How much should UAW workers make?

Question

As an employee of Chrysler I have seen a lot of wrong info about our benefits.First our health care is not free,I pay all doctors visits and one time yearly deductible of $1500 on hospital visit.Now for our pay,I work mandatory 6 days a week 10 hours per day.I have 29 years at Jeep and still work on the assembly line because at our plant that is all that is left.It is more then just screwing in a bolt,you have to stand 2 hours doing the same thing over and over.Just go somewhere in your house and stand there for 2 hours doing the same movement every 90 seconds.I have worked at a steel foundry and have driven truck and would do those jobs before working at a auto factory.I'm not complaining because I make a good living but I don't understand why people think we make to much.When GM,Ford and Chrysler were making billions in the 1990's no one complained about our wages,so now all of a sudden we are making to much money!I just want to know what you think we should make,please be truthful.

Answer 1

It's all about supply and demand. It's pretty obvious, from the state of the US auto industry, that total costs are too high to be competitive with imports. I'm not suggesting this is only labor ... costs include labor, materials, benefits, overhead, and waste. US auto companies have done a very poor job over the last 30 years in controlling total costs. It's easy to blame this on labor costs, but that's less than 1/3 of total costs.