Toyotas loss then. The union shouldn’t even be wasting their time trying to save Toyota anyways. If their employees want to work under the miserable conditions and continue being paid in Sushi to build miserable POS cars, let them. Toyota has blown their opportunity to be respected.

Respect? Why would they care about getting respect from those supporting the union? If anything, I give them respect for having the guts to repel what is plaguing GM right now.

What did Toyota lose GM_SALES? The opportunity to hear the union members bitch maybe, or perhaps the opportunity to pay them more. That’s a loss most businesses would be glad to make if they could.
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You really do talk the most disjointed manure; perhaps if you weren’t rushing to get your name at the top of the page, you wouldn’t have to be embarassed by the drivel that you leave there. Throbber.

Being a UAW past worker, and raised in an all UAW family, but getting an engineering , computer science and management degree, as with anything there are pros and cons. There are good and bad aspects to the UAW. That might seem like a shock from an outsider’s perspective. I was and am an outsider, but am surrounded by UAW in many ways. The UAW are people, and as such deserve some decent acknowledgment. What’s Toyota afraid of?

If I were Toyota I’d up and move the plant. Tomorrow.

Look at the make-up of the “worker’s rights board” ….
……. civic leaders (aka commie wankers)
……. elected officials (aka commie wankers)
……. religious nuts (aka commie wankers)
……. labor union retards (aka opportunistic commie wankers)
If that is what Kentucky has to offer, Toyota should pack their plant and let the commies give according to their inabilities and let the 7000 workers’ families take according to their needs for food from the public trough. Let’s see how that works out.

Flipping UAW. Move the plant to Mexico and teach them a lesson.

^ Agreed Headgiver. IF these auto workers don’t like the precarious conditions associated with working for Toyota, then get the xxxx out and find something more stable. It’s a free market, and work is work. They should be thankful they can get work at all.

this isnt chinese slave labor toyota
you cant have little cambodian children in sweat shops putting your cars together
welcome to america you douchebags

Someone had posted this before on LLN…

The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D. and 52.6% more than the average worker at Toyota, Honda or Nissan.
Average annual compensation (benefit value + salary) for a college professor in 2006 was $92,973.
Average annual compensation for Toyota, Honda, Nissan (in US): $96,000
Average annual compensation for the Big 3:
Ford: $141,020
GM: $146,520
Chrysler: $151,720
Average wage for a US high school graduate: $28,645

That tells you why Toyota is so reluctant to even communicate with the UAW. No wonder GM, Chrysler and Ford aren’t making any money on their products, so they have to maximize everything else and cut down their work force! It’s ridiculous!

And next thing you know, they’ll be saying Toyotas a bad business because Toyota employees and managers don’t want to come to an agreement! It’s just… sick.

Good luck trying to follow GM down the path of success Toyota, your days are numbered and the unions were your only hope of avoiding defeat. How do you think GM builds the best, most dependable cars and trucks on the planet and yet you continue to build crap? That would be the union worker.

Toyotas loss

if everything Toyota is doing is within the law, then what is the problem?

Maximus, the problem is the union leaders are not extorting money from the Toyota workers or the plant.

GM_Sales you gotta be higher than a kite.

how about welcome to 2007. Unions are xxxxxx xxx. They r good for xxxx. The exist for the sake of bitching on someone else’s behalf. Toyota can pay u what ever they want so long as it is what u agree to and it is over the minimum wage. if they pay u 8 dollars an hour and you decide to work for that 8 dollars an hour then u were only worth $8 an hr. Furthermore if their is an employee complaint they can report it to the BBB for free. Unions exist because most factory workers are ignorant enough to go pay a union to do what they could have easily done for free on there on. All Unions do is strike, prevent people from getting promotions, and prevent other people from getting a job all together.

I snapped a pic of GM_Sales at work selling cars …
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h119/gbanerian/GM_Sales.jpg

There is no better quality than union quality. That’s why Japan and Germany build nothing but garbage. Look at how bad Mazda, Volkswagon and BMW are. Imagine how reliable and high quality they would be if built by the UAW.

They’d still be ugly and cheap (Nobody is going to change that FACT) but at least they’d be built well for once.

@jJayC08

Where do you get your numbers from? I’d like to research that a little further.

GM_SALES, You need to read the book “Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line” by Ben Harper, he was a union line worker for your god GM. You’ll get to learn all about “union quality” or lack there of.

I don’t know if jJayC08’s numbers are exact, but they are in the range. It’s the same for other industries too (such as airline mechanics). When they lose their $80K jobs and are told by the employment agency that they can only get a $30K job now with a HS degree, they drive away in their Porsche wondering why. Extremely overpaid for what they do.

Though the story is incomplete, it certainly doesn’t sound like the union reps are bringing anything to the table that Toyota would actually want to talk to them about. As one commentator put it, when Toyota announced that it was building a second assembly plant in Southern Ontario, “It’s not like any CAW hack is actually going to be able to get a job there…” (CAW = Canadian Auto Workers union)

Sharif: have you lost yo’ damn mind? (good) unions keep workers from getting screwed by their bosses. From my understanding, the UAW has failed several times to organize toyota in Kentucky. They seem to be well-paid, and afraid that if they got unionized, they’d lose their jobs to guys from Michigan.

GM Unquestionably makes the world’s best trucks, but cars, I’d probably have to go with one of the big germans; GM would be in the top 4, though

Jjay is using “average” numbers, not medians, which will skew to make it seem as though everybody their is making a killing. I think the median’s probably in the low-to-mid-40s, excluding benefits

The UAW is trying to get their talons in another automaker since they have bled the Big 3 dry. Toyota is highly profitable so now the UAW sees an opportunity.

If we can learn anything from the Big3’s mistakes its to avoid the UAW at all costs. There is no reason Toyota should be forced into paying $150k a year for manual laborers with no more than high school diplomas. The main reason we have US plants for foreign autos is to save foreign companies on import taxes. If I were Toyota I’d save the tens of millions the US plants costs and just pay more in import tax.

Georgetown, KY median wage is $48k with 90% of its population having no more than a high school diploma. Already the average wage Toyota is paying the high school educated is $96k – twice the average wage of its citizens. And this town has a below average cost of living. Toyota should screw the greedy Kentucky unskilled labor force and close the plant. Those hicks will soon realize the dream job they had getting paid $96k/year with a high school diploma in a town where the average home costs $135k. They can go work at the next biggest retailer, WalMart, when the plant closes.

Toyota could reopen the plant in a couple years and get workers for the US high school educated average wage of $28k. Just think of the savings in the long run for Toyota.

If the UAW gets into Toyota plants then it will be cheaper for Toyota to close the plants and pay extra import taxes than pay the ridiculous wages the UAW parasites extort from its host companies.

90% of Georgetown, KY is high school educated. The average Big 3 UAW wage for high school grads is $146,420. Toyota employs 7000 in KY. If the labor force is representative of the overall population then 90% of the employees are high school educated (6300). The average wage for Toyota employees with high school education is $96k. If the UAW gets involved Toyota could be forced to increase wages by $317M in Georgetown, KY alone. Thats 53% higher payroll costs for Toyota to feed the UAW greed of its uneducated labor force.

If the UAW gets into Toyota plants then it could be cheaper for Toyota to close the KY plant, save hundreds of millions and pay extra import taxes instead of paying the ridiculous wages the UAW parasites extort from its host companies.

Correction: Georgetown, KY average wage is $48k with 90% of its population having no more than a high school diploma. All numbers stated were average wage.

Unionize Toyota, or De-Unionize the Big 3. If anything, it should be done to make the automotive industry more fair. If Japan didn’t have devalued currency and if Toyota was Unionized just like the Big 3, Toyota would be crushing GM right now

You’ve got to question these stats. Skepticism, people! Do you really believe there’s a boatload of workers at that plant clearing $96K? Or for that matter, Big 3 Workers Making $146K? Seventy-plus bones an hour! Get off the dope. Most in the UAW are probably making $26 to $30 an hour, which doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

Median HOUSEHOLD income in Georgetown, Ky. is $42,186
Individuals: Males $36,970, Females $25,936

Look at the UAW’s side. I think the Union gets a 3% skim off the gross. If those employees are taking in 100k, the union gets 3k from each, so if over 6000 employees are unionized then the union bosses will rake in over 18 million dollars each year to do jack **** and play power happy extortionism. It’s like the 1920s mafia, but the bastards dont know they have to compete with China these days.

Jackjim, I agree you should always question numbers – that’s why I did a search and provided a link to what I found. Check out my link earlier that backs Jays UAW numbers or search online as they have been quoted in many reputable publications. The higher Georgetown, KY numbers could be that I was listing average numbers from Yahoo city data and your number is a median. I listed average to keep it consistent with the average numbers Jay quoted.

The auto worker figures are wages and benefits, otherwise known as total compensation. At $146k/yr that is about $73/hour (2000 hrs/yr or ~38 hours/week) in total compensation (not take home pay). Careerbuilder.com notes benefits make up an average of 25-30% of salary. Splitting the difference is 27.5% of salary is benefits. 27.5% of ~$73/hr (Big3 high school hourly compensation average) is $20/hr for benefits. Leaving $53/hr gross pay. That means the average Big 3 high school diploma carrying worker makes almost $106k/year gross plus some of the best benefits in the country. And all of that is before any weekend or overtime pay (read: time and a half or double time pay).

Believe it or not but this has a lot to do with the financial troubles the Big 3 are in today. Any wonder why Toyota doesn’t want UAW involvement.

Driven: there’s a difference between “total compensation” and wages, and medians are more reflective of reality than averages, which can be skewed by a few guys making a crapload of dough.

I don’t think Toyota should be worried. The worker’s there don’t have much to gain by linking up with the UAW

The UAW is like Al Gore. From outside the realm where they actually need perform they take shots and say exactly what “needs to be done” if actual management were “smart.” Both bi+ch about the auto industry.

And yet recently either could have bought Chrysler on the cheap and showed us all how talented and knowledgable they are. They could even have joined forces, with Al Gore leading the desing team and coming up with all those 400mpg cars, while the UAW ran manufacturing and increasing everyones’ pay and benefits thru the roof while making Chrysler the most profitable company on the planet and putting the world in awe of their talents, knowledge, and expertise.

But instead, they both chose to sit around and bi+ch. Anyone defending the UAW needs to first ask why they didn’t capitalize on the opportunity to bring such high compensation to their own membership when they had the chance.

Jackjim, I agree about total compensation. That is why I pointed out total compensation and broke down the numbers in my last post. I also agree median is better but all I could find for UAW data was averages so I kept the figures consistent. For use in comparison the averages work as we are comparing Big3 averages to Nissan, Honda & Toyota averages. All things equal, the UAW workers still make a lot more than their counterparts for jobs that can be easily replaced by anybody with minimal education.

Either way, the averages are just for workers with high school as the highest level of education – its not like they are in exec positions. If it were not for the UAW the highly paid older workers would be replaced by more lowly paid recent HS graduates. Then the average salary would reduce and be more in line with Toyota pay. In the end the point is still the same, UAW sucks money from companies and has contributed to the Big 3’s problems.

If Toyota is forced into dealing with the UAW I think Toyotas best strategy would be to close the plant. With the UAW on your side you cant sustain business long term. They are parasites that do little to help their host companies continue to operate.

Those who argue to total compensation figures for UAW workers don’t appear to have considered the fact that the UAW enjoys MUCH higher than average benefits… many of them lifetime. Their hourly pay therefore may not be as high as in some of the above calculations, but total compensation certainly could. Our (the U.S.) auto industry has long suffered from greed – of both management and the UAW. They could crush the competition if they were half as passionate about building cars.