GM Files for bankruptcy

g under p

Whenever you build a product that tends to fall apart in 3 years your business over time will tend to fall apart as well. That and stubborness in building huge gas guzzling SUV.

Peace

mickeyrat

Hear about the name change? Still GM but now known as Goverment Motors.

jlew24asu

g under p wrote:

Whenever you build a product that tends to fall apart in 3 years your business over time will tend to fall apart as well. That and stubborness in building huge gas guzzling SUV.

Peace

they built those gas guzzlers before oil prices went up. it was an obvious unwanted side effect of their success. I mean look at from GM's view. they are making billions from selling SUVs..Americans like alot of room, we are a big country, we (unfortunately) are big people....we have big families....and many Americans can afford an SUV.

all of a sudden, the price of OIL skyrocketed. and happened very fast..http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/M

everyone turned and pointed the finger at GM. they were only building what Americans wanted. now everyone is crying about how they want their tiny little Fiats and going green bumper sticker.

yes GM should have managed growth better...but they had even less time to recover. demand stopping in a day when gas hit $4 a gallon. too many people said, never again, so we're driving less and demanded smaller fuel efficiency cars. given another year or two and I think GM can really have a winner with the volt. we'll see.

Byrnzie

Goodbye, GM
by Michael Moore

June 1, 2009

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided.

Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore

soulsinging

Byrnzie wrote:

And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes

I'm no GM fan, but this is why Michael Moore has no credibility. Because the clearest way for GM to fix the fact that they don't make enough money to stay in business is to spend MORE on labor costs... that will kelp make them profitable :roll:

Byrnzie

soulsinging wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes

I'm no GM fan, but this is why Michael Moore has no credibility. Because the clearest way for GM to fix the fact that they don't make enough money to stay in business is to spend MORE on labor costs... that will kelp make them profitable :roll:

Michael Moore didn't say they should spend more on labour costs. He said "..it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars?"

They didn't need to spend more on labour costs. They just needed to not screw the local workers of Michigan.

And the fact that Republicans in America don't agree with Michael Moore doesn't mean he has no credibility. It just means that money-sucking republicans don't agree with him.

soulsinging

Byrnzie wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes

I'm no GM fan, but this is why Michael Moore has no credibility. Because the clearest way for GM to fix the fact that they don't make enough money to stay in business is to spend MORE on labor costs... that will kelp make them profitable :roll:

Michael Moore didn't say they should spend more on labour costs. He said "..it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars?"

They didn't need to spend more on labour costs. They just needed to not screw the local workers of Michigan.

And the fact that Republicans in America don't agree with Michael Moore doesn't mean he has no credibility. It just means that money-sucking republicans don't agree with him.

I've never been a republican. I campaigned and voted for Nader in 2000, Kerry in 04, Obama this time around, and always been firmly on the left. But Michael Moore is still full of shit. Middle class families kept going strong plenty after GM moved jobs away and bought plenty of cars... they just weren't GM.

Byrnzie

soulsinging wrote:

Middle class families kept going strong plenty after GM moved jobs away and bought plenty of cars... they just weren't GM.

Is that right? You're saying that the people of Michigan did just fine when GM off-loaded it's workforce and moved down to Mexico?

"...a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with."

- I suppose he's just making that up.

soulsinging

Byrnzie wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

Middle class families kept going strong plenty after GM moved jobs away and bought plenty of cars... they just weren't GM.

Is that right? You're saying that the people of Michigan did just fine when GM off-loaded it's workforce and moved down to Mexico?

Nope. Neither did the people of Ohio, my home state. But California and the whole dot com thing created a whole new middle class. Thus is the nature of a changing world and economy. If they hadn't cut costs by moving those jobs, GM would've failed 15 years ago instead of now, and Michigan would still be fucked. C'est la vie.

Byrnzie

soulsinging wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

Middle class families kept going strong plenty after GM moved jobs away and bought plenty of cars... they just weren't GM.

Is that right? You're saying that the people of Michigan did just fine when GM off-loaded it's workforce and moved down to Mexico?

Nope. Neither did the people of Ohio, my home state. But California and the whole dot com thing created a whole new middle class. Thus is the nature of a changing world and economy. If they hadn't cut costs by moving those jobs, GM would've failed 15 years ago instead of now, and Michigan would still be fucked. C'est la vie.

Maybe, but then that's all just speculation. Maybe if U.S companies had done more to look after the workers instead of screwing them all these years, things may look slightly different now. But that's also just speculation.

Kel Varnsen

Byrnzie wrote:

And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans.

Or on the flip side GM gave countless Mexicans jobs. And if I had to guess I would say a Mexican without a job would probably be doing way way worse than an American without a job, otherwise you would have unemployed Americans sneaking across the border into Mexico, not the opposite.

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

Maybe, but then that's all just speculation. Maybe if U.S companies had done more to look after the workers instead of screwing them all these years, things may look slightly different now. But that's also just speculation.

screw its workers? thats absurd. the UAW are the highest paid, best taken care of employees in the world. when sales went down and the car market evolved, what did the Union say? fuck you pay me.

but whats hilarious is that you are all of a sudden you are a champion for America and its workers? ok. or maybe you dont understand the concept of a global economy

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

screw its workers? thats absurd. the UAW are the highest paid, best taken care of employees in the world.

Where's your evidence?

jlew24asu wrote:

but whats hilarious is that you are all of a sudden you are a champion for America and its workers? ok. or maybe you dont understand the concept of a global economy

That's right Jlew, because I've clearly always been against America and it's workers, right? Because Conservative America and the warmongers represent America and the American people, right?

polaris_x

is it possible this is all a function of an economy that is based primarily on consumption? ... i mean - nobody in north america makes anything anymore ... factor in a lack of resources in the states ... you have a system that ultimately will always be on the brink of collapse as it requires people to keep buying and buying ...

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

the UAW are the highest paid, best taken care of employees in the world.

Yes Jlew, of course they are:


http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/42cUAW.html
August 2008
'...The workers struck against outrageous wage cuts and other concessions demanded by the auto parts capitalists at AAM. They held out defiantly and in good spirit for three months. As the strike proceeded, the lack of parts had forced many GM plants to close, and both AAM and GM were taking heavy losses. Yet at the end, they were forced to accept a contract that slashes wages in half, eliminates jobs, cuts benefits, hurts pensions, etc...And the result is that now UAW wages are declining to poverty-level...'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan
'In the 1980s, the rate of deindustrialization accelerated with local GM employment falling from a 1978 high of 80,000 to under 23,000 by the late 1990s. Many factors have been blamed, including Reaganomics, outsourcing and exporting jobs abroad and to non-union facilities, unionization, exorbitant overhead, globalization, and most recently, a dramatic decline in General Motors sales...
The last decade has opened on the final stages of large-scale General Motors deindustrialization. By 2002 Flint had accrued a $35 million debt. Unable to pay this and balance its budget, the state of Michigan placed the city into receivership late that year, with a financial manager effectively replacing acting mayor, City Administrator Darnell Earley...
Of the nearly 80,000 people that worked for General Motors in Flint during its peak years in the late 1970s, only about 8,000 are left after the most recent 2006 buyouts.'

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

screw its workers? thats absurd. the UAW are the highest paid, best taken care of employees in the world.

Where's your evidence?

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/07/uaw ... arket.html

Bottom Line: The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D. (see graph above, click to enlarge), and 52.6% more than the average worker at Toyota, Honda or Nissan.

you want more evidence, do your own research. and I suggest you do, it sounds as if you know very little about the UAW.

Byrnzie

Interesting article:

http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2 ... -myth.html

Thursday, June 09, 2005
The General Motors Poverty Myth

Most of the mainstream newsmedia as well as the public is caught up in the myth of the sudden poverty of General Motors. On paper this corporation claims a loss of nearly $2,400 per automobile sold while other competitors such as Toyota and even Hyundai, who increasingly also manufacture automobiles in the United States, are showing profits of $1,300 to over $1,400 per automobile sold. In the case of Hyundai, the climb to solid profits as well as greatly improved product quality came after a new chief executive prevented other executives from using Hyundai as their personal "piggybank" and limited top salaries as well as a new company commitment to product quality.

But General Motors continues to operate similar to the old Hyundai. In 2002, former GM CEO, Charles E. Wilson earned $652,156 a year, but was later replaced with Richard Wagner, who made a major priority, huge pay increases for executives at GM. His salary was boosted to $8.5 million a year with all compensation figured in according to the reputable Forbes magazine. And many other executives also receive extremely high executive pay and compensation packages. And as bad as this is, Wagner is only the 141st highest paid executive in America, 140 other CEO's actually earn far more than the $8.5 million a year, limiting stockholder profits, dividends and company product development funds.

On paper, investors will see their GM stock as nearly dead in the water. The value will stay flat with little upward growth, or likely either drop somewhat with bad corporate profit news. Yet the value of the stock really goes nowhere. It is still in the hands of GM. And as executives increase their salaries, the investors stock value can well flow right into the backpockets of executives as they increase their salaries into the stratosphere.

Executives at Toyota, Hyundai and other highly profitable companies have salaries far closer to the workers who build the automobiles, than American executives whose main goal of running the corporation appears to be for salary increase potential rather than the development and marketing of new products or the health of the corporation. This hurts both the stockholders as well as limits new product development . While Toyota and Honda develop and market hot selling hybrid models, the huge salaries at GM limit the amount of development money, so less advanced, older technology American models are instead marketed, and are experiencing some failure in the marketplace as more American buyers purchase the more technologically advanced and higher mileage import models. Many American executives are far too concerned with the short term goals of the highest possible salary than the competitive place of their corporation in the marketplace. And sometimes marketing the same tired design year after year, may save the corporation development money, but sales wane as buyers tire of yesterday's designs being marketed year after year.

The Chevrolet division does have a few new interesting designs, but they are largely sales failures in the marketplace currently for several reasons. A sports car pickup truck design based on a showcar project was only intended to be sold to a very limited high end group of buyers. So with no pricing or intent for mass market sales, this model simply swallowed up company cash and brings in little revenues to cover development costs or offers the company any profits to work with. And a new subcompact has mileage far lower than comparable models from virtually all import makers, as well as the built-in buyer fear of previous small GM models like the Vega, Monza and Chevette, which had many product quality problems, although this new model looks far better assembled than these previous quality control limited models. So one part of the GM problems are a previous bad experience on some smaller cheaper models, although the larger GM models have a decent reputation for product quality. Yet with high fuel prices, it is exactly the smaller high mileage models that buyers want at this point, and with a head to head comparison, the small GM offerings come up short in the minds of many buyers compared to Toyota, Honda or even Hyundai.

Another problem is GM put too much production capability into the production of larger SUV models with little production capability to switch to other models as market conditions change. And as gasoline prices recently increased, sales suffered on larger GM models such as SUVs . Instead the ability to switch to models that the public wants should have been built into a more flexible production planning.

And since labor is a supply and demand commodity to the coporate mindset, the executives at GM will attempt to trim American high paying $27 an hour jobs with full health and retirement benefits and replace these with jobs in China at 24 to 40 cents an hour labor, or labor in mexico at $1.50 an hour, with lower labor costs and little or no company benefits. And this may result in cheaper materials as well, so quality could suffer unless strict quality control is carefully monitored. In addition American GM workers may be asked to give up benefits, such as retirement or health benefits. Yet it is doubtful any top executive at GM will cut their compensation or salary. The corporate view is the corporation runs for the enrichment of the executives first and building cars second is the philosophy that rots a big corporation like GM from the inside.

GM can survive their problems. But a better philosophy of executive commitment to the corporation's health and more concern for the worker's role as a vital link in the American economy, instead of merely a supply and demand commodity that can be easily be replaced with cheap foreign labor to enhance profits, as well a commitment to more reasonable executive salaries and more flexible and modern product development are all vital links. But unlike many successful foreign competitors, the American corporate vision is often short-sightedly based on the short term goal of extreme executive salaries. This has to change for the health of GM, which is equal to 1% of America's economy. And it should serve as a warning to other corporations of how to fail in a marketplace with far better managed foreign competitors.'

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

screw its workers? thats absurd. the UAW are the highest paid, best taken care of employees in the world.

Where's your evidence?

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/07/uaw ... arket.html

Bottom Line: The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D. (see graph above, click to enlarge), and 52.6% more than the average worker at Toyota, Honda or Nissan.

you want more evidence, do your own research. and I suggest you do, it sounds as if you know very little about the UAW.

The average UAW worker with a high school degree? How many blue collar workers have degrees? I think what you're referring to are the over-inflated salaries of UAW executives.

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

The average UAW worker with a high school degree? How many blue collar workers have degrees? I think what you're referring to are the over-inflated salaries of UAW executives.

um no I'm not. I'm referring to the average UAW worker whos hourly rates are double that of GM's competitors. and when Gas prices went up, and people stopped buying SUVs, GM's revenue went to almost zero but still had to pay ridiculously high wage rates. the UAW refused to renegotiate their contract rates to keep up with competition. the result? Bankruptcy.

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

The average UAW worker with a high school degree? How many blue collar workers have degrees? I think what you're referring to are the over-inflated salaries of UAW executives.

um no I'm not. I'm referring to the average UAW worker whos hourly rates are double that of GM's competitors.

Seems like your graph has been well and truly rubbished:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/07/uaw ... arket.html
'...Active UAW workers are well-paid, but not $146,000 worth—that’s with unfunded liabilities included. They make about $100,000 a year counting everything (wages, insurance, retirement, workers’ compensation, FICA, tuition . . .). Part of this $100,000 is a fuzzy accounting term “other” on our yearly compensation reports. I was curious what “other” meant, so I emailed GM accounting and received a memo in return. Other includes janitorial services in the factories, so if you wish to compare our wages to yours, make sure you count the toilet paper your boss supplies you to wipe your butt. They count toilet paper in our total compensation, so to make an apples-to-apples comparison you must count it in yours, too.

Here's why such a high labor cost is reported by GM:

Burden or Manufacturing Overhead Costs
Typical Variable Accounts:
Indirect Labor
Material handling
Working leaders
Janitors & yardmen
Inspection
Set-up
Maintenance
Tooling labor
Laboratory services
Training
Other indirect labor
Non-Productive Labor
Diverted labor
Clean-up and breaks
Fringe Benefits (Hourly Work Force)
Shift differential
Paid lunch periods
Vacation pay
Holiday pay
Payroll taxes
Maintenance supplies
Tool supplies
Janitorial supplies
Power wash supplies
Group insurance
Workmen’s compensation
Employee education
Pension expense
Other benefits

Source: WWP: Supplier Cost Systems Overview 3-4
General Motors Corporation'


It’s too simplistic to look at wages /compensation alone and determine labor costs of an operation.'



'I hate to break this to you but the autoworkers do not make $73 dollars an hour or $150,000 a year. The hourly wage is about $28an hour for established workers and $14 for new hires. The fringe benefits are probably around 10 to 12 dollars and hour. So total hourly pay is about $20 to $40 dollars an hour, depending on seniority.

What most people hear about is a number that combines what auto workers really make along with pensions and health care costs for retirees who outnumber active workers by almost three to one. The companies, at least GM, adds the costs of retiree benefits to the wage package of the active workforce to inflate the compensation number for contract negotiations when the companies need the general public to side with them against the union. This is back-firing on the car companies now that they need federal help because Congressmen are looking at the $73/hour figure and saying that auto workers are over paid. The $73/hour number is as phoney as a three dollar bill.'


'So, basically, this whole article is a farse and should have never been posted. "Bottom Line: The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D." Never mind. Looks like Forbes did get rid of it. I wonder why...'