UAW workers launch unprecedented strike against all Big Three automakers

I probably wouldn't care if I was hourly. Every hour past 40, my $/hr goes in the wrong direction. I dunno about 7 days a week though. Hard enough putting in any time on weekends. I was offered a position with another team but I would have to be in the on call rotation for the same pay, and I told them yeah, that's a hard no.

 

Yep. I remember feeling it even more back when I was hourly and got OT. Even now, when we get stipends on our regular checks, I feel the kick in the nuts when I see how much more tax is taken out. I have a knack for growing relationships with those in support roles (custodians, cafeteria workers, office personnel). One time I knew a fair sized stipend was coming so I asked the payroll lady to see about cutting it up in pieces so's it wouldn't be all on one check and she did.

 

I could not care any less about CEOs. Do they have more money than me? Sure. So what. I don't want their life. The stress. The cutthroat politics. Heart attack at 50. An idol of wealth hanging around my neck. No thanks.

I care about providing for my family. We all just watched a movie last night called "A Million Miles Away." It's about the first immigrant farmhand to go to space in the NASA program, José Hernandez. He applied to the space program TWELVE TIMES, worked his ass off to look as good as possible on the application, became a licensed pilot and scuba diver and learned to speak Russian all just to get closer to a dream he had as a kid in the fields of California picking grapes. He was finally accepted something like 30 years after he originally wanted to be an astronaut–and again, after being denied 11 times–and went up on the Discovery in '09 at the age of 47.

His dad gave him a recipe:
1. Find where you want to go.
2. See where you currently are.
3. Define a path to get from here to there.
4. Prepare to be challenged.
5. When you think you've given it your all, you'll probably have to work even harder.

I might make my kids watch it weekly until they move out. Lol.

 

If I was on pure salary, they wouldn't be getting much if any OT out of me unless the salary was a number that took that into account.

That's pretty cool that the payroll lady did that. I dunno how the taxes work for y'all down there, but here we'd pay more on a single big check up front but get the difference made up when we file our tax return if that makes sense. It's easier to get it spread out over multiple checks so it doesn't sting as much but our tax system is based on brackets. So if you normally got $3K per month, your check is taxed like you make $36K per year. If you have a check for $5K because of bonuses, that check is taxed like you make $60K per year. The extra taxes paid on that check are returned to you at tax time.

 

Weird. I set up my W2s to give me more now than tax me more now and refund it to me later. Unless Uncle Sam wants to use my money he's holding to invest and cut me in on the profit, I'll take it up front rather than later.

 

I don't have any experience with unions, and I'm self employed now. But the last job I had was with a company run by some Russians who were some really great guys, but shady as fuck. When we were pushed to the edge with mandatory overtime and ridiculous quotas, the men would get Pissed after awhile and threaten to quit, this is when this guy would show up with envelopes stuffed with like $1500.00 for every employee. Good times.

 

LOL - My first job as an engineer was salary with potential bonus. During the interview process I was told that bonuses were "typically" 25% of salary or more. About the same time I started, the owner of the company (an engineer) retied and his son (couldn't hack engineering so had a business degree) took over. My first bonus was nice but was 19% of salary. Yes, I liked getting that big check but was not impressed based on what I had been told. Second year the company had the best year ever. No bonuses, no raises. The stockholders (not publicly listed but had stockholders) made a killing. That was it for me. No more overtime. It took a few years (NEVER got a 25% bonus - nobody did while I was there) but I left and have not been on salary since. I've worked as a consultant since then so I get paid for every billable hour.

 

I use to work 50,60,70 hours hours a week. I adjusted my lifestyle and said fuck the rich man. Funny part is I am in the public sector. I use to work my ass off until it was too late. Lost time with my kids, family, friends, etc. Now I turn down OT. I don't "need" that shiny new truck or the all new apple 15 pro (that's a joke). Now I do as least as possible. I am tired of the system and I for one am not going to play the game. I fine an dandy with my lifestyle. I am not going to give up my time with my family to have the new car or bigger house. I prefer to go on vacations.

 

My wife was in Rome for a work thing and said their way of life is so much different than ours. Laid back work hours, long lunches, smoke breaks whenever, etc. They don't look to work, they look to live.

 

Italy way of life is supported by welfare & gov retirement.

be careful what you wish for.

 

Not much unlike our own and yet we work ourselves into early graves.

 

I saw an interview of 2 Italian company owners. They asked them, why not pay your workers less so that you can make more money. They said, why? We are happy, the workers are happy and the company is doing great. In American its pretty much the opposite. People need to wake up. The American dream is no longer a dream, it's a nightmare. You don't need a brand vehicle every 2 years or a huge home or the latest phone, etc to be happy. But what you do need is to be able to live and be a slave to the system.

 

Europe has a MUCH different view of life than we do. I love visiting there. Helps put things into perspective but I could never live there. I love my 2000sqft house and acre of land and shop and guns and big vehicles to much.

 

There are a lot of benefits and tradeoffs to how many of the European countries are structured. Good, bad or indifferent, one dynamic is how much smaller they are in both geographic size and population, compared to the US.
It's easier to run their systems in a tiny country.
It would be easier to do what they do over here if they made every state its own nation and made it a union of countries, rather than a union of states, under one Fed gov.
But that ain't gonna happen.

 

sadly, very true.

I have some high school buddies, in Galveston, that live the "Italy" lifestyle.

whenever I go to the island, I'll pass by the ole neighborhood, and sometimes I stop to catch up on ole times. 24th street.

they sit on their porch, drinking alcoholic beverages, watch the tourists pass by & love life.

they get a gov check every month for doing so.

they always seem happy. a simple kind of happy, but happy.

and you and I work hard for them to get this lifestyle.


it ain't right, but it's the best country on Earth.

yin & yang I guess.

 

This was actually closer to the intent of the Founding Fathers than what we have today.

 

And preventing the states from forming their own little sovereign nations, along with claiming land out west was the main reason why the civil wat was fought. I sometimes wonder how different things would be had everything worked out differently.

 

Everyone knows the civil war was fight over slavery. Quit talking facts.

 

@texasrho83 is right...the control in this controlled demolition is waning.

what a mess.

Ford Vehicles Won’t Be Delivered By Teamsters If UAW Strikes

https://fordauthority.com/2023/09/ford-vehicles-wont-be-delivered-by-teamsters-if-uaw-strikes/

 

The way they are building cars these days... yes, we do need new rides every 2 years
PS>>> Apple told me I need the latest phone, and that was confirmed by fact checkers ...
So....

 

As somebody who’s been an active union member and is now employed by the largest Electric union as a Business Agent, I get a laugh out of the same old rhetoric, “unions protect the lazy and create the lazy”.
Now, does this happen? Sure. But the majority of the time, you will find that the company was largely at fault for not documenting, targeting, and basically breaking state and federal laws by being lazy and hiring incompetent management.
Personally, I do not and will never condone employees that are lazy, blatantly break rules, and are just overall, shitty employees.
The fact is, if you are middle class, you have, in some way, benefited from the fights brought by unions for better work conditions, better pay, more PTO and overall a better way of life. Don’t be fooled thinking you don’t even if you’re non union. The non union companies need to keep up or they will lose employees to a better situation.
The amount of work, community drives, and everything in between that happens behind the scenes, is only seen by active participants and those that want to educate themselves.

 

I only need to be a CEO for a large company for 1 year, then I will never have to work another day in my life.

 

All you need to do first is put in 80+ hrs of work per week for a decade. Or multiple decades.

 

To be a large company CEO? True

Then just need one year and done!

 

The problems with union leadership is that their blustering is often for themselves and not for their members. In today’s economy, few Americans have sympathy for someone turning down 20% because they want 40%. The time do do that would have been 2019 when shit was booming

 

Considering in my industry we are lucky to get an annual 2%, I’ve got zero sympathy for these folks. 40% is pure greed.

 

In nearly 20 years of working with union workers in the electric transmission industry, I’m convinced that union jobs with skilled trades such as electricians, carpenters and plumbers are night and day difference from manufacturing unions.