Will UAW Strike?

[Gale Hawkins]

UAW members grow weary five weeks into strike, supply starts to thin

It sounds like the $500 a week in the holiday shopping season is impacting some lives.

 

[5030]

I've NEVER considered ANY assembly line job to be a skilled position. In my view, installing a bolt into a hole and using a pre set torque tool to install it don't take much, of any acquired skill at all, even though the union is demanding skilled labor wages for what is basically an unskilled job.

At least for me, ANY assembly line job would be horribly boring and require little intelligence to master anyway.

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

The companies are using temps as a way to skirt having to support their workers. Similar to Amazon's abuse of contractors.

The reason these jobs dont have the bargaining power is because they are NOT Skilled.

 

[5030]

UAW members grow weary five weeks into strike, supply starts to thin

It sounds like the $500 a week in the holiday shopping season is impacting some lives.

Gale: Keep in mid that a lot of them were financially dependent on the OT wages because typically, auto workers are pizz poor mangers of their personal finances. 500 hundred a week don't even pay their mortgage payment let alone their utilities and 'toy' payments either. I got a kick out of the comment the guy being interviewed made about being 'Gung Ho' the first week but now the reality has settled in and no more 'Gung Ho' now.

Lots of good deals around here on FB Marketplace and Craigs List as they attempt to get out from under the liens that are suffocating them on their 500 a week pittance.

Do I feel any compassion for them? Heck no.

Far as I'm concerned, the strike needs to go on for a LONG time or at least until the Union rank and file becomes so disenchanted with Fain, they boot him out and get a Union leader with some sense of dealing with the not so big 3 and bargain in good faith, which is NOT what Fain is doing presently.

Like I said long ago (because I know), Fords at least is committed to breaking the union, though they won't say that out loud and candidly, I have no issue with it at all. Fords have made their best offer to Fain and Fain has rejected it so we get to see how long the UAW can survive.

 

[lilranch2001]

Personally, I disagree with 5030 regarding his take on the skill level of most production jobs. Just like I would say many people don’t think a truck driver has much skill other than the ablity to shift some gears and steer 80,000 pound rig down the road.

How many times have you heard the statement “stupid truck driver”?

Every job has a person it needs to be filled with, and that person has to have some level of skill to do it, it takes the right person to be able to fill a position on the line that will not get bored doing the repetitive work to do the job with quality and accuracy and make sure that each component is properly installed.

Personally, I feel 5030 is the dehumanizing a very large portion of the workforce, making his very broad statements.

I personally have done everything between Construction maintenance production, and my last role was 30 years in factory management, and I feel each employee from janitor to manager, needs to be respected in their roles!

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

It's not a matter of respect. It takes 4 years to make a union electican. It takes less than 6 weeks to teach many production jobs.

my current job, I spend a lot of time taking the skill out of production jobs with automation.

 

[paulsharvey]

So, I will say, I'm not disrespecting the work; just the not working part. I also don't think mass manufacture is nearly as skilled as shop/trades, where there is a Lot of 'figuring it out'. Not sure I'm saying it right, but work deserves respect, whether it's fast food, shovel man on a paver, CEO, ect. I would probably put line manufacture as a semi skilled labor, which there is nothing wrong with, and the world needs semi skilled labor. Where I differ is on semi skilled labor demanding to be paid like skilled labor.

I also see unions in a bit of a different light; if a group of businesses did what they do, it would be called collusion, and people would be arrested.

 

[ultrarunner]

Jobs on the line may not be as interchangeable as some might think.

Line workers that can truly be dropped into any slot and not slow production are valued.

A problem a manager I know at GM/Toyota had is some were only acceptable performing certain tasks…

 

[hiddentacocatneddih]

Skilled vs production.

There are skilled welders doing pipelines.

There are production welders with squirt guns than can be replaced with robots.

 

[2manyrocks]

It's one thing to play poker with your own money when it comes supporting your own family, but it's something else to play poker with thousands of other people's livelihoods, especially when they don't have deep pockets to absorb the loss.