GM continues to ask concessions from union workers: $12/hr to work for new chinese suppliers in US

[Hannah Bell]

In preparation for selling the Nexteer steering plant to China, Nexteer (GM subsidiary) asked its workers to vote themselves $12/hr. So they'd be a good bargain for the Chinese, who are used to such things.

What a great deal the GM bankruptcy was, saving all those $12/HR jobs.


BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP (WJRT) -- (06/09/10) -- More jobs are coming to Saginaw County's Nexteer Automotive plant.

(Ooooh, more jobs! yippee!)

This job creation news is contingent on the union membership ratifying its contract, which should happen in few weeks.

("ratifying ITS contract. ITS = the union membership's -- the contract belongs to them?)


Workers inside the plant have told us that not everyone may be happy with this new contract.

(oops. wonder who designed that contract?)

Skilled trade employees stand to lose $8 from their hourly wage. Production workers will fall to $14.50 from $17 an hour. Temporary workers who become full time will be paid $14.50 an hour. New hires will come in at $12 an hour. Health care will be offered to workers, but it won't be enough to cover family members.

($12 fucking dollars an hour for auto work? and individual-only health care?)

Right now, union leadership is meeting with workers to let them know the latest news.

"letting them know the latest news" -- hey, good job on "their" contract negotiations, reps!

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=7487827



Fortunately, "they" knew what to do with that kind of slavers contract: vote it down overwhelmingly:


Skilled trades employees, who stood to lose $8 an hour, voted the contract down with 78 percent opposed to 22 percent in favor. Production workers voted the contract down with 68 percent opposed to 32 percent in favor.

Jeff Hurd was among the production workers who voted “No.” "The biggest concern I had was the new people coming in were only going to make $12 an hour and only receive individual health care,” Hurd said. “You can’t raise a family on $12 an hour. And what if one of your kids gets sick?”

http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2010/06/new_contract_for_uaw_local_699.html


The plant had been up for sale since Jan: GM wanted them to vote themselves $12 an hour so they could go to work for GM'S NEW CHINESE SUPPLIERS WITHOUT ANY DOWNTIME.


GM, PCM sign agreement for sale of Nexteer's steering business Source:

China's Pacific Century Motor Systems Co., Ltd. (PCM) and General Motors (GM) held a signing ceremony at GM's headquarters here Monday afternoon for the sale of Nexteer Automotive, GM's steering business, to the Chinese company.

PCM, founded by the state-owned Beijing E-Town International Investment & Development Co., Ltd. and automotive manufacturer Tempo International Group Ltd., will maintain Nexteer's current headquarters and operations in Saginaw, Michigan, said Zhou Tianbao, chairman of Tempo.

Remenar said PCM distinguished itself as a buyer because of its commitment to the communities Nexteer operates in and a compelling business case. "They demonstrated to our sellers that they could create a long term strategic and capable supplier, not only for tomorrow but for 100 years to come," he said.

http://business.globaltimes.cn/industries/2010-07/551147.html.


That bankruptcy was great! Opened the door to the chinese-style slave labor "contracting" system in the US!

Oh happy day.

[Hannah Bell]

1. UAW workers now 20% below manufacturing average:

For decades, the UAW tugged wages upward. In 1960, a UAW member made 16 percent more than the average American manufacturing worker. By 2006, the figure was 74 percent. Today, new hires in the UAW make about 20 percent less than the average.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10956549

[Luciferous]

14. My husband is a UAW worker. The union contract is up in October,

and the workers voted to suspend negotiations for a year. That means that they don't even get a raise this year, because the company they work for threatened to lay people off if they tried to negotiate the contract. My husband was pissed off and voted against it, but people are scared that they will end up losing their jobs or have to make more concessions.

[Rage for Order]

2. Isn't the US government the majority stockholder in GM?

The administration has an excellent opportunity to show that it supports a strong union work force. Will they step up to the plate and deliver?



*spelling edit

[Hannah Bell]

3. lol. like hell. $12/hr supplying GM via a chinese government corp.

chinese-style slave wage contracting on US shores. "unionized" = lol.

[w4rma]

11. This administration that has been busting teachers' unions without remorse? Hell no. (nt)

[Starry Messenger]

4. $12 an hour is criminally low.

I always wondered when outsourcing was going to turn into "insourcing". These companies just love the exploitative deal they've got going in other countries. It was only a matter of time when they would take advantage of the desperation here to impose the same stomach-turning crap.

[Hannah Bell]

5. "insourcing" is exactly it. the chinese system, in the US. with real-live chinese corps, to boot.

an evil day.

fuck em all.

[AlabamaLibrul]

6. I just got my first job in months at 2/3 of "criminally low". Money's money these days. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

8. why not $1/hour? hell, why not work for room & board?

slave mentality. nothing the apologists won't excuse.

[AlabamaLibrul]

9. Because I'd be homeless if I didn't take it.

I used to be a UFCW member.

Now I work at a dry cleaners.

Slave mentality, apologist, what the fuck ever. I'll go live and work for you if you give me room and board, because that's about all I'm getting out of this shit job.

Clearly you've never heard of doing what you have to to survive.

[Hannah Bell]

10. doing what you have to to survive is fine. acting as apologists for the corps

grinding down the workforce isn't.

"Money's money these days" -- less & less as long as there's no push-back.

This is a global corporation, not a corner dry cleaners. They can do better than $12/hr.

[Starry Messenger]

12. I know money is money.

We all do what we have to, to survive. But we should be also demanding more and not just bowing our necks. These companies post huge profits, they can afford to pay more. I hate seeing the neoliberal devastation of workers. The more these companies get away with, the more they will pare away at wages.

[Skink]

7. After 10 years 12 an hour sounds good.

maybe I could find a forclosed on house for that.

[Fumesucker]

13. Some people say a man is made out of mud

A poor man's made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one morning when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said well a bless my soul

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Fighting and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebreak by an old mama lion
Ain't no high tone woman make me walk the line

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me coming better step aside
A lot of men didn't a lot of men died
One fist of iron the other of steel
If the right one don't get you then the left one will

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU

[Phillip Walker]

15. Gross

Liberal utilitarian Jeremy Benthan (1748-1832) added this:

"In the highest state of social prosperity, the great mass of citizens will have no resource except their daily industry; and consequently will always be near indigence ... uman beings are the most powerful instruments of production, and therefore everyone becomes anxious to employ the services of his fellows in multiplying his own comforts. Hence the intense and universal thirst for power; the equally prevalent hatred of subjugation. ... When security and conflict are in conflict, it will not do to hesitate a moment. Equality must yield."

This means that, in liberal societies, the rich are pitted against the poor, gaining their wealth by appropriating the work of others; and it means that government is in "business" to protect the ruling class.

[Starry Messenger]

16. Welcome to DU.

:thumbsup:

[Hannah Bell]

17. must be a lot of supporters of $12/hr wages at DU; unrecs.

can't say i'm surprised.

i certainly remember all the outrage here about union workers who were supposedly making $60, $80, $100, any-number-the media-pulled-out-of-its-ass-per-hour.

must warm your hearts to see new hires being asked to take $12.

that'll teach em not to try to get above their station.

[AlabamaLibrul]

19. Not I. $12 is appallingly low for GM. It used to be a place to be proud to work, where one could

come out of high school, raise a family at a decent wage, and retire comfortably.

The GM bailout was a corporate bailout and a hitjob on the unions. Wages continue to go down, and even I find myself saying the line "money's money" now. And it is! Shit housing and cheap food is better than homeless and scrounging for meals. I know first-hand. It's the typical "lesser of two evils", because it sure isn't ideal.

It's just a hell of a lot harder to fight for a decent wage when there's not a good union behind you. It's defeating. They pay you what they want to pay you and you HAVE to take it unless you have enough "FU money" to up and quit.

It sucks ass. My colleagues are on work release from state prison and get a tiny fraction of the wage I make. I have no clue why they even offered me a job, seeing how they could have hired eight people for my one.

It's the same shit, different day for the past 30 years. And it only gets worse and only serves to make one more depressed about their situation.

[Hannah Bell]

21. i agree. i'm sorry if you misinterpreted my remark about slaves. my anger is reserved for those

who want to paint the gm bankruptcy as some kind of success story when it was a subterfuge to shed obligations & intensify the screwing of workers.

i don't fault anyone for trying to survive. i fault those who are willing to condemn others to servitude and paint it as "success", to those who think manual labor deserves shit for wages (unlike financiers, who "deserve" millions for hard work like stealing pensions from widows & forclosing on people's homes).

some of them post at du.

i'm glad you found a situation. i don't expect a corner drycleaners to pay top dollar, but i *do* expect a global corp to do so. $12 for uaw labor = bullshit.

those fuckers should be in prison.

[AlabamaLibrul]

22. I'm in agreement, and sorry I got upset like that. n/t

[JonLP24]

20. I just rec'd to counter that

Thanks for the thread.

[Hannah Bell]

18. A common scam called the short con involves an offer to change an amount of money

with a clerk or a bartender, and then making change back and forth again to confuse the mark as to how much money is actually being exchanged. For example, the con offers the mark $5,000 in exchange for a pay raise, wait, let’s make that two raises, and, oh yeah, that shift premium, and next year’s bonus, and, hey, we’ll rearrange work schedules so you don’t have to work all that overtime...

The raise buy back is essentially the old short change trick with long term consequences.
Likewise the buy down. It doesn’t take a calculator to figure how quickly you come up short
on any of these buy down packages. But what is most disgusting is that in brokering the sale the International has intentionally deleted the “successor clause”. All UAW contracts have a successor clause that requires a new buyer to uphold the terms and conditions of the contract. Except this one.

This one has the sucker clause.

This is the dirtiest, most traitorous UAW contract I have ever seen.

http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/LB_A_149.pdf