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Comment by mdasen | Hacker News Reader

Well, the UAW doesn't want to accept parity with foreign auto-maker wages. The article states a $3-4 disparity, but it's really more than that due to the great benefits accorded to UAW workers.

While I generally like unions, in this case no matter how much bailout money the US auto-makers get, they're headed for bankruptcy unless they can bring their labor costs in line with those of foreign firms. UAW, if you're listening, you have two options: get off your rump and drive the wages up at Honda and Toyota (unionizing their plants) or resign yourselves to never having any say in anything ever again.

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American auto companies cars cost, on average, $2,000 more to make than those of foreign competitors.

Until that difference is gone, they will never be competitive. They lose $2,000 of quality or features and are expected to be competitive? Yeah, right.

In any other industry this would force a company out of business, but for some reason we think the automakers deserve our help? If an iPod was $50 more per unit to produce than a Zune they would never be able to compete and the iPod would fail because they are losing $50 worth of quality per unit - whether that quality is gone from the software, hardware, or both, it would be impossible to compete.

Ahh, but with a 25% tariff on your side that $2000 is well within the bounds of your cushion on a truck or SUV.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3155

health care costs per vehicle are between 1000-1700. We collectively, and the auto industry in particular, are at a big disadvantage until these costs are brought under control

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070227/A...

While I know Toyota is staffed mostly by robotic ninjas, presumably they need health care once and a while, too. Japan enjoys a standard of healthcare right up there with the US.

Toyota also manages to pay American worker's healthcare expenses and still profit handsomely.

Find another scapegoat?

"Toyota also manages to pay American worker's healthcare expenses and still profit handsomely."

I think it's pretty well established that Toyota pays less for health care for their U.S. employees than the Big 3, and a large part of the reason for this is that the Big 3 are paying for health care for a lot of retirees who are no longer making cars. The NY Times had an analysis showing that most of the difference in "labor costs" between Big 3 and foreign makers was due to higher retiree benefits.

Bad analogy, the Zune is harmful at any price/quality.

The benefits you're talking about are those that were promised as pension and healthcare obligations to already-retired workers. The difference between UAW and non-UAW wages and benefits for current workers isn't that large.

Exactly. If you remove the pensions that are lumped in with all the reported hourly rates, it is not that big of a difference, and what is there is in the healthcare benefits not hourly pay rate. I think the Republicans were just happy that their spin factory came up with a way they could pin an excuse on someone else for not passing the bill. I wasn't really in favor of the bailout plan (mostly after the idea of a car czar was introduced), but I think these guys need to be honest in why they were against it.

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