Should the US govt bail out the American Auto Giants?

[DelSlow]

DaveH;246917 wrote:
Something interesting I just saw on a cut-n-paste from Forbes....

Labor cost per hour, wages and benefits for hourly workers, 2006.

Ford: $70.51 ($141,020 per year)

GM: $73.26 ($146,520 per year)

Chrysler: $75.86 ($151,720 per year)

Toyota, Honda, Nissan (in U.S.): $48.00 ($96,000 per year)

According to AAUP and IES, the average annual compensation for a college professor in 2006 was $92,973 (average salary nationally of $73,207 + 27% benefits).

Bottom Line: 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.

Many industry analysts say the Detroit Three, and especially Ford, must be on par with Toyota and Honda to survive. This year's contract, they say, must be "transformational" in reducing pension and health care costs.

What would "transformational" mean? One way to think about: "transformational" would mean that UAW workers, most with a high school degree, would have to accept compensation equal to that of the average university professor with a Ph.D.

Unions man, bail em out if they agree to get rid of the unions.

[crowmagnum]

i really dont think that its our responsibility to bail them out when they should just make cars as good as japanese cars, it just seems that simple to me maybe its not

[BlueSRT0483]

There's a lot of jobs tied into the big 3... Not that just work under the big 3 alone. Dealerships & suppliers (both direct & non-direct) as well... I think they estimate over 3 millions jobs at stake...

There was two chapters of bankruptcy they could apply for, 7 and 11. I believe it was 7 that could still let them fail.

I think they are better off doing it how they did with Chrysler back when they were in financial trouble.

[capitlj]

I have always maintained that the UAW workers are grossly overpaid. 150k a year for a job that requires no experience or school WTF!!!!!!! I say no they will just have to figure it out for themselves and if that means they get swallowed up by Toyota or VW/audi so be it. That said I will still riot if, hypothetically, Ford gets taken over and the new management says no mustang or tries to take it in a new direction, aka probe.

[00Accord]

Where's Iacocca when you need him?

[Guest]

capitlj;246945 wrote:
I have always maintained that the UAW workers are grossly overpaid. 150k a year for a job that requires no experience or school WTF!!!!!!! I say no they will just have to figure it out for themselves and if that means they get swallowed up by Toyota or VW/audi so be it. That said I will still riot if, hypothetically, Ford gets taken over and the new management says no mustang or tries to take it in a new direction, aka probe.

$150k/year in wages & benefits (and that is average wage...starting wages are around $28.12/hour as of 2007)...the high end is excessive IMHO, but part of that blame lies on the management of GM/Ford/Chrysler for not standing up to the unions and saying "either bring your wages down w/ the rest of the industry or we will hire from outside the union"...but none of them have the balls to say that either.

The $28.12/hour is not unheard of, even locally, for non-union pipe-fitters (sprinkler fitters), I know of a good number making darn close to that that just started not too long ago in the industry...so the starting salary at the big 3 isn't completely insane, apparently those with more experience and more skilled labor get paid more and offset the difference?

[DaveH]

tjamz;246970 wrote:
The $28.12/hour is not unheard of, even locally, for non-union pipe-fitters (sprinkler fitters), I know of a good number making darn close to that that just started not too long ago in the industry...so the starting salary at the big 3 isn't completely insane, apparently those with more experience and more skilled labor get paid more and offset the difference?

There is a big difference IMO between a pipe fitter and a guy on the assembly line. Pipe fitters are skilled, and assembly line workers.... aren't.

[Guest]

Have you ever talked to a pipe fitter Dave...seriously? They thread pipe and screw it together...not rocket science. Now the designers of sprinklers on the other hand...they do some serious thinking/calculating.

[StangerBanger96]

Ehh...nobody really does much thinking anymore because computers are pretty much able to do all that for you...

For instance, a computer can figure out what the pressure at any point in a pneumatic system will be given certain conditions/intputs/outputs. It can figure out voltages anywhere in a circuit based on desired input/output voltages. It doesn't take much skill to figure that out.

Sure there are certain instances where human ingenuity can help as far as tweaking certain system parts to sacrifice something here to make large gains there...but...overall computers can do it all.

[zbrown]

Starting at any position out here on the rigs is 26+/hr..... whether it be driving a water truck or just being someones bitch.....

no skill required, just need the want to work

[Guest]

StangerBanger96;246984 wrote:
Ehh...nobody really does much thinking anymore because computers are pretty much able to do all that for you...

For instance, a computer can figure out what the pressure at any point in a pneumatic system will be given certain conditions/intputs/outputs. It can figure out voltages anywhere in a circuit based on desired input/output voltages. It doesn't take much skill to figure that out.

At present, there are no programs out that will calculate properly for a foam system. There are no programs out that will autocalculate device counts for detection within a given room. There are none that will place sprinkler heads automatically. There are no programs that will autoconfigure a room to meet NFPA/NEC/IBC/IFC standards. If there were, I would own the damn thing already. You are involved in this industry Dustin, you should know as well as anyone the amount of time that goes into design/cad/engineering/bidding.

[Guest]

zbrown;246986 wrote:
Starting at any position out here on the rigs is 26+/hr..... whether it be driving a water truck or just being someones bitch.....

no skill required, just need the want to work

My point exactly.

[MisterCMK]

tjamz;246997 wrote:
At present, there are no programs out that will calculate properly for a foam system. There are no programs out that will autocalculate device counts for detection within a given room. There are none that will place sprinkler heads automatically. There are no programs that will autoconfigure a room to meet NFPA/NEC/IBC/IFC standards. If there were, I would own the damn thing already. You are involved in this industry Dustin, you should know as well as anyone the amount of time that goes into design/cad/engineering/bidding.

Not to mention, you toss an AHJ into the mess...

[Guest]

MisterCMK;247000 wrote:
Not to mention, you toss an AHJ into the mess...

No doubt...there is no function of any program that has the ability to educate an AHJ about the errors of his ways.

[DaveH]

tjamz;246977 wrote:
Have you ever talked to a pipe fitter Dave...seriously? They thread pipe and screw it together...not rocket science. Now the designers of sprinklers on the other hand...they do some serious thinking/calculating.

LOL, yeah i've heard that about those sprinkler designers....

I have a good friend who is a pipe fitter, he does mostly mechanical systems and some of the stuff I've seen him do is pure artwork. Sure it's not brainwork like a sprinkler designer, :drunken_smilie: but it is a fairly highly skilled profession IMO.

[StangerBanger96]

tjamz;246997 wrote:
At present, there are no programs out that will calculate properly for a foam system. There are no programs out that will autocalculate device counts for detection within a given room. There are none that will place sprinkler heads automatically. There are no programs that will autoconfigure a room to meet NFPA/NEC/IBC/IFC standards. If there were, I would own the damn thing already. You are involved in this industry Dustin, you should know as well as anyone the amount of time that goes into design/cad/engineering/bidding.

I guess my point more was to say...there are a lot of jobs people think are highly skilled that in fact are completed 90% by computers. I know there are various aspects of engineering and designing that absolutley require human ingenuity, but, there are also a lot of things that even ten years ago required a lot of thought and now only require 3 clicks of a mouse.

Give it ten years and that program you're wanting will be out

[Guest]

StangerBanger96;247028 wrote:
I guess my point more was to say...there are a lot of jobs people think are highly skilled that in fact are completed 90% by computers. I know there are various aspects of engineering and designing that absolutley require human ingenuity, but, there are also a lot of things that even ten years ago required a lot of thought and now only require 3 clicks of a mouse.

Give it ten years and that program you're wanting will be out

I've been working on implementing something like what I described as a plug-in for auto-cad for a couple of years already....there's just too many variables when it comes to stuff like that. It would be nice though, then those damn engineers would finally put a system together properly.

[thrash]

sounds like a good market opportunity for a competant programmer.

what makes doing automatic sprinkler layout difficult? can code compliance be measured objectively? if so, would a dimensioned drawing contain enough information to verify code compliance? If a proposed layout meets all of the appropriate codes, is it a suffient layout? why or why not ?

i don't understand why the problem would be intractible to do in software. can you help explain it?