General Motors continue to perpetuate the myth that benefits cost for employees are the reason for the company's precarious financial position. Tonight on '60 Minutes", the GM propoganda machine continued the lie, saying that $1,400 of the cost of every new car is caused by "benefits paid to employees". A gullible public, led by the unbelievably gullible mainstream media, simply accept the lie at face value without looking further.
GM's foreign competitors, we are told, "don't have to pay the cost of health care" for their employees because such plans are "covered by the government". The GM propoganda machine would have you believe, then, that health care for Japanese auto workers is free. And that's a bald faced lie.
Read the facts below the fold.
In fact, Japanese workers -- and by extension, Japanese companies -- do pay for health care. It is assessed on workers out of their wages. And Japanese workers pay 30% of the cost of doctor visits. So, while its true GM pays a health care premium for its workers' health insurance, Japanes companies pay the same health care premium in the form of wages. Moreover, Japanese workers pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes than American workers, a cost that Japanese companies pay by paying their workers a higher wage so that they make a decent "take home" pay of gross wages less taxes. (Think about your own job: would you do it if your wages equaled your take home pay and taxes were imposed on that amount? Probably not.)
(Here's the link on Japanese health costs to workers. I don't know how to work the new Autom format. I'd appreciate help.): http://www.city.ibaraki.osaka.jp/...
The GM executive class is licking their chops in the great homes of Grosse Point at the prospect of being able to perpetuate this great lie upon its workers, the UAW, and the American public at large. In truth, they want workers to concede hard-fought benefits so that they can reduce the cost of labor in the United States without having to incur the expense of moving whole plants to Mexico.
Sorry, GM. The jig is up. We're not buying the lie.