The UAW has been rolling over and taking concessionary contracts for years. The idea that labor needs to learn that the auto industry is in trouble is ridiculous—they’ve known this longer than anyone, they’ve been the ones losing jobs and taking cuts, and dividing workers through tiered wages for new hires.
November 19, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
It’s frustrating that this type of of thing comes from a newspaper that should be well aware of the state of labor negotiations between the Big 3 and the union. They covered last year’s contract negotiations exstensively.
The chart Matt posted on that other post shows the gap. Clearly the Big 3 tend to pay more for labor than some of their foreign competitors who make cars in other parts of the U.S. but that gap is going to close with the new contract, as high payed employees retire and get replaced by new employees coming in on the lower tier. But even with that gap, it’s only a small part of the problems auto makers are facing.
A column that claims that demanding more concessions from the union is the only way the auto makers are going to survive long term ignores so many other factors that it loses all of its credibility.
November 19, 2008 at 4:55 pm |
right, and thanks for putting that in context that i should have supplied in my original post.
November 19, 2008 at 4:59 pm |
ultimately, the biggest issue is that the big three aren’t making the cars that people want to buy, by and large. it’s not like the ford explorer is going to be competing with the corolla if we started paying toyota wages to ford workers.
now the question of to what extent the big three was forced to build bigger, more expensive cars because the UAW had negotiated so well is a real question.
November 19, 2008 at 5:12 pm |
In fairness to the news, it is a column, so the views are simply those of the writer. Obviously another thing that stretches credibility is any attempt by me to criticize an Harvard Economist, but at the same time I do feel comfortable saying that blaming the UAW contracts for the industry’smess is a gross oversimplification.
November 19, 2008 at 5:52 pm |
clearly yall is nutz
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081119/OPINION03/811190380/1148
too bad you couldnt wait and bought a japanese car already.
November 19, 2008 at 5:53 pm |
except for kenny cause he drives a ford. and jerry cause well jerry doesnt drive. or does he?
November 19, 2008 at 5:54 pm |
i blame the wilderness. its that damned sasquatch.