American Axle's CEO Dick Dauch Paid $7M in 2007

When Dauch bought American Axle they were very near bankruptcy. He was the man who made them the profitable company they became.

To the guys knocking union workers, have any of you actually worked on an automotive assembly line. Are you aware that the target efficency for assembly workers is that they be working at least 55 minutes out of every hour. You do the math on how much time that is between jobs if the rate is 72 jobs per hour. Oh by the way assemblers can't go to the washroom or get a coffee or surf the net whenever they want. They are tied to the line and have to request relief to get off the line. Bottom line is they earn what they get. If you think it's an easy big paycheck why not sign up. To those knocking unions ask yourself if you would be making what you earn if it were not for unions negotiating good pay and benefits for their membership. Most of us owe our pay rate to the guys on the shop floor. The higher the workers get paid the more the supervisor is paid and it flows on up the ladder.

Potemkin, No, I never worked on an auto line, but I have been on them, I know people who worked on them, and I grew up working with my dad on an extrusion plastics line. The first dozen or so years of my career, I had worse conditions at lower pay. Even the first half dozen years after getting my degree at a top university, I still made less than a UAW member. I paid my dues by taking risk, putting up with BS, being cheated by employers, and learning. Now I can make much more than a UAW worker in much better conditions. I would bet dollars to donuts most of them would want their UAW job back after a few months at any job I ever had. Having been a salesman or consultant for the last dozen plus years I doubt many of them would ever put in the effort to get to this level. If I had gone on strike when I was cheated out of pay, I would never have made it to the second year of a sales job - EVER. Get over it man. The biggest problem with most UAW jobs is the UAW and the whole union mindset. There are no guarantees. The hardest thing about making a good living is finding the good jobs at the good companies and doing what it takes to succeed and keep them. Working hard and doing a good job is only a small part of the equation, and the easiest part by far.

I have been in the forging industries for 15yrs+. These union morons forge net shape gears or rather should I say the ROBOT runs them. They make ring gears, spline yokes and near net gears, that is the bulk of it. Im not even talking about Cheektowaga but the forge. Those idiots got no idea what real work involves, heck my 1st paycheck didn’t even break 200.00 I started at 5.25. Some of them CRY BABIES were bringing home 100,000 + like die setters. As for skill please very easy to do. Its work but it isn’t rocket science people. I afford them no sympathy for the greed or stupidity. It was my choice if I wanted to work there or NOT. I didn’t deserve it nor do they. HA as for programming a robot it’s like playing a video game. I can 'hot' mod positions and add functions with the best of them. Robots nowadays are VERY easy to work with. Generally I can show someone how to do the above with average intelligence in 4 HOURS!!! I wonder how many of them peons drive imports?? Imports are cancer which is slowly killing the auto industries and before any of you simple minded beings reply you had better do some research on the subject. Its easy to boot out the obvious which is inevitable but REALLY look at what’s happening. I have a task for you wagging finger naysayer’s, you Americans that drive imports. Pick a day any day it matters less but while you’re out there driving and you pass a person of Asian descent you make a note of what there driving. Were being rotted out from the inside out. Those Chinese, Japanese are more loyal to there homeland than we are right here in our very own HOUSE OF THE USA!!! SLAPPED!!!!!!