Delphi, New UAW hires make less (inflation-adjusted) than before the 30's Detroit sit-down strikes

[Hannah Bell]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/cana-d19.shtml

"The reality is, at the urging of the UAW and CAW, auto workers have already made massive contract concessions, repeatedly. In the US, new hires at the Detroit-based Big Three and even high seniority workers at auto parts manufacturers like Delphi are already earning hourly wages on the order of $14 an hour, equivalent in inflation-adjusted terms to what auto workers were making before the great sit-down strikes and unionization drives of the 1930s and 1940s."


What cost $14 in 2007 would cost $0.95 in 1936.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_Strike

Flint Sit-Down Strike

Sit-down strikers guarding window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Photo by Sheldon Dick, 1937. The 1936-'37 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major union and led to the unionization of the United States automobile industry.


Sorry pass we've come to, eh?

[liberal N proud]

1. Ever wonder why you make more but just can't get ahead?

Many wages have not kept up with inflation

[Idealism]

2. The key isn't "many"

They key is mean wages.

Mean wages have gone down since the 1980s in the US. They went down in the Great Depression, of course, due to widespread unemployment. There hasn't been 25% unemployment since that time, yet wages have lost ground. Thank Ronald Reagan

[Selatius]

5. You should look at "median" wages as well as "mean" wages to get a fuller picture.

Hypothetically, if you lived in a town with 100 people who make 10 bucks an hour, and Bill Gates moved into the neighborhood making 10,000 bucks an hour, then his very income would drag the mean wage up to unrealistic levels. However, the median wage in the town would be largely unaffected.

[Idealism]

6. Technically, I mean "weighted mean"

Weighted mean is pretty much identical to median.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. I considered the demands made since I started at Packard Electric (Delphi) in '72

I was hired back then at $6.50/hour, and had full health care including dental and vision. We had paid holidays and time an a half for the plentiful overtime.

Since then IUE Local 717 demanded and received the following:

1: MLK day paid.
2: A key chain in 1978.

I really appreciated the key chain, that's why I remember the year, but it has to be mentioned that those gains were made without one major strike in my thirty years... not one. We also negotiated a three tier lower wage formula, unlimited outsourcing, and a reduction in health care that involved HMOs.

It's important to note that the "cost of living increases" were steamrolled into the contracts by the company, who bet long ago that inflation would stay in check. The jobs bank sprung from a broken promise to not lay off local employees because of outsourcing. The company figured it was cheaper to let Ohio workers do nothing and send the jobs to Mexico anyway.

On edit:
From 1930 through the mid '70s, when the companies found cheap foreign labor, they worked hand in hand with the union to the mutual benefit of all. When the big three discovered people who would work for less than a dollar an hour, the unions coincidentally began bleeding them dry.

[JDPriestly]

8. I wonder what kind of deals the car companies make in buying

the raw materials for their cars. Does anyone know whether there are connections between the companies that supply the car companies with raw materials and the management of the car companies? Are profits being hidden somewhere?

I don't understand this. If real wages have actually decreased, what costs have increased? Is the only cost causing American cars to be less competitive than foreign cars that of labor? Or are there other reasons for the comparatively higher cost of American cars?

Is the competitive difference strictly caused by pension obligations? What is the real cause of the high cost of American car manufacture?

[JohnnyRingo]

10. Of course improvements have added to the overall costs since the '70s.

By improvements I mean things like complex fuel injected engines that get over 200hp at 25+ mpg.
Also air bags,
Electronic instrument panels,
Traction control,
Antilock disc brakes,
Bodies that don't rust out in 2 years,
And four speed automatic transmissions

Now all cars now come equipped with what used to be optional. In the day, cars would be built with various add-ons as the buyer ordered. Even cigarette lighters, sun visors and side view mirrors were extra. So were the floor mats, radio, and wheel covers. Buying a car used to be like buying a pizza.

That's seldom the case now as cars vary only by colors as they come down the assembly line. They all have air conditioning, power steering and brakes, electric windows, and high-end stereos. This adds to the total cost, and everyone may not want all the luxury, but it also adds to the bottom line, so they've learned to give the customer "no option" but to spend the extra money.

Considering the chart below, it's ironic to hear conservatives complain about "organized labor", as the companies been in solidarity for decades. This is why you never hear GM tell you to "buy American":

On edit:
When GM says it's broke, consider that they've spread their eggs through so many baskets, it doesn't mean Opel or Vauxhall is in trouble.

[Hannah Bell]

11. That chart is pretty interesting. It looks like GM, for example, is tied to every other car corp.

I don't really believe they compete against each other, personally. Not at the highest levels.

I think that's a story they tell to manipulate labor.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

4. K&R

[ContinentalOp]

7. Ugh, so depressing.

I plugged my own income into an inflation calculator recently and realized that despite a slight increase in my income, I'm making about 16% less than I did 8 years ago (which happens to be around the time I got my last substantial raise). Those $70/hr UAW statistics were particularly eye opening for me. Yes, yes, I know they're the entire "cost" of wages rather than the actual take home pay, but still, as someone who has to pay for my own healthcare and has never had any sort of retirement plan at any job, it made me realize just how valuable that stuff is and just how screwed I am.

[cynicalguy1111]

9. we have to fix inflation first

the poor and middle class are getting kicked in the pants due to this invisible tax. get rid of inflation and save the poor and middle classes.

[tom_paine]

12. For a nation that was once among the Freest and least corrupt in the world

we now lead the world in loss of freedoms (some might argue we can lose so much only because we have so much to lose, but that belies the overall point), our government is corrupt in ways only Third World nations can be, and our M$M is a toadying laughingstock.

Oh, and our entire Justice System has been Bushified/Nazified almost to the point of corrupt irrelevance (though they will still have the power to punish and kill those who defy the Bushie State, so perhaps irrelevant is the wrong word to use about Bushified/Nazified Justice Systems).

I don't think there is a sorrier pass we can come to, only sorrier variations of the tyrannized pass we are at. (and that I will not believe it is ended until Obama takes steps to end it, something he seems to have little intention of EVER doing, though we cannot say for sure until he has governed)