sure wish we could discuss the UAWs incredible strike. (1 Viewer)

[FreeBaGeL]

• Europe undeniably has better work life balance than the USA, but this does come with a cost. They are not on the cutting edge in any field that I am aware of. Maybe that's worth it, maybe it's not. It's a question of what a society values.

Does this actually have a tangible cost to the average citizen or is it just a pride thing? Sure I like to buy American where I can, but honestly don't think about it much. My phone, computer, TV, refrigerator, car, etc. are all mostly made overseas, mostly because of the reliability and quality of those specific brands. This wouldn't change at all for me if I lived in Europe.

Pick a relatively prosperous European country. Not Italy, not Greece. Let's go with Germany. Everybody knows that Germans are efficient, punctual, and ruggedly handsome, so they're a good comparison case for the US.

Per capita GDP in Germany is $51K.
Per capita GDP in the US is almost $80K.

If anything, that comparison actually understates the true magnitude of the gap between our countries. If Germany were a state, it would have the honor of squeaking in just ahead of Mississippi to avoid the indignity of being the poorest US state. Germany lags behind economic powerhouses like West Virginia and Arkansas. All those German settlers who landed in Minnesota and the Dakotas? We're about 50% better off than modern day Germans, and nobody thinks of us as especially rich. (Eagle-eyed viewers will note that there's a bit of discrepancy here because that German GDP number is for 2021 and the US figure is from 2022, but that isn't going to change anything.)

Yeah, there's a cost to this.

Now, I shut my computer off at the end of the day and leave my work in my office when I leave. I get four weeks of PTO each year -- pretty skimpy compared to what I'm sure my German counterparts get but still fairly generous by US standards -- and I make it my personal mission to use every minute of it. I could have made significantly more income in my current career if I had been willing to relocate, and of course I could have simply picked a higher-paying career if I really cared. But I like academia and I like the upper Midwest, so I made the decision to give up some income for a better lifestyle. Couldn't be happier with the outcome of that decision. I am definitely a person who is persuadable that maybe the Europeans have this right. But yes, there is a tradeoff.

Edit: It's actually pretty instructive to compare assorted countries in the EU to the US. Norway is doing great, for example, but you learn real fast that they're a huge outlier. Countries that we think of as our peers -- Germany, France, the UK, Belgium -- are all pretty poor compared to us. Spain barely even qualifies as a first-world country. IMO, Americans don't really have a good handle on how much richer we are compared to pretty much everybody else. Ironically, I think foreign travel actually kind of exacerbates that tendency because rich Americans tend to travel to popular European tourist destinations that cater to rich tourists, so the difference in living standards is mostly masked when you visit Europe. You have to go in a regular grocery store or something to really see the difference tangibly.

The other big advantage we get is that our stock market flies because of it, and most of us are invested in that in some form or another. European markets, by comparison generally sit pretty flat.

If you look at the best performing stocks worldwide it's all USA, China, and a little bit of Korea. Very little from Europe.

BUT, as I've mentioned throughout this thread, number of hours worked is not the only factor in this, and is a much smaller factor than most would consider. It's largely a culture thing. Someone creates a successful Italian restaurant in America, they want to become the next Darden billionaire. Someone does the same thing in Europe, they're happy to just live a nice life. There's not the urge to scale scale scale, which doesn't necessarily require more hours.

I've posted a lot of data on how productivity curtails sharply beyond a certain number of working hours per day and per week, and how that was Henry Ford's entire premise for reducing the work week in the first place. I don't really care to rehash it here, but this is the thing that I think the "if we want nice things, we have to work hard" crowd, like JB, are missing. There may very well be a significantly better balance. What if I told you that you could work 50% less and you'd still have 99% the nice things you had before? Wouldn't that interest people? Obviously that's hyperbole, but all the data points to there being a much better balance than the one we currently have, given how little productivity we get beyond a certain point in the work week.

Here's a really fun exercise. This is a chart of US GDP over a 100 year span.

At the start of that chart, the average workweek was around 80 hours. At the end of it, 40 hours.

But here's the really fun part. Looking at that chart, can you identify the periods where the following things went into effect...

• 10-hour workday movement, where public pressure forced most jobs into a maximum of 10-hour workday
• Government jobs, printing press jobs change to 8 hour work day
• Federal overtime laws dictating overtime pay for any work beyond 8 hours per day
• Ford switches to 40 hour work week
• Federal law mandating 44 hour work week
• Federal law mandating 40 hour work week

The reality is that none of those things show up on the chart as even a blip. Of course there was a lot going on with world wars, etc, but not even a blip in GDP output. I made the claim earlier in this thread that we could probably reduce working hours by 10% and the change in productivity would likely be so negligible it was barely even noticeable. Honestly, I think I might have been too conservative on that.

Has anyone said that GDP would plummet if we worked fewer hours? I think most agree that we'd be "fine", the question is, what should people get paid if we all work less? Again, trade offs.

And you kind of yada-yadad over the best part- yes, our culture is why the Italian restaurant owner wants to be the next Darden billionaire instead of just living a nice life. That isn't Darden's fault, or the stock market's, or the overpaid CEO's.

Why does pay need to decrease if productivity decreases slightly? I posted the chart earlier in this thread that over the last 50 years productivity has increased 400% while inflation adjusted wages have increased virtually zero. It seems like productivity has a little to give back on that front. Would it be that bad if productivity was only up 390% over the last 50 years while wage increases remained at 0%?

Were wages decreased in the past when the work week was reduced? I'm genuinely asking, I don't know the answer. When the work week was reduced from 44 hours to 40 in 1940 were wages dropped 10%? I honestly have no idea, but I doubt it.

I know for sure that when Ford dropped the work week from 48 hours to 40 they did not decrease wages at all.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Its far afield from the topic at hand, but Ivan is only referencing per capita GDP, which says very little about the quality of life for the average citizen. To say, "we're about 50% better off than modern day Germans" is clearly false in my opinion, having lived as an adult in Germany for 2 years and in the US for over 50.

Thanks. In the "How better off are they?" score, let's say 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Where would you score a person like yourself living in the US? And where would you score a person like you living in Germany?

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

 

[DA RAIDERS]

I don't think a lot of people choose to vote with their wallet, at least not when it comes to buying things. It just isn't something most people think about.

Most of the time people buy things out of necessity. When they do they look buy they usually look at convenience, and/or price. It can be very time consuming trying to find things that are US made if you are shopping at a traditional brick and mortar store.

Interesting. Thanks. I don't think I agree as I do think a lot of people think about it. They may still decide to buy the thing that's made in ___________ and hope the workers are treated well but I think lots of people think about it.

I know for me, it's very important.

Not for everything of course. But for lots of things.

But I also acknowledge I'm on the edge of the spectrum for that.

i like to imagine a world where i buy american and only american. i'd also like to stick with things that are ethically produced.. but it's hard to do. i just did a remodel of my downstairs. LAM!! we wanted a large, blue, handblown glass chandelier over the dining room table. cheapest that we could find was over $3000.. regardless of where it was made. many were US. out of the blue, the wife found one on amazon, made in china. $500. we bought it. $2500 is $2500.

another example is canned beans. my wife does 99% of the shopping. when i tell her to just buy the beans at the grocery store. she tells me i'm an idiot, same beans at walmart are half the price. she's doing the shopping, i'm not going to fight about beans. i hate walmart. since i complain about it all the time, i'm not allowed to go to walmart. i have a prescription ready right now. wife will get it after work.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

Agreed on all of this FWIW. You and I don't share the same politics and I'm not necessarily opposed to how we handle some of these items, but it's undeniable that people in the US are mostly left to fend for themselves when it comes to these goods. No doubt that's a QOL issue for some people.

I mean, for me personally, I would have opted out of Social Security in my 20s if I could have, and it would have worked out great for me. But I do realize now that a similar decision would be catastrophic for a large chunk of the population, which is why I've way off from my "Social Security must be abolished" days. (I really used to feel strangely passionate about that topic). But suffice it to say that I've always been 100% cool being in charge of my own retirement planning. Health insurance, on the other hand, is stupid in the US. It's always been stupid to tie health insurance to employment. Obamacare was supposed to break that link, but that fell apart during the legislative process for understandable political (as in "the art of politics" not ideology) reasons. It's kind of dumb that my biggest worry about early retirement is having to buy insurance on the open market when that same insurance would be cheap if I could remain in my employer's pool.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Its far afield from the topic at hand, but Ivan is only referencing per capita GDP, which says very little about the quality of life for the average citizen. To say, "we're about 50% better off than modern day Germans" is clearly false in my opinion, having lived as an adult in Germany for 2 years and in the US for over 50.

Thanks. In the "How better off are they?" score, let's say 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Where would you score a person like yourself living in the US? And where would you score a person like you living in Germany?

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

Sure. What would be your numbers as someone who's lived in both places and said the 50% number was "clearly false"?

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Its far afield from the topic at hand, but Ivan is only referencing per capita GDP, which says very little about the quality of life for the average citizen. To say, "we're about 50% better off than modern day Germans" is clearly false in my opinion, having lived as an adult in Germany for 2 years and in the US for over 50.

Thanks. In the "How better off are they?" score, let's say 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Where would you score a person like yourself living in the US? And where would you score a person like you living in Germany?

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

Sure. What would be your numbers as someone who's lived in both places and said the 50% number was "clearly false"?

I would say 50/50. People who work hard and plan and don't have terrible bad luck can probably build a nice life anywhere in the US or western Europe. I think IK's "50% better off" comment was more in gross economic terms based on per capita GDP. In real-world terms, across the board for poor, middle class and wealthy, I don't think that type of generalization is remotely accurate, but its a huge judgment call depending on what is important to each of us.

 

[The Z Machine]

• Europe undeniably has better work life balance than the USA, but this does come with a cost. They are not on the cutting edge in any field that I am aware of. Maybe that's worth it, maybe it's not. It's a question of what a society values.

Does this actually have a tangible cost to the average citizen or is it just a pride thing? Sure I like to buy American where I can, but honestly don't think about it much. My phone, computer, TV, refrigerator, car, etc. are all mostly made overseas, mostly because of the reliability and quality of those specific brands. This wouldn't change at all for me if I lived in Europe.

Pick a relatively prosperous European country. Not Italy, not Greece. Let's go with Germany. Everybody knows that Germans are efficient, punctual, and ruggedly handsome, so they're a good comparison case for the US.

Per capita GDP in Germany is $51K.
Per capita GDP in the US is almost $80K.

If anything, that comparison actually understates the true magnitude of the gap between our countries. If Germany were a state, it would have the honor of squeaking in just ahead of Mississippi to avoid the indignity of being the poorest US state. Germany lags behind economic powerhouses like West Virginia and Arkansas. All those German settlers who landed in Minnesota and the Dakotas? We're about 50% better off than modern day Germans, and nobody thinks of us as especially rich. (Eagle-eyed viewers will note that there's a bit of discrepancy here because that German GDP number is for 2021 and the US figure is from 2022, but that isn't going to change anything.)

Yeah, there's a cost to this.

Now, I shut my computer off at the end of the day and leave my work in my office when I leave. I get four weeks of PTO each year -- pretty skimpy compared to what I'm sure my German counterparts get but still fairly generous by US standards -- and I make it my personal mission to use every minute of it. I could have made significantly more income in my current career if I had been willing to relocate, and of course I could have simply picked a higher-paying career if I really cared. But I like academia and I like the upper Midwest, so I made the decision to give up some income for a better lifestyle. Couldn't be happier with the outcome of that decision. I am definitely a person who is persuadable that maybe the Europeans have this right. But yes, there is a tradeoff.

Edit: It's actually pretty instructive to compare assorted countries in the EU to the US. Norway is doing great, for example, but you learn real fast that they're a huge outlier. Countries that we think of as our peers -- Germany, France, the UK, Belgium -- are all pretty poor compared to us. Spain barely even qualifies as a first-world country. IMO, Americans don't really have a good handle on how much richer we are compared to pretty much everybody else. Ironically, I think foreign travel actually kind of exacerbates that tendency because rich Americans tend to travel to popular European tourist destinations that cater to rich tourists, so the difference in living standards is mostly masked when you visit Europe. You have to go in a regular grocery store or something to really see the difference tangibly.

Good posting, but we should also analyze wealth disparities and the distribution wealth through the class structure. In addition the social safety net, including health care / insurance and pensions aren't likely included in that analysis. Sure American have more "disposable" income but we pay a lot for our health care and don't save enough for retirement.

 

[Sand]

Its far afield from the topic at hand, but Ivan is only referencing per capita GDP, which says very little about the quality of life for the average citizen. To say, "we're about 50% better off than modern day Germans" is clearly false in my opinion, having lived as an adult in Germany for 2 years and in the US for over 50.

Thanks. In the "How better off are they?" score, let's say 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Where would you score a person like yourself living in the US? And where would you score a person like you living in Germany?

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

It is a bit easier for them to do these things when the US subsidizes their military and their medical costs.

 

[rockaction]

It is a bit easier for them to do these things when the US subsidizes their military and their medical costs.

I'm always amazed when I look at these "quality of life" indexes and whatnot that having no defense and universal health care is a plus. We subsidize other Western countries' lack of spending and centralized largesse. If we were to move to the Western European model, a) the world as we know it would fall apart, and b) the world as we know it would fall apart.

Amazed that more people don't realize that. Always.

And I'm not being chauvinistic about the U.S.A., either. There are things we can do a whole lot better. But to point at the quality of life indexes and ignore that we essentially subsidize both defense and other countries' health care is always astounding to me. The coattail riding on American pharma R&D alone and the burden the U.S. consumer faces when it comes to obtaining prescription drugs is astonishing.

At some point, people have to actually produce things for consumption for this all to be a boon to the human race. The Western world has moved beyond basic food constraints. Now we can do shelter next, hopefully.

Interesting read by the absolutely not anything but left-of-center Brookings about that claim I'm making about health care.

The global burden of medical innovation | Brookings

Researchers argue that encouraging other countries to pay more for pharmaceuticals would benefit patients both in the US and around the world.

www.brookings.edu

 

[The Z Machine]

Maybe we should stop subsidizing big pharma and just agree to pay what western European countries pay for their drugs?

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Its far afield from the topic at hand, but Ivan is only referencing per capita GDP, which says very little about the quality of life for the average citizen. To say, "we're about 50% better off than modern day Germans" is clearly false in my opinion, having lived as an adult in Germany for 2 years and in the US for over 50.

Thanks. In the "How better off are they?" score, let's say 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Where would you score a person like yourself living in the US? And where would you score a person like you living in Germany?

Its hard to meaningfully ballpark something like this, with so many variables, especially keeping it non-political. I would just say that for me as a middle class dad in the US, some of the biggest stress in my life comes from things like cost of my kids' education, healthcare, retirement and old age, housing. These things are not concerns to middle class people living in places like Germany. But they have other issues we don't face here, like having your capital city of Berlin being located in the middle of a Soviet satellite state until 1989.

It is a bit easier for them to do these things when the US subsidizes their military and their medical costs.

Sure - there are certainly hundreds or thousands of different factors you can look at as to why things are what they are. The question I’m responding to was to put a specific numerical value on ”better offness” in QoL between the two countries, not to explain why. I don’t think that’s meaningfully possible, nor does it have anything to do with the UAW strike.

 

[Stoneworker]

And before I go I'd just like to leave some quotes from Henry Ford himself, on why he was reducing the work week, and how his company's studies found that decreases in work time could actually increase productivity, and increase total economic output.

Don't be fooled. Ford's primary reason for reducing the work week to eight hours wasn't because of any visionary "productivity" rationale or worker altruism, it was to increase profit.

With shift lengths of eight hours, he created a third shift and thus was able to keep plants running 24 hours a day. This enabled fixed costs to be spread over a much greater production volume, which in turn lowered per unit costs, and subsequently increased sales.

And it's ironic to hold up Henry Ford as a paragon of progressive HR policies.

Some of his other workforce "innovations" included creating a Sociological Dept to ensure that workers lived a "wholesome" life, various "speedup" tactics enforced by shadow workers with stopwatches, and the so-called "Service Dept," which was a three-thousand member armed goon squad whose purpose was to dissuade union organizers. Source: Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Jungle City

 

[The Commish]

The coattail riding on American pharma R&D alone and the burden the U.S. consumer faces when it comes to obtaining prescription drugs is astonishing.

This isn't happening TO us. Segments of the electorate are actively voting for this to happen. It's never made any sense to me why we do this.

 

[The Commish]

Maybe we should stop subsidizing big pharma and just agree to pay what western European countries pay for their drugs?

 

[Sand]

Maybe we should stop subsidizing big pharma and just agree to pay what western European countries pay for their drugs?

There has to be a transition period to allow costs to get spread over other countries, but the thought of the US being able to look at average prices, say the average G20 cost, is reasonable as a benchmark to negotiate.

 

[humpback]

• Europe undeniably has better work life balance than the USA, but this does come with a cost. They are not on the cutting edge in any field that I am aware of. Maybe that's worth it, maybe it's not. It's a question of what a society values.

Does this actually have a tangible cost to the average citizen or is it just a pride thing? Sure I like to buy American where I can, but honestly don't think about it much. My phone, computer, TV, refrigerator, car, etc. are all mostly made overseas, mostly because of the reliability and quality of those specific brands. This wouldn't change at all for me if I lived in Europe.

Pick a relatively prosperous European country. Not Italy, not Greece. Let's go with Germany. Everybody knows that Germans are efficient, punctual, and ruggedly handsome, so they're a good comparison case for the US.

Per capita GDP in Germany is $51K.
Per capita GDP in the US is almost $80K.

If anything, that comparison actually understates the true magnitude of the gap between our countries. If Germany were a state, it would have the honor of squeaking in just ahead of Mississippi to avoid the indignity of being the poorest US state. Germany lags behind economic powerhouses like West Virginia and Arkansas. All those German settlers who landed in Minnesota and the Dakotas? We're about 50% better off than modern day Germans, and nobody thinks of us as especially rich. (Eagle-eyed viewers will note that there's a bit of discrepancy here because that German GDP number is for 2021 and the US figure is from 2022, but that isn't going to change anything.)

Yeah, there's a cost to this.

Now, I shut my computer off at the end of the day and leave my work in my office when I leave. I get four weeks of PTO each year -- pretty skimpy compared to what I'm sure my German counterparts get but still fairly generous by US standards -- and I make it my personal mission to use every minute of it. I could have made significantly more income in my current career if I had been willing to relocate, and of course I could have simply picked a higher-paying career if I really cared. But I like academia and I like the upper Midwest, so I made the decision to give up some income for a better lifestyle. Couldn't be happier with the outcome of that decision. I am definitely a person who is persuadable that maybe the Europeans have this right. But yes, there is a tradeoff.

Edit: It's actually pretty instructive to compare assorted countries in the EU to the US. Norway is doing great, for example, but you learn real fast that they're a huge outlier. Countries that we think of as our peers -- Germany, France, the UK, Belgium -- are all pretty poor compared to us. Spain barely even qualifies as a first-world country. IMO, Americans don't really have a good handle on how much richer we are compared to pretty much everybody else. Ironically, I think foreign travel actually kind of exacerbates that tendency because rich Americans tend to travel to popular European tourist destinations that cater to rich tourists, so the difference in living standards is mostly masked when you visit Europe. You have to go in a regular grocery store or something to really see the difference tangibly.

The other big advantage we get is that our stock market flies because of it, and most of us are invested in that in some form or another. European markets, by comparison generally sit pretty flat.

If you look at the best performing stocks worldwide it's all USA, China, and a little bit of Korea. Very little from Europe.

BUT, as I've mentioned throughout this thread, number of hours worked is not the only factor in this, and is a much smaller factor than most would consider. It's largely a culture thing. Someone creates a successful Italian restaurant in America, they want to become the next Darden billionaire. Someone does the same thing in Europe, they're happy to just live a nice life. There's not the urge to scale scale scale, which doesn't necessarily require more hours.

I've posted a lot of data on how productivity curtails sharply beyond a certain number of working hours per day and per week, and how that was Henry Ford's entire premise for reducing the work week in the first place. I don't really care to rehash it here, but this is the thing that I think the "if we want nice things, we have to work hard" crowd, like JB, are missing. There may very well be a significantly better balance. What if I told you that you could work 50% less and you'd still have 99% the nice things you had before? Wouldn't that interest people? Obviously that's hyperbole, but all the data points to there being a much better balance than the one we currently have, given how little productivity we get beyond a certain point in the work week.

Here's a really fun exercise. This is a chart of US GDP over a 100 year span.

At the start of that chart, the average workweek was around 80 hours. At the end of it, 40 hours.

But here's the really fun part. Looking at that chart, can you identify the periods where the following things went into effect...

• 10-hour workday movement, where public pressure forced most jobs into a maximum of 10-hour workday
• Government jobs, printing press jobs change to 8 hour work day
• Federal overtime laws dictating overtime pay for any work beyond 8 hours per day
• Ford switches to 40 hour work week
• Federal law mandating 44 hour work week
• Federal law mandating 40 hour work week

The reality is that none of those things show up on the chart as even a blip. Of course there was a lot going on with world wars, etc, but not even a blip in GDP output. I made the claim earlier in this thread that we could probably reduce working hours by 10% and the change in productivity would likely be so negligible it was barely even noticeable. Honestly, I think I might have been too conservative on that.

Has anyone said that GDP would plummet if we worked fewer hours? I think most agree that we'd be "fine", the question is, what should people get paid if we all work less? Again, trade offs.

And you kind of yada-yadad over the best part- yes, our culture is why the Italian restaurant owner wants to be the next Darden billionaire instead of just living a nice life. That isn't Darden's fault, or the stock market's, or the overpaid CEO's.

Why does pay need to decrease if productivity decreases slightly? I posted the chart earlier in this thread that over the last 50 years productivity has increased 400% while inflation adjusted wages have increased virtually zero. It seems like productivity has a little to give back on that front. Would it be that bad if productivity was only up 390% over the last 50 years while wage increases remained at 0%?

Were wages decreased in the past when the work week was reduced? I'm genuinely asking, I don't know the answer. When the work week was reduced from 44 hours to 40 in 1940 were wages dropped 10%? I honestly have no idea, but I doubt it.

I know for sure that when Ford dropped the work week from 48 hours to 40 they did not decrease wages at all.

I didn't say that pay would need to decrease, just said that should be the topic of discussion, not whether our economy would crumble if we worked fewer hours.

You seem to be putting a lot of stock in what happened with Ford around a century ago, and while I think it's good to look at history, things are so, so much different now than they were back then.

Like I said, I do agree that I think we, as a society, would be better off slowing down a bit, but I think that's up to us to decide. I just don't see that happening in our instagram famous, keeping up with the Joneses culture.

 

[Al Czervik]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

GM president fires back: 'Flow of misinformation' could prolong UAW strike | Opinion
Mark Reuss
Detroit Free Press
Amid the rhetoric of the United Auto Workers leadership, the flow of misinformation is not fair to anyone. It can be hugely counterproductive to reaching an agreement that gets the GM team back to work quickly, which should be everyone’s goal.
The record offer we proposed on Sept. 14 recognizes the many contributions our represented team members make to our company — past, present and future. And it addresses, directly, what they’ve told us matters most: wage growth, job security and long-term stability. I’d like to take this opportunity to debunk some of the myths being shared out there.
Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.
Myth: With its record profits, GM can easily afford the UAW’s demands
The fundamental reality is that the UAW’s demands can be described in one word — untenable. We want to ensure our company succeeds, and more importantly wins for the next 100 years — for the benefit of everyone. We’re at a pivotal point in our journey as we transition to an all-EV future. We have already announced our intention to add jobs in 2024. In our offer, we have work and products for every single one of our U.S. facilities. As we started our transformation to EVs, we made sure we had work for the entire manufacturing team so we could bring everyone along on our transformation.
Myth: Those record profits go toward fueling corporate greed
Those record profits are reinvested in our company and our people. In 2022, GM had net income profits of $9.9 billion. In 2023, our capital spending will be $11-$12 billion. That’s not an aberration ― over the past ten years, our net income totaled $65 billion, and the amount we invested in that same period? $77 billion. That includes investments for our EV future, including our facilities in Detroit/Hamtramck and Orion in Michigan, Toledo and Defiance in Ohio and in Rochester, New York. It also includes significant investment for future internal combustion products in Flint, Michigan, Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Arlington, Texas. The reality is that our business is capital-intensive, and the auto company that doesn’t invest in its own future gets left behind.
If we don’t continue to invest, we will lose ground — quickly. Our competitors across the country and around the world, most of whom are non-union, will waste no time seizing the opportunity we would be handing them.
Myth: GM doesn’t provide significant paid time off for its employees
We currently offer 16 to 19 paid holidays per year and have offered the addition of Juneteenth. (Paid holidays can vary due to an election year and where the Christmas holiday falls.) Roughly 80% of represented team members, with the exception of temporary employees and new hires, receive three to five weeks of vacation per year based on seniority. (New hires receive one week of vacation in their first year, and two weeks after the first year.)
Myth: GM isn’t addressing tiers
GM’s offer includes annual wage increases for new employees with progression to the full wage rate within four years. We have assembly and manufacturing jobs, we have warehousing jobs and we have supply jobs. Within these distinctly different businesses in our national contract, everyone is paid on the same wage structure.
Myth: GM employees lack retirement security
Our represented team receives extremely generous retirement benefits. Our latest offer to the UAW continues our unconditional 6.4% company 401(k) contribution for employees who are not eligible for pensions. An additional $2,600 contribution each year is provided as an investment toward medical expenses in retirement, a 25% increase over today. Those retirement benefits could grow to $1.7 million over a typical 33-year career when combined with our average employee contributions and historical investment returns in our plans.
The importance of moving forward
As the past has clearly shown, nobody wins in a strike. We have delivered a record offer. That is a fact. It rightly rewards our team members, while positioning the company for success in the future. Often in these situations, the clouds of rhetoric can obscure reality. I’m hoping to shed some light and clarity on this whole situation, one that I sincerely hope can be resolved quickly and fairly. That is what our team members, our communities, our customers and our country all deserve.

 

[Stoneworker]

Meanwhile, Ford settles with UAW's Canadian counterpart Unifor to avoid a strike in the north country. Interesting note about different negotiating strategy.

Unlike in the U.S., where the UAW has taken an unorthodox approach to talks, Unifor has gone a more traditional route by targeting one automaker to reach a deal with first, with the intention of using that agreement as a template for the other two.

“This agreement makes the kind of gains our members need today and adds greater financial security for the future,” said Unifor Ford Master Bargaining Chair John D’Agnolo.

The union had said it was pressing Ford for improved pensions, higher wages, and some form of support to protect workers as the company transitions to making electric vehicles.

source: WSJ

 

[msudaisy26]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

GM president fires back: 'Flow of misinformation' could prolong UAW strike | Opinion
Mark Reuss
Detroit Free Press
Amid the rhetoric of the United Auto Workers leadership, the flow of misinformation is not fair to anyone. It can be hugely counterproductive to reaching an agreement that gets the GM team back to work quickly, which should be everyone’s goal.
The record offer we proposed on Sept. 14 recognizes the many contributions our represented team members make to our company — past, present and future. And it addresses, directly, what they’ve told us matters most: wage growth, job security and long-term stability. I’d like to take this opportunity to debunk some of the myths being shared out there.
Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.
Myth: With its record profits, GM can easily afford the UAW’s demands
The fundamental reality is that the UAW’s demands can be described in one word — untenable. We want to ensure our company succeeds, and more importantly wins for the next 100 years — for the benefit of everyone. We’re at a pivotal point in our journey as we transition to an all-EV future. We have already announced our intention to add jobs in 2024. In our offer, we have work and products for every single one of our U.S. facilities. As we started our transformation to EVs, we made sure we had work for the entire manufacturing team so we could bring everyone along on our transformation.
Myth: Those record profits go toward fueling corporate greed
Those record profits are reinvested in our company and our people. In 2022, GM had net income profits of $9.9 billion. In 2023, our capital spending will be $11-$12 billion. That’s not an aberration ― over the past ten years, our net income totaled $65 billion, and the amount we invested in that same period? $77 billion. That includes investments for our EV future, including our facilities in Detroit/Hamtramck and Orion in Michigan, Toledo and Defiance in Ohio and in Rochester, New York. It also includes significant investment for future internal combustion products in Flint, Michigan, Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Arlington, Texas. The reality is that our business is capital-intensive, and the auto company that doesn’t invest in its own future gets left behind.
If we don’t continue to invest, we will lose ground — quickly. Our competitors across the country and around the world, most of whom are non-union, will waste no time seizing the opportunity we would be handing them.
Myth: GM doesn’t provide significant paid time off for its employees
We currently offer 16 to 19 paid holidays per year and have offered the addition of Juneteenth. (Paid holidays can vary due to an election year and where the Christmas holiday falls.) Roughly 80% of represented team members, with the exception of temporary employees and new hires, receive three to five weeks of vacation per year based on seniority. (New hires receive one week of vacation in their first year, and two weeks after the first year.)
Myth: GM isn’t addressing tiers
GM’s offer includes annual wage increases for new employees with progression to the full wage rate within four years. We have assembly and manufacturing jobs, we have warehousing jobs and we have supply jobs. Within these distinctly different businesses in our national contract, everyone is paid on the same wage structure.
Myth: GM employees lack retirement security
Our represented team receives extremely generous retirement benefits. Our latest offer to the UAW continues our unconditional 6.4% company 401(k) contribution for employees who are not eligible for pensions. An additional $2,600 contribution each year is provided as an investment toward medical expenses in retirement, a 25% increase over today. Those retirement benefits could grow to $1.7 million over a typical 33-year career when combined with our average employee contributions and historical investment returns in our plans.
The importance of moving forward
As the past has clearly shown, nobody wins in a strike. We have delivered a record offer. That is a fact. It rightly rewards our team members, while positioning the company for success in the future. Often in these situations, the clouds of rhetoric can obscure reality. I’m hoping to shed some light and clarity on this whole situation, one that I sincerely hope can be resolved quickly and fairly. That is what our team members, our communities, our customers and our country all deserve.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

 

[Stoneworker]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

It is confusing, but they are two separate groups of people.

In the first part of the paragraph he is talking about "current represented employees," which evidently represent 85% of the current workforce, and that their pay would increase to $82K after the ~20% raise.

In the second part, he is referencing "entry level" employees (i.e. <1 yr service), and that their max pay at the end of the new contract would also increase by ~21%, from $32.32 to $39.24. That represents a growth of 141% (from $17 to $39.24) over the life of the contract.

I'm assuming that entry level is paid hourly and that "current represented" is paid a salary which is why he uses a mix of annual and hourly figures in explaining the increases.

 

[msudaisy26]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

It is confusing, but they are two separate groups of people.

In the first part of the paragraph he is talking about "current represented employees," which evidently represent 85% of the current workforce, and that their pay would increase to $82K after the ~20% raise.

In the second part, he is referencing "entry level" employees (i.e. <1 yr service), and that their max pay at the end of the new contract would also increase by ~21%, from $32.32 to $39.24. That represents a growth of 141% (from $17 to $39.24) over the life of the contract.

I'm assuming that entry level is paid hourly and that "current represented" is paid a salary which is why he uses a mix of annual and hourly figures in explaining the increases.

So he is comparing what they would make versus the what the current median is? Plus he is also comparing just the 9 areas that the plant is located in and not the surrounding areas where the workers live?

It is very confusing and looks like a lot of cherry picked stats to fluff up the proposal.

 

[Stoneworker]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

It is confusing, but they are two separate groups of people.

In the first part of the paragraph he is talking about "current represented employees," which evidently represent 85% of the current workforce, and that their pay would increase to $82K after the ~20% raise.

In the second part, he is referencing "entry level" employees (i.e. <1 yr service), and that their max pay at the end of the new contract would also increase by ~21%, from $32.32 to $39.24. That represents a growth of 141% (from $17 to $39.24) over the life of the contract.

I'm assuming that entry level is paid hourly and that "current represented" is paid a salary which is why he uses a mix of annual and hourly figures in explaining the increases.

So he is comparing what they would make versus the what the current median is? Plus he is also comparing just the 9 areas that the plant is located in and not the surrounding areas where the workers live?

It is very confusing and looks like a lot of cherry picked stats to fluff up the proposal.

I'm not defending the guy, but it's not really that confusing or misleading IMO. Yes, he is using the nine areas where the plants are located. But I'm assuming that's because not all of the plants are located in the Detroit area and he needs to speak to everyone (e.g. the GM Wentzville Missouri plant).

Just using the Detroit metro, according to Fox2 the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And of course he's going to spin everything in favor of the company, just as Fain is doing on behalf of the UAW with his own rhetoric.

Fox2 - Middle class in Detroit

 

[msudaisy26]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

It is confusing, but they are two separate groups of people.

In the first part of the paragraph he is talking about "current represented employees," which evidently represent 85% of the current workforce, and that their pay would increase to $82K after the ~20% raise.

In the second part, he is referencing "entry level" employees (i.e. <1 yr service), and that their max pay at the end of the new contract would also increase by ~21%, from $32.32 to $39.24. That represents a growth of 141% (from $17 to $39.24) over the life of the contract.

I'm assuming that entry level is paid hourly and that "current represented" is paid a salary which is why he uses a mix of annual and hourly figures in explaining the increases.

So he is comparing what they would make versus the what the current median is? Plus he is also comparing just the 9 areas that the plant is located in and not the surrounding areas where the workers live?

It is very confusing and looks like a lot of cherry picked stats to fluff up the proposal.

I'm not defending the guy, but it's not really that confusing or misleading IMO. Yes, he is using the nine areas where the plants are located. But I'm assuming that's because not all of the plants are located in the Detroit area and he needs to speak to everyone (e.g. the GM Wentzville Missouri plant).

Just using the Detroit metro, according to Fox2 the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

Fox2 - Middle class in Detroit

The 82k is is in 4 years though. Not 2023 right?

 

[Stoneworker]

Interesting opinion piece from the GM President of North America in today's Detroit Free Press addressing "some of the myths being shared out there":

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion...-mark-reuss-2023-contract-strike/70899635007/

Myth: GM doesn’t pay its people a decent wage
UAW leadership claims GM pays its team members "poverty" wages. This is simply not true. In our current proposal, we are offering a 20% wage increase ― including for temporary employees, who make up only 6% to 10% of our workforce. That means about 85% of current represented employees would earn a base wage of approximately $82,000 a year. In contrast, the average median household income in nine areas where GM has major assembly plants is $51,821. And total compensation for the 85% of the workforce, with overtime and benefits, would be more than $150,000 a year. In the 2019 contract, wages for hourly workers with less than one year of service earning $17 an hour had the potential to reach $32.32 an hour over the term of the contract. With our most recent proposal, some entry-level team members will get up to a maximum rate of $39.24 an hour at the end of the contract, for some workers, a 141% increase.

One thing I don't understand is the base salary of 82,000. I am assuming base wage is 40 hours a week. So by the math the workers already make 39.42 an hour. After the 20 percent raise over the life of the previous offer how would they only be making 39.24?

It is confusing, but they are two separate groups of people.

In the first part of the paragraph he is talking about "current represented employees," which evidently represent 85% of the current workforce, and that their pay would increase to $82K after the ~20% raise.

In the second part, he is referencing "entry level" employees (i.e. <1 yr service), and that their max pay at the end of the new contract would also increase by ~21%, from $32.32 to $39.24. That represents a growth of 141% (from $17 to $39.24) over the life of the contract.

I'm assuming that entry level is paid hourly and that "current represented" is paid a salary which is why he uses a mix of annual and hourly figures in explaining the increases.

So he is comparing what they would make versus the what the current median is? Plus he is also comparing just the 9 areas that the plant is located in and not the surrounding areas where the workers live?

It is very confusing and looks like a lot of cherry picked stats to fluff up the proposal.

I'm not defending the guy, but it's not really that confusing or misleading IMO. Yes, he is using the nine areas where the plants are located. But I'm assuming that's because not all of the plants are located in the Detroit area and he needs to speak to everyone (e.g. the GM Wentzville Missouri plant).

Just using the Detroit metro, according to Fox2 the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

Fox2 - Middle class in Detroit

The 82k is is in 4 years though. Not 2023 right?

I don't think so. I read it as immediate upon agreement (i.e. 2023). If not, then it definitely is misleading.

 

[FatMax]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

 

[Stoneworker]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

 

[msudaisy26]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

 

[FatMax]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

I promise the UAW doesn't want anyone making those comparisons. It won't help their position at all to shine a light on the fact that they're already being paid more than any other similar job.

 

[msudaisy26]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

I promise the UAW doesn't want anyone making those comparisons. It won't help their position at all to shine a light on the fact that they're already being paid more than any other similar job.

I don't know if that is true or not, but if it is then why haven't the big 3 made that very public yet? It would help their perception and negotiations even more.

I am not saying you are wrong. I really don't know.

 

[Stoneworker]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

He gave you the numbers. You and UAW membership can compare them to whatever you please.

His whole point is that they're not "poverty wages," which is what Fain is ludicrously claiming.

 

[Nugget]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

I don't think many UAW workers would like to compare pay and benefits with line workers at Tesla, Toyota, or Nissan.

 

[Stoneworker]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

I don't think many UAW workers would like to compare pay and benefits with line workers at Tesla, Toyota, or Nissan.

One key distinction is that Elon Musk uses stock options for profit participation, while UAW workers receive profit-sharing cash bonuses (avg $10K I believe).

As a result, Musk claims that his workers are actually the highest paid (due to rocket ship stock price from 2019-2021) and that "quite a few" have become millionaires. Even though their cash comp is lower.

So from a company perspective it's a double win for Tesla because operating expenses are lower (enabling lower production costs), while overall worker pay is evidently higher. At least while the stock is rising.

Of course Musk has the reputation of being a tyrant so there is that from a working conditions standpoint to factor in as well.

 

[Slumpbusters]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

The main problem with this logic is the rookie quarterback is just that, a rookie. Teams are taking a risk on him, they have no idea how he will perform professionally, nor does he have the institutional knowledge gained through experience on a specific team or the NFL in general. So yes, he is "playing quarterback" just like the others around him, and sometimes even better, but lacks intangibles. Its the old adage of "paying your dues" or "proving yourself".

In a manufacturing environment its much the same. Folks want to be paid for the job they are doing, not for becoming a craftsman. There are also things like reliability (attendance and loyalty) as well as behavior (is the person a pain to work with or not) that should play a factor into how an individual is compensated and their value to the company is considered.

What I have never understood is the employee/company marriage. If the UAW employee thinks they are mistreated and underpaid - just go work somewhere else. There are a billion manufacturing jobs available at all sorts of companies. The fact that they don't speaks volumes in my opinion.

JT

 

[msudaisy26]

the median household income for all of metro Detroit in 2023 is $63,498. So the $82K is obviously above that. Use that as you please.

And the 82k is just one income. Household usually means more than one person.

Good point

It is a good point, but these are supposed to be good paying factory jobs. They shouldn't be compared against the median income of households. They should be compared to other similar jobs.

It is like NFL QB on his rookie deal making 5 million a year and telling him he should be happy with that while negotiating a new deal because it is more than more than most, while the rest of the qbs in league average 30 . million a year.

The main problem with this logic is the rookie quarterback is just that, a rookie. Teams are taking a risk on him, they have no idea how he will perform professionally, nor does he have the institutional knowledge gained through experience on a specific team or the NFL in general. So yes, he is "playing quarterback" just like the others around him, and sometimes even better, but lacks intangibles. Its the old adage of "paying your dues" or "proving yourself".

In a manufacturing environment its much the same. Folks want to be paid for the job they are doing, not for becoming a craftsman. There are also things like reliability (attendance and loyalty) as well as behavior (is the person a pain to work with or not) that should play a factor into how an individual is compensated and their value to the company is considered.

What I have never understood is the employee/company marriage. If the UAW employee thinks they are mistreated and underpaid - just go work somewhere else. There are a billion manufacturing jobs available at all sorts of companies. The fact that they don't speaks volumes in my opinion.

JT

That isn't what I said, but okay.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Why does pay need to decrease if productivity decreases slightly? I posted the chart earlier in this thread that over the last 50 years productivity has increased 400% while inflation adjusted wages have increased virtually zero.

This is a fairly useless metric and has pretty much zero reflection of worker productivity.

If inflation goes up 10%, did American workers become more productive? Obviously not.

If a company outsources manufacturing to kids in Vietnam, did the remaining American workers in sales and distribution become more productive?

Both of these things show big gains in worker productivity metric but are obviously not a reflection of how productive a worker is.

 

[Slumpbusters]

@msudaisy26

I guess I misunderstood your point then, but from what I could tell you were suggesting UAW workers should be compared to other manufacturing jobs, and rookies doing the same work as folks around them should be paid equally. This is a pretty standard union premise, so I took it as such.

My point is workers should be compared to workers of like skill, and people should be rewarded for their technical knowledge/loyalty/wisdom/general industry understanding that takes time to accumulate.

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best. If you are a skilled robotics operator or know how to fix/maintain/repair automated manufacturing systems and stay busy all day, you should be making the $82k and maybe even some more. The skilled operator may spend 50% of his time screwing those exact same bolts but brings more to the table when necessary.

My secondary point was each of us has an opportunity to compare our jobs to the next one and leave our present one to get the one where the grass is greener. This is a basic premise of capitalism. Now that doesn't always hold true for many reasons we can likely all agree on, but we are in a current economic environment where blue-collar workers have significant leverage and can get a job pretty much wherever they want.

JT

 

[dkp993]

I made the claim earlier in this thread that we could probably reduce working hours by 10% and the change in productivity would likely be so negligible it was barely even noticeable. Honestly, I think I might have been too conservative on that.

I'll take the under.

If a work week is reduced to 36 hours, the majority of people will still find a way to make 10% of their time at work completely unproductive.

Exactly. The assumption that that 10% reduction would only come at the cost of the unproductive time and now everyone would become more efficient just doesn’t match what I see in the workplace. Long personal conversations with coworkers would still happen, surfing websites or managing your fantasy football team would still happen, etc etc etc. These behaviors wouldn’t simply disappear with a shortened work week.

 

[the moops]

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best.

Google AI feature tells me differently

The top pay rate for UAW autoworkers at the Detroit Three is $32 per hour. However, not all autoworkers earn this much. Temporary or supplemental workers make less.

The range of pay for UAW autoworkers is $18 to $32 per hour.

The pay rate depends on seniority.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average UAW salary is $25 per hour, or $52,771 per year.

 

[msudaisy26]

@msudaisy26

I guess I misunderstood your point then, but from what I could tell you were suggesting UAW workers should be compared to other manufacturing jobs, and rookies doing the same work as folks around them should be paid equally. This is a pretty standard union premise, so I took it as such.

My point is workers should be compared to workers of like skill, and people should be rewarded for their technical knowledge/loyalty/wisdom/general industry understanding that takes time to accumulate.

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best. If you are a skilled robotics operator or know how to fix/maintain/repair automated manufacturing systems and stay busy all day, you should be making the $82k and maybe even some more. The skilled operator may spend 50% of his time screwing those exact same bolts but brings more to the table when necessary.

My secondary point was each of us has an opportunity to compare our jobs to the next one and leave our present one to get the one where the grass is greener. This is a basic premise of capitalism. Now that doesn't always hold true for many reasons we can likely all agree on, but we are in a current economic environment where blue-collar workers have significant leverage and can get a job pretty much wherever they want.

JT

You are clearly not reading the posts because you misunderstood my post, you misunderstood the opinion piece and you are making some gross assumptions about their jobs and what they make and how easy it is to just find a new job.

Frankly I am not interested in a discussion with someone that refuses to see the other side and has their mind made up.

 

[Slumpbusters]

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best.

Google AI feature tells me differently

The top pay rate for UAW autoworkers at the Detroit Three is $32 per hour. However, not all autoworkers earn this much. Temporary or supplemental workers make less.

The range of pay for UAW autoworkers is $18 to $32 per hour.

The pay rate depends on seniority.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average UAW salary is $25 per hour, or $52,771 per year.

Hey Moops,

I'm just going off the free press article quoted above. It was also posted on MSN today which brought me back to this thread. I'd be surprised if the GM President went this public on his backlash if the numbers were crazy off.

 

[Slumpbusters]

@msudaisy26

I guess I misunderstood your point then, but from what I could tell you were suggesting UAW workers should be compared to other manufacturing jobs, and rookies doing the same work as folks around them should be paid equally. This is a pretty standard union premise, so I took it as such.

My point is workers should be compared to workers of like skill, and people should be rewarded for their technical knowledge/loyalty/wisdom/general industry understanding that takes time to accumulate.

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best. If you are a skilled robotics operator or know how to fix/maintain/repair automated manufacturing systems and stay busy all day, you should be making the $82k and maybe even some more. The skilled operator may spend 50% of his time screwing those exact same bolts but brings more to the table when necessary.

My secondary point was each of us has an opportunity to compare our jobs to the next one and leave our present one to get the one where the grass is greener. This is a basic premise of capitalism. Now that doesn't always hold true for many reasons we can likely all agree on, but we are in a current economic environment where blue-collar workers have significant leverage and can get a job pretty much wherever they want.

JT

You are clearly not reading the posts because you misunderstood my post, you misunderstood the opinion piece and you are making some gross assumptions about their jobs and what they make and how easy it is to just find a new job.

Frankly I am not interested in a discussion with someone that refuses to see the other side and has their mind made up.

I grew up on 9 and John R and had many friends and neighbors that were UAW. I've personally worked in a UAW plant (Ford Dearborn Rouge), but wasn't a union member. I've seen with my own two eyes what their jobs were and what training they needed to perform them.

I believe strongly that we owe our blue collar workers a living wage, but I do believe there are $19/hour jobs in that plant and there are $40/hour jobs in that plant, and If the article is right, there are more $32/hour jobs by a wide margin than $19/hour ones.

 

[belljr]

It's ok when the govt shuts down next week this will all be shambles

 

[the moops]

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best.

Google AI feature tells me differently

The top pay rate for UAW autoworkers at the Detroit Three is $32 per hour. However, not all autoworkers earn this much. Temporary or supplemental workers make less.

The range of pay for UAW autoworkers is $18 to $32 per hour.

The pay rate depends on seniority.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average UAW salary is $25 per hour, or $52,771 per year.

Hey Moops,

I'm just going off the free press article quoted above. It was also posted on MSN today which brought me back to this thread. I'd be surprised if the GM President went this public on his backlash if the numbers were crazy off.

But those numbers are based off what UAW is proposing, not what current numbers are.

So when you say "some of these folks are making $82K a year" I think that is inaccurate

 

[Stoneworker]

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best.

Google AI feature tells me differently

The top pay rate for UAW autoworkers at the Detroit Three is $32 per hour. However, not all autoworkers earn this much. Temporary or supplemental workers make less.

The range of pay for UAW autoworkers is $18 to $32 per hour.

The pay rate depends on seniority.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average UAW salary is $25 per hour, or $52,771 per year.

Hey Moops,

I'm just going off the free press article quoted above. It was also posted on MSN today which brought me back to this thread. I'd be surprised if the GM President went this public on his backlash if the numbers were crazy off.

But those numbers are based off what UAW is proposing, not what current numbers are.

So when you say "some of these folks are making $82K a year" I think that is inaccurate

The $82K figure is a) limited to GM, b) for just the 85% of workforce that presumably has attained top wage status of $32/hr, c) is likely inclusive of GM's offered ~20% raise and d) likely includes a profit-sharing bonus that all GM UAW members receive (last year was $13k/employee .

Do the math on that and you'll get close enough

 

[msudaisy26]

@msudaisy26

I guess I misunderstood your point then, but from what I could tell you were suggesting UAW workers should be compared to other manufacturing jobs, and rookies doing the same work as folks around them should be paid equally. This is a pretty standard union premise, so I took it as such.

My point is workers should be compared to workers of like skill, and people should be rewarded for their technical knowledge/loyalty/wisdom/general industry understanding that takes time to accumulate.

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best. If you are a skilled robotics operator or know how to fix/maintain/repair automated manufacturing systems and stay busy all day, you should be making the $82k and maybe even some more. The skilled operator may spend 50% of his time screwing those exact same bolts but brings more to the table when necessary.

My secondary point was each of us has an opportunity to compare our jobs to the next one and leave our present one to get the one where the grass is greener. This is a basic premise of capitalism. Now that doesn't always hold true for many reasons we can likely all agree on, but we are in a current economic environment where blue-collar workers have significant leverage and can get a job pretty much wherever they want.

JT

You are clearly not reading the posts because you misunderstood my post, you misunderstood the opinion piece and you are making some gross assumptions about their jobs and what they make and how easy it is to just find a new job.

Frankly I am not interested in a discussion with someone that refuses to see the other side and has their mind made up.

I grew up on 9 and John R and had many friends and neighbors that were UAW. I've personally worked in a UAW plant (Ford Dearborn Rouge), but wasn't a union member. I've seen with my own two eyes what their jobs were and what training they needed to perform them.

I believe strongly that we owe our blue collar workers a living wage, but I do believe there are $19/hour jobs in that plant and there are $40/hour jobs in that plant, and If the article is right, there are more $32/hour jobs by a wide margin than $19/hour ones.

I don't believe you and it because of your last paragraph. You can't strongly believe our blue collar works deserve a livable wage and think some of them deserve 19 dollars an hour.

 

[nightmare]

If you have a mind numbing repetitive job you have to be "overpaid" to show up 5 days/8 hours consistently.

The worker can't hate the job SO much that calling out is of no concern and they are putting their co-workers in a bind.

 

[Scoresman]

I made the claim earlier in this thread that we could probably reduce working hours by 10% and the change in productivity would likely be so negligible it was barely even noticeable. Honestly, I think I might have been too conservative on that.

I'll take the under.

If a work week is reduced to 36 hours, the majority of people will still find a way to make 10% of their time at work completely unproductive.

Exactly. The assumption that that 10% reduction would only come at the cost of the unproductive time and now everyone would become more efficient just doesn’t match what I see in the workplace. Long personal conversations with coworkers would still happen, surfing websites or managing your fantasy football team would still happen, etc etc etc. These behaviors wouldn’t simply disappear with a shortened work week.

They wouldn't necessarily disappear but they would be reduced. I'm assuming someone with a semblance of a work ethic here who actually has work to do and gets it done. In my case, I can't really sacrifice time working because I need to get my work done and the time it takes to do that doesnt change by going from 40 to 32 hours. For example, if in a typical work week it takes me 25 hours of the 40 hour work week to get my job done, it's still going to take me 25 hours to get my work done if the work week is getting reduced to 32 hours. That doesn't change unless they take work away from me. So what gets sacrificed is the time spent idle or unproductive because that can now be done with the extra 8 hours I now have.

I think with corporate jobs like this, at least every one that I've had, there's a certain amount of unproductive time assumed, even expected in some cases. Funny enough for me, this unproductive time actually went down since I started working from home. Way more distractions in the office, but that's another discussion.

 

[the moops]

I'll take the under.

If a work week is reduced to 36 hours, the majority of people will still find a way to make 10% of their time at work completely unproductive.

Well, we just reduced unproductive time from 4 hours to 3.6 hours. progress!

 

[FreeBaGeL]

I made the claim earlier in this thread that we could probably reduce working hours by 10% and the change in productivity would likely be so negligible it was barely even noticeable. Honestly, I think I might have been too conservative on that.

I'll take the under.

If a work week is reduced to 36 hours, the majority of people will still find a way to make 10% of their time at work completely unproductive.

Exactly. The assumption that that 10% reduction would only come at the cost of the unproductive time and now everyone would become more efficient just doesn’t match what I see in the workplace. Long personal conversations with coworkers would still happen, surfing websites or managing your fantasy football team would still happen, etc etc etc. These behaviors wouldn’t simply disappear with a shortened work week.

There's a few different factors at play here, and we've switched gears a few times throughout the thread between talking about production/output vs productivity so they've gotten conflated at times.

Firstly, my intent was not to imply merely that production wouldn't fall off because only time wasting hours would be eliminated. Even among quality working hours production doesn't scale linearly to time spent. It's not 1450 where we're talking about hand assembling hammers, and the number of hammers you can physically put together is limited by the number of hours you're physically sitting around assembling hammers. Even if 40 hours of work meant you literally worked at the exact same efficiency for 40 hours and never wasted a minute of time, a company's output wouldn't drop by 10% if those 40 hours were reduced to 36.

Secondly, efficiency of course does not stay constant as hours worked increases. Even if we eliminate time wasting and focus only on when someone is trying to actually work, their output becomes slower and lower quality as time increases. This doesn't seem like something that needs to be defended as it seems obvious, but there is plenty of data out there in case that is a requirement. Again, I'll reference the typing study. It's not just number of words that dropped off over time. The rate of speed when actively typing dropped off as well, and the amount of errors went up (drastically), even as the total number of words went down.

And then lastly yes, there is time wasting. If we reduced the workweek by 10% that doesn't mean people would only eliminate the time where they read FBGs. But of course, the ratio of time wasting to work generally increases the higher the number of hours goes. It's not some big revelation to say that more people are chatting in the breakroom at 4pm on a Friday than at 9:30am on a Tuesday.

Output per efficient hour decreases as the number of efficient hours increase. On top of that the efficiency of each hour worked decreases as the number of working minutes increases. On top of that the number of working minutes spent actually working per hour decreases as the number of hours increase.

It all sits on top of each other and in the end, there are SIGNIFICANT diminishing returns to output relative to increasing number of hours worked.

Again, this seems obvious, but also has been born out in reality. When Henry Ford instituted the 40 hour work week he didn't just do it all of the sudden. Ford went back and forth between 40 hour and 48 hour work week for 4 years and measured the difference. Ultimately they found the difference in output and every other metric they cared about to be negligible between the two. 20% reduction in the workweek, negligible difference in output, innovation, production, etc.

It's also why we saw no notable difference when the work week was chopped down to 44 hours, and then down to 40 hours from there.

I know people would say it's a different world now, but if anything the world is even MORE automated now, and there's even less hands on, physical work that is limited by the number of hours spent physically putting things together.

If we all worked 50% more and went back to a 60 hour work week, would Ford make 50% more cars? Would Apple's next phone be 50% better? Why don't we just do that?

So the question is, where is the proper balance? Where does the curve of diminishing returns start to flatten out and start making sense? If I were to say (and these are all made up numbers) at 10 hours per week we would be operating at peak efficiency with peak work ethic for those entire 10 hours, and there would be no waste. And at 40 hours we'd be at a point where the last few hours are so stupidly unproductive that you could just chop them right off and no one would even notice a difference in the world. Where is the middle ground?

Most studies would say at 40 hours we are still WAY down that curve where we're getting extremely limited returns on those extra hours. And on top of that, with modern technology we can get a lot more accomplished in 30 hours now than we can in 40 hours before. Now I know you've made the point earlier in the thread that some random employee didn't invent that technology, so why should he get any of the benefits of it. But the reality is none of our companies invented the personal computer, so why are they any more entitled to 100% of the benefits of the personal computer?

Through the post industrial revolution world, the benefits of those technologies have been shared. Better technology has meant consistently reduced working hours, and better pay as a working hour has equated to more output over time. It was only around 1979 we subconsciously decided that the company should reap all of those rewards, and the employees none. I'm a rich small business owner so I'm not here to pick on corporate executives, but it's of course also notable this is around when we started seeing executive pay move on its path to getting out of hand.

The reality is the number 40 is an arbitrary number on a page. We haven't found the right balance yet, but we will eventually. Life doesn't have to be a grind.

 

[Slumpbusters]

@msudaisy26

I guess I misunderstood your point then, but from what I could tell you were suggesting UAW workers should be compared to other manufacturing jobs, and rookies doing the same work as folks around them should be paid equally. This is a pretty standard union premise, so I took it as such.

My point is workers should be compared to workers of like skill, and people should be rewarded for their technical knowledge/loyalty/wisdom/general industry understanding that takes time to accumulate.

Some of these folks are making $82k/year to know how to screw 10 bolts in the right location. Sorry, that's a $19/hour job at best. If you are a skilled robotics operator or know how to fix/maintain/repair automated manufacturing systems and stay busy all day, you should be making the $82k and maybe even some more. The skilled operator may spend 50% of his time screwing those exact same bolts but brings more to the table when necessary.

My secondary point was each of us has an opportunity to compare our jobs to the next one and leave our present one to get the one where the grass is greener. This is a basic premise of capitalism. Now that doesn't always hold true for many reasons we can likely all agree on, but we are in a current economic environment where blue-collar workers have significant leverage and can get a job pretty much wherever they want.

JT

You are clearly not reading the posts because you misunderstood my post, you misunderstood the opinion piece and you are making some gross assumptions about their jobs and what they make and how easy it is to just find a new job.

Frankly I am not interested in a discussion with someone that refuses to see the other side and has their mind made up.

I grew up on 9 and John R and had many friends and neighbors that were UAW. I've personally worked in a UAW plant (Ford Dearborn Rouge), but wasn't a union member. I've seen with my own two eyes what their jobs were and what training they needed to perform them.

I believe strongly that we owe our blue collar workers a living wage, but I do believe there are $19/hour jobs in that plant and there are $40/hour jobs in that plant, and If the article is right, there are more $32/hour jobs by a wide margin than $19/hour ones.

I don't believe you and it because of your last paragraph. You can't strongly believe our blue collar works deserve a livable wage and think some of them deserve 19 dollars an hour.

Depends on what their job is - if their job is to sweep the floor (and that is all they bring to the table) - they need to be paid as such. If their job requires technical skill - they need to be paid as such. If you are a person who sweeps the floor you need to be working on acquiring skills to do more and earn more $. If you have those skills, and get assigned to sweeping the floor as part of your job, then so be it. You may also be a person who has proven to be reliable, easy to work with, and loyal to the company and still only have the skills to sweep the floor. In that case I think you should also be paid more than $19/hour but perhaps not as much as someone who brings something more unique to the table.

I will reiterate (as I think I said above) - it is the job of employers to map that path out for people. That is where I think management fails their workers.