Here goes the UAW again....

[TOMS1SS]

Originally Posted by Larz29

Slingshot ... LOL ... I'm sure you are only speaking for your own personal situation because go your local Sears automotive and ask the hard working mechanic if he could afford a new Camaro? They probalby can't in your state or any other. My point is, of course not everyone can have a car like this, or a 4000 sq. ft. house, or yearly vacations to wherever but if a company CEO can make 20 mil/yr why shouldn't the guy putting the parts on your camaro earn $50k/yr with good health insurance? Your arguement doesn't make sense.

Having worked for Sears as a Loss Prevention Manager for 5 years I'll let you in on a little secret about the auto techs. They are usually kids out of high school who have worked nothing but $8 dollar or below jobs all their lives. There is so much competition for these jobs that there are dozens of applications available to plug another warm body in place of some who is terminated. Your right you can't afford a family, car or house on that wage....but I damn well guarantee you the Auto Manager can and so can any other member of management at your local Sears store. What does it take to get these management jobs you ask? Hard work, experience, ect, ect, ect......maybe only 10% of people at any given Sears store will manage to get promoted because they're retail grunts with no drive. Retail doesn't need unions so I don't understand why the automotive sector does. Besides Sears is one of the few retail companies with a lot of people pulling pension and benefits....they are on the verge of going bankrupt because of it.

[shines]

Originally Posted by DJ UNKNOWN

Then why do so many people have a problem with hourly workers making a decent wage with affordable benefits? Doesn't matter if they're union or not!

No one is against working people making good pay, but that pay should be awarded on an individual basis, not just because you're a member of a union.

I could work circles around 95% of UAW people and I would not want my pay or upward mobility restricted by union pay scales and tenure rules. Only sorry workers like those rules.

[nferno]

Originally Posted by shines

That's because there are tens of thousands of people that can do the mehanics job and are willing to do it for less money. Whereas there are few people qualified to be CEO of a corporaton and the demand for their skill set is high. It's simple supply and demand economics; something government run schools have avoided (deliberately) teaching properly.

If you want dictated salaries, move to red China

If you want dictated salaries, move to red China? If you want the workers to just take it and shut up then move to red china! Alot of the CEO'S have no idear what they are doing just fill ther pockets and move on to the board and then dictated the new CEO's wages (thats why they are so high) not because of there skills. CEO'S run a company and have no Idear what the company even dose.

[shines]

Originally Posted by nferno

If you want dictated salaries, move to red China? If you want the workers to just take it and shut up then move to red china! Alot of ceo have no idear what they are doing just fill ther pockets and move on to the board and then dictated the new CEO's wages (thats why they are so high) not because of there skills. CEO'S run a company and have no Idear what the company even dose.

If being a CEO is so simple, why do you not try it yourself? You have no idea what the job entails. It's highly stressfull and the bad CEO's are shortlived.

[Larz29]

Dude (Toms1ss) I agree that retail grunts as you call them get paid approperately, but are you saying Sears should not offer benefits to their employees unless they are a member of management? I personally feel everyone working full time should have access to affordable health care because at the end of the day (even retail grunts) deserve to get medical issues taken care of without bankrupting them with bills. It goes back to companies having a heart, which is one of the reasons I shop at sears.

[GoldenBear]

Mods -- Please move this thread to a Politics forum.

[RS/4Life]

Have you ever worked on an assembly line, if not you shouldn't talk that is not easy work. those employees deserve what the UAW gets for them and retirees

[Nessal]

I have no problems with private section unions as long as the business has the ability to opt out. Where I have a problem in is the public section unions where we the taxpayers essentially have no say.

[Larz29]

Golden Bear - Well said. I will leave my opinion with one last point. This is a complicated world, even if we try to simplify our own personal opinions to others. We each have our own views, but one thing we all have in common in this forum is our love for muscle cars and camaro's in particular!! At the end of the day we can have lively discussions like this and that is what makes America great!!!

[canadian ss]

Higher paying jobs require higher education! Period!

A person putting a door on a vehicle with the HELP of a robot and tightening a few bolts is not worth the amount they get paid.

I own my own auto repair business and work alone. No union to suck my profits out of me. In return, I can repair a vehicle for cheaper because its only I that I have to pay.

I am a qualified certified technician that lost my job due to corporate B/S and was left out in the cold with nothing more than employment insurance and a DRIVE TO MAKE SOMETHING OF MYSELF!!!

I am all for hiring and employing people. Hard working people. The more knowledge they have, the more they get paid.
To give a line jockey with nothing behind them more money....for what? So the Camaro costs more and makes it unaffordable for everyone because a line worker got an undeserving raise? If you can't afford a NEW car, blame the union and its wage increases. It has to be recouped somehow! Usually from the consumer.

Unions only protect you from being fired. If you are needing a union for that...you deserve $10/hr.

Minimum wage usually stands for minimum education.

REMINDER: All of you who have complained about the quality of the Camaro or any car should look no further than the line worker who wants more of the companies money!

Is it making sense now?

[canadian ss]

Originally Posted by GoldenBear

Mods -- Please move this thread to a Politics forum.

This is an opinion based topic. Not political in my eyes. There is no talk of what gov't to vote for or any pursuasion to join any leadering groups?

[TOMS1SS]

Originally Posted by Larz29

Dude (Toms1ss) I agree that retail grunts as you call them get paid approperately, but are you saying Sears should not offer benefits to their employees unless they are a member of management? I personally feel everyone working full time should have access to affordable health care because at the end of the day (even retail grunts) deserve to get medical issues taken care of without bankrupting them with bills. It goes back to companies having a heart, which is one of the reasons I shop at sears.

They don't unless you've been there for a year full-time, not even vacation time. Heart doesn't make profits. I guess I'm speaking from the prospective of the guy who tried to maximize profits. We're talking about stores with 40 to 60% annual turnover so it saves a lot of money by not giving benefits out for a year. Salary positions still get the benefits right away. You used to get benefits as a Full-time hourly after 3 months, but they changed that about 3-4 years ago. A buddy of mine is an hourly LP Manager he hasn't received a raise in 3 years because the company froze increases for hourly workers. Also the guy who took over my position makes $16,000 a year less than me.

[djsnoflake]

It's CAPITALISM. The company will do what it can to make money. If it doesn't make money, it's stock value goes down. We all saw what can happen when a few companies start to lose their stock value.

Also, don't fool yourselves about unions. They are a business too. They just call their CEOs something else, and they are very well paid too, if you do some research.

[cab2g]

Regarding CEOs... If the CEO does not perform, they can get canned within a year or two. However, if a general employee merely under performs, they will continue to be employeed for years. So there is extreme pressure on CEOs to make a return on the company's investment in them.

If a CEO doesn't know what they are doing, it is very VERY clear to boards, investors, etc and they get canned. Look at the Yahoo CEO for a recent example. Or the HP CEO. The boards didn't like the direction the company was going and the CEOs got canned.

Yes some of them have amazing benefits packages that total $100 million after a few years, but those CEOs work for a few MAJOR companies. Companies with thousands of employees. yes, those packages cost about as much as it would to employee 2 or 3 thousand workers annually, but what others have said is completely right, they are paid what they are paid based on the free market. If you think about it, why would a company want to give one person so much of their profit? They don't! They do because they want to find the top talent and if you look at any fortune 100 CEO's resume, you will see that they worked for several companies and moved up the ladder much faster than their peers. If that isn't an indicator of market desirability and skill, I don't know what is.

Yes, people who are doing $10/hr work should be paid $10/hr. However, is putting a car together really a $10/hr job? It certainly requires more skill than half of the entry level white collar jobs I know of. Is it worth $30/hr, I can't say that it is either. But it's the job of the unions and the corporations to negotiate their market value. If there is too much competition between salaries, they must go down. The union may fight tooth and nail not to let that happen, but if the company has to shut its doors because it can't compete, the union has lost. They don't want that to happen either.