GEN

[Spring]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../511230370/1014

[Len_A]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../511230370/1014

I would be very surprised if GEN/Jobs Bank doesn't come up in the 2007 negotiations.

[tincup2b]

I look for modifications to the GEN pool. Not getting rid of it totally but major changes none the less. Maybe only employees with 15 or 20 years will be GEN protected. Just my thought. I can't see with the shape the big three are in the GEN staying like it is. The past couple of contracts it hasn't been that big of a deal since the money, or most of it, was already put aside to fund the GEN pool. This is going to change greatly in 2007 since most of that, if not all of, The 1 Billion dollars will be depleted. I think the actual number currently is down aroud 800 million. Maybe just a little higher. Based on the rumors of the restructuring plans that will be announced in Jan. 06, 800 million will not last long. I guess only time will tell what actually will happen to the GEN pool.

[Maislebandit]

This article fails to relay to readers that the job banks were in part created to maintain an experienced work force in slow times. The fact that it protects the union ranks is secondary.

20 years ago who would know the workforce needs?

GEN has certainly has been of benefit to hourly people, no doubt, but I feel GEN, from the companies viewpoint has been an insurance policy to not only have a reserve of experience on hand, but to also curb the possibility of the transplants snapping up the laid off workers.

[Heywood]

This article fails to relay to readers that the job banks were in part created to maintain an experienced work force in slow times. The fact that it protects the union ranks is secondary.

20 years ago who would know the workforce needs?

GEN has certainly has been of benefit to hourly people, no doubt, but I feel GEN, from the companies viewpoint has been an insurance policy to not only have a reserve of experience on hand, but to also curb the possibility of the transplants snapping up the laid off workers.

 

 

Protecting the union ranks is secondary?? Come on! If anyone believes that, they're really stupid! When does the union EVER place protecting its ranks as secondary?? (Hint: NEVER!)

 

The article does say : "The companies agreed to the program so the UAW wouldn't fight new measures to increase plant efficiency."

 

The situation was that all the plants were becoming automated with robots, so less people were needed to make the cars. That could not happen according to Union Law, so the jobs bank was created so you autoworkers could sit at home, watch TV, drink beer, and get paid for doing it.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: All the autoworkers must accept reality that their jobs are not going to be secure forever. Any autoworker who thinks that their job is secure is fooling himself. Big changes are going to happen in the next couple years, and the union is not going to be able to help. You can point blame whereever you like, but it will not stop the changes.

 

Check out this Editorial from today's WSJ:

 

A Tale of Two Industries

November 22, 2005; Page A14

 

General Motors' announcement yesterday that it will close nine plants and cut some 30,000 jobs over the next couple of years exemplifies that all-too-common story of an American automotive industry in decline. And there's no doubt that GM and Ford especially are in a big hole thanks to high fixed costs and shrinking market share.

 

But over the last two decades, the decline in Detroit's fortunes and market share has been mirrored by the rise of a second American auto industry, one centered more in the South than the Upper Midwest. That industry has grown by leaps and bounds since the early 1980s; it now assembles more than three million cars a year on American soil. It pays its employees well and now accounts for 26% of all the cars made in America, while providing close to 60,000 manufacturing jobs to Americans.

 

That second industry is the Japanese-dominated sector that manufactures "foreign" cars in the U.S. Honda, Nissan and Toyota are the biggest players here, although BMW and Mercedes also play a role. (For the purposes of comparison, we'll leave DaimlerChrysler out of the reckoning of foreign-owned car makers for the moment.) Their payroll costs per employee are not markedly lower than the industry's as a whole ($64,000 for the "foreign" car makers vs. $69,500), but their unionization rates are much lower.

 

Perhaps most importantly though, these car makers are increasing production and market share. Earlier this month the Big Three's combined market share hit a record low just above 50%, while the Japanese share of the U.S. market hit 40% -- and about half of those cars were made in the U.S., according to the Center for Automotive Research.

 

The irony is that, 20 years ago, Japan was widely feared as the country that would destroy the American automotive industry. Today, Japan's big three are showing that American assembly line workers can compete with the best in the world, and they can do so while making excellent wages and benefits to boot.

Detroit's Big Three often gripe about legacy costs. GM CEO Rick Wagoner cites the $1,500 that GM pays in health-care costs per vehicle, and there's no question those costs are a serious burden. GM is paying for the health care of more retirees than of active employees. But according to Edmunds.com, an auto-information Web site, U.S. car makers effectively pay an average of about $3,500 per vehicle in incentives to buyers, compared to just over $1,000 per car for Japanese auto makers.

 

This reflects a combination of cut-throat price competition and deeply ingrained pricing incontinence in Detroit, but most of all it represents a failure to provide products for which people are willing to pay a premium. This is especially true outside of the SUV and light truck segments -- categories that also happen to be protected by a 40-year-old 25% tariff on imports. But there is little question that Detroit has done much better at making trucks and SUVs that people really wanted than it has in the sedan and compact categories.

What all this means is that the recent pop-media notion of a blue-collar middle-class in inexorable decline is mostly myth. Sixty-thousand automotive manufacturing jobs is not a huge number in an industry that once counted one million employees (white- and blue-collar) in the U.S. But that number is growing while the Big Three shrink.

 

That shrinkage has been painful for Detroit's auto workers, and the pain is probably not over. One lesson for union leaders is that, far from offering job "security," union contracts create long-term insecurity if they make their employers uncompetitive. Those workers who keep their jobs may do better in the short-term, but at the cost of forcing companies to shed tens of thousands of jobs overall, as GM announced yesterday.

And yet a largely non-unionized American automotive industry is thriving in such places as Marysville, Ohio; Smyrna, Tennessee; and Georgetown, Kentucky. Toyota has 11 production facilities in North America and three more are planned. It runs an engineering facility in Ann Arbor and it has built a huge new truck factory in Texas.

 

Price competition from the Third World is fierce in many industries, and manufacturing jobs are being lost. Still, there is no force of nature sending American industry or the middle class once employed by it into decline. Uncompetitive wage and benefit agreements, overly optimistic management assumptions about production and sales, and product-development missteps are the all too human culprits.

[Maislebandit]

Protecting the union ranks is secondary?? Come on! If anyone believes that, they're really stupid! When does the union EVER place protecting its ranks as secondary?? (Hint: NEVER!)

 

 

 

The article does say : "The companies agreed to the program so the UAW wouldn't fight new measures to increase plant efficiency."

 

The situation was that all the plants were becoming automated with robots, so less people were needed to make the cars. That could not happen according to Union Law, so the jobs bank was created so you autoworkers could sit at home, watch TV, drink beer, and get paid for doing it.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: All the autoworkers must accept reality that their jobs are not going to be secure forever. Any autoworker who thinks that their job is secure is fooling himself. Big changes are going to happen in the next couple years, and the union is not going to be able to help. You can point blame whereever you like, but it will not stop the changes.

 

Look, if you want to take the D.N. or the freep for gospel, um okay, I almost forgot how very credible they are.

Now, if you really believe that the UAW is alone responsible for GEN , you are not only stupid, but ignorant too.

GEN, like I said has been something the COMPANY has put together to maintain the workforce during slow times ( it still is a cyclical business ). And it is the COMPANY who pays and runs GEN- not the UAW!

Believe whatever you like, but I stand by my first post.

 

The WSJ article is interesting, and although it doesn't pertain to GEN, it does point to what I originally posted.

See, without the transplants capturing market share like they have, GM would have much more capacity. Capacity that would need a workforce- perhaps a workforce ready to go - one that the COMPANY had on the back burner- NOW DO YOU SEE????

As we all know, that scenario never materialized.

If the Comany knew 20 years ago what they know now- GEN never would have been- UAW or not

GEN is a COMPANY program.

And change by the way, is something the auto industry has never been or will be without :rolleyes:

[Jimmy G]

I recall a thing called GIS "Guaranteed Income Stream". I believe you had to have 15 years seniority to get it. It gave you 50% of your weekly pay. I think they got that in when they reopened up the contact in 80 or 81. Maybe some oldtimers can add a little more to this.

[Maislebandit]

I recall a thing called GIS "Guaranteed Income Stream". I believe you had to have 15 years seniority to get it. It gave you 50% of your weekly pay. I think they got that in when they reopened up the contact in 80 or 81. Maybe some oldtimers can add a little more to this.

 

Yes, you are correct GIS IS result of collective bargaining, which supplemented employees laid off.

GEN on the other hand keeps employees on active status, not drinking beer at home as some may think! <_<

[mulewright]

I recall a thing called GIS "Guaranteed Income Stream". I believe you had to have 15 years seniority to get it. It gave you 50% of your weekly pay. I think they got that in when they reopened up the contact in 80 or 81. Maybe some oldtimers can add a little more to this.

I believe GIS is still in the contract, it doesn't happen because the GEN provisions make it unecessary. GIS kicks in if you have 10 yrs in and the percentage payed is based on senority.

[06StangAwesomecar]

The situation was that all the plants were becoming automated with robots, so less people were needed to make the cars. That could not happen according to Union Law, so the jobs bank was created so you autoworkers could sit at home, watch TV, drink beer, and get paid for doing it.

 

 

 

I love how assholes can spew lies all the time, do you work for the Detroit Spews, I know 4 people in the Gen pool, and what is so funny is none of them sit at home or drink beer like this F@#$ thinks.

Get a life loser, Gm created this GEN bank, do the research, but you blame the UAW, what a biased bunch of crap.

The big three are in trouble for alot of other reasons other then the UAW, but your jealousy and hate for people making more money and better benifits then your wal-mart job piss you off. go bitch somewere else.

Edited November 25, 2005 by 05StangAwsomecar

[Heywood]

Actually, 05Stang, there are several people on this board who admitted publically that they love the Jobs Bank and love being laid off because they can screw off at home and get paid for it. In fairness, I would add that other board members chastised them for those remarks.

 

Yes, I know that GEN was a company idea (and a bad one, but who could predict the future). What is frustrating is that once it was in place, the companies knew they made a mistake with it and wanted to kill it. But the UAW said no way -- it was too much of a gravey train for the members. 05Stang, you are right the auto companies are in a lot of trouble, and much of it was of their own making. However, it is undeniable that the UAW has prevented much of the reforms the companies want to (no, NEED TO) make. Look at Delphi. The UAW is threatening a strike over the proposed wage and benefits packages. If the workers strike, Delphi is doomed. But the workers don't care. All they want is their $65 per hour plus full benefits for life. As long as they can keep that deal going, they don't care what happens to the company.

 

The auto business is very competitive these days, and the Americans are losing I'm sorry to say. Business methods and worker expectations have to change. Someone said it earlier: the days of high-wage manufacturing in this country are waning fast. Better get used to it cuz it's only going to get worse.

[DearbornDerek]

O.K....just Curious , I'm not trying to start shit with anyone....but where does this $65/hour crap come from.

I'm at top pay ($27) and if you add what Ford paid for my benefits you get $35/hour, thats wage and benefits combined.

[Len_A]

O.K....just Curious , I'm not trying to start shit with anyone....but where does this $65/hour crap come from.

I'm at top pay ($27) and if you add what Ford paid for my benefits you get $35/hour, thats wage and benefits combined.

Add the cost of the pension contribution, the company's match of the social security tax, the cost of workers compensation insurance, and the cost of vacations.

 

It's GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Everything involved in the cost of the employee is added up, then divided by 40 hours and the number of weeks worked. Whatever pension plan contributions the company makes is charged to active workers. So even if you buy people out, but the have accrued credit toward their pension and they are fully vested, if something happens that makes the defined benefit pension come up short, according to the formula's used, when the company makes an increased contribution to the pension plan, that gets charged against the active workers.

[Heywood]

O.K....just Curious , I'm not trying to start shit with anyone....but where does this $65/hour crap come from.

I'm at top pay ($27) and if you add what Ford paid for my benefits you get $35/hour, thats wage and benefits combined.

 

Len A's explanation is correct. In accounting, you have to consider what it costs the company to have each employee. That would include salary, all benefits, taxes, etc. Employees and all their associated extras are considered "overhead".

[DearbornDerek]

Add the cost of the pension contribution, the company's match of the social security tax, the cost of workers compensation insurance, and the cost of vacations.

 

It's GAAP - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Everything involved in the cost of the employee is added up, then divided by 40 hours and the number of weeks worked. Whatever pension plan contributions the company makes is charged to active workers. So even if you buy people out, but the have accrued credit toward their pension and they are fully vested, if something happens that makes the defined benefit pension come up short, according to the formula's used, when the company makes an increased contribution to the pension plan, that gets charged against the active workers.

 

 

Len A's explanation is correct. In accounting, you have to consider what it costs the company to have each employee. That would include salary, all benefits, taxes, etc. Employees and all their associated extras are considered "overhead".

 

O.K...thank's.

one more question....would there be any difference in $$$/hour between someone with an HMO (like myself) and someone who has the "blue cross gold card" that covers everything? I more or less have the same kind of coverage I had at my old job (grocery store) and I have no complaints about the HMO (I have HAP).

[the_wizard]

O.K....just Curious , I'm not trying to start shit with anyone....but where does this $65/hour crap come from.

I'm at top pay ($27) and if you add what Ford paid for my benefits you get $35/hour, thats wage and benefits combined.

 

 

actually for 2006 it would be acurrate to use $50.00 per hour since annually $105,000 per head in GEN is the correct benchmark.

[Len_A]

actually for 2006 it would be acurrate to use $50.00 per hour since annually $105,000 per head in GEN is the correct benchmark.

I wouldn't be too sure of that. I'm not sure how worker's compensation costs are computed for those in the GEN pool since they aren't actually performing any work. Plus, in accounting, you divide that 105,000 by the numbers of weeks actually worked. Vacation time, since when you're on vacation you're not actually producing anything, is computed as a cost. You arrived at the $50 by dividing the $105,000 by 40 hours divided by 52 weeks. GAAP states that you divide by the number of weeks actually worked.

Edited November 25, 2005 by Len_A

[tincup2b]

I'm not sure why the actual number that it cost per hour is important but I know that the Company computes skilled trades out to be $45.00 per hour on straight time. That is the number that each dept. gets charged for every hour worked. This comes out of the dept. budget. I know that I don't make $45 per hour but sure wished I did. I don't understand why the company won't consider one simple thing to reduce cost. They are constantly complaining about health care and how much it cost per employee, but if a employee would decide not to accept Ford health care they get nothing in return. Why doesn't Ford tell employees if your spouse has a job that offers health care and you choose to use it instead of Fords health care they will give the employee a percentage of the savings back to the employee. This only makes since. It passes the health care cost back to another employer, which saves Ford money, and puts a little something extra in the employees pocket which makes them happy. I know we have all heard that a happy worker works harder.

[06StangAwesomecar]

Actually, 05Stang, there are several people on this board who admitted publically that they love the Jobs Bank and love being laid off because they can screw off at home and get paid for it. In fairness, I would add that other board members chastised them for those remarks.

 

Yes, I know that GEN was a company idea (and a bad one, but who could predict the future). What is frustrating is that once it was in place, the companies knew they made a mistake with it and wanted to kill it. But the UAW said no way -- it was too much of a gravey train for the members. 05Stang, you are right the auto companies are in a lot of trouble, and much of it was of their own making. However, it is undeniable that the UAW has prevented much of the reforms the companies want to (no, NEED TO) make. Look at Delphi. The UAW is threatening a strike over the proposed wage and benefits packages. If the workers strike, Delphi is doomed. But the workers don't care. All they want is their $65 per hour plus full benefits for life. As long as they can keep that deal going, they don't care what happens to the company.

 

The auto business is very competitive these days, and the Americans are losing I'm sorry to say. Business methods and worker expectations have to change. Someone said it earlier: the days of high-wage manufacturing in this country are waning fast. Better get used to it cuz it's only going to get worse.

 

 

Fair enough ! But I still feel alot of Delphi workers care about there job, and are scared, I know I would be.

[wildosvt]

Fair enough ! But I still feel alot of Delphi workers care about there job, and are scared, I know I would be.

 

I was recently laid off for 2.1 weeks and I hated it, After the 1.5.. I wanted to get back to work. But everyone could use a short break every once in a blue moon. It helps you catch up on things you are not able to being at work all the time. B)

[Heywood]

Here's an article from yesterday's WSJ. Interesting bit about how Walter Reuther, the former UAW president, wanted to establish a Scandanavian-style welfare state in the United States.

 

 

Once Upon a Time in America

 

By MICHAEL BARONE

 

Wall Street Journal November 25, 2005; Page A10

 

The end, or the beginning of the end, of a familiar and comfortable world: That's how General Motors' announcement this week of massive layoffs and plant closings, following the bankruptcy of Delphi last month, strikes one who grew up in the Detroit area in the two decades immediately after World War II. In that world, it was easy to imagine you were at the center of the economy. Detroit was then the fifth-largest metropolitan area, the home of the Big Three auto companies and the United Auto Workers -- national institutions of the greatest importance. The news media followed the negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three company it picked as a target every few years, and it was assumed that the wages and benefits agreed to would set a pattern for the whole economy.

 

And a very good economy it seemed to be. Left behind were the Depression and the anxious years of World War II. The UAW was able to negotiate big hourly pay increases and generous medical and pension benefits as well. With no effective competition, the Big Three could pass along the cost of UAW contracts to consumers who seemed willing to pay more for dramatically restyled and heavily advertised cars. General Motors' president, Harlow Curtice, was Time's Man of the Year for 1955. This was a recognition not just of an individual (I wonder how able an executive Curtice was) but of a system; Time might have

honored UAW's longtime president, Walter Reuther.

 

The success of the Big Three and the UAW seemed a fit symbol of America's postwar economic dynamism. In fact, this was an economy characterized not by dynamism but by stasis, to use Virginia Postrel's term in "The Future and Its Enemies." New Deal legislation had been designed not for economic growth but for protection from the downward spiral of deflation. Those laws, not least by encouraging unions, strove to prop up wages and prices and to provide security to workers and existing firms. Keynesian economics was employed to flatten out the business cycle as much as possible and to reduce unemployment.

 

By the mid-1960s, it was generally agreed that this system worked and would continue indefinitely. The Big Three could always make money by rolling out the big cars families needed to go up north each summer. As John Kenneth Galbraith then argued, auto makers could induce consumers to buy as many cars as they wanted to sell by clever advertising. UAW workers could always look forward to ever-increasing wages and benefits. The big demand in the 1970 contract negotiations was retirement for auto workers in their early 50s. The confrontational labor-management politics of the 1940s and 1950s was replaced by consensus, as Henry Ford II joined Reuther in endorsing LBJ in 1964.

 

Reuther, a man of great energy and ability, wanted to use the UAW as an entering wedge to transform America into a Scandinavian-style welfare state. His contracts would set the pattern for national wages; the union movement would expand into new industries and unionize most of the economy; growth would enable workers to enjoy not only high wages, but job security, medical benefits, generous pensions. They would be protected against competition by large corporations. Reuther employed a Scandinavian architect to build Solidarity House, the union's HQ on the Detroit River, and Black Lake, its educational center in northern Michigan. Reuther, like Marx, and like so many other social democrats, envisioned workers devoting their increasing leisure hours to pursuing the culture that seemed so inaccessible to workers earlier in the century.

 

The problem was that the default character of the economy, after the shocks of Depression and war, turned out to be not stasis but dynamism. Private sector unionization peaked in the mid-1950s; employment in unionized firms grew less than in nonunion firms. Union leaders believed that Section 14(B) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which allowed state right-to-work laws, was preventing unionization in the South, the Great Plains and much of the West. But the attempt to repeal 14(B) was one of the few defeats for LBJ's Democrats in the 1965-66 Congress.

 

The Big Three auto firms -- and the UAW -- would soon face competition from foreign firms and an unforeseen demand for cars not large enough to take the family up north every summer. Attempts to wall themselves off from foreign competition either failed legislatively or produced perverse results. Faced with domestic content laws, Japanese and European firms built large plants in the U.S. with nonunion work forces. That has left the Big Three and their spinoffs, like Delphi, with redundant work forces and huge legacy costs in the form of generous pensions and open-ended retiree health benefits.

 

Union-driven legacy costs have already forced many steel companies and airlines into bankruptcy, with pension obligations fobbed off on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation: The Big Three auto companies might as well do the same. At least there aren't that many big unionized private industries left to fall. Besides, taxpayers and politicians angry at costs imposed by unions -- particularly in the public sector -- can always change the rules and reduce unions' bargaining leverage. Just as the economic marketplace eventually reduced the power of the old industrial unions, the political marketplace could, in time, reduce the power of the "post-industrial" unions.

 

The attempt to protect workers from all risk has turned out to be very risky indeed, since in a dynamic economy large corporations are subject to competition from firms with lower costs. In the auto industry the result is significant pain for those who relied on the Big Three and the UAW; but the result is also a vastly faster growing economy and many more opportunities than provided by the European welfare states.

 

A broader result has also been the consolidation of a more demotic, market-based culture. On the Michigan freeways going up north, the big attractions are not the UAW's cultural haven of Black Lake but Indian casinos and outlet malls, places where people throng to win sudden riches or to take advantage of low prices on brand-name goods. The attempt, made when the economy seemed static, to promise security and leisure and restrained good taste, has failed. We remain, as we have been in most of our history, a nation of hustlers (as historian Walter A. McDougall so strikingly put it) -- a people who strive mightily to get ahead and advance their interests, enjoying the sometimes vulgar opportunities a dynamic economy provides.

 

Mr. Barone is a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and a contributor to the Fox News Channel.

[Pumpmaster]

What's Mr. Barones' background? Has Mr. Barone ever worked in an auto factory (union or non-union)? Has he ever worked at a minimum wage job? Did he work his way "up the ladder?" How much money does he make today?

 

What's your background, Mr. Heywood?

[dark270]

Actually, 05Stang, there are several people on this board who admitted publically that they love the Jobs Bank and love being laid off because they can screw off at home and get paid for it. In fairness, I would add that other board members chastised them for those remarks.

 

Yes, I know that GEN was a company idea (and a bad one, but who could predict the future). What is frustrating is that once it was in place, the companies knew they made a mistake with it and wanted to kill it. But the UAW said no way -- it was too much of a gravey train for the members. 05Stang, you are right the auto companies are in a lot of trouble, and much of it was of their own making. However, it is undeniable that the UAW has prevented much of the reforms the companies want to (no, NEED TO) make. Look at Delphi. The UAW is threatening a strike over the proposed wage and benefits packages. If the workers strike, Delphi is doomed. But the workers don't care. All they want is their $65 per hour plus full benefits for life. As long as they can keep that deal going, they don't care what happens to the company.

 

The auto business is very competitive these days, and the Americans are losing I'm sorry to say. Business methods and worker expectations have to change. Someone said it earlier: the days of high-wage manufacturing in this country are waning fast. Better get used to it cuz it's only going to get worse.

 

you know what woodie, have you ever been laid off?? it is not a 'GRAVY train' as you said it is i'm STILL waiting for my nov 5 check for subpay....guess ford doesn't want to pay... besides that it is based on 40 hours a week..which aint SHIT!., so once again, go fuck off woodie, you anti-union ,salary biased ,motherfucker!

[Heywood]

What's Mr. Barones' background? Has Mr. Barone ever worked in an auto factory (union or non-union)? Has he ever worked at a minimum wage job? Did he work his way "up the ladder?" How much money does he make today?

 

What's your background, Mr. Heywood?

 

 

With respect Pumpmaster, what difference would the responses to your questions make? Barone is commenting on the history of the auto industry since 1950. He doesn't need to be an autoworker or have worked at a minimum wage job to do that.

[Heywood]

you know what woodie, have you ever been laid off?? it is not a 'GRAVY train' as you said it is i'm STILL waiting for my nov 5 check for subpay....guess ford doesn't want to pay... besides that it is based on 40 hours a week..which aint SHIT!., so once again, go fuck off woodie, you anti-union ,salary biased ,motherfucker!

 

The "Gravey Train" I was referring to was the generous wage and benefits packages, including Jobs Bank, and not the layoffs as you suggest.

 

Dark, the difference between your layoff and anyone else's layoff is that YOU GET PAID WHILE YOU'RE LAID OFF! Lots of other laid off folks in other industries get nothing, so I think you should not be complaining too much if your "lay off" check is a few days late.

Edited November 26, 2005 by Heywood