[HN Gopher] Autoworkers Score Big Wins in New Contracts with Car...
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Autoworkers Score Big Wins in New Contracts with Carmakers
Author : pg_1234
Score : 23 points
Date : 2023-10-30 21:39 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| pg_1234 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/TKB0x
| ars wrote:
| Presumably next we're going to hear about a 20 to 30% increase in
| the cost of vehicles.
| underseacables wrote:
| You could always purchase from a nonunion company like Toyota.
| Agathos wrote:
| Toyota has a lot to recommend it, but discounted prices are
| not one of those things.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| No that was last year.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| And 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 wrote:
| More 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])
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524493 (citations)
|
| [2] 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 (citations)
|
| [4] 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Unions are the democratization of work.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Worker 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 wrote:
| _> 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 wrote:
| I'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
|
| General Electric workers launch protest, demand to make
| ventilators (2020)
|
| 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?
| wheatoceans wrote:
| Well, Tesla has lost 20%+ of its value during these
| negotiations, so it sounds like you have some knowledge here
| that other investers don't.
|
| FYI Having a company founded by a union member and having it
| be a union shop from the start is exceedingly common among
| the trades (where most unions are). There are also various
| similar processes such as co-ops, or granting shared equity
| among founders who also have voting rights which are very
| similar concepts to unions.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Imagine how well companies would do if we would do away with
| these pesky workplace safety regulations and the five day
| workweek the unions fought for.
| pdonis wrote:
| Why would that happen if unions actually took ownership of
| companies? If the unions' claims are correct, then them
| becoming actual corporations, owned by the workers, selling
| the service of organized labor to industries like the auto
| industry, should be _more_ efficient than the current
| system, without having to sacrifice anything. Things like
| workplace safety regulations and the five day work week
| would simply be non-negotiable contract terms that the
| worker companies require in order to sell their services.
| xnx wrote:
| If that was possible, they would've done it already.
| salamanderss wrote:
| Cool. Let's repeal the chicken tax. Give workers with less
| privileged contracts less taxed access to the import truck
| market.
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