By Gregg Shotwell, UAW Local 1753 (Retired)
The media keeps reporting that GM workers make on average $70 per hour in total compensation, and that Toyota workers only make $45.
The $25 difference is attributed to legacy costs.
Legacy benefits were earned in the past. Tacking compensation earned in the past onto active workers in the present is deceptive bookkeeping.
Since legacy benefits were earned in the past, why are they now charged to workers in the present?
Since GM included the cost of deferred compensation in the price of cars sold in the past, why are they charging customers for that cost again?
Since the compensation was deferred, was any of that money put into a trust fund?
If so, didn’t GM get tax breaks for money deposited in the trust fund?
What happened to the trust fund?
Should the victims of fraud be blamed for destroying the American auto industry?
Management, not labor, is responsible for legacy costs. Management, not labor, is over compensated in comparison to foreign competitors.
"In the fiscal year that ended in March 2007, Toyota’s top 32 executives — a group that included CEO Katsuaki Watanabe — together pulled in $7.8 million in bonuses on top of salaries of $12.1 million. For the comparable period, one single GM exec, CEO Rick Wagoner, raked in $10.2 million." [www.toomuchonline.org/tmweekly.html]
In 2008 Wagoner got a $5.3 million dollar raise.
Economist David Gordon in his book Fat and Mean said:
"In the 1980s, by common measures, the proportion of managerial and administrative employment was more than three times as high in the United States as in Germany and Japan."
Gordon points out that in the US we have a higher percentage of supervisors than Germany, Japan, and Sweden combined.
According to Gordon, 20% of the purchase price of every product made in the USA goes to supervisors and monitors, not including secretaries and assistants and bean counters.
In other words, when you buy a $20,000 vehicle, $4,000 goes to pay for the burden of supervisors, managers, and executives whose sweatless efforts add no value to the product.
Less than 10% of the purchase price can be attributed to assembly line workers.
Perhaps the biggest question is:
Why doesn’t Ron Gettelfinger, the President of the UAW, raise these issues?
Why doesn’t he defend the reputation of his members?
Why doesn’t he publicly acknowledge that the legacy cost mantra is a smokescreen for fraud?
Stay Solid,
Gregg Shotwell
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Blame the Takers, Not the Makers
[col. writ. 11/23/08] (c) '08 by
Mumia Abu-Jamal When multiple media outlets put out the same story line, these companies, seemingly separate, establish a media narrative that quickly congeals into an apparent popular opinion -- even when such views actually reflect a narrow slice of elite opinion.
We saw this at work in the now infamous run-up to the Iraq War, when almost all corporate news outlets united to cheerlead the war, based on lies.
More recently we've seen a profound political distaste for the auto companies, with a special vehemence for the United Auto Workers (UAW) who are portrayed as greedy, lazy 'ne'er-do-wells', who are paid far more than they're worth.
Rarely are executive compensations questioned, but men and women on the line are repeatedly pointed to, quite unfairly.
This is the psychological fruit of decades of wars on workers, which really comes from the turn of the last century, when law and corporate opinion criminalized unions as 'syndicalism.'
Through decades of bitter labor struggles, these laws were overturned, but business never really agreed to the core idea of workers' rights, and bided its time until a better season.
That season arrived with the election of Ronald Reagan, who, although he ran on the feel-good nationalism of "Morning in America", waged an old fashioned war against unions by breaking the Air Traffic Controllers -- literally putting them in chains to break their strike in 1981.
No matter which party won an election since then, they placated business and hit labor.
One need look no further than the Democrat, William J. Clinton, who fought for NAFTA, which, because it supported businesses when they went offshore in search of cheap labor, severely weakened union power across the board.
Isn't it ironic that media reflects such an anti-union bent when many corporate (at least newspaper employees) reporters are members of the Newspaper Guild?
But union membership isn't determinative; company ownership is. And media is often a small part of a much larger corporate conglomerate.
When the UAW was strong, it strengthened the hand of labor almost all across the board.
The UAW fought long and hard for the wages they've earned. They shouldn't be dogged for this.
They are the makers, not the takers.
The media narrative should be, why aren't all American workers paid a more decent wage?
That's the story that should be the lead on the front page.
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The Great Depression Bail Out
by Dennis Serdel - Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Michigan
Congress: OK, 4 Star Death General, please tell us exactly why you need another 163 Billion dollars for the War?
4 Star Death Generals: Well um, we are making progress...
Congress: Excuse me, General, if I remember the last time you needed Billions more and the time before that, you said you were making progress but you needed Billions more and on and on.
4 Star Death Generals:OK Sir, that's true but...
Congress: But what? We gave you Billions for your Surge and afterwards, you said our Soldiers could waltz though the streets of Baghdad singing Zip-A-Dee Doo Dah without their weapons so we won the War, does it take that many Billions more to fly them back home?
4 Star Death Generals: OK, Sir, but we didn't exactly win the War, many of the enemy went into hiding while some of the Surge Billions we paid different enemy groups not to shoot or IED us.
Congress: Look Generals, we also think that you could of flown to Washington on a cheap airline instead of on an Air Force jet.
4 Star Death Generals:Yes Sir, but then we would of had to pay for our baggage and martinis.
Congress: Now listen hard Generals, before we give you any more Billions, you are going to have to show us your plan to win the War or we will let you go bankrupt.
4 Star Death Generals: But Sir, if we go bankrupt, then we can't pay the Troops.
Congress: Don't pull that on us again Generals, that's old propaganda that you have used before for years. The Troops will get paid but you incompetent Generals, Officers, DOD and Pentagon will go Bankrupt unless you come back with a plan to win the War.
4 Star Death Generals: We understand Sir, but...
Congress: But what? Do you seriously think that we are going to rubber stamp Billions for you like we do for the Banks and Mortgage Companies that do not have a plan?
4 Star Death Generals: Yes Sir, but we invaded without a plan, we are fighting without a plan and we have no idea or plans to win the War. After spending Trillions on the War, a few more Billions don't amount to nothing.
Congress: Look, on the Home Front, business's are going bankrupt, blue collar workers are being fired everyday. US Citizens are losing their homes, their cars and trucks, Credit Cards are not being paid, the Country is going bankrupt and even the mighty General Motors wants 25 Billion.
4 Star Death Generals: I hope they are not blaming us.