Yep, Matt, that's the inside of a Camry factory all right. So why is the Ford Taurus sitting there on the line? Toyota finally figured out it needed to start building actual cars again instead of refrigerators on wheels. They got the Taurus because they needed a REAL car to copy ideas from...

Now go crawl back under your rock where you belong, troll.

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No food for you troll.

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So....let me try and understand this:

Ford "designs" (

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Not much considering the Fusion is made in mexico.

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From what I had heard, approx. $2000 of a vehicle's price goes towards workers wages and benefits. That figure was a couple years old, I wouldn't doubt if it was closer to $1500 now.

For as much abuse the union gets, it really isn't as large of a hit as many people think.

To me it seems the only people who complain, are the people who will only buy foreign cars anyway regardless.

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quote from MeiSooHaityu:
- "From what I had heard, approx. $2000 of a vehicle's price goes towards workers wages and benefits. That figure was a couple years old, I wouldn't doubt if it was closer to $1500 now.

For as much abuse the union gets, it really isn't as large of a hit as many people think." -

The reason it doesn't sound so high is because you forgot an important part. That $2000 is how much HIGHER the costs were for UAW workers per vehicle, not the total labor cost per vehicle.

In other words, to make a comparable profit on a vehicle, the Big 3 had to price their cars about $2000 higher than the competition in order to make the same profit. This due to the higher wages and benefit packages that the Union labor recieved compared to the non-union competitors.

That was a prime reason for the negotiations in the first palce and the renegotiated contracts will go a long ways towards putting the Big 3 on an equal footing with their import competition from a cost standpoint.

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That price variance is not just union wages of people working today. The cost includes the retiree benefits paid to the people who built their cars years ago and are still being paid a pension/health care benefits for their years of service.

Those pension and health care promises were a staple with American business until recently. Now that we're part a global economy, we all get benefits that are the lowest common denominator amongst all the countries we do business with. If people don't see the middle class in this country shrinking into oblivion, they are pretty blind.

Seeing as people in Japan (when they were dumping product here), now China, India, etc. are willing to work for less money than us, businesses both here and abroad are forced to outsource both production and service (when applicable- such as IT support, etc.) to those countries with low labor cost. Slowly our jobs become ultra low paying with no benefits or their gone altogether.

I used to hate the UAW with a passion. Seemed an excuse for many of them to be lazy and protected from reprimand since they protect their own. They've really been cut down to size though, they no longer have the stranglehold they once did, and they seem to be getting the right concessions now such as guaranteed work and benefits programs that are being administered by the union instead of the company. Dare I say it, they may actually be serving their purpose to a small degree.

Of course, there are still some unions that are B.S., I just don't see the UAW as nearly the leach they used to be.

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Never said the cost difference didn't include retirement and healthcare for workers of decades ago. That's well known.

Nonetheless, that increasing cost was forced onto the Big 3 through years of "bargaining" to the point that they nearly killed the companies that employed them. The primary reason the UAW has toned down is that they were forced to after nearly killing their Golden Goose. It's not as though the UAW just wised up and decided this was the best route for them to take.

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From Mono -

"It's not as though the UAW just wised up and decided this was the best route for them to take."

I think that's exactly what happened. They have always chosen "the best route for them to take". That's their purpose - to watch out for their own. When the tables turned and that meant looking out for the good of the company, that's what they did, and are doing.

The majority of the disadvantage that's left is legacy costs. Back when the companies made these promises, this kind of cost structure was fairly common, and their competition worked in a similar mode. It wasn't a problem until outside companies came in without similar constraints. They could take their extra earnings and re-invest into better product with more features with higher quality. And after a decade or three, here we are.

Time to cut the rant short - enjoy the weekend!

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I believe the Union superseeds the work at will stipulation that most states/companies have. To me a Union should only be formed when in times of turmoil and misuse. After any issues' are resolved the Union should be disolved. It would not only save money for both sides but give ease to change production in a timely manner to readjust to market demands. But they never will they are so dead set in the old corrupt system that acts more like a cancer than a helper to the companies they work for.

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Even in a right to work state, if 50% + 1 workers of a certain job "type" agree to unionize, the other 50% -1 workers are bound by whatever contract the union agrees to, which includes hours worked and pay rates, etc etc.

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This way you would have to set huge taxes on imports to compensate on cheaper work-force abroad. I'm not sure that is possible without a trade-war, or without getting sued by WTO...
Which leads me to a question, does anyone have a link that would confirm/refute the claim that JDM is protected this way?

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If you do some googling you can find a few sources of Japan and their quotas for imported brands.

I can't imagine America ever setting enough import tariffs in order to protect jobs here. This country is already fast becoming the United States of China. They'd be biting their noses to spite their face.

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@Carlos: I tried recently with no luck, I guess I chose wrong key-words.. (yep, my english quite sucks)

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Wow, that is such a stupid, utterly stupid, idea that I have to reply!

I realize that you are not an economist, obviously, because you would know that trade actually creates more wealth than closed systems like the one you are suggesting.

If you demand that all products sold in the US have to be made in the America you will quickly find that Europe, Korea, Japan and China will do the same. No more American exports, thank you, that will HURT the US a lot more than say Europe or China!

Many American companies make huge profits in foreign markets, the very money that makes Americans jobs profitable. Take companies like Intel, Microsoft and IBM to name a few. Without those foreign markets, there would be considerably fewer American jobs.

When things get though America goes "isolationist", and I see it's happening again under Obama. "Buy American" is fine as long as it's not made law - unless you want full scale conflict with the world [and no access to foreign markets]. That's exactly why Obama had to cut it from the stimulus bill.

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