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Autoworkers Score Big Wins in New Contracts with Carmakers
- pg_1234 3y agohttps://archive.ph/TKB0x https://archive.ph/TKB0x
- ars 3y agoPresumably next we're going to hear about a 20 to 30% increase in the cost of vehicles.
- underseacables 3y agoYou could always purchase from a nonunion company like Toyota.
- Agathos 3y agoToyota has a lot to recommend it, but discounted prices are not one of those things.
- underseacables 3y agoThe quality has been outstanding. Every mechanic and car person always comments about my Toyota something along the lines of "oh that's bulletproof/will last forever"
- pauldenton 3y agoBoth of those statements are true. New Toyotas aren't discount, and Toyotas have a reputation of lasting forever. This is resolved by buying a 20+ year old vehicle. You can get a 1999-2003 Toyota for a few thousand dollars.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38098224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38098224 | https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/toyota-raises-uaw-strike-ford-gm https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/toyota-raises-uaw-strike-fo... ("Toyota raises factory worker wages after UAW strike settlements")
- dullcrisp 3y agoNo that was last year.
- NegativeLatency 3y agoAnd many previous years as the big auto manufacturers convinced everyone that they'd be safer if they bought a larger vehicle. We have an old station wagon as our only car and there's not much that's comparable in the US market unless you bump up to larger crossovers and SUVs.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoMore likely some reduction in billions in management and shareholder profits (but importantly, simply less, not zero). This is what winning looks like. Kudos to the team negotiating for the folks doing the work. From my previous comment [1]: > General Motors CEO Mary Barra, the highest-paid chief executive among the Big Three, made nearly $29 million in 2022. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that this is 362 times the median GM employee's paycheck (this pay ratio is required reporting from public companies now). > Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits. Tangentially, a recent AP Marketplace piece touched on excessive CEO comp [2], and union support in the US is at all time high [3]. Its fine to hold a minority opinion (and arguably healthy in a functioning democracy), simply recognize it as such. (Tesla and Toyota are up next to be organized is my understanding [4]) Edit: Tesla’s Fremont California car factory have formed an organizing committee with the UAW as of two hours ago. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524493 (citations) [2] https://www.marketplace.org/2023/10/23/is-ceo-pay-out-of-control/ https://www.marketplace.org/2023/10/23/is-ceo-pay-out-of-con... ("Is CEO pay out of control?") [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36617349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36617349 (citations) [4] https://insideevs.com/news/691906/tesla-workers-are-union-members-future-uaw-president-says/ https://insideevs.com/news/691906/tesla-workers-are-union-me... ("Workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda, and others are not the enemy – they're the UAW members of the future,” Shawn Fain said.")
- jseliger 3y agoIt's been said many times before, but Tesla and Toyota are the biggest winners. Unions are great at destroying their hosts; it's funny that they never found or invest in companies.
- AlexandrB 3y agoUnions are the democratization of work.
- Apocryphon 3y agoWorker cooperatives are conceptually not too different from union-founded companies. As far as unions investing, not a bad idea. In a financialized age where everything from FAANG to nations have their own investment portfolios, perhaps labor unions oughta get in on that action as well.
- pdonis 3y ago> Worker cooperatives are conceptually not too different from union-founded companies. But they are conceptually different from unions that aren't actual companies. Worker cooperatives and union-founded companies take on actual business risks: it's up to them to find markets for their products and services and organize themselves to make the most efficient use of the capital they own (much of which is the skills and knowledge of their workers/owners). Traditional unions do not take on business risks; they expect the corporations their workers all work for to do that. But refusing to take on business risk also means you are giving up upside; risk and reward go together. So unions that don't take the initiative to become worker cooperatives or actual corporations should not be complaining that the corporations are taking more upside.
- Apocryphon 3y agoI'm not aware of actual union-founded companies so the notion is fascinating to me. As far as unions not taking on business risk, I'd have to imagine that most unions aren't going to ask for the moon to the extent of bankrupting the business. And there are some examples where unions have the foresight to demand the company make smart market moves: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant (2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13986889 General Electric workers launch protest, demand to make ventilators (2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731087 In the tech space, one could imagine a coders' union demanding management to take technical limitations or issues more seriously. How many times have you worked somewhere where product, or simply upper management, has overruled software concerns?
- xnx 3y agoIf that was possible, they would've done it already.
- autoexec 3y agoIf consumers would tolerate a 20 to 30% increase in prices, any company with half a brain would have already been charging that much. My guess is that jacking up the prices would negatively impact sales. If it doesn't, more power to the car companies I guess?
- theGnuMe 3y agoTrucks went from 40k to 70k in recent memory.
- autoexec 3y agoTruck sales have been in freefall for a while too. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/trucks-tanking-americas-appetite-for-pickups-dropping/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/trucks-tanking-americas-appetit... In general, consumers have been extraordinarily willing to spend more than they would otherwise. Consumers were especially forgiving during the early days of the pandemic. People were highly stressed and desperate for familiar comforts. They were even willing to go into debt to get them. Companies weren't blamed for supply chain issues that caused higher prices. More recently "inflation" has been the excuse companies use to drive up prices while deflecting blame, but with so many companies making record profits and consumers getting squeezed from all directions I think people are starting to rightly feel like they're being screwed over. I don't expect consumer's acceptance of higher prices to last.
- theGnuMe 3y agoYou wouldn’t know around here.. mega trucks everywhere. But maybe they are all 2020 or later models.
- josephcsible 3y agoIf a company were to raise prices like that for no reason, their competitors would just undercut them and steal all of their sales. But with UAW sticking its fingers in, now they'll all raise prices at once, like collusion except without it being possible to defect.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- salamanderss 3y agoCool. Let's repeal the chicken tax. Give workers with less privileged contracts less taxed access to the import truck market.
- pauldenton 3y agoAnd the Jones act while we're at it