GM Seeks to Cut Wages in Half at Indianapolis Factory

[Hannah Bell]

GM stamping plant workers in Indianapolis have told the company they won’t cut their wages in half, even when threatened with a shutdown. A prospective buyer of the 650-worker factory has indicated he wants United Auto Workers members to drop from $29 an hour to $14.65.

Although UAW Local 23 members voted 384-22 in May against opening the contract, the UAW International is strongly backing the cuts, indicating that it may go around the local to talk to prospective buyer JD Norman Industries of Illinois. But Clark says, “If you need a wage cut before you even begin, this is not the business you need to be in. Maybe you should try something else.”

Many of the Indianapolis workers are “GM gypsies” who have been forced to transfer from plant to plant during their careers. Clark, for example, is on his fifth factory and third plant closing. The union contract gives workers the right to “follow their work,” so if the plant closes next year as threatened, workers could likely find GM jobs in other towns.

The mood is uncertain as workers wait to see what the UAW International will do. Machine repairman Kenneth Craig said some high-seniority workers want to see the plant bought if they could retire and then return to work at half pay. “They don’t care what it will do to the rest of the union,” Craig said. Clark, who says he thinks members voted for him as shop chair 10 months ago because “they were tired of being pushed around,” said, “You do have some individuals who think it’s just about self. It’s bigger than that.”

http://www.labornotes.org/2010/07/gm-seeks-cut-wages-half-indianapolis-factory


Same old story: the rank & file want to fight, the top (bought-off, colluding) leadership want workers to roll over:

"Meanwhile, 2,200 GM parts workers in Saginaw, Michigan, revoted on steep concessions June 29 and this time said yes. As in Indianapolis, they also had been pressured by International and local UAW officials who said the wage cuts would help GM sell the plant. Production workers in Saginaw, most with less than four years’ seniority, were already working at second-tier wages of $14.50 to $18.50 an hour."


The fightin' UAW!

[Kolesar]

1. The USX McDonald Mill rolling mill would have closed had not there been wage concessions

US Steel was leaving the Mahoning Valley one way or the other. I am sure that the town was better off for having hundreds of jobs at lower wages.

Otherwise, Youngstown had to wait for the vacated mill sites downstream to be turned into a Kmart distribution center and a few other uses.

[Hannah Bell]

2. oh, of course. who could ever doubt it? it's so sensible, after all.

[WinkyDink]

10. There can be no bosses without workers. Get it? They did in earlier times.

I'm from the PA branch of the Mahoning Valley, AKA, Molly Maguire land.

[madrchsod]

3. why stop at 14.50? what`s the federal minimum wage....?

meanwhile chinese and bangladesh workers are striking for better working conditions and wages...

[Hannah Bell]

4. rachet it down, admin by admin: like workers hadn't been giving back wages,

benefits & work rules for 30 years.

boiling a frog

it makes me sick to see it rationalized here, on a "democratic" site

[inna]

5. Outrageous.

Wage Facts
Between 1972 and 1993, the average hourly wage dropped from $20.06 to $16.82 in 2008 dollars. Since 1993, the average hourly wage has regained only a part of the ground lost, rising to $18.52. Adjusted for inflation, the average wage in 2008 was still lower than it was in 1979.



• Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06.
• In 2008: $18.52.

http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8

[Hubert Flottz]

6. So who the hell will be able to afford their cars?

"Be a dolt, drive our volt"...just 99 dollars down, 99 dollars a month, for 99 years. "See the USA," maybe yesterday...

[Jenny_92808]

7. The repubs have been rigging the game...

...so they can have a slave class of citizens to help the the super rich become super duper rich.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Remember when the NYT Andrew Ross Sorkin claimed autoworkers were making $70 per hour few years ago?

And a lot of people here wanted to believe that lie and let them get away with it? Some became obsessed with it.

Well this is the result.

Guess what these workers making less pay and paying less taxes is going to mean for other union workers like teachers and police? Lot of teacher and police layoffs because there won't be enough money coming into the tax coffers to pay them any more.

When I was still in high school in 1973 I hired in at Ford making more money than most my teachers were making at the time. Then a lot of people fell for the "overpaid union autoworker" lie. Because they wanted to believe it.

Well guess what? The chickens are coming home to roost.

Don

[lunatica]

9. If anyone can't see the union busting tactic here they're fucking blind

And I have no use for their stupidity.

[xchrom]

11. Recommend

[marmar]

12. It's not just a race to the bottom, it's a 100-yard dash at Usain Bolt speed

nt

[hobbit709]

13. Wonder how much the clown who came up with this idea makes.

Wanna bet it's a LOT more than $29/hr. And if you suggest cutting HIS pay in half, you could hear the screeching on Jupiter.

[blindpig]

14. k&r

[Starry Messenger]

15. Justin Norman

Former Morgan Stanley stockbroker turned industrial robber baron. http://www.indy.com/posts/ex-stockbroker-talking-to-gm-feels-called-to-make-things


"Not long after graduating with a degree in business administration, his father said, Norman got a job as a stockbroker in the Chicago office of a Wall Street firm, Morgan Stanley.

The white-shoe firm soon recruited him to join a small team advising rich clients in Chicago. Norman did well in the office, his father said, and on his own obtained a master’s degree in business from the University of Chicago.

But Norman soon would switch gears. He had advised clients who had sold their own factories and grew fascinated by the entrepreneur’s life. Just when he was in secure reach of a hefty income as a financial adviser, he decided to make a career shift."


Sickening the union leadership is throwing the rank & file to the wolves.

[Raineyb]

16. Business administration. Probably the most useless degree on the planet

(Of course business criminal assholes don't think so)

This fucker probably never did an honest day's work in his fucking life. An entrepreneur is not some asshole who buys a business with the sole purpose of putting people out of work and squeezing it for all it's worth in the meantime.

Fucking business administration major, clearly for people who can't handle accounting where one would actually have to know where the money is going (aside from their own pockets).

Edited to say useless. Clearly someone thing's it's worth something.

[Starry Messenger]

17. From the University of Chicago, no less. Neoliberal central.

He might as well have "bandit" tattooed on his forehead. I'm trying to find some numbers on what his company is worth but coming up empty. I'm sure it's a lot, I just wanted to put up the stark contrast between whatever it is and shitty pittance he wants to squeeze out of these companies he's buying up.

[Raineyb]

19. University of Chicago. It figures. That school's economists has done more damage

to this country than anything else I can come up with.

I had a co-worker who was getting her MBA online and I used to peep over her shoulder on occasion to read the stuff they had posted on their message board. And you wouldn't believe the number of over-privileged pricks talking about how lucky some people were to get minimum wage because apparently in their world view, minimum wage was generous. I can't imagine what kind of vomit inducing garbage would have spewed from the bowels of these useless dipshits if the concept of a living wage was introduced to them.

[Yeahyeah]

18. They do get what they want.So far.