Hourly wages for UAW workers at GM factories already are about equal to those paid by Toyota Motor Corp.

Santa, take the UAW and put it thru a meat grinder is all I want for Christmas :->

agreed! In reading an article in USA today, the only people who are not agreeing to any bailout is the UAW! they are worthless.

We all are totally confused as the Union leader keeps talking about hourly wages of some $30 per hour and the car companies keep complaining about labor costs of some $75 per hour. Let's have a complete breakdown of direct wages and benefits as well as all the overheads applied to those figures to arrive at total cost to the manufacturer. Until we get that complete breakdown we might as well be talking about apples and oranges when comparing cost structures of the Detroit 3 and the foreign transplants.

Accountants can do all sorts of tricks by allocating overheads in whatever way best suits company interests.

of course, bad management over the years helped them in to this hole

Yes.. If only they had been run as efficiently and effectively as those in the Financial and Public sectors..

I'll say this again, this has nothing to do with uaw. republicans hate organized labor because they are the party that represents big business, not the hard working people. if it was up to them the average citizen would work 3 jobs just to feed his family.

this is not about salaries, its about benefits and health care. and if republicans want to blame someone for it they better look in the mirror. who killed the health reform hillary clinton proposed back in 90's? who has done everything to keep the health care in this country a 'big business' institution?

go look in the mirror stupid repubilcans, not at uaw

Who was going to pay for the health care dummy? You?

all of us, like in every other developed country.

but we have to bring down costs. USA health care system costs $6,100 per person, ranked #37 in the world. France has a health care system that costs $3,500 per person, ranked #1 in the world.

Can't argue against it. i don't care how big of a right wing moron you are.

Nice try..."big business" doesn't "run" healthcare. The reason it is so f'd up is because of the same reasons housing/mortgages are in the shitter now too...gov't rules/mandates. Almost everything an insurance company, healthcare company, hospital etc does is based off of, take a guess....Medicare/Medicaid rules set up by the lovely idiots in Washington, both Dem and Repub.

Hillarycare would be an even bigger disaster and I really could give two $*@& what other countries do. Government run anything, especially at the Federal level, has done nothing but F things up for 40 years or so. I'm just amazed people keep coming back and asking for the "Feds" to do something when their track record is so f-ing terrible. It's like investing in the same ol stock that keeps going down, down, down. No thanks...

yeah, NOT having health care is just so much better than having it! I mean, all that time and stress saved from not having to argue with insurance companies, right?

The largest employer in the country? They would get a bailout first.

Have you noticed that UAW1 is usually the only blogger who always takes up for the worthless union. He has an answer for everything on why it's not the UAW fault (not to mention his negative blogging numbers). Let's see Pontiac Aztec, Ford Pinto, AMC Gemlin, Buick RoadMaster Station Wagon, Ford AeroStar need there be anything else said.

Your comment is worthless! The hourly wages are in line with other long established foreign car plants in the US as has been pointed out factually time and again (oh and cost of living is a bit more in Michigan than Alabama). I don't agree with all the Unions do, however I do understand why the total $ costs are higher per employee at the big 3. They have hundreds of thousands of retirees that are factored into overall cost/hr due to the US having huge car companies since the 50s! The cars you mention were not designed by the Union BTW. Oh and take a look at the new cars coming from these manufacturers they are starting to be pretty darn nice! I admit that I was not interested in any GM car in 2000 when I bought a BMW M5, but when I get ready to update I think the CTS-V will be a very serious candidate. That is not the only example, quality surveys show the domestic automakers in the game, most magazine reviews have a lot of the big 3 cars very competitive. If some stupid politicians want the last large scale US major manufacturing business go down the drain... I hope we remember who they were in 2 or 4 years.

I'm a little confused. If a company folds, does the Union still exist?

At various points in time Unions have been useful. However most manufacturers now realize that their employees are one of thier most valuable assets and need to pay competitive wages, benefits and provide safe working conditions - All without union involvement.

Many unions (UAW included) have devolved into quasi-socialist operations that provide little incentive for hard work and continuing education to allow growth for individuals in the unionized world. Unions are SUPPOSED to provide a competent and trained workforce that management schedules to work. Unions are SUPPOSED to provide leadership to monitor management adherance to contractual obligations. Unions are SUPPOSED to represent workers when contractual obligations are violated using a greivance process. What unions have devolved to is a group of power-hungry patriarchs who ensure money is collected to support the union outings to Las Vegas for annual whoopla sessions, and who waste time with bringing grievances that are not supported by contract or labor law to the table for workers who THINK they have been mistreated.

The UAW are misrepresenting the wages and benefits discussed in this article. In order to get an accurate picture of what is actually paid you need to consider the wage and benefits, which include many contractual obligations such as partial wage payments for time not worked that supplements unemployment; medical benefits; pension and 401k contributions from the employer, vacation and holiday wages and overtime pay. Many of these topics are strangely missing from the article.

I am not anti-union. There are many useful unions today, particularly among tradesmen. The IBEW comes to mind, where they provide a well trained workforce that has documented skills, trade rankings (apprentice, journeyman etc) and they work with management groups to provide them a well respected workforce.

Until the UAW actually sits down and negotiates fair wages and benefits, removes featherbedding clauses, and reduces their wasteful expenditures of union members monies, they are nothing more than an impediment to the growth of the US automotive industry.