UAW Tells Automakers It Is Time To Pony Up with Higher Wages For Senior Workers

Hourly employees represented by the UAW union have found out how big will be their profit-sharing checks coming from the Detroit three automakers.

FCA US, formerly Chrysler Group, will award payments of up to $2,750 by the end of February, Ford hourly employees will be given an average of $6,900 for the performance last year and GM tops the chart with up to $9,000.

While the figures might sound good, the UAW workers hired before 2007 have been left without a base wage increase in at least eight years and the substantial profit-sharing (for GM workers at least) still leaves expectations among the more senior workers when the UAW starts negotiating a new contract in the latter part of the year. The rest of the UAW workers, hired after 2007 have a lower base wage to start with, receiving incremental updates each year. The automakers naturally prefer these incentive-based payments – such as profit-sharing or lump sums – instead of annual wage surges that would jeopardize labor cost control.
 

TheSteve - 2/6/2015 1:15:05 PM

+3 Boost

Union...
"I've been showing up for a long time, so I'm entitled to more money than the guy who's been showing up for only 6 months."

Free market...
"The new guy generates 20% more value for the company than you do, so we're giving him a raise. You need to pull your socks up, team up with the new guy, and learn how to become more productive. Either that, or get used to getting paid less than him. And by the way, if we ever have to downsize, it won't be the guys with seniority that we keep. We'll hang onto the productive guys, regardless of how long they've been here."

Any questions?

7msynthetic - 2/6/2015 3:11:43 PM

+3 Boost

^^^^ Could not have said it better myself. We as a society have a very serious accountability/entitlement issue to begin with and unfortunately unions breed this.

MDarringer - 2/7/2015 10:43:27 AM

-2 Boost

The Gestapo wants what the Gestapo wants. Unions DO NOT protect workers at all. They exist solely to funnel dues to the Democrat party.