Dose anyone remeber what happened to British Laylend? A generation witch ingnores its history has no past….. or future.

I’d hate to see what a GM product would look like with under paid staff. Just look at the enthusiasm a Wal Mart employee has for their job. That being said, with what the UAW has done for the workers, good salary, benefits, etc., why does the current build quality still suck?

It is not a question of turning directly to “underpaid”. It is a question of cutting the special benefits of the UAW Workers to a level where the big 2.5 could survive. Look at VW in Germany – they struck deals with the workforce, by which gradually the pay (which is more than 20% above average workers pay) went down a bit and made VW again more competitive.

It seems that the UAW, being faced by the option of really cutting pay and/or benefits, or go down together with GM and Ford simply chooses the latter: to go down still waiving the flag. This is ludicrous.

Those are the subjects I would be able or would want to teach. All education makes a difference, and that is where I would try.

If you haven’t noticed, manufacturing is dead in the USA — and not just the auto industry.

True, with the current situation. However, if we really wanted, we could change the situation. For instance, pass the FairTax bill. Elimate the IRS and most of the negative tax implications for businesses in this country. Stanford did a study a few years ago that said businesses would move back into the U.S. with such a plan in place; and they are as liberal as it gets!

Bottom line; if we give up, then we are done. Period. We need to fix our educational system and get people out of the “government provides for me” entitlement attitude. I went back to school at age 31 and married and had my son while doing it. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. Many others have done the same, and more, in much more difficult circumstances.

If I come off like a cynical bastard, it’s because the world made me this way. You are wasting your time.

What would you suggest I do, then??

“I have recently thought about teaching as a career. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and I push paper all day. I haven’t done any calculations pertaining to design (other than basic arithmetic) since I graduated. I want to make a difference as an engineer, but I don’t think I’ll get the opportunity. However, as a science or math teacher, maybe I could make a difference. The best part is, I wouldn’t have a huge pay cut to deal with, but if I teach, I want it to be because that is what I want to do, not because it pays well. ”

Make a difference by teaching math and science? How? If you haven’t noticed, manufacturing is dead in the USA — and not just the auto industry.

Back in 1970, 35% of the labor force of the State of New Jersey was DIRECTLY employed in manufacturing. Today it’s 8% and dropping like a stone. New Jersey once had two Ford assembly plants — Edison and Mahwah — and a GM plant in Linden. Ford Mahwah assembly was the largest auto assembly plant in the world when it was built in 1957. Today there is a hotel on the sight of the Mahwah plant, Edison is a pile of rubble — soon to be town houses — and Linden is closed. For the first time in 80 years, there is no auto assembly in the State of New Jersey.

I know a guy who spent 20 years working for Kearfott Guidance. He was one of the engineers who worked on the inertial systems for the Space Shuttle. After he was let go from Kearfott, he spent years without being able to find another engineering job. A couple of years ago he found work in the engineering field, at half his previous salary and no retirement or health care benefits.

I know another guy who runs a valve manufacturing business, he refuses to hire any American engineers. This guy will place an ad seeking engineers for a ridiculously low wage, when he doesn’t get any takers, he applies for H1B workers. His Indian H1B engineers are happy to come to America and work for $28K/year.

If I come off like a cynical bastard, it’s because the world made me this way. You are wasting your time.

The $42,000 per year average was for the Dallas ISD. Most of the other suburbs were the same with a few as low as $39,000 per year (McKinney). Northwest ISD was at $44,000 per year. In my hometown, the average starting salary is around $36,000 per year (population 20,000). My point is that teacher pay is not really that low compared to the hours worked. There is nothing wrong with the pay being in line with other degreed positions. My point was that they are in the same range, which is a good thing. I’m just saying that the pay, in many areas, is not all that bad. Yes, in some places, the pay is terrible. However, the same can be said of any job.

I was talking about weirdo smokescreens that distract people from the fact that no matter what Wagoneer does (like say, lose billions of dollars), people get mad at school teachers and unions.

I agree that Wagoner, and others, have not done well and deserve a great deal of criticism. I also agree that most teachers are good people doing an excellent job in a flawed system. The problem is the overall agenda of the teachers’ unions, which is focused more on pay than on quality of education. A recent study showed that, in Washington D.C., the average annual expenditure per student was about $15,000 in public schools, and about $4,000 in Catholic schools. However, the Catholic school students did much better in testing. Why??? Discipline and parental involvement. And these were not rich private school students, but average Catholic kids whose parents had income levels to the public school parents.

I would love to see teachers get paid more, but at what point do you draw the line? If teachers start out at $75,000 per year ($90,000 per year for a 12 month job), the how many will be teaching for the money? I want people there that WANT to be there. I don’t know what the best method to accomplish that is, but I don’t think it is all money. Obviously, that has a tremendous influence, but just raising teacher pay does not make better teachers.

I have recently thought about teaching as a career. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and I push paper all day. I haven’t done any calculations pertaining to design (other than basic arithmetic) since I graduated. I want to make a difference as an engineer, but I don’t think I’ll get the opportunity. However, as a science or math teacher, maybe I could make a difference. The best part is, I wouldn’t have a huge pay cut to deal with, but if I teach, I want it to be because that is what I want to do, not because it pays well.

What’s wrong with having a teacher – a degreed position – make money “in line with many other degreed positions?”

And $42K, by the way, is not a typical starting wage. In the suburbs around here, it’s less, something like $30K.

As far as I’m concerned, if there’s a teacher quality issue the first reason is because we’re not paying enough. What does private industry pay someone who closely supervises and continually monitors up to 30 different people? And a private industry supervisor can motivate people who NEED their jobs and income with salary rewards; teachers don’t have that sort of tool at their disposal.

If you want more quality control opportunities, offer the teacher unions a 30% across-the-board increase, in return demand some meaningful changes to the tenure and merit system. Make the risk worth the reward.

As for the comment about “indoctrinated,” I’ve never seen an example of this in a public school. The teachers I know (4 kids through public school) were good at keeping their private opinions private.

And quality? Last time I checked American cars were as reliable as those built in any other country. Didn’t JD list Buick as #1 recently?

And if we cared about our children, teachers would make double that. And knock off this the equivalent of $50,400. They make $42,000.

6%?

That is the direct cost, but what about the cost of poor quality. I have also been employed in a union shop (not automotvie), and I can tell you the predominate attitude was “I don’t care, because not matter how poorly I do my job, I’ll still have it tomorrow.”

This akin to attacking the NEA and “Welfare Queens.”

And they are worthy of attack if you believe that our children should be educated, not indoctrinated; and if you think people should work for what they get, if they are able. All the NEA is good for is increasing teacher salaries and throwing more money at the problems of education. While I agree that, in some cases, teacher salaries are not appropriate, increasing pay and more funding do not create a better learning environment for children; discipline and parental involvement do. Teachers in the Dallas ISD make $42,000 per year the first year. Since they work about ten months per year, that equates to $50,400 starting salary. That is in line with many other degreed positions (engineers, chemists, physicists, etc…).

A smokescreen.

And lock your doors, because Willie Horton is out there!

The point of Willie Horton was not that there was one criminal on the streets, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions, released by bleeding heart judges who deemed that the poor, pitiful criminals were a victim of society and not deserving of proper punishment.

8%?

6%?

This akin to attacking the NEA and “Welfare Queens.”

A smokescreen.

And lock your doors, because Willie Horton is out there!

That plant Manager was right they finally did stop the lines for Quality issues, it just took a few years and not on his watch. The customer are doing it.

This all drags up some old memories, but somehow the future of Ford that was apparrent to the workers and a mystery to management is all coming to pass.

When the American quality was starting to cost sales back in the early 80’s and there was some extended production shut downs at our plant, the Ford Dearborn wizards had a quality revelation.

Our plant manager came back from Dearborn and called all of the production supervisors and general foreman into a conferance room. He announced that his instructions from head poffice where to not pass any defect from one station to the next. If an employee could not do his job zero defect than stop the line and do the repair before starting up the line again. The union employees had the power to stop the line and get it right. That dedication to Quality by Ford was in all fo the papers the next day. Ford had a better idea. Quality was job one.

“The Reality” The Plant Manager left the room and the Production Manager got up. He said I would like to explain to you all how this program will work. ” The very first one of you A** H**** that stops a line had better have new emplyment lined up, this meeting is over”

We never stopped a line. And that Production Manager continued to move up the Ford management food chain. I don’t imagine he had a revelaton about building Quality cars at any point and his managemet style worked well for him, so why would he or those who wanted his success do it any other way. I sometimes wonder if the Ford Family or the board memebers who make decision have the slightest clue about how their company really runs.

I was working for Ford as a Production Supervisor when we built Pintos and the first gas line ups started. Before that I was also an assembly worker for 5 years.
The headlines were full of headlines about the poor work ethic and lack of care on the part of the union workers compared to the Japanes who played ping pong on breaks, did push ups before shifts and sang the company song.
As a supervisor being beat up everyday and watching the same ill fitting parts coming down the line at me everyday and then getting screamed at at after every shift by a production manager who only cared about production numbers I can tell you quality has very little to do with the workers.

As I said to mt superintendant one time, you give me Pinto parts and I put it together perfect, at the end of the line it is still a Pinto.

Now that I have been involved in engineering and Quality for a number of years I have come to realize just how right I was. Suppliers are constantly pushing the cost/verses quality balancing act, with accounting having their finger on the cost side of the balance. The guy on the line just wants to put the parts together with as little hastle as possible and go home. Believe me any one here who talks about pride has never put 300 thousand gas pedals in a car in a year, a sense of pride for each individual car is very hard to maintain.

Look at what is wrong with the current vehicles and fix or improve them. How hard can it be? It seems the easiest thing and the thing all the automakers are best at is building those spot welded, sheet metal uni-bodies. It’s unreal what cars go through and they still hold up. Amazing considering the gauge of metal they are made of and they are only spot welded together.

So what are the major reliability issues with a Ford or a Chevy compared to a Honda or a Toyota? I’ve never owned a H, T, or C, just Fords. Drive a gutless ‘01 4 banger Ranger to school everyday. 50 miles round trip. 75k miles on it. Never a problem.

Looking at the labor ssues in American from a 20,000 ft perspective is difficult for most and quite scary for those that can. When talking about reducing labor costs in American you are talking about reducing the disposable income that supports every non-industrial job. Our economy is becoming increasingly service based and those service based companies only exist with a large middle class looking to spend it’s disposable income.

None of the issues are easy to deal with nor are the solutions going to be pleasant for Americans in general. A look back in history shows many empires that once ruled the world and then eventually lost that power to the next ‘empire’. Americans need to grasp the fact that we are not entitled to wealth and that we don’t figure out how to change our culture or we WILL lose our power to the next ‘empire’.

Beggars roam the streets of Bombay by the thousands (tens of thousands perhaps), live in filthy shanty towns, have no education, few possessions and have little opportunity for improving themselves. Lower class working folk have it better, but the opportunities Americans have are few and far between there. Course, that’s just India.

American Unions need to export their craft to foreign countries that need their clout to help the poorest of the poor. Not only would it level the global manufacturing playing field, it would help thousands of people.

There is absolutely no doubt that they would. In case you haven’t noticed they’re ALREADY cutting prices and passing it on to the consumer as much as they can, even without your concessions — in the form of incentives, employee pricing plus, cash back, zero percent interest for 6 years to anything with a pulse. These are just means of cutting prices.

It’s entirely common for companies to cut prices in order to gain market share. It happens all the time in markets where prices could make a difference in market share. GM and Ford have lost huge amounts of market share — GM is down to 14% in California. There is no question they’d love to cut prices further if they could find ways to cut costs, because then a few more people would buy their cars. Bill Ford and Rick Waggoner would both like nothing better than to announce that they’ve regained 2 points of share. That might save their jobs (which they are both, in reality, going to lose.)

am I to assume that your sentiment extends to CEOs of fortune 500 companies who make tens or hundreds of millions per year?

There is no CEO’s union. CEO compensation is not an issue of monopoly pricing power. Some of them are incompetent and overpaid, including all the ones in Detroit, but that’s a different kind of issue of corporate governance — I have no problem at all in principle with a CEO making millions in a free market. A good CEO in the right situation could be the difference between creating 100 billion dollars of wealth for shareholders, or killing the company. How do you decide how much to pay a guy like that?

And I don’t mind movie stars and rock stars and novelists making millions. For that matter I’d have no problem with autoworkers making a million a year if that was the free market clearing wage.

But whenever and wherever there is a union, the market is distorted and people start getting screwed. First the consumer and the unlucky workers who aren’t invited to join the exclusive club; but finally the union pays the piper.