UAW wants…46% Wage Increase…32 Hour Work Week….

The UAW gave rise to the explosion of the foriegn car market in this country. 

And we saw the demise in American built cars, as they cut costs by building everything on a flat, pancake, transverse engine, front wheel drive platform.

About as fun to drive as a shopping cart through a grocery store.

FUCK the UAW.      

GM and Chrysler should be out of business...but no, the tax payer paid for their bad business practices and shitty products.

"American" vehicles my ass.    Absolute junk.   

One of the things I've been saying for years is,

Look around.

How many American made vehicles do you see on the road more than the age it takes to pay them off ??

By then they've either, broken down, or turned into rolling rust buckets.

In the meantime, we have an acura TLS that will be getting close to 450,000 miles soon.

A Tacoma with over 400,000 miles,

And a 4runner with 206,000.

Even if they built a decent product, I would never support the UAW ever again. 

I'll never forget these headlines:

10,000 idle autoworkers pocketing $1.3 billion
Detroit car industry pays them full wages under UAW deal
January 28, 2005
BY JEFFREY McCRACKEN
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Amid falling U.S. market share, shuttered plants and production cutbacks, Detroit's three automakers and largest auto supplier are paying about 10,000 hourly workers in the United States and Canada full wages and benefits not to work, a Free Press survey shows. The number appears to be up from the last few years and will likely grow again this year, though it still won't be as high as a decade ago. Most of the companies refused to say how much they are spending to pay all these workers, but it's likely well over $1 billion this year, given the number of workers and typical union wage-and-benefit packages.

Someone said it best here:

The irony is that the UAW has become the disease it was created to battle or cure. They obviously never heard about eating the goose that laid the golden egg, or understand that terminal cancer always destroys its host.

As someone who has gone through union negotiations you know they ask for the moon and settle somewhere in the middle.  You can ask for 32 hour work weeks and kitchen sink but it's very unlikely to happen.  But the press loves to run with it to make union employees look greedy.  The pay raises only bring them in line with industry standard skilled labor, going from a roughly $32 top out to around $46 an hour.  Our top end was much higher but IAM/Lockheed still agreed to give us nearly 10% this last contract due to inflation. 

As an IAM member I'm curious what you mean by the union selling us out. The only tier situation I'm aware of right now is the pension system.  Beyond that we have always gone up in pay (minimum raise of 3% yearly, sometimes more), just the insurance has gotten worse but that's for everyone.  

I'm a UAW member.  I have 3 standing job offers that will pay me almost 10 dollars an hour more then what I'm making now as a die maker. Unfortunately health care keeps me here ,with a wife that has health problems and 2 young children ,health care is my number 1 priority right now. That and safe working conditions, I've never worked for a non union shop that gave people time off for working unsafe to save time on the job. Back to our regularly scheduled union bashing.

Unions are a relic of the past and no longer needed.  All they do now is drive up costs.  They only exists so they can keep on existing.

back when the factory or mine or plant controlled the entire town (owned all the houses, the grocery store, etc.)…a union was needed.  That’s not how it works any more.

My old grandpa told me, when I was way too young to understand, " if you're gonna go to college and be white collar...you are gonna have to be a Republican to succeed...if you're gonna work with your back and hands...find a union and vote Dem.".  

He was pretty correct.  Up until "Right to Work" became the norm.  After that...the union was toothless and basically sold out.

I sat on numerous union contract negotiations with IAMAW vs company.  We never asked for wage increases.  We asked for better insurance, sensible sick leave and stable retirement.  The company always said, "here's a raise...STFU about that other stuff".  My experience...yours may vary.

Our union always tells how to vote ,local and federal elections.of course it's democrat across the board . Even when coumo wiped his ass with the constitution about 2nd amendment rights our union basically said your job is more important then some stupid right to own a gun. The die hard democrat backing is what keeps me from getting involved in the union. I'm guessing the railroad workers were told to vote for Biden and he basically fucked them so hard when he was done they could have parked a train in their ass.

I eventually submitted a formal union withdrawal letter...which cost me my union pension.  Shouldn't have...I was vested for decades.  Yes, I have cut off my nose for less but I couldn't be a part of their rot any more.  I never expected a fair shake from the "man"...that ain't his game.  What gutted me was my "paid for" representatives stabbing me in the back.

It's my fault really...I fucked up and trusted them.

What work were you doing at  the time?

I work with a ton of guys who are the "union til I die" guys . There's not many of my fellow workers I really talk to more then hello or good bye while passing. Like I said before for me the health care is what keeps me there . I could do better financially if I worked OT but that's time I wouldn't see my kids . I really don't fit the mold of a union shop guy.

I personally would not like to have to work at a place where it's controlled by union. Besides the fact that I'm unemployable. Can't take orders for shit. Nobody would ever keep me! When I was young, my motivation for doing a good job was that nobody could ever tell me what to do. Unfortunately, that put me in a position very quickly that I had to be responsible for other people. 

The union had a purpose and a time.  Sadly...like anything else where there's money involved... corruption destroys.

They will probably get the demands.

The coal mine unions in my home town were die hard democrats….right up until Obama, then they finally saw the light and realized the democrats want to put them out of business and they all flipped to Republican.

My home county was the only blue county in Utah for decades…until Obama.  Now they are red too…

I'm not going to bash or praise unions but this story is pretty funny. I was given an opportunity to bid on painting the United Aerospace Workers union hall in Lakewood many years ago. I knew the union president on a social level. Anyway we got the contract. We were bidding against 2 union painting contractors and we were not union. I asked the president why they were hiring scabs like us and was told that we were not scabs unless we crossed a picket line and besides, we want the job done right and on time.

No shit story.

Worked in a huge cabinet/mill shop back in the early 90's.

In a right to work state.

Owner had numerous contracts where the finished product was being sent to jobs in NYC. 

So there had to be a union stamp on each product.

So therefore a smattering of union employees and shop steward.

The union guys literally stood around all day doing absolutely nothing. 

Or would deliberately tie up a few key machines during the day.

And the steward made the rounds once a week trying to "encourage" us to unionize. 

He was always met with a very cold shoulder, and some rather pointed insults.

They weren't making any more per hour than us, and we didn't have to pay dues, or go to meetings.

We also had a camaraderie amongst ourselves. 

While the 8-10 union guys were shunned as the assholes that they were. 

The only experience i've had with unions was when I was in the telecom industry. We would travel to AT&T sites to do installs, and on one occasion ended up in Gainesville Florida where the workers were all union. It was maddening to see all of their forced breaks. There was a guy working on a full wall of wire wraps, and he stated that it would take a full month to complete. A job like that shouldn't have been more than a week.

Pretty much sums unions up.      Not saying their aren't good hard working folks in them...but they are filled with the deadwood milkers who couldn't survive in a real job. 

Tough crowd. I’m UAW/Ford Motor Company with 26 years. 
I don’t get caught up in the “Good ol’ Boy Club” bull. I couldn’t even give you the name of my local president. I show up, do my job and go home. Couldn’t care less about monthly meetings. I vote red and you’d be surprised at how many of us do. Is there corruption? Yes. Dead beat, lazy bastards that abuse the system? Yes. Those are the ones that get the attention. Most of us are good workers. I know many good, decent people here that hate the games as much as I do. I honestly haven’t been paying much attention to the contract talks either. It is what it is. I do know this though from following the news and current events, we certainly aren’t the only ones asking for pay raises in this economy. And it’s ironic that these tough economic times have been created by the person my union endorsed. 🙄

As a union member I would of course disagree.  For me the good has outweighed the bad by a long way.  The union is firmly planted between me and company minded assholes, of which there are many.  Everyone in management is out for the company because their yearly bonus depends on it.  With the union they can't randomly fire anyone or even really look at us sideways without creating a hostile work environment.  I go to work everyday in a stress free situation making good money, and the company makes record profits even post pandemic.  There is a balance that is win-win for everyone.  

In my example, I should have been clear that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the guys doing the job, they worked as hard as they were allowed to.

Many years ago, my now father-in-law was working 2 jobs to support his family.  Took a job stocking an independent grocery store working the graveyard shift.     The owner of the store didn't want anything to do with unions.   Paid his people well and took care of them.    Unions tried to put him out of business....they'd send goons in randomly to trash the store and destroy product.   

"legalized" mob is all they are.

Evil fucks....

The CEO of GM last year made 8.3 million dollars in salary and an additional 24 million in stock award gains as GM had a 10 billion dollar profit in 2022. Yeah I have no issue with the union workers wanting a bigger piece of the pie.

Factory work week should be 4-10's anyway. 

Thats some serious telling on yourself.

every production based job should 4-10
more production and happier employees, a clear no brainer