Forgotten Ford Could Surge

[sranger]

Well,

 

Ford has been range bound between $7.00 - $9.00 for quite some time now. The predictable moves have been good for short term trading. However, most indicators that I see show a slight uptick for the stock. I think it will move up to about $9.50 before it starts back on its downward trend, but should hit bottom above $8.00 before starting back up...

 

of course the "R" word could change everything...

[Stray Kat]

Is that what this is about? You don't think you're making a fair wage? Or you don't think the guy on the line is making a fair wage?

 

Well, try this on for size: Try getting that kind of pay for that kind of work anywhere else..

 

'Cause if you can't, then you're probably making a more than fair wage, at least as far as how the -economy- has chosen to value your services.

 

Heck, your brake bolt tightening whatever guy probably makes more than most public school teachers, and they're practically required to carry master's degrees these days. How fair is that?

 

I mean if you're going to talk about the 'fairness' of compensation, well, you're opening up a whole can of worms there. Why should plastic surgeons make more money than GPs? Why should professional athletes make so much money? Why should people work 40 hours a week and still live below the poverty line?

 

Let's just try and make an issue of the whole capitalist system, if we're going to talk about fair wages. There's no definition of what's fair, anyway. The only thing that's certain is that the whole damn world is unfair.

 

 

 

 

Brilliant Richard!

[coupe3w]

Hey guys it could be a lot worse. You could be like me 54 years old and just got laid off. I don't have a job at all. If I were you I would just put my head down and say a prayer and thank God you have a job. At 54, nobody wants to hire you. Think about it.

Edited September 18, 2007 by coupe3w

[akirby]

Just remember what Shakespeare said: "Heavy is the head that wears the crown"

 

It's not all its cracked up to be.

 

Getting $2M a year and not having to do a thing to earn it is one thing. Being a CEO of a company in the midst of a major restructuring is another.

 

I swear you guys act like Mulally crawls out of bed at the crack of noon, and wanders down to the family theatre where servants hand feed him bonbons all afternoon long while he watches Three Stooges shorts and laughs at all the little people that have to go to work and pay taxes and so forth.

 

Without Mulally the board would still hold the pursestrings, there would be no platform sharing between NA, Europe and Australia and Ford would still be operating like 3 different companies (FoNA, FoA, FoE). Those changes are huge and key to Ford's future prosperity.

[Pioneer]

The man has gone from an $11 million/year salary at Boeing to a $2 Million at Ford.

 

Wasn't it his choice to take the job?

[suv_guy_19]

Wasn't it his choice to take the job?

 

 

Withou him do you think you would have a job in a few years? Maybe not. Now that he is here its really staring to look like Ford isn't going anywhere.

[jpd80]

Wasn't it his choice to take the job?

Sure was. Ford actually gave him a bit more than just his $2 million/year salary.

I was making the contrast to show why Ford had to top up his perks.

[NickF1011]

Wasn't it his choice to take the job?

 

 

And isn't it your choice to keep yours?

[OAC_Sparky]

Withou him do you think you would have a job in a few years? Maybe not. Now that he is here its really staring to look like Ford isn't going anywhere.

Ford itself may not be going anywhere. Any one of our plants could be gone.

 

And as for whether or not I feel my wage is adequate, I feel my wage is on par with what an outside electrician with my experience would pay. The work environment is better here in some ways, in benefits it lags in some ways. I could forsee that should I finish my 30 years at Ford, I may retire from the Company and work privately. In that case I'd be making more.

 

The issue I have is this. The public in general has a misguided, stereotypical view of what an autoworker does. The age of the everday uneducated Joe getting a job at Ford has been over for at least 10-20 years now. Many people on the line hold degrees. This was Ford's choice; they were the one who enacted their "Best in Class" hiring practices. How much time have you spent on the line, Richard? You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about the auto sector in general, but ...how long...? Same with "suv_guy_19". Seeing there's no auto plants anywhere near Manitoba, chances are your opinion on what an autoworker does is formed by assumption at best. So what experience, exactly, do you draw from to put a figure on what pay is fair?

 

As I said before, I really don't care what dollar figure Alan makes. I really don't. But I do care when the notion is put forward that "we must all sacrifice" when "we" doesn't include "them".

 

Oh, and an autoworker makes more than a teacher? Sure, but only if they work overtime. My wife's profession is in education. She leaves at 7:30AM and she's home by 3:30PM every day. She's off every weekend. She's off all summer. Never has to go in to work at 11PM for night shift. Their exposure to hazardous chemicals consists of changing a toner cartridge. The most physically strenuous part of her job is the drive there.

 

So before you start comparing wages, compare the work being done and the hours you put in. Don't look at gross wages; look at wages/hour. If a teacher put in as many hours as an autoworker they'd make way more.

[RichardJensen]

Stateside wages, Sparky, not what teachers get paid in Canada, and NCLB has made Masters degrees (in other words about $60-80k in additional debts) almost mandatory for teachers.

 

I don't have any misguided notions about what auto workers do--they do basically the same thing over and over in an environment that is decidedly more dangerous, monotonous, and inhospitable than your typical white collar employee.

 

As far as 'we all need to sacrifice', salaried guys had to start paying more for their health care stateside a long time ago. Salaried employees, when Ford suspended 401(k) matches, were on the hook for funding -all- their retirement plan -out of pocket-.

 

The guys on the top-----well, that's never going to be fair, and you won't find a company anywhere that doesn't have the old 'Rank Has Its Privileges' mentality. No point grousing about it at Ford when it happens everywhere.

[suv_guy_19]

Ford itself may not be going anywhere. Any one of our plants could be gone.

 

And as for whether or not I feel my wage is adequate, I feel my wage is on par with what an outside electrician with my experience would pay. The work environment is better here in some ways, in benefits it lags in some ways. I could forsee that should I finish my 30 years at Ford, I may retire from the Company and work privately. In that case I'd be making more.

 

The issue I have is this. The public in general has a misguided, stereotypical view of what an autoworker does. The age of the everday uneducated Joe getting a job at Ford has been over for at least 10-20 years now. Many people on the line hold degrees. This was Ford's choice; they were the one who enacted their "Best in Class" hiring practices. How much time have you spent on the line, Richard? You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about the auto sector in general, but ...how long...? Same with "suv_guy_19". Seeing there's no auto plants anywhere near Manitoba, chances are your opinion on what an autoworker does is formed by assumption at best. So what experience, exactly, do you draw from to put a figure on what pay is fair?

 

As I said before, I really don't care what dollar figure Alan makes. I really don't. But I do care when the notion is put forward that "we must all sacrifice" when "we" doesn't include "them".

 

Oh, and an autoworker makes more than a teacher? Sure, but only if they work overtime. My wife's profession is in education. She leaves at 7:30AM and she's home by 3:30PM every day. She's off every weekend. She's off all summer. Never has to go in to work at 11PM for night shift. Their exposure to hazardous chemicals consists of changing a toner cartridge. The most physically strenuous part of her job is the drive there.

 

So before you start comparing wages, compare the work being done and the hours you put in. Don't look at gross wages; look at wages/hour. If a teacher put in as many hours as an autoworker they'd make way more.

 

 

Where did I say what I think an autoworker does? I didn't. I said what Mulally does, because from my short stints within the Provincail Legislature, I have an idea about that.

Edited September 18, 2007 by suv_guy_19

[OAC_Sparky]

Stateside wages, Sparky, not what teachers get paid in Canada, and NCLB has made Masters degrees (in other words about $60-80k in additional debts) almost mandatory for teachers.

Rhetorical question: Then if they are educated, intelligent people; why on earth would they choose that profession?

 

Obvious answer: Because they obviously felt that the long-term benefit outweighed the $60-80K investment in education.

 

Daily anecdote: I had a neighbour at my old house that was a school principal. After I had bought a new car back in '99 he remarked to another neighbour (who was also a tradesman) that a tradesman should NEVER make as much as a teacher regardless of the number of hours a week they worked. I was pretty irritated about hearing this at the time; my fortunes are made by "time served". While my neighbour was vacationing in Australia for the summer, I'm working shutdown. But that is my cross to bear, my decision.

 

So, lo and behold, who's knocking at my door when he couldn't figure out why his car's A/C wasn't working? And then two weeks later, when he couldn't figure out how to wire his ceiling fan? Yep. The school principal. I fixed both issues, pro bono. Because that's generally the type of person I am.

 

I'm sure that this person was a good principal; he was articulate, responsible and good with kids. But by the same token, the world would be a pretty dark place at night if we relied on highschool principals to fix stuff.

 

The moral of the story? We all have skills, and we all choose our paths in life. I didn't fall off the turnip truck with my mechanical or electrical knowledge. It was procured through years of schooling and experience. Just because he chose to stay in university for another 2 years (with the associated costs) so that he could have a 9to5 whitecollar job with good benefits, doesn't mean that everyone around him should make less when the job field is completely different.

Edited September 18, 2007 by OAC_Sparky

[RichardJensen]

Rather than say "no electrician should make more than a school teacher", my point in bringing school teachers into the equation, is to show that money is no reasonable measure of a person's value.

[OAC_Sparky]

Where did I say what I think an automaker does? I didn't. I said what Mulally does, because from my short stints within the Provincail Legislature, I have an idea about that.

Perhaps I read more into your statement that Mulally's salary wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. If that's the case, the salary we make per vehicle shouldn't be that big of a deal either. But....to many...it is.

[OAC_Sparky]

Rather than say "no electrician should make more than a school teacher", my point in bringing school teachers into the equation, is to show that money is no reasonable measure of a person's value.

On that we agree.

 

Unfortunately, though, it is the most common yardstick people use; while at the same time they forsake all the other aspects of the person's job duties.

[Roadrunner]

Compared to a Japanese executive, yes he is.

 

 

Oh ho ho -- $2 mil for a CEO is overpaid?

 

Compare to the execs who get $30 million.

[RichardJensen]

Well most of those execs have a base pay of only a few mill. It's the bonuses, options, and stock grants that add up.

[Noah Harbinger]

Oh, and an autoworker makes more than a teacher? Sure, but only if they work overtime. My wife's profession is in education. She leaves at 7:30AM and she's home by 3:30PM every day. She's off every weekend. She's off all summer. Never has to go in to work at 11PM for night shift. Their exposure to hazardous chemicals consists of changing a toner cartridge. The most physically strenuous part of her job is the drive there.

 

My dad works at a school; he's not a teacher, but he knows many of them.

 

When was the last time someone got shot at your plant? How often do you get mugged by the people you work with? Hazardous chemicals - have you BEEN in a school boys' restroom? (ok so that one's a joke...) Probably the most strenuous part of their job is wondering whether that sound in the lawn is the gangster she gave an F to coming to murder her.

 

When they work overtime, they don't get paid for it. They come in weekends to prepare classroom materials, they spend their afternoons and evenings grading papers and writing lesson plans. Unpaid, because they care (or at least the good ones do).

 

They spend hundreds of dollars of their own money for classroom supplies. Bought any buckets of bolts for some Edges lately?

 

I'm never going to say your job isn't hard, or valuable. That's why I am willing to pay so much for a new car, because I respect and value the work you guys put into building so many automobiles with consistent, fantastic quality and reliability.

 

But there are a lot of jobs that are harder than you think, and being a teacher -- or at least a good one -- is one of those jobs.

[OAC_Sparky]

But there are a lot of jobs that are harder than you think, and being a teacher -- or at least a good one -- is one of those jobs.

I am well aware of the requirements of a teacher, my wife is an EA that works with special needs children. And I'm not implying it's "easy". But they are compensated "fairly" (at least in Canada) for the hours they put in. We all have aspects of our jobs that are not compensated. That's life.

 

As far as being shot or mugged where I work; that would be indicative of the part of the country you live in and not the vocation.