The Price of Peace: Fiat Chrysler Sees Biggest Jump in Labor Costs

@cprescott .... After viewing "plenty of videos" you've certainly gained vast knowledge of the modern vehicle manufacturing industry Some advice. Share that knowledge with any manufactoring facility, Union or non..Tell the Industrial Engineers "you have a way to eliminate thousands of jobs": . You sir will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. If that doesn't work out ??? You've obviously not watched enough videos

@mikey Well said. I don’t understand the sheer hate that auto workers get. The fat cats are making far far more. Why should those who are responsible for helping them make that money be treated like industrial revolution slaves? People deserve dignity and fair pay. In turn they owe 100% focus on doing the best job they can. Firing dead wood, I’m all for it. But most people actually do put in a good day’s work.

@golden2husky "I don’t understand the sheer hate that auto workers get." There's a lot of historic precedence for that hate. Much of it retold on ttac over the past decades. People in other assembly disciplines or industry do not get the same pay or benefits as the UAW, and that's what ticks a lot of those people off. But thank Allah all that's changing and the future holds fewer human assemblers and more robotics. One cute anecdote about minimum wages rising: a guy I have known for decades owns a string of McDonald's franchises and when the minimum wage went up on 1 Jan 2020, what did he do? He installed 4 kiosks in each of his outlets and fired 16 cashiers from each outlet, 8 from day shift and 8 from night shift. How much money did that save him? Enough to pay for all the kiosks plus an additional $20K per outlet per year. Not too shabby. More robotics in the global auto industry, please. Better products, more precision, less drama.

@highdesertcat You seen to get enjoyment out of seeing people lose their jobs. Why?

Most people don't know what UAW workers actually make. The average line worker, excluding overtime, is not making a ton of dough even under the new labor agreement. Its true that compared to non union manufacturers in other sectors, UAW members enjoy extremely generous wages and benefits, particularly for unskilled labor. However, those wages and benefits will ultimately secure their future unemployment, maybe not now, maybe not this decade, but eventually, definitely. That being said, I don't see a problem with people wanting a living wage, there are a lot of people with college degrees and even post graduate degrees making plenty of money and adding essentially nothing of value to our economy or providing any real value to their employer. Everyone needs to live and if you have a few kids, $100k/year in wages doesn't really go as far as it used to. My personal gripe with the union is the graft, complacency and laziness that it creates. The best reason I know of not to by a UAW made car is that I really don't want to drive my family down the highway at 75mph in a vehicle made by people who cannot be fired for doing a horrible job or even intentionally sabotaging production. The absolute job security makes zero sense and is really what breaks the system and will ultimately kill quality as well as the employer's bottom line. If the automakers could stock their ranks with excellent employees that work hard and that take great pride in their work, the labor costs would not seem so out of whack. But as it stands, a functional crackhead, chronic underachiever, perpetual screw up can all remain employed at an OEM for 30 plus years. No thanks. I will look elsewhere.

@ thegamper ...With all due respect ..Your last paragraph is about 20 years out of date . I own a 19 Impala built in Detroit with UAW represented employees. The build quality, fit and finish is flawless.

@mikey I never said that they aren't capable of building good cars, I just said that they cannot fire employees that aren't interested quality or routinely do a poor job, screw up and generally underperform. That is a horrible model in any industry. Try as they may, those who should have lost their job long ago drag down the employer and all the people who deserve to work there.

@highdesertcat They're the kind of jobs you ride out as far as you can, knowing if you don't have an appreciable skill that's "in demand" when the party's over, you're screwed. That's if they want to maintain their current lifestyle.

@highdesertcat Minimum wage costs jobs, its really that simple.

@highdesertcat "People in other assembly disciplines or industry do not get the same pay or benefits as the UAW, and that’s what ticks a lot of those people off." this is often said by the same people who worship guys like Jeff Bezos and the like. huh. somehow the person getting paid a decent wage building something useful is "evil," while the guy hoarding many times more money than he could spend in a hundred lifetimes is the "good guy."

@thegamper " I just said that they cannot fire employees that aren’t interested quality or routinely do a poor job, screw up and generally underperform. " absolutely they can. where did this notion that union employees "can't be fired" come from? More Fox News glurge? The point of having a contract is that letting someone go isn't as simple as telling them "GTFO" whenever they feel like it, like at-will employment.

@mikey at this point, I'm pretty sure "cprescott"- and everyone else who drags irrelevant politics into it with their first comment- is just a troll posting from a stuffy room somewhere in Russia.

@thegamper I have a somewhat unique perspective Jim. I have deposed hundreds of UAW workers and know quite a bit about all the BS that happens that would NEVER be tolerated in any sort of non union job. Do you recall the group of Chrysler Jefferson workers who were caught leaving the plant grounds, smoking pot and drinking on company time and then coming back to their line jobs. It made at least local if not national news. They still work there. They probably just got raises and bonuses. I rest my case.

@thegamper Adding on to what TheGamper said, until 2018 in order to even be considered for a union job at a GM plant you *had* to be referred by a current union employee. This was codified in the UAW contract, and I know this because I worked on the referral software and candidate management system (GM farmed this out).

@highdesertcat golden2husky: "You seen to get enjoyment out of seeing people lose their jobs. Why?" You need to word up on jobs and careers lost over the past decades to the betterment of technology and automation. This will give you a chuckle: way back when, when I was stationed at Oxnard AFB, CA, in 1968, I was the night manager for a local McDonald's, and my wife was on call 24/7 at our home as a telephone operator for a doctors' office. A lot of other jobs have disappeared because of automation, technological advances, and now robotics. Phasing out more assembly workers is long overdue, whether that is at McDonalds or a vehicle assembly line.

JimZ, politics and several industries, including the US auto industry, are inseparably interwoven. We all saw this in 2009 with the selectively applied handouts, bailouts and nationalization where some (politically affiliated) jobs were saved while other jobs and employers died.

@highdesertcat HDC, I totally understand the dynamics at play, and realize that automation has just begun with the elimination of jobs. There certainly are positives to this: the quality of automobile body assembly certainly can be attributed to the precision afforded by robotic assembly. And, in theory, prices should be reduced, though I'm too much a cynic to believe that, as the business owners will take all the cost savings for themselves. So I understand the whys. But to my actual statement, the tone of your posts on this topic says this: Bring it on, I don't care who loses their jobs, I've got mine, so I just don't care about those who didn't pick an automation-resistant career path. Problem is what happens when the people that rent those properties you own can no longer afford your rent? As long as their are others to take their place no big deal...but what happens when lack of good employment means more and more people are unemployed or underemployed? Such rot causes communities and entire regions to collapse. And the reality is not everybody is cut out for college, or military careers, or financial jobs. If I had a kid that had no interest in higher education, I'd push them toward the skilled trades. Can't be outsourced, imported, or replaced by robots. And my buddy who has a civil service plumbing job will tell you, great pay. As in over $200K with OT.

You don't think the spectre of tens of thousands of blue collar workers getting more or less permanently sh*tcanned in places like Michigan and Indiana wouldn't move the current president to do a similar bailout? I'd argue Trump would be *more* likely to do it - a lot of the folks who would be getting canned are in his base, in states he needs to win. One of the only positive things about Trump - and it's a short list - is that the guy isn't hung up on conservative ideology. The old-school GOPers got their undies in a bunch because bailing out GM violated their "free-market" sensibilities. But Trump doesn't give a flying f**k what old-school GOPers think. If he thought a GM bailout would help him politically, he'd move on it...like a b*tch, one might say.

I thought the GM bailout was started under Bush.

@N8iveVA People conveniently forget that. In fairness, though, most of it was carried out under Obama, and while I'm sure some of it was a favor to the unions, it was still the right thing to do. Things may have gotten quite a bit worse with tens of thousands of autoworkers tossed on the unemployment - probably not as bad as some people have argued, but things were bad enough as they were. Anyone who argues with a straight face that it would have been worth the economic damage to let these companies die to appease the laissez-faire gods is a fool...or REAL invested in something that makes lots of money in bad times.

You misspelled "Cheney".

@28-Cars-Later Cheney. Good one! Correction: GM was not going to be allowed to go under on Bush'/Cheney's watch. Thanks.

@tomLU86 Harry Turtledove moment: Rick Wagoner goes duck hunting with Cheney.