Chart of UAW compensation compared to manufacturing average
Mark J. Perry (a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan) of Carpe Diem asks why people who make much less than United Auto Workers doing the same kind of work should fork over their taxes to keep them employed.
[A] UAW assembler earned 91% more in monetary wages than the average worker in the manufacturing sector, and a UAW electrician earned 123% more in wages than the average manufacturing worker.Maybe we should subsidize all manufacturing jobs in the US so everyone earns as much as a UAW assembler. Isn't that the fair thing to do?...
This is actually a tribute to the amazing success of the UAW - it was able to not just build a middle-class of autoworkers, it was actually able to elevate its members from the middle class into the upper-income class, even though most UAW workers had (have) only a high school degree. Unfortunately, that success could not be sustained in the long-run, and UAW wages have to come to back down to realistic levels, e.g. the $16.78 average hourly wage that prevails in the rest of the manufacturing sector, before the wages push the Big Three into bankruptcy. Is there anything so special about auto assembly manufacturing work that it justifies a 91% premium over the rest of the manufacuring sector? I don't think so.
UPDATE: Media Matters investigates the figures presented here and concludes they are false.
And here's an excerpt from an AP article that mentions UAW wages:
But GM, which negotiated the four-year deal that serves as a template for UAW deals with Chrysler and Ford, says its total hourly labor costs dropped 6 percent this year from pre-contract levels, from $73.26 in 2006 to around $69 per hour. The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees, GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said.Middle-Class UAW? How About Upper-Class
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Those pesky unions, raising people's standards of living. What's to be done?
How much does a professor earn anyway?
Why are they comparing UAW electricians to non-unionized manufacturers?
If they're being intellectually honest shouldn't they be comparing UAW electricians to non-unionized electricians?
Since when is $64,000 for a household upper fricking class?? I earned another digit on top of that this year, and I can assure you, I'm still just upper middle at best, and poor in comparison to any corporate middle manager in the United States.
We're not exactly talking 1964 dollars here. Was this guy aware that house prices and college prices have risen since he was in grade school? That the price of medical care is just a little higher than it used to be?
Or are we simply acknowledging now that mere workers shouldn't expect to be able to send their children to get university educations or be cured of their cancer, that these privileges are and should be reserved for their social betters?
The sad part of all of this is that I honestly believe these people deserve this sort of money. It is hard work and everyone should be compensated for it.
At the same time, I don't make near that much with advanced degrees, working for a university (and my future as a psychologist is noted to make around $68k on average). My old profession in entertainment paid far more...
Tells you something about what is valued in the western world. Make consumables and you will make money. Educate people, and spend 10 years to heal others...well...don't expect to be rich...
Good point Michael.
My household income (2 working adults) is something like $70k and I can barely afford a 1-bedroom apartment, let alone a house and kids.
Don't forget how ridiculous it is that $64,000 or $75,000 can be considered "upper income class." It shows that the income distribution in this country is totally skewed by 20% living beneath $25,000 a year. Between $25,000 and $75,000 is almost 50% of the population, whereas greater than $200,000 is less than 10% of the population.
(It may even be less than 5%, around the area it was in last time I did intensive analysis of an ERP in 2005).
IMO only >$100,000 should be considered "upper income class", as that is the highest fifth of the population.
Here is the hopelessly skewed-positive census info:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0673.pdf
(It is hopelessly skewed because they are using arbitrary groupings like $35,000 - $49,000, which is a very large difference. The ERP is a political tool that a lot of economists spend an entire year grooming to make look as positive as possible. For example, it cuts of segmenting at $100,000 dollars only because the glaring inequalities become obvious once you begin segmenting that 20%).
Aren't these the same numbers that have been floating around the internet that were pretty easily debunked?
Sorry Zuzu - you'll have to elaborate - go slowly - I'm British.
How much do workers in North American Toyota and Honda plants make? As far as I know they aren't in Washington and Ottawa, hat in hand.
The big three are tanking because they make shitty cars and are otherwise poorly run, not because their assembly line workers are over paid.
Yes, lets not bail out the few union jobs that we have actually been able to fight and maintain in America, and instead ALL be making 35k.
The more obvious solution, of course, is that these workers get saved while their bosses - who have been the ones to fuck everything up - don't get our money. The other obvious solution is to let everyone unionize, as it clearly works for the workers.
How anyone came to the conclusion that we should let the few well-paying manufacturing jobs die because we're jealous of the fact that their living how we all should be is frankly bizarre.
@ Michael
Sorry, but $640,000 puts you in about the top 2% or less of income earners. If that feels like upper middle class it is only because the variation in the top 1% is so grotesque.
Where's the graph comparing the salaries of auto workers with Wall St. workers?
You get paid what you can get - i.e. what the market will bear, not what you deserve. I would say people who risk their lives in unpleasant conditions deserve the most pay but they don't. They are usually at the bottom of the earning scale. Uneducated risk takers who happen to find entrepreneurial success will bring home millions with very little actual labor performed.
Money is not a reflection of a person's deserved earning but of that person's ability to make the best of the available opportunities to them at the time.
The UAW recognizes they are about the kill their host but that will only accelerate the feeding. That is how it is in a shrinking watering hole. Animals don't suddenly start rationing and slowing down consumption of a finite and doomed resource pool. It goes into overdrive and it gets hostile.
I'd like to see some further investigation, 'cause Perry's one of the douchebags pushing the nonsense myth that unionized U.S. automakers were getting $73 / hr since he (like others) includes the costs of pensions for retired workers (pensions which were agreed to mostly in lieu of salaries).
Maybe when calculating at the Toyota or Honda or other plants, we should include the nearly $2 billion in 'incentives' that Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas gave to those companies to locate plants in those states.
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate_subsidy/automobile_assembly_plants.cfm
Nope. UAW workers average $28 per hour, about $60K a year.
Those electricians making $33K should join a union. They'd pay 10% in dues, but that's after they double their wages.
Here's an explanation of where the much cited (but wrong) numbers come from.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682
Re: "Maybe we should subsidize all manufacturing jobs in the US so everyone earns as much as a UAW assembler. Isn't that the fair thing to do?"
While the question is obviously rhetorical, to that point, would doing what you propose stimulate demand for goods, raise infant morality rates, increase education, etc? Would it help stimulate the economy and the overall well being of US citizens?
Flip that. Take away union jobs that pay well. Make it so that the only people making a lot of money are the professional and managerial classes. What does this do to the economy? What happens with the kids that can't quite make it to college or get decent medical care growing up?
Yes, a happy medium is needed and the industry can't sustain these wages, especially not in this economy - but I also don't think the other extreme is something that helps us as a country.
I work in the computer industry,supposedly one of the higher paying industries, as a software tester with over ten years experience. Actual fact, I make 20k less than many of the well publicized HR wage polls say I should be making. I live in a large city - Chicago - and the city garbage collectors make more per year than I do. I don't own, I rent, I provide for 3 others beside myself. Bail outs of the financial industry and the auto industry both give me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. The officials we've elected, including Obama, say they are necessary. I've yet to hear a really good reason why this is so. I never expected to rich - it would be nice to be able to afford a new televison ( I could care less if it were flat screen or not ) just so I could use my very cheap dvd player with it. Oh some new socks would be good too.
@thomas12345 - According to salary.com, an Electrician III in Detroit earns about $50k/year. However with bonuses, benefits and time off, they come out at $79k/year. Nationwide it is $73k/year.
Those electricians of course have different jobs.
The thing is, college education has nothing to do with salary in this case. Those electricians are essentially tradesmen. You don't need a college education to become a master tradesman and the experience and expertise has value.
Honestly, the US has become sooo skewed away from trade schools that people think the only way to learn anything and get paid well for it is by going to a University.
Money is not a reflection of a person's deserved earning but of that person's ability to make the best of the available opportunities to them at the time.
I guess that's why big wigs in the financial markets get paid massive bonuses when they ruin companies and their customers.......
Hey wait! That doesn't make sense!
How much money would it take to pay the remaining UAW workers their salaries for a year, as well as pensions and benefits?
Doing that, firing all management, and giving control of the factories over to the workers (and keep the good designers) would be way cheaper than $25 billion, I suspect.
That's the kind of bailout I could get behind.
P.S. When is Ford going to stop denying the US market of every single efficient design they produce? Europe
GM killed Flint, MI. GM also killed Saab. Boo, GM! I don't see why they suddenly want to create green cars when they have lobbied against fuel economy standards and emission standards for years. Oh wait, they just want to save their jobs (they = management).
These auto bailout discussions seem to fall along "unions good / unions bad", and "working class people are honest, hardworking Americans" and "management screwed it up." Having lived in MI for ten years, it seemed like slow inevitable decline. These giant co's are afraid to take risks, they stick with what they know. The UAW has done so much good, but the relation between the UAW leadership and the auto industries has been so terrible lately (maybe it was never good), it is hard to see them working something out that really works.
To The Union! For which it stands! (Just pointing out that the US is a union.)
ab5tract,
Adding a digit didn't necessarily mean adding a zero to the back end. It could mean adding a one to the front.
Wait -- what does Mark Perry make as an economics professor compared to the average economics professor?
This is bogus,and should be updated on the main page to reflect same. The average wage at GM is $28/hr, you only get to those astronomical figures by including the pensions and benefits of all GM retirees. It's basically anti-union propaganda, and deliberately misleading. More detail here: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/11/auto-workers-70hour-38hour-or-28hour.html
Don't get used, Mark
Simply put, trade unions don't make the methods of production more efficient, so they don't make the same goods for less expense (or better goods for the same expense), so they don't create real growth -- they just extract more from the company.
What everyone seems to conveniently forget in the worker-factory relationship is that there's a third party: the consumer. (i.e. The people buying what the factory is making.) The factory and its workers only do so for the benefit of the consumer (in exchange for money).
So the rising standard of living for the unionized worker isn't because they're doing something better than others, but because they've bulled their way into taking extra helpings from everyone else (either the factory or passed on to the consumer).
Likewise, Haliburton suckling at the bulging teat of the U.S. military may be lucrative for that organization specifically, but it's not creating any real value in the larger economy -- and likely merely being paid to destroy value.
markfrei@17: "While the question is obviously rhetorical, to that point, would [subsidizing all manufacturing jobs in the US so everyone earns as much as a UAW assembler] stimulate demand for goods, raise infant morality rates, increase education, etc? Would it help stimulate the economy and the overall well being of US citizens?"
Sure it would, especially if those workers were making stuff people actually wanted, and not shitty cars.
@Antinous
>$150,000 puts him in the top 6%. Still only "upper middle class" because of the ridiculous variation in that bracket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
$61K is upper frickin' class...in Detroit.
Comparing UAW work to the average manufacturing job isn't perfect. Auto work is fairly high tech as US manufacturing goes. After all, manufacturing includes a lot of REALLY awful work. Textiles, food processing, etc.
From the BLS/NAICS, RE: manufacturing:
"...establishments that transform materials or substances into new products by hand or in the worker's home and those engaged in selling to the general public products made on the same premises from which they are sold, such as bakeries, candy stores, and custom tailors, may also be included in this sector"
I'd like to clarify that making $150,000 really is basically upper middle class, in that it is much closer to middle class than it is to the incomes above it, in the top 1-2% or so.
So Michael please don't get the impression I'm trying to give you a hard time!
Some things need to be cleared up about the information presented in the article.
First, placing these people into the high income group is based on an assumption that 2 people hold these jobs in the household. While not impossible, it requires a logical leap to make such a claim. You do not see many stories that assume investment banker or executive households have 2 individuals holding the same job, so why do it with manufacturing labor?
Second, UAW assembler and electrician jobs in no way compare to regular manufacturing work. UAW jobs typically begin with a 4 year apprenticeship, during which the worker takes college/tech-school courses and is paid at roughly ½ normal rates. Most general manufacturing work does not require anywhere near as long of a training period. UAW work is much more similar to skilled electricians or plumbers in the lengthy training periods the jobs require.
This author of this article either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or is presenting very misleading data in an attempt to paint UAW workers as overpaid.
The data presented is also from 2006 -- wasn't it in 2007 that the UAW gave back all sorts of wage concessions in negotiations?
@Zuzu
"What everyone seems to conveniently forget in the worker-factory relationship is that there's a third party: the consumer. (i.e. The people buying what the factory is making.)"
Ridiculous false dichotomy. UAW workers _are_ consumers. Increased incomes in their income range has a huge effect on the economy. The only income bracket that money disappears into is the top 5%.
There is no plan to bail out auto workers, only to bail out auto corporations.
Just as there was never a plan to bail out individuals and small businesses needing loans, only to bail out banks.
The idea that we'll be saving American jobs by bailing out the auto corporations is preposterous. The auto industry has been increasingly heavily subsidized by the government for years now, and they've responded by outsourcing progressively more of their jobs to Mexico, then China.
The auto corps are happy to take whatever money we feel like giving them, but it's not going to alter their clear and aggressive strategy of moving their manufacturing to countries without labor or human rights standards.
First of all, most of those auto workers are highly skilled. These folks aren't screwing the tops on toothpaste.
Furthermore -- that seems like a perfectly reasonable wage for a highly-skilled head of household to me. The only reason the comparison is so low is that those workers are expoited by union-busting bosses.
The salaries, benefits and retirement package for the current Ford Automotive board of directors is equal to the equivalent of those three amts for a combined 3,150 median-income Ford non-management employees.
Maybe the problem isn't with the union assemblers and electricians - this economist's own biases are worn very plainly on his sleeve.
@Thomas12345 (#7)
"My household income (2 working adults) is something like $70k and I can barely afford a 1-bedroom apartment"
you make $5800/month and you can barely afford a 1 bedroom apt?
Mn. crck hs rlly gttn xpnsv.
The reason I posted this is because I don't think it's fair for blue-collar workers making less money than UAW workers to pay taxes to support UAW workers' higher wages.
@Zuzu: Yeah, like Ab5tract said...
Wait though - you also say
"So the rising standard of living for the unionized worker isn't because they're doing something better than others, but because they've bulled their way into taking extra helpings from everyone else..."
Yep those darn bullies, if it wasn't for them we'd still be able to shove children up chimneys and undercut Bangladeshi sweatshops. Probably get rid of safety rules at work too. 'Bout time.
#28
Well here is a harder point. What do people want? Really. Cuz last I checked it took a massive spike in oil prices to make them even look at hybrids. I hate SUVs. So does Bill Ford but he had to face reality that no one wanted his vision of green cars and he got replaced by a turn around expert.
Maybe the US Government needs to do a dual pronged effort that stimulates consumer demand for cars that are better in terms of resource consumption and emissions. It's fine to give money to Detroit to retool, but maybe we should really be giving it to consumers in the forms of tax rebates and favorable loans if you buy a hybrid/electric/whatever. And then maybe Detroit could actually price their green cars at a profit (right now the consensus is that all hybrids US or foreign are sold at a loss).
I'm gonna assert that the whole system is really messed up - and I include consumers in that. It makes sense to address the whole picture instead of railing on on part of it.
"So the rising standard of living for the unionized worker isn't because they're doing something better than others, but because they've bulled their way into taking extra helpings from everyone else (either the factory or passed on to the consumer)."
If it truly is a competitive environment, then unions force management to earn less profits. In other words, if they can sell a car and make 5k in profits, they will. If the union can negotiate and get 1/2 of that 5k for the workers, the management can't pass that on to consumers, they will buy the car somewhere else for less. Management has to eat the lost profits, perhaps pay the CEO something less than 100 times what the electrician makes.
Simple Marxism. Which is not a bad thing, btw.
Markfrei@#18 - "...would doing what you propose stimulate demand for goods, raise infant morality rates..."
I was quite unaware that there were concerns about the morality of our infants. This is shocking! I suspect a ring of investment deceit led by the little guy on the etrade commercials.
(sorry to make fun of an obvious typo, I couldn't resist the temptation)
The whole conservative balk at the auto bailout plan has been nothing but union busting. We've sunk a trillion into the banking industry, where people are still earning a hell of a lot more than $64k/year.
Blaming crappy cars and bad management on the unions is either uninformed, or union busting in disguise.
When the numbers seem extreme, distrust the numbers. Real BLS data has Mean wages for "Team Assemblers" in Moter Vehicle occupations as:
$42k/yr.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_336100.htm#b51-0000
He is comparing corporate propaganda to BLS data, and twisting it to slam the unions. (Why, for example, does he choose to compare all manufacturing workers to union electricians? I would expect electricians to get paid more)
This guy is the same hack that falsely claims UAW workers get $70/hour. Stop linking to him.
Leaving aside the data/methodology/bias problems behind that chart... Done and done: We have progressive income taxes. Surely you don't think that tax revenues should be divided up and allocated according to a complex scheme whereby the relative income of the taxpayer and the beneficiary of tax-funded spending is taken into account? Or are you some kind of accountant?!
@johnocomedy #37
Mn. crck hs rlly gttn xpnsv.
Myb h's crck ddct, or maybe he lives in Brooklyn. Hey, maybe both!
So if the UAW makes so "little", then why are so many of the "big three" cars being made in Canada and Mexico?
Of course, if we held all trucks and SUV's to CAFE standards, then we would still have "big three" manufacturing plants making small cars in the US.
The reason I posted this is because I don't think it's fair for blue-collar workers making less money than UAW workers to pay taxes to support UAW workers' higher wages.
Okay, we'll put a little 'X' on the dollar bills that are paid by lesser-earning, non-UAW workers and make sure that those don't go into the bailout package. They can go to the defense budget, or funding for the arts, and taxpayers in other industries, say creative arts, will have their tax dollars marked with a 'B' and will cover the auto bailout.
Just for the record...Mark Perry makes $108,075.51 per year. The median salary for University / College professors in the US is just shy of $82,000.
Notice that this data is for 2006. The UAW has given, since then, HUGE concessions. In the current system, the remaining (the ones who refused buyouts and escaped layoffs) workers are paid in a three tiered level. Any incoming workers will and are making much less than that. My curiosity is piqued though. Why would a Flint professor use completely outdated numbers?
Two wrongs don't make a right- just because we are wrongly bailing out the financial companies and fraudulent lenders and borrowers doesn't mean we need to bail out any other industry. None of these bailouts make sense.
Bankruptcy protection is a valid option for GM and maybe Ford. If we bail out the auto industry they promise to reorganize, close factories, cut jobs, product lines, etc. That's exactly the same thing that would happen in bankruptcy protection, except the idiots that already loaned them money would lose out, not the taxpayers.
They need to improve profitability if they want to survive. They will probably need to cut benefits, which do work out close to the high numbers presented in the chart on a per working employee basis.
Think about supply and demand- do we honestly want these companies to keep the supply up when demand has dropped as it has? They quite simply need to make cutbacks and the ridiculous contracts that management signed with unions will mean that those cut backs will incur huge costs on the organization. The current union contracts are not compatible with the realities of the global marketplace, where we need to sell exports at fair prices.
I don't blame the unions as much as I blame the long retired management who signed the expensive contracts with union for short term gain at the expense of the long term survival of the auto companies.
@38,Mark Frauenfelder: You're right, blue-collar workers without union jobs shouldn't have to pay taxes to support people who make more than them.
But your posting this particular piece makes some assumptions beyond that:
1) That tax money (in the form of a bailout) is going to go towards paying UAW workers. It simply isn't - if a bailout happens at all it will do nothing to insure that UAW workers will keep their jobs. It can just as easily go towards building factories overseas. That is to say: UAW workers will not likely see much - if any - benefit from a bailout...and they may actually end up worse off.
2) That the high wages of UAW workers are responsible for the collapse of the Big 3 (otherwise how could the bailout be considered "supporting UAW workers' higher wages"?). The Big 3 have screwed up in many other ways, which have been detailed by others here.
The failure that's being bailed out here is not "paying decent wages to manufacturers", it's having a fundamentally corrupt and ineffective management. Plenty of ethical businesses share large amounts of the profit with employees even without union pressure and stay in business - it's not as hard as the Big 3 claim.
I don't think these are points you meant to make, but they are implicit in what you say.
aren't relatively high UAW wages proof free enterprise works?
Also, when he says
Is there anything so special about auto assembly manufacturing work that it justifies a 91% premium over the rest of the manufacuring sector? I don't think so.
I think he could learn a lot if he was in a horrible auto accident yet walks away safely.
Look folks, play these games if you want. You've got between 3 million and 10 million people depending on these U.S. auto jobs.
You're on the edge of a complete f***ing Depression.
This is no game.
These people go out of work, and unemployment can go up by 10%.
That's what this is about. You want to fix the auto industry? Great. Me too.
But maybe not right now, when we just lost 1.5 million jobs in the past 3 months.
People are talking about this stuff like it's some sort of consumer fantasy land, like we'll be going around worrying about import car quality and other deals when there's serious double digit unemployment.
Plus, those industries shut down, those people lose their jobs, do you think we taxpayers get off for free? Their pensions vanish, who do you think it is that will be pensioning those retired folk? McDonalds? The Salvation Army?
Let 'em die slow if they've got to die. Maybe a couple of years. For $30 billion? Are you kidding me? Do you know how much it will cost if the big 3 and their suppliers and dealers collapse?
Jesus, people, we really are on the edge of a damned Depression here and we're listening to a bunch of Hooverite labor bashers telling us now's the time to tighten our belts. Yeah. We been there. Done that. Didn't work.
Mark
These numbers are very, very wrong. What Perry does is divide the number of present auto workers by the total spent by GM on all issues of compensation, including contributions to health and for retired workers.
The average GM worker makes around $28 an hour. Please read this:
Thursday, February 01, 2007
From Detroit Free Press
The UAW is losing its edge in pay compared with non-unionized U.S. assembly plant workers for foreign companies, even as Detroit automakers aim for deeper benefit cuts to trim their losses.
In at least one case last year, workers for a foreign automaker for the first time averaged more in base pay and bonuses than UAW members working for domestic automakers, according to an economist for the Center for Automotive Research and figures supplied to the Free Press by auto companies.
In that instance, Toyota Motor Corp. gave workers at its largest U.S. plant bonuses of $6,000 to $8,000, boosting the average pay at the Georgetown, KY, plant to the equivalent of $30 an hour. That compares with a $27 hourly average for UAW workers, most of whom did not receive profit-sharing checks last year. Toyota would not provide a U.S. average, but said its 7,000-worker Georgetown plant is representative of its U.S. operations.
Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. are not far behind Toyota and UAW pay levels. Comparable wages have long been one way foreign companies fight off UAW organizing efforts. . . . . .
For some more specific data go to
Chrysler $29-$33: http://uaw.org/contracts/07/chrysler/hrly/chry_hr02.php
Ford $26-$33 ">http://uaw.org/contracts/07/ford/hrly/ford_hr02.php
GM $26-33 http://uaw.org/contracts/07/gm/gm02.php
I am also a professor of Political Science at UM-Flint (who makes a little over half what Perry, a prof. in the Business School makes).Perry is strongly affiliated with the right-wing Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan. Take everything he says about unions and the auto industry with a grain of salt.
This lie has been debunked in many places. Please do a little research before posting on such a serious topic.
Seventy dollars/hour is hogwash, as has been pointed out. But it is also worth noting that new UAW workers are now getting about 14 dollars an hour.
The cost of labor, as I painfully detailed in the photoshopped auto company ad post, is only 5-8 per cent of the price of a car.
This endless bashing of labor, who ARE the damned USA, is useless, futile, and just plain mean spirited. They could work for free and we'd still be in this mess. Just what do you labor haters want, a country of people who make 6.00/hour? Are you joining up for that wage?
"The reason I posted this is because I don't think it's fair for blue-collar workers making less money than UAW workers to pay taxes to support UAW workers' higher wages."
Based on this type of reasoning; I shouldn't have to pay for schools and education because I have no children, I shouldn't have to pay for the fire department since I've never had a fire, and I shouldn't have to pay for welfare because I have a job.
Any of these sound familar?
Arguing against ALL the bailouts is one thing. Arguing agaisnt specific bailouts due to percieved wage imbalances, based on faulty data no less, smacks of class warfare and union bashing.
#56
That's weird, because I listened to a UAW official on radio saying about 10% of a car's price is US labor. Depends on the car being built?
Anonymous @17 got it right. A friend of mine lives and works for GM in Detroit. $28/hour really is the average, +/- $2.
Also, as was said earlier, skilled tradesmen often do earn more than the college-educated because their experience and skills set makes them valuable.
Another friend of mine double-majored in astronomy and physics in college. He now works a skilled trade completely and utterly unrelated to his formal education, and earns nearly $100k/year.
Leave the UAW alone. Leave the tradesmen alone. Those people are quite literally the ones providing the utilities, necessities and luxuries taken for granted by many. Just because your mommy said you were special does not mean you automatically get to earn more because you have a liberal arts degree, you fop.
While I'm sure the heavy union pension has contributed in a small way to the American auto manufacturer's problems, I like to make this statement to sum up the major cause: "While Toyota was busy developing a hybrid engine, Ford was busy developing TV screens in headrests."
I truly don't understand the love of unions in these posts. I suppose these aren't people who have actually dealt with union workers?
I'm in high tech. We all bust our ass, and those who produce more, magically, get paid more. Yes, we have the Dilbert/Office Spaces of the world, but for the most part, those who work smarter and harder than the rest get rewarded.
Instead, in a union shop, it's entirely different. There are no rewards for extra production. There is just plodding indifference. It's not that the workers are bad. It's the system: They get paid no matter what. They get paid for shoddy work, or good work. They get paid if they don't show up. They get paid if they yell at a customer. Etc., etc.
I'm not leeting off the execs either. Both the unions and the execs are at fault. But while we continue to bash the American car companies, what about all the other companies in America that produce wonderful things, with happy workers? Believe it or not, these types of places do exist. And they aren't unionized.
I remember speaking to an executive with a major US engine manufacturer. They were building engines in 30 days. They really needed to build them in 25 days in order to be competitive. So they spent hundreds of ours analyzing their systems, and found some areas where they could cut time. They got everyone together, laid out the plan, and started.
As a result of their new plan, their time to build engines increased to 35 days.
5 days more.
They were completely baffled. This was a major problem. There were offices converted to war rooms, with charts, graphs, extensive study.
After months of trying to figure out why their production had gone down since implementing the new plan, they discovered the reason: A union shop steward in one of the sub-assembly plants had heard of the new time-saving plan. Convinced that improving the performance would (in some weird logic) put his workers jobs at risk, he instructed his workers to _slow down_, ultimately adding 5 days to the engine production.
The engine manufacturer got fed up, and setup a plant in Mexico, where they are producing high quality product in less time.
Incidentally, he contrasted this experience to working with labor in South Korea. A new engine showed up at a plant. The workers literally ran to the truck and started off-loading it. Then literally ran it into the building and started assembling it.
Can anyone who has ever been in Detroit honestly say they've seen this kind of attitude?
The unions had their place, 75 years ago when workers were being treated like crap. Those days are gone. If you disagree, look at the non-union workers at Honda, Toyota and the other car companies -- in the US. I don't see labor riots. I think you'll find employees who are quite happy with their work, their pay and their workplace.
The unions killed the American can-do attitude. They degraded their own workers by fostering an attitude of being owed something, destroying the sense of accomplishment over work well done, and creating enmity toward shareholders and management.
Why this is good, is beyond me.
How many years have you worked, in how many places have you worked, what was your childhood like, your parent's experience?
Takuan, not sure of the relevance of your question, but to answer it: I have worked for 21 years, I have worked for 10 companies and I grew up poor with a single mother.
The title of the graph is wrong, and the label of the middle column is wrong, and it all leads to a completely bogus conclusion. It has been thoroughly debunked. Mark Frauenfelder, please update the post with a correction.
I don't understand the hatred of unions in these posts. Unions aren't to blame for the sorry state of Detroit, anecdotes notwithstanding. (But hey, to parry with another: Dick Cheney has spoken about how he never could have gotten so far without union jobs to reward his can-do spirit.)
It wasn't the UAW that killed R&D into fuel efficiency ten years ago. Nor can you blame a union for the banking meltdown, or the bankruptcy of the Tribune Company.
In the past thirty years, we have witnessed a resurgence in the belief that what's good for shareholders of large corporations is good for America. Well, obviously, it's not. Why anybody would base any proposed solution on such a laughable premise is beyond me.
I truly don't understand the love of unions in these posts. I suppose these aren't people who have actually dealt with union workers?
And the evidence you present is a story that you heard from a manufacturing executive?
I'm not in a union, never have been. But a large part of what I do means dealing with unionized workers, and while they're usually the butt of jokes (How can you tell when a Teamster is dead? The doughnut falls out of his mouth), they've all been dedicated, smart professionals.
But I'll tell you why I love unions:
The 40-hour workweek.
Paid sick leave.
No children toiling in factories.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
And I'll say this: I've also had to deal with non-unionized high tech workers, and many of them were lazy, difficult pr*cks that failed to deliver. Happened just this morning, in fact. And he's still getting paid.
It seems like everyone has a great anecdote about some lazy union workers that proved that unionization is a bad idea.
"I knew this place where people were lazy and then they worked lazy and so their work sucked."
Thanks for your story. Who would have expected an abstracted stereotype to lead to a generalization? Anybody have any other stories about African-Americans committing crimes? What about any stories about women trying to fix cars? I bet you guess how that went!
Here's my generalization: anyone who has a negative opinion of unions has never been a member of one. Because after the unions "threaten" you until you join, "steal" your money for dues, and "silence" you by representing you in the workplace, you wake up the next morning and realize that you:
-have adequate health care, vacation time, and family support services
-get paid for the hard work you do
-have a system for dealing with workplace grievances
-and actually have a safe work place, which for anyone who doesn't sit when they work is actually important. I'm looking at you, #60.
It is hilarious to me that Americans march up and down about their right to vote, which is one day a year, and then are perfectly willing to argue that for the hours one is on the clock one is a slave that can be told to do absolutely anything, with the health and livelyhood of oneself and ones family held hostage. Nobody is asking for a handout except for the bosses. Working in exchange for pay is part of the human condition; self-determination should be too. I may work for somebody, but I own everything that I do.
Typcl lbrl (nd cnmclly lltrt) responses to this post include:
1. $64K a year is not much, in fact it's too little.
2. the problem with the US auto industry is not that the costs are too high but that management designed and produced crappy cars that no-one wants to buy, so don't blame the workers.
3. The bailout will not benefit the workers but the bosses.
4. If a bailout does not get approved, and soon, jobs will bne lost and workers will suffer.
This is all good entertaiment but complete bunk, and here's why.
1. Whether the level of wages are too high or too low does not, unfortunately, depend on what you or I consider a "decent" wage but on what the market can bear. If the market could bear this level of wages for auto workers, the auto industry would be profitable. It isn't.
2. If the cars are crappy but sold for a less there would still be buyers and the industry would not be bankrupt. It's the combination of high costs and low quality that makes it unsustainable, so both have to change.
3 and 4 are so obviously inconsistent that they are not worth rebutting.
Ok, I'll bite again.
For all the union supporters, are the US non-union workers at Toyota, Honda and Nissan not getting adequate health care, vacation time, family support services, a system in place for workplace grievances and a safe work environment?
Really -- imagine yourself trying to start a company with union labor. You could not do it.
The days of the union are over. Thank God.
@ 37 & 46
"you make $5800/month and you can barely afford a 1 bedroom apt?"
Do I really need to remind you people about federal & state income taxes?
Do I really need to remind you people about state sales tax?
$70k in wages ≠$70k in take-home pay, particularly not in the state of California, particularly not in my county that has an 8.75% sales tax.
Are you really that ignorant, or are you just trying to be funny?
@rothstei -- I hope you didn't get from my post that I thought all union laborers were lazy. I don't think that's the case at all. I've met wonderfully nice and friendly union laborers. They are people, after all. It's the system which is awful.
The Japanese have shown that US labor work incredibly well in US plants, as non-union.
Paul Krugman says that the Big 3 are going to fail but should be bailed out anyway. It occurs to me that leaving one's personal emotional bias out of economic calculations might be a good stepping stone to a Nobel prize.
It's worth saying to those who are saying that 70k in wages is nothing that these are manufacturing jobs, typically in areas of the country where the cost of living is far, far lower than in California. 70k in Kentucky is pretty good money.
@ #68:
"Whether the level of wages are too high or too low does not, unfortunately, depend on what you or I consider a "decent" wage but on what the market can bear. If the market could bear this level of wages for auto workers, the auto industry would be profitable. It isn't."
This assumes that the companies were managed properly, AND that the cars the designers & engineers were churning out worked well.
Since NEITHER of those things is the case, your entire premise is flawed.
For all the union supporters, are the US non-union workers at Toyota, Honda and Nissan not getting adequate health care, vacation time, family support services, a system in place for workplace grievances and a safe work environment?
And why do you think those workers have those benefits? The need to match the wages and benefits that union shops provide in order to compete for skilled labor, or pure benevolence by management?
where we come from and what we have lived through obviously shapes our viewpoints. Perhaps I should have asked more detail than simple number of companies (industries, positions held), but I am sure you gather my point.
I myself have worked non-union, union, government,private, employee, manager, citizen, foreigner, small business and big.
It's very simple: I always made out better as a union employee and frequently as a manager in a union environment. The only time non-union was sweeter was as a one-owner business or a few partner business. Everything is case by case of course, but if we are posing generalities: union is better. Good union. (yes, I've been in rat-unions and bloated,lazy corrupt unions too)
I suppose if all individuals were smart, strong, healthy and lucky all day, every day, unions wouldn't be. Thing is, we ain't. Society exists for reason, society-within-society too.
We all only live so long and have only so many working days. We have the right to gamble all entrepreneurially, but that really is for the few.
To preserve a society where there is civility (and the definition of civility is caring about the others in your society), the majority have to be doing reasonably well. Whether everyone who profits from unionization deserves it or not, we DO deserve it as a society.
I've tried nasty, brutish and short. Didn't like it.
I was a UAW shop rat for six years, working second shift in order to go to college during the day. I think I was the first UAW member to earn a college degree while working on the job full-time. (In fact, I got my first degree from UM-Flint, where Mark J. Perry, the author of this thread's debatable subject, now works and enjoys tenure, health benefits, and job security.) My factory wages combined with GI Bill benefits allowed me to support my family with no hardship. I gave a day's labor for a day's wages. The classic arrangement of the worker with the employer.
At that time the UAW's big fight was not for wages (we had a few years earlier won an "annual cost of living" adjustment), but for plant-wide seniority rights and expanded medical benefits. We had a negotiated medical plan that paid only 50% of doctor and hospital services, and it would be a few more years before the UAW won a dental plan. I worked with men who twenty years earlier had fought Pinkertons, strike-breakers, and police in the streets for the simple right to organize themselves into a union. The resulting contracts were won and paid for with blood.
The subsequent UAW successes soon became the model for American labor. Benefits won through our struggles were adopted nationwide. Today the notion of "job benefits" are mostly taken for granted by people who will never pay union dues. The corporations and governments quickly learned that it was cheaper to offer benefits than to undergo strikes and labor strife. If your job comes with benefits beyond the most basic mandated by law, you can thank the UAW. In fact you should; after all, you're getting the ride for nothing.
And now there are workers who want to assist in the destruction of the UAW. What ungrateful children! That's a hell of a way to treat our poor old mother.
Another thing about electricians, it is dangerous. An aquaintance of mine died from electrocution. This happens much less frequently in academia.
Some comments are excoriating Mark for being anti-union, some ripping BB a new asshole for being pro-union. Are there two versions of this post floating around in cyber-space? Or do some readers just blindly impose their own agendas and prejudices on whatever is written? No wonder Untitled 1 was so popular. It supported everyone's political and social agenda.
I've worked for a union shop, in a warehouse, sealing cardboard boxes. I was scolded for trying to work faster, and do things efficiently. I remember being dumbfounded at how much money the union took out of my tiny paycheck. I did not work there very long.
You would think it would be obvious that this is high time to retool the UAW machine for building robots all super-mass-production like. This *is* the future, and we're supposed to have flying cars, robot slaves, and vinyl pants. Okay, so some of us have vinyl pants, but let's get on with the robot armies and flying cars.
A tv in a headrest is not the future I want to live in.
I don't think the 70 / hour is entirely misleading, far from it. The automakers opted to run a to-the-grave benefit system. Not that the steady state is going to be accurate any more but it's still a reasonable point of reference. And therefore it's entirely reasonable to put the total cost of benefits on current workers since they will be getting the rest when they retire.
Private pensions should be banned. They're just not safe & they encourage running a company into bankruptcy and passing the pensions on to under-funded government insurance.
After AIG do we *seriously* believe that the premiums that folks are paying to "insure" their pensions are adequate?
El Cid @#56 - hear, hear. My concern is, though, that's the same story we heard from the financial industry (without this bailout RIGHT NOW the whole economy is going in the tank!) and it's hard to see if the bailout has been a success. Things aren't great, it hasn't saved us by any means, but who knows how bad it would have been if we hadn't done it? Frankly I feel a little suckered on that one, although history may prove it to have been the right thing to do. So the boy is crying "wolf" again. We don't know for sure if there really was a wolf last time, or if we managed to scare it away, but we (or at least I) still feel a bit queasy about it. Now, here we go again - without a bailout X million peoples jobs will be at risk! Really?
My current conclusion, for what it's worth, is that if the shepherd boy thinks few measly dozen billion (one twentieth of the $700B financial bailout) will chase the wolf away again, we should do it. Think of the payout matrix - bailout is necessary and appropriate and we do it? Good - we at least forestall the collapse a while even if we don't save the auto industry in the long run. Bailout is necessary and we don't? Double plus ungood - millions out of work. Bailout is not necessary and we do it? Ungood - we waste $30B+ that we can ill afford. Bailout is not necessary and we don't do it? Neutral.
Let's call the options bail/no bail and right/wrong (bailout turns out historically to have been right or wrong). I think we end up with
Bail/right : +1
Bail/wrong : -1
No bail/right : -10
No bail/wrong : 0
which clearly points to a "bail" strategy. Of course, I made up the numbers, and the probabilities of right/wrong are important.
Besides, one more bailout ought to pump up stock prices a bit one more time so I can get out what I've got left ahead of the next big crash!
CitizenLame@59: "Arguing against specific bailouts due to perceived wage imbalances, based on faulty data no less, smacks of class warfare and union bashing."
Wrong and wrong. I think unions are a good way for workers to be compensated fairly. But I am against less wealthy taxpayers handing over their hard-earned dollars to subsidize more wealthy people's wages. If I'm conducting "class warfare, "then I'm on the side of the poorer people.
You obviously are looking out for yourself, CitizenLame. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice to have a heart for people less fortunate than you, too.
Paul Krugman is backing an auto bailout because he's not a retarded libertarian freak who would be happy bitching about the fat and lazy unions while we freaking career into the next Great Depression because a bunch of Hooverite dumbasses wanted to tell stupid stories about what they thought of the role of labor in the market.
The UAW wasn't the ones in charge of these companies who spent the last couple decade co-lobbying the U.S. government to postpone CAFE fuel efficiency standards.
The UAW wasn't forcing the U.S. to keep pretending that truck-based SUV's should be exempt from passenger vehicle fuel economy standards because we would pretend they were work trucks -- nor giving manufacturing tax breaks also as if they were work trucks, thus subsidizing a more profitable market for SUV's as long as we treated them like work vehicles over the more heavily taxed & regulated passenger cars.
The UAW wasn't making trade deals so that any Asian competitor can sell unlimited cars here and their markets are restricted there (even if it is only theoretical).
The UAW wasn't forcing the U.S. to grant small businesses throughout the last decade massive tax breaks to buy large, heavy vehicles which had to be new and had to weigh over 6500 lbs.
Again, this is NOT about what you think of the American auto industry, or unions, or how awesome your IT jobs are or any of that: it's about avoiding the immediate prospect of losing 3 - 10 million jobs.
That kind of thing.
You know, 'cause Paul Krugman actually paid attention to what the dumbass Hooverites were doing to lead us into the Great Depression, and how Hoover tried to trick FDR into carrying on his agenda right up until the day FDR was sworn in.
Drew,
Please don't call anyone a troll unless you've got some evidence to back it up.
I actually do support the UAW, but the pro-UAW astroturf campaign going on in here is being conducted by some unbelievably selfish and unsympathetic people. Do you give a damn about anyone but yourself? Sheesh.
@Mrk
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ab5tract,
Compose yourself.
Whew, okay, okay... deep breath sorry...
I'd like to apologize for the tone of my last two comments and acknowledge that boingboing has not lost any points for giving a mouthpiece to one of its core contributors.
The fumes of the anti-union astro turf campaign went straight to my head and I lost it. Even mutants make mistakes, right?
That was the point I was trying to make, Mark. Please accept my apologies for being so nasty, it doesn't really help anything.
I DO really think you should look at the data a little more critically, because I am frankly astonished by your conclusions.
(For the record I was wrote that last post before Antinous offered his (good) advice :)
@thomas12345
Do I really need to remind you people about federal & state income taxes?
-No, I pay them too
Do I really need to remind you people about state sales tax?
-No, it's 8.25% here
Are you really that ignorant, or are you just trying to be funny?
-flattery will get you nowhere with me
so let me rephrase, sans sarcasm, in your preferred wage units.
you (and your cohabitator) net $3000/month and you can barely afford a 1BR apt?
perhaps you are living in the wrong neighborhood.
@88 Mark Frauenfelder,
Mark - you keep trying to sound like you're just looking out for the little people, but you begin by posting some right-wing propaganda from an anti-union think-tank and then talk about American manufacturer's "shitty cars".
The fact is that GM sells as many cars as Toyota, and Ford sells as many as Volkswagen and WAY more than Honda. You may be too elite to appreciate American cars, but the market has spoken and it likes US cars.
You posted something based on incorrect facts and now you're accusing people who have called you on it of astro-turfing.
Fess up, Mark. Your post was shite.
I think everyone should return to first principles and reassess what they think their position is. Too much emotion in this thread around. Maybe we could start by close reading what has been actually said?
Chrome@96: "you keep trying to sound like you're just looking out for the little people, but you begin by posting some right-wing propaganda from an anti-union think-tank"
Heaven forbid I don't toe the party line. Even though union workers don't make as much as an average manufacturing worker, from what I've learned they still make above average. GOOD FOR THEM FOR MAKING MORE MONEY. I mean it. But if they start getting that money from taxpayers, shouldn't all manufacturing workers get the same pay and benefits from taxpayers too? What makes you special?
"Then talk about American manufacturer's 'shitty cars.'"
Ford's not bad, but Asia's cars beat the other US manufacturers (http://xrl.us/o2udc)
"You may be too elite to appreciate American cars, but the market has spoken and it likes US cars."
I certainly am elite and don't you forget it, but I like my Ford Escape Hybrid an awful lot.
Wow. Lots of well-paid techies appalled that factory workers make almost as much as they do. Is there no justice?
A good number of the replies here have been from people who've never posted on Boing Boing before. I really doubt they are regular readers.
@Mark
Or is it that this topic was too important not to comment on?
I read boinboing every day and have been doing so for a long time. I rarely find a topic that needs personal enumeration, hence the newness of this particular account (I have registered here before, but you know how that goes). Do my comments not count because I don't regularly post a bunch of snark?
And how does the regularity of the commenters' reading habits in any way affect the validity or content of their posts?
I do note the disparity between "manufacturing average" and "electrician" is likely the same in any developed countries economies. If they mean millwright type of electrician especially. They ain't just changing light bulbs. Also, anyone who gets the line going again in record time is worth a bundle.
I wonder how many people on this thread actually own a product produced buy the UAW.
UAW typically makes "Red State" cars, while the automakers with non-union shops in Texas and Alabama such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan typically make "Blue State" cars.
Hmmm.... this post:
#57 POSTED BY JASONKOSNOSKI , DECEMBER 9, 2008 1:04 PM
► Jump to the post
Pretty much coincides with something I also saw on Countdown with Keith Oberman.
All combined, I strongly suspect this high wage for UAW is just another case of the right wing manufacturing... consent.
I will admit I haven't research this myself and Jason and Oberman might be wrong, but if they are correct and this this figure is mere manipulation, I hope this post is corrected.
Shit, I spoke too soon... er, late... I see the post IS corrected. Thanks Mark!!!
Nevermind me, I'm just a stupid cow!
Good on you for the update, Mark.
Here's how the UAW and Walter Reuther did it.
They negotiated and signed contracts with the Big 3, agreeing to wages, etc. Each contract was for three years. They staggered the schedule. Let us say they negotiated with Ford last year, they are negotiating with GMC this year, and they will be negotiating with Chrysler next year. Every third year they negotiate another contract with the same company. Okay?
Okay. Now the UAW also has a strike fund that the members have voted to contribute to and support. When they go into negotiations with, say, Ford they have a blank check in their pocket. It is to be used to assist the Ford workers if they hit the bricks and go on strike.
The UAW opens with "proposals," not demands.
Ford says, "We agree to matching what you got last year from GM, but now you're asking for too much."
UAW says, "Not a whole lot more, just items #2 and #5."
Ford says, "No, that's too much. GM and Chrysler don't do it."
UAW says, "They will. Look, do you want to sell Fords this year or not? Our people can survive a year of nothing but Chevys and Plymouths, can you?
Every third year: "Can you survive?" Every third year a little more. Medical. Dental. Insurance. Paid holidays. Vacations, COLA, Guaranteed Annual Wage. The list goes on and on. That's how they put it together, that's how they did it.
It was negotiating with a guy over a barrel.
And then ... Japan happened.
The non market salaries for union jobs are going away, as even the pro-union folks have pointed out. We still have to figure out how to deal with the false promises made to past workers- promises based on car sales never going down, pension investments not being subject to equities priced at zero gain over ten years, and an over-medicated society sucking down brand name pills at a furious rate of inflation. The union leaders and execs responsible for these are dead. Let's sell off the remaining assets of these brands to pay for some fraction of those promises and then let entrepreneurship spring anew, and have new companies occupy these factories and bring in workers at market wages so we can be competitive again.
Just so you know the UAW is also the union of all the low-paid Graduate Student Instructors at the University of California.
It's the only thing that saves us from being complete slaves.
Glad you updated this. Let's consider that 10's of thousands are scared shitless by what's going on. We're talking about avoiding a lot of lost jobs -- not just union jobs. We're taking about a major makeover of an important industry. And as far as I can tell, we're still talking about a loan.
Believe it or not, the hourly workers at the Miller Brewing Company are members of the UAW. They're at the upper end of the compensation range.
I was a member of the UAW three times ... but have been cautioned against writing about the experiences.
--Mike
Non unionized has nothing but his hourly counted.
UAW wirker has his wage and his healty benefits counteed, and the pensions of thiose retirees and their health costs.
SO a perfectly even comparison.
Another source saying actual earnings is much lower. [factcheck.org]
$73 an Hour: Adding It Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=1
Those saying the numbers are misleading because they include pension and health insurance should join reality - most people pay part if not all of their pensions and health insurance out of their salaries. It took me 10 years with an engineering degree to break $62k ($30/hr), and out of that came $4k for pension and another $1.5k for health insurance. And engineers don't get paid for overtime.
And a UAW electrician is just the guy who puts the wires in your car where he's told to put them, not the equivalent of the licensed, bonded electrician who needs to know hundreds of pages of building code to figure out how to wire a building without burning it down.