Community Forums

TXiceman · 12-21-2008, 03:42 PM

If you want a really nice medical and retirement plan, look the one that the senators and congressmen have made available for their elite group.

Ken

indiana journey · 12-21-2008, 04:20 PM

Before "30 and out" the average auto worker lived 2 months after retirement. Now, with "30 and out" that has increased. The average auto worker also has more than average problems with their joints, lungs, and hearing from the work which they preformed. These are why the UAW represented US auotworker retiree now have this benefit. The retirement fund is FULLY FUNDED for the current retirees as required by the federal government. Indiana Journey

hondo122 · 12-21-2008, 04:32 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lindsay Richards:
What is being done with Social Security is also wrong and will not wor either. Their poor example is one reason so many government organizations have made it illegal. I have told my daughter and son-in-law to never count on it as it will be gone by the time they get old enough. The only way the car companies can continue it is to grow drastically. Unfortunately they are shrinking drastically. I think everybody should be self dependant their whole life. Relying on the younger folks to pay your way at 55 years old is vey selhfish. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lindsay, I thought I made it clear our early pension is in the bank when we retire. No young people are paying mine, they are paying hourly for their future retirement. I agree it would scare me to death to have to count on the payments now for my retirement, in the construction industry there are just too many down cycles. We just had our retirees Christmas luncheon our business manager Ed Coryell stated that our funds lost under 6% in the financial crisis, which is much better than any pension fund I've heard of. He is on the board of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank Economic Advisory Council. The only labor leader in the country to hold that post.

Lindsay Richards · 12-21-2008, 04:49 PM

>>>No young people are paying mine, they are >>>paying hourly for their future retirement.

Once again Hondo, I know exactly what you said and have no reason to doubt it. Current funding for each person’s retirement is the only way to go. The above poster who says the UAW program is fully funded once again has it wrong. Anybody watching the congressional hearing and the news knows this is incorrect and it isn’t required by law in MI as it is in many other states including my own. The whole crust of the $73 per hour total compensation is about the non funding on the UAW pensions. How he gets this stuff is beyond me. If the average auto worker used to die after 2 months of retirement that would mean that about 45 % would be dying before they retired. I wonder where the UAW gets this stuff. I frequently camp with retired UAW people and they seem just as healthy as the rest of us old duffers and if anything more healthy because they didn’t have to work as long as almost all other Americans. They were able to let the existing workers carry their load and the buyers of yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrows cars will be paying for their retirement. You and I paid our own way and now we are being asked to subsidize retirement for these guys 15 years younger than us. It something wrong with that?

indiana journey · 12-21-2008, 05:10 PM

Lindsay, A good friend just got his yearly report on his GM pension. It is fully funded as required by the federal [not state] government. It is called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, referred to as ERISA. Indiana Journey

Lindsay Richards · 12-21-2008, 05:31 PM

Please sypply a link stating this and I will make sure that the congressmen and C-Span are away of it. You ae saying that all UAW pensions are fully funded and I keep hearing that they are 60 to 100 billion short and that they make up about 30% of the total compensation charged against each hour of work on an existing vechile. You will excuse me for believeing what I repeated hear on TV and online over what your friend says. If it is true, then lets see it. I's still like to see that source on the average auto worker dying ater too months also. Both of these claims seem way bizzare and against what is commonly heard elsewhere.

indiana journey · 12-22-2008, 05:51 AM

I'm sorry Lindsay , it should read that the GM retirement fund is fully funded. You can Google the information on it. The 2 month average was before "30 and out" [1970]. I doubt that any of the people that retired before 1970 are camping with you now. The average lifespan of GM retirees has risen since then, thanks to the earlier retirement and the health and safety rules implemented by the UAW contracts. You are also right that a lot of the people [pre 1970] died before they got to retire. I personally know of several that died while at work. I worked at GM for 31 years before they spun us off, then 6 years at Delphi before retirement. When I hired in there were 17000 union workers there. When I retired there were 700. At the peak there were 16 plants, now there are none. Several of our products were made obsolete by progress and the rest of them were shipped out of the country. We were told that we could work for nothing and they would still move out of the country because our government made it adventagous for them to move. Shortly after I retired Delphi filed bankruptcy. There were many anxious moments, but we have been lucky so far. Hopefully the D3 will not have to file bankrupcy, I don't think that it would go very well for anyone, not just the autoworkers. If you read the newspapers or watch TV you probably saw what is happening to toyota and honda right now. It will be a long time before any of them will be back on their feet. We cannot afford to loose the largest manufacturing base left in the US. The loans are the best way to help everyone. Indiana Journey

ktp_guy · 12-22-2008, 02:11 PM

http://blogs.payscale.com/ask_...paid-73-an-hour.html

hondo122 · 12-22-2008, 03:06 PM

That is the best explanation I've seen. The Ford site explains quite a bit.

Lindsay Richards · 12-22-2008, 03:08 PM

I don’t remember anybody ever saying that they were paid $73/hour. What was said was that the total compensation was $73/hour and this is what is being paid by the purchasers of big three vehicles. This level of nonfunded healthcare and retirement is unsustainable in the world’s auto manufacturing market and now they want the US taxpayer (you and me) to handle these excessive healthcare and very early retirement cost. That is the crust of the problem. Taxpayers are not obligated to pay for the healthcare of people get to retire 15 years before they do. If we are to “take them on to raise” they must start living like the rest of us and forgo these excessive costs. He states a $40,000 per year healthcare cost charged to each active worker. This includes the retirees healthcare. The biggest path to a solution is to reduce the gold plated policies to something similar to what the normal workers have. Having us pay for the gold plated healthcare isn’t a solution. Doing away with the half pay (or 80% depending on who is writing it) and free paid healthcare is necessary too. The author discusses promised made in 1985. Well a promise made by a company unable to compete is not worth much, I wonder why people keep calling this bailout loans. Loans are usually intended to be paid back. That will not ever happen here. This is a bailout not a loan.

hondo122 · 12-23-2008, 05:33 AM

Let's all be honest here, the only goal of the legislators opposing the big 3 bailout is breaking the union. While some opposed the wall street and AIG bailout they made them with almost no constraints. Lindsay, you state that the promises made years ago are unsustainable but we are told that they are too big to let them default. Almost all that we are bailing out is because people made bad descissions and entered bad contracts they are contracts just like AIG insurance policies, but we bail them out. They see the new power structure in DC and realize this may be their last chance to punish the unions for supporting the opposition and giving a gift to Big business in hopes that they will come to their rescue with more financial support. The scope of the bailout is mind boggling, but the threat of another great depression looms over us. The wall street financial bailout is totally without constraints and over sight, yet most of the ink is about the Big 3. Should they change the pension and health care, yes but this is all a big smoke screen for the true goal, wipe out unions in the US. I'm dumbfounded that otherwise intelligent folks fall for this gambit.

Lindsay Richards · 12-23-2008, 06:48 AM

>>>Let's all be honest here, the only goal of >>>the legislators opposing the big 3 bailout >>>is breaking the union.

Boy, that certainly isn’t what I am hearing. Their purpose is to make this once backbone of our manufacturing industry viable again. It has gotten itself into a position where it can only fail if drastic steps are taken. In the free market, if somebody else can do it cheaper and better then they take the market. Happens all the time. Management and labor have both let this happen. It is $73/hr vs. $44/hr total compensation doesn’t take too long to see that it won’t work. The politicians are trying to give the industry a soft landing of correcting the problems and both sides seem to be heading for a hard landing which is called liquidation. We can never expect the big three to be coming back with this huge burden on their backs. It just isn’t going to happen. Saying that the whole idea is to bust the unions doesn’t take a lot into considerations. The big three have already lost 40% and quickly rising of the American car manufactory business. You must understand the fact that they can not be paying out $73/hour. It does not work. All the union busting stuff and the rest is just subterfuge. Paying this huge difference just doesn’t work. The president of the union is very selfish in that he will not give an inch on the gold plated healthcare. He is going to kill the industry if he doesn’t make drastic concessions. It is that simple. He just doesn’t get it. He want you and me to pay for the gold plated healthcare for these early retires. Not fair. You keep saying it is unfair to the UAW retired workers, what about being fair to the millions of people working for far less wages ($29/hour total compensation is national average). You are saying that this guy should be paying through the nose, so the 51 year old retired UAW guy can pay his $21/month family coverage. The other guy is paying between $700 and $800 per month and now you want to saddle him thru taxes to pay for the crybaby who won’t give up his $21 with no copay or deductible. You are being very unfair to me and to the vast majority of American taxpayers. You are favoring the elite union guy making nearly triple the national average.. Try and be fair to everybody, not just the union guy. You let your passion for unions get in the way of fair and common sense. If you think it through you can not justify me paying for the gold plated healtcare of prima donnas when they will let the industry die before making any concessions. I pay my own way and you said you did too, but you support these guys not paying their own way and letting people a lots further down the line pay for these guys at the top. You are being very unfair to most of the US workers.

hondo122 · 12-23-2008, 10:57 AM

Lindsay, you're not hearing what I'm saying "The wall street financial bailout is totally without constraints and over sight, yet most of the ink is about the Big 3. Should they change the pension and health care, <span class="ev_code_RED">yes</span> but this is all a big smoke screen for the true goal, wipe out unions in the US." Change will come but there is an agenda here that isn't out in the open.

TXiceman · 12-23-2008, 11:30 AM

Mike, I do not think the agenda is to "wipe out Unions in he US". What needs to be done is a better balance between corporate power and union power. The way I see it is that the unions have had a strangle hold on several industries in this country to the point of being counterproductive. One place is the auto workers. It does not let a company reward excellent production by insuring minimal workers get the same pay as a excellent worker. I am sorry to say that my opinion is that unions breed poor workers.

I have always worked in a market place where...you do not perform...you are out, no protection other than the Federal labor laws.

Another palce that the union is hampering work is the USPS. We have a really sorry post person and they can not get rid of her due to senority (how she lasted this long is beyound me?).

Unions will still be needed to help police the work place and prevent the sweat shops of the past. But they need to realize that they can not run the companies or they will ruin then with excessive demands.

My exposure to unions has not been good in the past. Crooked BA's, and what really took the cake was my Dad receiving threating phone calls at home to the point he carried a shot gun to work. He was the shop foreman and could not join anyway. The owners grandson was deliberately run off the road by a recognized union leader.

But I still keep an open mind and see that the unions can do good for the workers. A few bad leaders can really spoil the whole thing.

Ken