Ford, GM Looking Into Tier 3 Wages For Lower-Skilled Workers
While the UAW wants to “bridge the gap” between Tier 1 and Tier 2 employees, Ford and General Motors want to have a Tier 3.
Bloomberg reports the two automakers are considering the issue before its talks with the union in September, proclaiming the new tier — for lower-skilled labor — would help them better compete against the transplants and their non-union employees through lower labor costs.
Meanwhile, the UAW leadership are seeking raises for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 employees, just as its rank-and-file want an end to the two-tier wage system entirely. The thought of a Tier 3 would prove hard to stomach among all in the union, though such a tier could help bring work that had been outsourced to suppliers in-house, as those employees would not be assembling vehicles.
Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.
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As an outsider, it sure makes intuitive sense. Why should the guy bolting on the head get the same pay as the guy bolting on the wheels as the guy pushing the broom? High skill, low skill, no skill. Honestly, I'd expect them to have a dozen or two job codes, tiered (welder apprentice, welder I, welder II) for job skill required and/or difficulty (the guy standing there welding on a fender might not get as much as the guy who has to crawl in and weld inside the trunk, or whatever.)
IMHO -- General Motors management and the UAW are equally to blame for their troubles and deserve each other. Several months ago I was able to vote with my wallet.
I'm very much a capitalist, but I also believe in proportional meritocracy (as difficult as that concept may be to mete out). Let us reasonable people acknowledge that the world now is as bizarre from a socio-economic perspective as it's been in at least 80 years. Someone mentioned that the average CEO of a Fortune 500 company makes 40x what the average employee of that same company earns annually. Yet, it's far more imbalanced than that. It's closer to 80x. Let's consider that GE payed negative taxes for several years now (being a better accounting exploitation company than anything else). Let's consider that CronyCapitalism has soaked taxpayers more thusly with each passing year, where taxpayers are mauled by politicians, who are themselves bribed by energy, banking, financial, defense & other corporate entities, to let ridiculously wasteful and even criminal contracts/bills/invoices. Let's consider that successful corporations can make massive profits in the US, availing themselves of US infrastructure, yet avoid taxation on accumulated profits by moving those profits offshore. As a capitalist, even I can see that if the current trend towards uneven and unfair legislation, regulatory intervention & market distorting government policies in general will lead to decreased productivity and growing inequality with each passing year. The legislative body of a nation should not be allowed to be purchased wholesale by private, commercial interests, Mitt Romney did a disservice to state that a collective corporate entity is the equivalent of a "person," and the Citizens United decision was one of the all time tragedies in SCOTUS & U.S. History.
>>Yet, it’s far more imbalanced than that. It's even worse: Meg Ryan gets 8000x what I make when I act at the community center.