Interesting link post 21... Anyone know how much it costs per hr per worker for Australian car makers????? Regards Errol 43 Edited for pirate talk...Wow.. Couldn't believe my spelling was so bad.
As a storeman at Iveco $22 an hour gross As a casual Apparently Kentworth are paying better these days around $30 an hour for casuals Is that what you were after
Of course if unions were actually useful for anything this century they would be negotiating to save workers livelihoods. Because career unionists have no private sector experience and no understanding of anything except conflict they are uniquely unqualified to represent the interests of workers at the negotiating table. They are so used to having the clout to simply beat employers into submission that they have become a blunt instrument. In boom times that works, when times are lean and companies are struggling the last thing that a worker needs representing him or her is a ham fisted union boss with no skills and a history of thuggery.
Spot on Jonesy, Negotiate the workers right out of a Job. As the unions get a percentage of the workers wage in fee's, any pay rise for the worker is a pay rise for the union.
Exactly, I know in the end of the day I look at it as $$ per output and proper analysis will determine where the fat needs to be cut, it just seems to be that the bottom of the ladder usually gets the chop, maybe because the media portray it this way but it's how it seems. I know at my work around 300 middle management got the arse because their rolls were either redistributed or made redundant.
^^^ I spent 5 years in middle-management and I'm damned If I could tell anyone what my job was. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like I was sitting on my hands all day, but I couldn't tell you at the beginning of the day what I'd be doing at the end of the day...or even by smoko. For the most part, I was problem solving for line managers & staff, issues that had been 'caused by incompetent upper management. Generally as organisations grow bigger they can hide/support larger parasites. Always be cautious of managers claiming to be "running around putting out forest fires"... in my experience, they're often the ones that've started them in the first place! When the chance came, I was first in line for a golden handshake. Front of the queue. Best thing I ever did. Now I can see the previous organisation reap what it had sowed. I've even had upper management asking me for jobs... i tell ya... vengence is sweet
That's ALOT of money for an 'unskilled' worker to lose per week...especially with petrol now costing $100 per tank, big electricity bills for winter etc etc...what if these peoples families are on a single wage....It would send them bankrupt surely?
http://www.businessspectator.com.au...ivity/targeting-holden-workers-unfair-kearney Now for some math: 10% of x = $200, x therefore = $2000/week. That makes it over $100 000/year. Poor bastards. I'll repeat that $2000/week!!!!!!!!! Bear in mind that a lot of Australian taxpayers earning significantly less have been subsidising those wages for many years. So they'll only earn about $90 000 after taking a pay cut. :|
According to the president of the ACTU, Ged Kearney, the average worker is expected to take a $200 per week pay cut, she says that is 10% of the average worker's wages. Now I don't have a clue who would be the average worker at the Holden plant in SA and it's immaterial really - the average worker at Holden earns in excess of $100 000/year according to the ACTU, AND is subsidised by the Australian taxpayer.
GMH has received 2.17 billion dollars of government assistance over the past 12 years. I hate it when they report billions because I can never work out if it's Aus billions or US billions but it's a shedload of money.
It's amazing they earn that much doing factory assembly line work. Chinese workers would be lucky to earn $200 per week doing the same work. It's even more amazing that people on much less income have been subsidizing their wages for so long. Well we all know how it turned out for Detroit! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCtcJCDXdxY[/youtube] If I were a Holden factory worker living near the plant, I'd sell up ASAP and move elsewhere.
At the end of the day Australian car manufacturing is going to go the way of the dinosaur. There's simply no way Australian car companies can compete against emerging economies that have never heard of unions which have labour costs that are a fraction of the cost of Australian maufacturing. IMO they should be allowed to die a natural death.