You wanted cheaper prices, right?

[Wbino]

I understand that. What's frustrating, for me, is when the labor unions simultaneously contribute to decline in vehicle quality (because there is little real accountability) AND an increase in the price of a vehicle. I'm in favor of everybody being paid what they are worth AND everybody being well paid.

For those two conditions to coexist employees need to build great stuff and plenty of it.

When I was in my twenties two friends of mine were cutters (loggers). They made TONS of money -- a multiple of what I earned at the time -- because they "busheled' (meaning they were paid based upon the number of trees they dropped). All the cutters were paid well but, working together these two each earned more than twice what some of the other cutters made -- because the other guys did less. I never heard the others whining about not being paid as much, because they knew they didn't contribute as much.

Your comparing building cars in 2024 to a bunch of guys cutting trees down?
Were there forums back filled with tears about the limber being torn up? ??

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[Wbino]

I like the avocado-toast and cloud-yelling reference. Homer & Abe Simpson, I'm guessing -- but I'll match my education against the average US high school teacher all day long.

I was a distracted high school student, but even the "mainstream" kids like me finished Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra-2/Trigonometry in high school, so I was ready for differential & integral calculus when I started college. After that I was only required to take one quarter of statistics for my degree -- so I never claimed to be a math whiz.

Most of the teachers who are instructing my grandkids aren't rocket scientists either -- and I don't remember any future educators in any of my college math courses. I'm sure they must have been there somewhere, but all the people I actually got to know were studying pre-med, science, or engineering. The calculus book for non-science students was half as thick.

Oh someone's a smarty pants.......

 

[NWJeepr]

I understand that. What's frustrating, for me, is when the labor unions simultaneously contribute to decline in vehicle quality (because there is little real accountability) AND an increase in the price of a vehicle. I'm in favor of everybody being paid what they are worth AND everybody being well paid.

For those two conditions to coexist employees need to build great stuff and plenty of it.

When I was in my twenties two friends of mine were cutters (loggers). They made TONS of money -- a multiple of what I earned at the time -- because they "busheled' (meaning they were paid based upon the number of trees they dropped). All the cutters were paid well but, working together these two each earned more than twice what some of the other cutters made -- because the other guys did less. I never heard the others whining about not being paid as much, because they knew they didn't contribute as much.

Huh. Maybe the answer is to just not buy anything from any person or group you think isn’t working hard enough for their $$$. Why do you care what others earn?

 

[jeepingib]

I guess you're not asking the boss for a raise anytime soon.

MASSIVE difference between showing your employer your value and being rewarded for it..... and feeling entitled enough to throw a fit and refuse to work, because even though your quality sucks, and people have decided in large that the product is not worth the current value, you should be entitled to more compensation increase than any other blue collar worker's get.

 

[Wbino]

MASSIVE difference between showing your employer your value and being rewarded for it..... and feeling entitled enough to throw a fit and refuse to work, because even though your quality sucks, and people have decided in large that the product is not worth the current value, you should be entitled to more compensation increase than any other blue collar worker's get.

Negotiationing is not refusing to work. If you were union you would understand.
I'm very happy with my four year old JEEP and I see lots of JEEPS around, no other product out there has anything next to the SOT.
The happy people are not on the forums they are on the road waving.....I'm only here because I'm retired.

 

[Whaler27]

Your comparing building cars in 2024 to a bunch of guys cutting trees down?
Were there forums back filled with tears about the limber being torn up? ??

Anybody care to translate this word salad for me?

Sorry you missed the point. It didn’t seem that elusive. My point is that people who do more of what they are being paid to do, or do a better job of doing it, are worth more to their employers — so they’re in a position to demand more pay and get it (or go to work for somebody else and get it).

That’s true of loggers, mechanics, electricians, physicians, carpenters — whatever.

Generally, people who work less effectively, make more mistakes, produce less, and contribute less, get paid less — unless they work for a union. At least that’s the way it was when I was in a union. The ONLY thing effecting pay, time off, and job security was union tenure. There was no getting rid of the biggest slugs I worked with, and the team was weaker because of it.

I don’t care if people are paid silly money to sit on their butts or perform like they‘re sedated — unless they’re driving the cost of stuff I want to buy to crazy levels or, equally bad, killing the American economy by driving more jobs offshore.

 

[jeepingib]

Negotiationing is not refusing to work. If you were union you would understand.
I'm very happy with my four year old JEEP and I see lots of JEEPS around, no other product out there has anything next to the SOT.
The happy people are not on the forums they are on the road waving.....I'm only here because I'm retired.

A work stoppage, or strike, is absolutely refusing to work. That is not negotiating, it's essentially holding the workplace hostage.

 

[Wbino]

A work stoppage, or strike, is absolutely refusing to work. That is not negotiating, it's essentially holding the workplace hostage.

I could name some places in the world where it is illegal to strike.
I won't.

 

[NWJeepr]

I don’t care if people are paid silly money to sit on their butts or perform like they‘re sedated — unless they’re driving the cost of stuff I want to buy to crazy levels or, equally bad, killing the American economy by driving more jobs offshore.

Something tells me you made it to retirement age with very little exposure to the labor market at large.

Outsource does not happen because of laziness. It happens because there are people willing to work for less in other parts of the world. It’s a race to the bottom for the American worker to compete for those jobs. No amount of hard work will bring them back so long as the cost is less.

 

[NWJeepr]

A work stoppage, or strike, is absolutely refusing to work. That is not negotiating, it's essentially holding the workplace hostage.

Let’s say I hire a $300/hr consultant to work for me for 6 months. Not uncommon in my industry. They are hired on contracts

At the end of the contract, I need them to continue working for me.

Except, now their rate is $350/hr going forward.

What are my choices as an employer, and what are their choices as contract labor?

Do they have to continue working for me? Absolutely not.

If I need them to continue working for me, do I have to pay the new rate unless I want to find someone else? Absolutely yes, unless I can negotiate other value. What if this contract firm provides other essential services and severing that relationship would have ripple effects throughout the organization? Can I just stop using them? Yes, I can, at my own risk.

Some of you absolutely do not understand the nature of union and other labor contracts.

 

[Strommen95]

I understand that. What's frustrating, for me, is when the labor unions simultaneously contribute to decline in vehicle quality (because there is little real accountability) AND an increase in the price of a vehicle.

This continues to be spoken of as if it's factual. Can you or any other poster suggesting the same provide something definitive that attributes declining automotive quality to the UAW?

Speaking of accountability, where was GMs accountability for their faulty ignitions that helped kill over 100 different people they were aware of for years? I guess their CEO making only $100 million dollars+ in salary since then is accountability. She should've made $150 million!

What about Jeeps ongoing corrosion issue that's plagued the Wrangler for 7 different model years? Cracked oil filter housings going for 10 model years +? An absolute shit dual battery system? There's so many examples that could be dug into. Yeah, big companies really face accountability for their mistakes, unlike union workers....

Funny how vehicle prices were going through the roof for 3 and a half years before the UAW went on strike. Now, price increases are all their fault The bias some of you show is comical.

 

[Whaler27]

This continues to be spoken of as if it's factual. Can you or any other poster suggesting the same provide something definitive that attributes declining automotive quality to the UAW?

Wait, are there non-UAW people building the Jeeps now?

 

[Whaler27]

Something tells me you made it to retirement age with very little exposure to the labor market at large.

Outsource does not happen because of laziness. It happens because there are people willing to work for less in other parts of the world. It’s a race to the bottom for the American worker to compete for those jobs. No amount of hard work will bring them back so long as the cost is less.

I've only worked in two union environments, and I was a union member for less than five years. I wanted to be paid better for better performance, and I wanted low performers to work somewhere else, so union life wasn't for me.

All the union did for me was lighten my paycheck for dues, so I did better in every respect after I left.

Do you remember the "Yugo"? It was an incredibly cheap car, built with incredibly cheap labor. It's run in the USA was very short, in spite of the low price -- because it was a piece of crap. People, myself included, are willing to pay up for quality. That, and a desire to see our country remain financially sound and economically independent, have cause me to beat the buy-American drum loudly for the last 30 years. I still bang that drum today, so I buy the thicker $30 American-made T-shirts, not the $4 Vietnamese and Indonesian T-shirts I see at Walmart. But, based on the quality of the products they are building, the UAW workers don't seem to measure up to their counterparts at Lexus. When my new UAW-built pickup truck has a Monroney sticker that's $47,000 above my wife's new Lexus it causes me to pause and reflect. Perhaps the uber-rich UAW union leadership should consider working with management to improve performance and vehicle quality? Just a thought.

Maybe my former union was the exception to the rule, but quality of worker performance never came up once in any of the union meetings I attended. Not once, even in connection with employer demands in the context of negotiation. It was always focused on demanding more money, more benefits, and less work, even when we already had it easier than the private sector folks doing the same work. The only people I ever saw getting union help were the deadbeats the rest of the team had to carry, and those who had committed serious workplace violations.

 

[NWJeepr]

I've only worked in two union environments, and I was a union member for less than five years. I wanted to be paid better for better performance, and I wanted low performers to work somewhere else, so union life wasn't for me.

All the union did for me was lighten my paycheck for dues, so I did better in every respect after I left.

Do you remember the "Yugo"? It was an incredibly cheap car, built with incredibly cheap labor. It's run in the USA was very short, in spite of the low price -- because it was a piece of crap. People, myself included, are willing to pay up for quality. That, and a desire to see our country remain financially sound and economically independent, have cause me to beat the buy-American drum loudly for the last 30 years. I still bang that drum today, so I buy the thicker $30 American-made T-shirts, not the $4 Vietnamese and Indonesian T-shirts I see at Walmart. But, based on the quality of the products they are building, the UAW workers don't seem to measure up to their counterparts at Lexus. When my new UAW-built pickup truck has a Monroney sticker that's $47,000 above my wife's new Lexus it causes me to pause and reflect. Perhaps the uber-rich UAW union leadership should consider working with management to improve performance and vehicle quality? Just a thought.

Maybe my former union was the exception to the rule, but quality of worker performance never came up once in any of the union meetings I attended. Not once, even in connection with employer demands in the context of negotiation. It was always focused on demanding more money, more benefits, and less work, even when we already had it easier than the private sector folks doing the same work. The only people I ever saw getting union help were the deadbeats the rest of the team had to carry, and those who had committed serious workplace violations.

It must be really hard to go through life with that mindset. But, that’s not my business either.

 

[TheRaven]

It must be really hard to go through life with that mindset. But, that’s not my business either.

The more you know, the harder life is. That's where the "ignorance is bliss" cliche comes from. After 7 years of college and over 20 years in multiple scientific fields, I often find myself completely worn out from stress of knowing too much about the world and wishing that I had just remained dumb. The truth is that reality is pretty scary.

I don't have the answer for our current quality issues. What seems obvious is that companies need to first pay up so their employees are happy, and then make clear that quality work is a primary expectation. Once the pay is there, anyone failing to perform should be canned and replaced (which should be easy if you pay well enough). Problem is that unions are very well funded and way too powerful...and do not want worker performance at the forefront.

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