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Bofferbrauer2 said:
Jaicee said:

So the United Auto Workers are on strike against General Motors now for the first time since 2007. (Live updates here.) It's the largest strike action against an American company to take place in the U.S. since...the last time the United Auto Workers went on strike against General Motors in 2007. Nearly 50,000 workers are participating, demanding better pay and health care benefits, job protections, expanded profit sharing, and more. GM workers made huge sacrifices during the company's bankruptcy proceedings amidst the Great Recession, but the company has returned to making tens of billions in profits since then and the workers are wondering why as much is not reflected in their pay and benefits.

Thanks mainly to a wave of teacher strikes, the largest number of work stoppages, and of workers participating in work stoppages, since the 1980s was seen last year, and total number of unionized workers increased for the first time in decades. This year's totals could be higher. It appears we are witnessing a new trend toward the revitalization of the American labor movement.

I've got no further comment except to say that I fully support this action and movement unequivocally. I hope this trend continues.

I'm happy to see that America finally sees the value of unions and how to use them.

Machiavellian said:

Yep, this will definitely make sure they move production out of the US as fast as possible.  They will institute some stopgate measure to get people back to work while they plan on moving production even more out of the US.  Should be interesting in the next 5 years how this all plays out.

If that was even remotely true, then Germany wouldn't have any car production plants for a long time anymore. But they still produce tons of cars, half as many as the US in fact, which are the second biggest producer after China.

Not sure what Germany has anything to do with the US or even GM for that matter.  I am talking specifically about GM themselves and what they have been doing lately.  Just Ohio alone shows that GM is shutting down plants even though they are making huge profits.  Workers going on strike, demanding more money when they are already closing plants probably making them feel they are making the right moves instead of the opposite.



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Machiavellian said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

I'm happy to see that America finally sees the value of unions and how to use them.

If that was even remotely true, then Germany wouldn't have any car production plants for a long time anymore. But they still produce tons of cars, half as many as the US in fact, which are the second biggest producer after China.

Not sure what Germany has anything to do with the US or even GM for that matter.  I am talking specifically about GM themselves and what they have been doing lately.  Just Ohio alone shows that GM is shutting down plants even though they are making huge profits.  Workers going on strike, demanding more money when they are already closing plants probably making them feel they are making the right moves instead of the opposite.

While GM is making big profits, these come from the increased sales... overseas! GM is growing very fast both in Europe and in South America and has a huge market in China (GM sells more cars in China than in North America). As a result GM, just like any car manufacturer would do, built a factory closer to the customers (which also allows them to design cars specifically for those markets), hence why the one in Ohio, among others (Michigan and Oshawa in Canada got axed too, along with 2 engine plants), simply got redundant. The closure and the strike have nothing to do with each other.

In the US, the sales had been slumping down the last couple years. GM sold 5M cars in the US in 1999, dropped to 2M after the financial crisis, yet could regrow from there. But in 2016, they barely breached the 3M line and slumped back below that afterwards. In 2018, it was just clear that they wouldn't reach those sales numbers anymore they reached in the 90's, and thus had way too much production capacities.

Long story short, GM may be rolling in cash, but that one doesn't come from US or north american customers, for whom those plants were meant for.



Uhhh GMs financials completely beg to differ with your statement about where their money is being made.

In 2018, they made a net profit of $8.1B. In North America, they had a $10.8B pre-tax profit. They even clarified that they made $423M pretax on ALL international earnings. 95% of their earnings are here.

Let it also be known that approximately $500M of bonus checks ($10-11k/employee) was provided to all of the US employees as a result of these earnings...so it isn't like GM is just leaving these union employees hanging. The employees, however, want even larger bonuses. They speak of how many concessions they made during the Great Recession...yet they didn't have to pay a single penny back INTO GM when they lost boatloads of money.

They literally want to suck the company dry during good times, but to still be employed and we'll compensated in the bad times.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

They got a portion of it. That is what their wage is. They then got even more of it when the company provided them with very generous bonuses. The rest of it should be going to shareholders, as it is a public company.

I rather disagree with your assumption that the employees are the only ones generating that profit. Executives also helped. The billions of dollars stockholders invested in them also helped. Government subsidies also helped.

Get rid of all of the above, and you would just have 45,000 unemployed people who never had a job in the first place.

It isn't like we are talking about people being paid $10/hour with no benefits for factory work here. We are talking $63/hr (which is over $120k/year) including benefits. I work for a profitable company too, yet I still think I'm well compensated despite making substantially less than that.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

You are stretching what I'm saying.

I feel the employees are well compensated. At no point did I indicate they should be paid even less or to get even smaller profit sharing (which really...is largely the same as a bonus. I have a bonus too, which is based entirely on the companies...profit. when the company makes no profit, just like profit sharing...I get no bonus).

I am saying that what is left...should absolutely be going to the shareholders, yes. You are clearly using the price of a single share to downplay what it means to be a shareholder and therefore trying to justify they don't deserve their portion of the profit as well. However, the more realistic scenario here is somebody invested $1,000 or say $2,000 into GM, and is being compensated with $44 or $88 in dividends. It's like saying a bank that loans somebody money shouldn't be paid interest because they didn't do the actual manual labor that made the company money.

Beyond all of this, let's not forget that these very auto unions that care so much about the employees literally just had several higher ups charged for embezzling money from the union. That certainly doesn't look good when you are trying to bargain for higher wages saying there just isn't enough being paid to you.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

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I guess my main issue with what you are going for is how you continue saying these employees deserve such a huge chunk of the profits that THEY generated. If they want that...then should they also pay back a portion of their earnings in years where GM loses boatloads of money? After all...THEY helped the company lose all of that money.

The stockholders absolutely got boned when their stock became completely worthless in the Great Recession. All I keep hearing is how incredibly much the employees gave up to help the Company then...but what the hell exactly did they give up? A raise for a year or two? I think most Americans (Union or not) gave up raises during the Great Recession. You hear stories of people even taking pay cuts.

So where were these great concessions made by these union workers? Many kept jobs, they continued to get paid extremely well. Despite the fact that THEY (hey you are giving them all the credit for current profits, so they should get credit for this too) led the company into a bankruptcy.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

Also keep in mind they are conveniently targeting the most profitable auto company first, and then want to base discussions with the other major companies (Ford and Fiat) based on what is agreed upon.

Kind of a scummy move in my opinion as these deals should be agreed on at the same time, and really should be looking at cumulative profitability to determine reasonableness, rather than what is fair for the most profitable company and then effectively forcing the other companies to comply with that.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

I will never understand all the cowards that will insist that a handful of assholes screwing over millions of people have every right to do so because "freedom", even as they're a part of the group that gets screwed over, and apparently our freedom doesn't matter. They think they're so profound because the state the obvious, that these assholes have a lot of power, and then back down from fighting them like a bunch of cowards and think that somehow just makes them smart, even as they pull the boot over their face and say "tread on me harder, Daddy!" They don't care who fucks with them as long as it isn't a government.



coolbeans said:
HylianSwordsman said:
I will never understand all the cowards that will insist that a handful of assholes screwing over millions of people have every right to do so because "freedom", even as they're a part of the group that gets screwed over, and apparently our freedom doesn't matter. They think they're so profound because the state the obvious, that these assholes have a lot of power, and then back down from fighting them like a bunch of cowards and think that somehow just makes them smart, even as they pull the boot over their face and say "tread on me harder, Daddy!" They don't care who fucks with them as long as it isn't a government.

I mean...you're free to directly contest what I'm saying--if that inspired you.  It wouldn't look like some embittered diatribe built on over-generalizations.  

I'm not even following that first sentence.  What's this structure of pejoratively placing freedom in scare quotes and then belting out "our freedom doesn't matter" in relation?  At what point was force applied to make this voluntary agreement?  The freedom to re-negotiate or walk is always there if said person feels undervalued.  And talking about getting "screwed over" in this context is...kinda questionable.  For all its faults, the UAW appears to be a collective that pushes for increased wages & benefits at a modest rate. 

The reason I responded to begin with came down to the context of the UAW in particular.  I just don't buy this whinging over companies being obligated to share their increased yearly or quarterly profits beyond their agreed-to negotiations.  Execs & higher-ups took a gamble that paid off; and if it didn't, they're still on the hook to pay all their workers negotiated wages (as they should).  

I'll be honest, I didn't even read your other posts. But sure, keep being a welcome mat for the corporate board room.



SpokenTruth said:
So GM just canceled health insurance for 46k workers.

$8 billion in profits (a record).
$0 paid in corporate taxes.
$104 million in tax rebates.
Closing 4 plants contractually obligated not to close).
15,000 employees laid off.

New employees took a pay cut in half to help bail out GM during the recession.

But keep telling me how the employees are just being greedy because they want their fair share of the profit sharing they are contractually obligated to have.

I wonder how much of those record profits are because of layoffs and gutting benefits/wages.  
This is why strong unions are necessary, and why corporate welfare isn't.