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Comment by ultimoo | Hacker News Reader

> so-called “sub pay,” which is paid by the companies. Together unemployment benefits and sub pay covers 74% of their normal pay while laid off. But the F-150 Lightning workers who are laid off will be eligible for both unemployment and sub pay

I had no idea ford had to pay 74% in wages after laying off! For how long?

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Apparently as long as they are eligible for unemployment - https://www.natlawreview.com/article/advantages-and-challeng...

Ford pays sub pay, and that combined with unemployment benefits is 74%, Ford doesn't pay the entire 74%.

It is not unusual in factories like that to have weeks long temporary layoffs, do to reduced demand or shutting down to retool, so it makes sense for automakers to offer these types of benefits, rather than severence, which is more of a permanent seperation type of thing.

The "jobs bank" concept, which all detroit automakers have a form of, has been going on for decades. You come to the factory, and play cards or watch TV, potentially for years, draw a paycheck and benefits...until you take your retirement.

It was originally conceived as a way to make it less likely to offshore production: "look, you have thousands of workers you're already paying, just twiddling their thumbs! Give them some cars to build!"

This has not quite panned out.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding.

The jobs bank went away in the 2009 bankruptcies/reorganization.

I was astounded the first time I read about it in the '90s; and even more so when it was still going on in 2006. The fixed cost of labor as a whole, and not just salary + benefits for a worker, but n workers at that rate, is daunting.

Especially when it would be possible to build the same # of units with .25n workers.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding. (Repeating because this is more opinionated)

The bankruptcies weren't caused by one thing, but cost of labor was a large factor. Perhaps a bigger factor was the pressure to keep producing non-competitive, money losing products so as to maintain employment numbers. Unions do a lot for their members, and they should, but they cannot save a bad product.

In my opinion, over-financialization was the other top factor. You can read "Bean Counters vs Car Guys" by Bob Lutz for an explanation of this.

Sounds more like a furlough than a layoff.

Probably something negotiated by the union.

Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything here is solely my own opinion or understanding.

Layoff means something different to automakers. It's a layoff so that they can draw unemployment. Traditionally there was a two week layoff in July for model changeover. It was basically a two week vacation for a lot of workers, while they were technically unemployed.

So yes, it's more or less a furlough.

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