Where do you work?

[J Man]

A lot of people that post on the daily blog all seem to think that the auto workers make to much money and that their union wages is what is hurting GM. So since everyone wants to bash GM employees, I want to know what everyone else does for a living.

I will start out, I am an UAW represented GM auto worker.

[misslexi]

I'm self-employed, gainfully at the moment.

My better half is a Teamster local 119 member, I have no beef with unions.

[Altazi]

I have had nothing but trouble with unions.

As a kid, I took a job in a sawmill during the summer. My first experience with the union was "Join or get fired." That was just about how nicely it was put to me. If I had been approached differently, I might have formed a different impression from the get-go.

My next "interaction" with a union was when I was attending a trade show in Chicago as a small business owner. My wife was there, helping me and an employee move some boxes and crates. From a bit of a distance, I saw my wife struggling with a heavy load, and not one of the fat union guys sitting around on their a$$es lifted so much as a finger to help her. Later, when we had most things all set up, I was told that I needed to pay a union electrician some hundreds of $$ to plug in a regular extension cord into a wall outlet. I waited and waited, and finally just did it myself. What a waste!

Today, my wife is forced to belong to a union at the school where she works. She disagrees with just about everything the union stands for and does. Her dues go to support the union's political platforms which she finds quite offensive.

When I hear things like "not my job", it makes me see red. When it's not a matter of training or safety, just get in and do what's needed.

So there you have it. Not a union fan.

[Deanwvu]

$30.00 an hour or so is the average UAW GM wage right?



And I am active duty army.

[DaV8or]

I'm a small business owner and have dealings with unions. As a business owner, about the worst thing you can do is sign a union contract, I know, I've done it. My shop is currently a union shop. I'm sure GM could write novels about the pitfalls and head aches involved.

Unfortunately, labor unions have become unrealistic and out of touch with reality. In the end they do more harm than good for the workers they represent. They end up driving more jobs away than it is worth for the ones they struggle to keep. As much as the management at many US companies needs shaking up, this goes about x3 for the labor unions.

[dgtlmatt]

Good post. I've been wondering the same thing, and was thinking of making a post as well

I work nights in a hospital laboratory doing a variety of testing to assist the doctors in diagnosing and treating the patients. I have a MS in clinical laboratory science and a BS in biology. I'm currently working on paying off my student loans which are considerably large. It extremely frustrates me to learn the these union workers make so much with a high school degree or GED when I only earn about 20 something an hour and it took so many years of hard work to get to where I'm at. If I make a mistake it could kill someone, especially in the blood bank. The ultimate frustration comes from knowing the high price of the vehicles and the money were about to loan to them. I really don't see how they justify the pay. I really think it needs to be re-evalulated in relation to the cost of living.

[Deanwvu]

I think it is a good measure (or a bad measure) of a society to gauge how much they spend on TEACHER salaries compared to other "professions."


From what I have read, the average UAW worker can make a good margin more money than the average teacher (with a 4 year degree).

Yep! A cursory google search yields this:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/...eachers/Salary

Puts the average teacher salary in the US right around $40,000.

At $30 an hour (average), a UAW worker can make a lot more than that. Way more if he/she can average some overtime.

That is pathetic....

[dbK]

I'm an accountant with a 4 yr degree (in accounting). If I divide by annual salary by 2080 (52 forty hour weeks), my hourly works out to around $24. So, below the average UAW wage. And, I don't get paid for overtime until I've worked 150 hours in a July-June fiscal year, and then when I do get paid it's straight, not time and a half.

I also don't have a pension or dental, and I have an HSA/HDHP because otherwise health coverage is fairly expensive (not that the plan I'm on is cheap, and I only pay 1/4 of it...).

So yeah, I'm not all that sympathetic to the UAW or unions in general.

[dgtlmatt]

I agree 100% with you Deanvwu. Ive always thought that teachers and police officers deserve better pay. The job they do is absolutely crucial to our society. But we can dictate what someone in the private sector is paid. The free market system should work that out on its own. I just think its very disgusting to be paying the union workers so much, almost bankrupt the company, then run to the government for a bailout at taxpayer expense (including those underpaid professions).

However, if teachers and police officers were paid more, more and better people would be going into those professions. My high school teachers were terrible. At one point, I wanted to be a police officer as well.

[calgaryvolt]

I agree with the folks that are talking about higher pay for teachers. This folks are doing a noble task of trying to educate our children and the future of this country. It's a shame that they don't get more respect and appreciation (not only in monetary terms.)

I am a recent university graduate, class of 2006, with a BSc in geology and I work as a petroleum geologist (hopefully will have professional status in the next couple of years.)