orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (02/14/85)
> Jeff Sonntag > Yeah, UAW workers have compromised with management. Instead of the > unlimited amount they really want, they've settled for only $20/hr and enough > benefits to cost management $50/hr. Of course, many UAW workers are now out > of work since American automobiles cannot compete with imports at these rates. > And they wonder why it's economical to replace them with expensive robots. There are several fallacies in this response. 1)Foreign workers (e.g. Japanese) get far less than American workers Actually Japanese workers get only several dollars per hour less than American workers and also get the benefit of virtually guaranteed lifetime employment. This is on the level of manual assembly-line workers. On the level of management and particularly the highest executives however there are enormous differences in compensation. The highest Japanese auto executives get about $100,000 per year if I recall correctly. (this is based on memories of a report on NPR so the exact figure may be wrong) The highest American auto executives however get over $500,000 per year. Calvin Trilling had an excellent article in the Nation pointing out the absurdity of the CEO of Ford getting over a 10% raise in pay at the same time Ford was in a major economic slump and was asking Union workers for major wage concessions. There *are* major discrepancies in personnel costs: the question is for which personnel and at which levels? 2)American workers, because of expense are more likely to be replaced with expensive robots Actually Japan has several times the number of industrial robots that we have in the U.S. That is one of the ways they can hold their costs down. The reason this is not as big a problem for Japanese workers is that they have far more security with the Japanese system of guaranteed lifetime employment. They do not have to worry as American workers do that automation will mean that they will be directly replaced with a robot. tim sevener whuxl!orb
mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) (02/17/85)
Another argument re: Japanese competition is that it was U.S. postwar policy that allowed the Japanese and the Germans to get where they are today. Basically, the U.S. made the decision that it was in its security interests to have strong friendly powers in Europe and the Far East, so they allowed these nations to play outside the normal rules of international markets. In the case of Europe, it was the massive subsidy for rebuilding of the industrial plant. In the case of Japan, it was not only that, but also a pass on international trade parity. Japan was allowed to maintain very strong control of its internal markets while having free access to markets in the U.S. The arguments Jeff Sonntag raised in his note are the familiar anti-union cant. Productivity among unionized workers is higher than among non-unionized workers, and the wage differentials, as Tim Severner began to point out, are greatly exaggerated for political reasons in the U.S. Never factored in are the value of job security and practically free vacations that the U.S. worker doesn't get. Furthermore, if you want to blame unions for our troubles, you must explain why other countries with much higher rates of unionization do quite well economically. And some do not nearly as well. The unions do not seem to be a determining factor of industry health. Mike Kelly