dealer in your example loses nothing by rejecting your offer, but the big three have to balance the losses stemming from a strike with the union demands.

 

[BadlandsA51]

It doesn't work that way unfortunately. The only way the D3 can avoide the UAW is to take manufacturing to Mexico. If it were that simple ALL the plants would have been moved to Right to Work states. The union leaders are militant with the workers and as soon as Ford opens a plant in South Carolina you can bet the Union thugs would be bullying them to join.

I can't remember exactly how all the laws work with right to work states vs union states, but you will not get a D3 anything in the country that doesn't become UAW controlled.

The UAW contacts don’t allow the big three to open any plants without the UAW being in them. No bullying necessary.

 

[USSCajun]

Mexico here they come….

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Putting nuts and bolts into a vehicle on an assembly line isn't a 60k a year job, its sure as hell not a 100k plus a year job. Lets be realistic here.

Kind of curious as to your career and experience on industrial production lines.

 

[PeteG]

Kind of curious as to your career and experience on industrial production lines.

I am blue collar, a plumber for the last 24 years.

non-union, I tried that, hated it. The majority of the Union plumbers were extremely lazy. I wasn’t even allowed to move a paint bucket in order to do my work because “you move that paint bucket and you’re taking away money from the Union painters. Just put a request in for the paint to be moved, it shouldn’t take but a couple of hours and we’ll take a break until then”.

Its all a joke.

I make far more money than the Union guys today anyway, I’m paid on productivity, not on tenure.

 

[MTNLUV]

I was a fly on the wall during a software contract renewal negotiation. My boss underbid the contract by an amount I thought they'd laugh at. It was a super awkward conversation and yet he got them to agree.
What you're ignoring is leverage. The dealer in your example loses nothing by rejecting your offer, but the big three have to balance the losses stemming from a strike with the union demands.

Your situation may have been that the other side was making huge profits on you and you never realized it. And perhaps a new competitor may have just recently come in and offered a very low quote. This situation is very public. And never forget, labor never goes down, so they’re negotiating a forever increase. In some situations a strike is not a bad thing. If it lasts a long time is bad, for everyone.

 

[KyTruckPlant]

One thing to keep in mind as well, is that the UAW operates on 4 year contracts. The spending power of my $.60 after taxes (dollar) has declined in a very significant way in the past 4 years.

We gave up our cost of living allowances in '08 in order to help fund the pension fund for retirees (like my own dad) because the economy was so in the tank.

Keep in mind that of the big 3, only Ford didn't take a .gov handout, but those were very uncertain times. Ford stock got as low as $2.14 a share, and we didn't know if we were going under or not. We gave up plenty on our side to keep the boat afloat.

I didn't take econ in college so I'm a bit behind here. Don't you have to pay people enough to actually want to do the job? If you don't pay enough won't you have a high turnover rate which in turn causes the company to spend money retraining people. No one is going into an auto plant for $15.

We accepted a 2 tier wage structure, where it can take up to 8 years for a new hire to not only reach top pay, but to finally not be considered a "temporary full time employee". That's a long time to sweat your balls off in a dirty, noisy environment, doing the same work as some dude across the assembly line from you making double what you make.

The 4 year contract kind of screwed us here as well, since there was no way to boost starting wages in past couple of years as places like Chick-Fil-A down the street just about pays what you start at out here.

This kind of sounds like...

Walter Reuther was the guy that started the UAW. Prior to that he and his wife lived in Russia, in a time when Stalin was killing everyone who wasn't a good communist, so I'd say you are right on point with that!
It is frustrating as hell to be a good employee with a flawless record in one of these factories and watch the union bend over backwards to protect someone with such a poor work ethic that I would be happy to fire them myself.

Did the UAW members get full pay during the Covid shutdown, or full pay during the chip shortage? If so, that’s two years of not really working for full pay.

We did not get full pay. We drew unemployment benefits from the state, and was afforded some supplemental income from the company. When Uncle Sugar decided to double up when handing out unemployment some folks did a little better than they should. But that is on the .gov, and a contributing factor to the inflation we have today.


Believe me, I'm as frustrated with the UAW as all of you folks. But, having done this for 31 years now, from working on the assembly line, skilled trades, to now filling a role that bridges maintenance and IT, I personally am led to believe that it's not so much as our wages driving the increase in the price of our Broncos, as much as it is with all of the jobs that are necessary to keep up with all of the .gov regulations. There are hundreds of people in this building that their only purpose is to make sure that if OSHA or the EPA or any number of other .gov agencies come knocking, all of our t's are crossed and all our i's are dotted.

 

[BadlandsA51]

What’s really driving the cost increase on Bronco is the demand. From the manufacturer’s viewpoint, if you can’t build them fast enough, the price is too low. They are in business to make a profit and will do so without apologies. Nobody holds a gun to anyone’s head to buy a Bronco.
On the other hand, if they have product piling up, think Lightning, they have to drop the price $10K to move them.

 

[AttackGuy64]

During that same period, .Mil was pumping so much money into local economy housing at euro bases supporting that mission it priced the locals out of even the smallest apts. ( and had the highest fatality rate in usafe during that period. But that’s another story). Imagine being married and in your 30s having a full time job that used to support them with a couple of kids and having to live with mom and pop because the rent went from $500 a month to $2500 a month in under a year. Because that’s what Uncle Sugar will pay. We had several pipe bombs and a few grenades thrown over the fence into courtyards and such as a result of a pissed off populace.

Yeah, I remember base housing in Germany had guards at that time. Picketers would beat your car with their signs as you drove on base. Again, this just punctuates my point, local economies are fragile and if you dump large amounts of cash into them, anyone outside of the loop gets screwed. Similar to Europe, I got stationed in Colorado as an E-6 in the late 90's and went from having disposable cash to qualifying for food stamps.

 

[huey]

One thing to keep in mind as well, is that the UAW operates on 4 year contracts. The spending power of my $.60 after taxes (dollar) has declined in a very significant way in the past 4 years.

We gave up our cost of living allowances in '08 in order to help fund the pension fund for retirees (like my own dad) because the economy was so in the tank.

Keep in mind that of the big 3, only Ford didn't take a .gov handout, but those were very uncertain times. Ford stock got as low as $2.14 a share, and we didn't know if we were going under or not. We gave up plenty on our side to keep the boat afloat.



We accepted a 2 tier wage structure, where it can take up to 8 years for a new hire to not only reach top pay, but to finally not be considered a "temporary full time employee". That's a long time to sweat your balls off in a dirty, noisy environment, doing the same work as some dude across the assembly line from you making double what you make.

The 4 year contract kind of screwed us here as well, since there was no way to boost starting wages in past couple of years as places like Chick-Fil-A down the street just about pays what you start at out here.


Walter Reuther was the guy that started the UAW. Prior to that he and his wife lived in Russia, in a time when Stalin was killing everyone who wasn't a good communist, so I'd say you are right on point with that!
It is frustrating as hell to be a good employee with a flawless record in one of these factories and watch the union bend over backwards to protect someone with such a poor work ethic that I would be happy to fire them myself.


We did not get full pay. We drew unemployment benefits from the state, and was afforded some supplemental income from the company. When Uncle Sugar decided to double up when handing out unemployment some folks did a little better than they should. But that is on the .gov, and a contributing factor to the inflation we have today.


Believe me, I'm as frustrated with the UAW as all of you folks. But, having done this for 31 years now, from working on the assembly line, skilled trades, to now filling a role that bridges maintenance and IT, I personally am led to believe that it's not so much as our wages driving the increase in the price of our Broncos, as much as it is with all of the jobs that are necessary to keep up with all of the .gov regulations. There are hundreds of people in this building that their only purpose is to make sure that if OSHA or the EPA or any number of other .gov agencies come knocking, all of our t's are crossed and all our i's are dotted.

I appreciate the honest feedback from a union guy that has years on the job. I have been into many assembly plants for OEM's, especially Ford visiting as a supplier, including KTP. I am always surprised at what I see inside regarding work ethic. That is not to say all union guys are lazy, it's easy to see that everywhere - whether the workplace is union or not.

I have many family members who work in plants that are unionized, they tell me the union does protect anyone who chooses to or becomes lazy. Whether that local has a handful or many lazy workers, this helps give the unions the bad name, which it deserves as long as it protect the lazy and makes crazy contract demands

 

[huey]

Yeah, I remember base housing in Germany had guards at that time. Picketers would beat your car with their signs as you drove on base. Again, this just punctuates my point, local economies are fragile and if you dump large amounts of cash into them, anyone outside of the loop gets screwed. Similar to Europe, I got stationed in Colorado as an E-6 in the late 90's and went from having disposable cash to qualifying for food stamps.

@AttackGuy64 BTW - thank you for your service!

 

[KyTruckPlant]

I appreciate the honest feedback from a union guy that has years on the job. I have been into many assembly plants for OEM's, especially Ford visiting as a supplier, including KTP. I am always surprised at what I see inside regarding work ethic. That is not to say all union guys are lazy, it's easy to see that everywhere - whether the workplace is union or not.

I have many family members who work in plants that are unionized, they tell me the union does protect anyone who chooses to or becomes lazy. Whether that local has a handful or many lazy workers, this helps give the unions the bad name, which it deserves as long as it protect the lazy and makes crazy contract demands

I had a family member (not my previously mentioned dad) that worked at one of the plants I worked at who was one of the ones I would have fired myself.
It sucks working somewhere where the most you'll make is the same as those that are the worst among you. I've said for those 31 years that 10% of the folks do 90% percent of the work, but I've no doubt that is close to true in all places.

I've heard from folks around here, that it used to be, in Louisville, that getting a job at Ford was like getting a golden ticket, because wages and benefits were so much better than anywhere else around. Back when that was still true, we could get rid of folks pretty easily because there was a line of folks that were wanting to get in the door. Last year was the first time in my years that we had "Now Hiring" signs out in front of the plant, begging for people to come to work. Stagnant wages causes folks to leave outright, or to leave on a whim because it just isn't worth the headache, or backache, or whatever ache this place causes you. No, higher wages won't instantly make the quality charts turn around, but managed correctly it could over time.

I've worked in multiple plants in multiple RTW states, but have always been a member and paid my dues, but I despise the corruption that the UAW always falls back into. I despise them for voting themselves a raise at the international level when the workforce had been years without a raise. I despise them handing out my money to politicians that I disagree with philosophically. I despise them supporting causes, and handing out members' dues to things that have nothing to do with automotive manufacturing. I despise that they somehow wrapped child-care workers into a union that has nothing to do with auto manufacturing. A necessary evil, because if I want my wages to catch up with the rest of economy, I have to rely on them for it. Sure, I could retire and go somewhere else... to be the low man on the totem pole getting every crap assignment, or being the first one on the bubble when it comes to layoffs, but I'm here.

 

[KyTruckPlant]

you must be Union.

not a story, it happened, and it still happens.

Lazy entitlement. Not all Union guys, but there’s a lot of them, and something tells me that you’re one of them.

thanks for your comments, a liar is one that typically accuses others of their own traits.

He may not believe you, but I certainly do, and have plenty of stories I could add.

 

[Phil Brown]

He may not believe you, but I certainly do, and have plenty of stories I could add.

with 43 yesrs in construction as a carpenter the "lies" as there called most certainly do have some truth behind them. Not all but I've seen enough of that kind of BS to make you wonder about Unions.
Job protection is one thing, but it does go too far sometimes

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