[quote=cooperthedog][quote=asianautica]If you’re talking about fat cats, you should look at the average wages paid to UAW worker after benefits. $150k/year is by your definition, rich, since married couple working for GM, on average would make $300k/yr. Weren’t you the one who insisting on drawing the line of $250k/yr as rich. Rich = fat cats baby.[/quote]

150k a year? That can’t be right.

I did some research and the actual wage of an assembler is 28/hr or ~60k a year. Which is good, but nowhere near 150k a year.

It appears that GM quotes the total cost of labor, which includes overtime pay, FICA and other taxes that all employers pay. But the biggest factor is the underfunded accounts for healthcare and retirement. From what I can tell these accounts were dipped into by GM over the years and they are adding the cost of the shortfall as a labor expense (otherwise the annual healthcare premiums for each current employee would be 40k). I find this deceiptive and misleading.

This is akin to blaming all US workers for the upcoming social security deficit. The “cost” per current US worker is really high when you factor in all the underfunded and gov’t raided retirement and healthcare accounts. The mgmt (politicians) aren’t to blame, its the citizens fault – so what if the USG spent the entitlement funds and managed the country so poorly. The real problem is the enormous cost per citizen for all the debt the USG racked up. In light of this, citizens make/keep too much of their income, so we need to raise FICA/taxes so the US can become more competitive… [sarcasm off]
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So, you’re rich if you make $150k/yr as a contractor w/out benefit, but you’re not rich if you make $60k in W2 but $90k in benefits? I’m not blaming UAW for this, I just think it’s foolish to do what Teamster did. The big 3 are down. I don’t think it’s very smart of kick them when they’re already down.