said by tao :

Then you don't understand... On the other hand, maybe you don't work for a living.

said by tao :

GM spins off Delphi.

said by tao :

With the basic understanding that there existing in the USA an average wage. Understanding that with the increase in UAW wages in the 1960s and 70s, there was a leveraged increase in all wages due to the necessity to keep the wages of the bosses, the secretaries, the minions, the executives, the junior executives, etc, etc, etc... paced with the union workers.

GM spins off Delphi. The UAW workers, including union employed MEs and EEs, have the option to transfer to other GM facilities IF they press the matter. They are given promises of all and any kind to get them to stay at Delphi. The union locals all stay and with them all the workers stay put. 3-6 months later Delphi files for bankruptcy protection. Ultimately and generally, all Delphi union employees agree to a 50% pay cut.

Let me take a time out here and ask you how your life would change with a 50% pay cut? Add to that fact the small consideration that you could have exercised a negotiated individual right to transfer to a GM facility that for all the economic strife, has preserved wages... That would be a bit tough to chew on huh?

Flash to yesterday, the circle is completed. While GM is not a strong as when the story when this story started. Doesn't matter unless you happen to be one of those union employed engineers who took a 50% pay cut from the good old GM days, only to find yourself re-employed by GM. Kind of rubs salt in the wound.

It does something else too. Don't forget all those workers who benefited from the wage bump ups earlier in our story. I am not saying there will be wage bump downs, but the impact of the strife in America's manufacturing sector will not miss these workers in the coming years. Downward pressure on wages for the many, starting with the minions and trickling up.

Note: Don't mind me, as a union member I am more than a bit pissed off about this because I know it effects me.

said by tao :

Then you don't understand... On the other hand, maybe you don't work for a living.

said by tao :

As I remember it was voted, I could be wrong. Still persons with enough seniority could always use their GM seniority to move to another GM facility.

For those not familiar, UAW employees have local seniority and corporate seniority, usually these are the same, but not always. For example, someone with 20 years GM seniority might have moved from one UAW local to another ten years ago. That would give them 10 years of seniority at the current local and 10 years of seniority at the first UAW local. So with that 20 years of GM seniority as a hammer, they could bump someone with 20 years minus one day of GM seniority at any GM facility in North America in any UAW job they were qualified to do. Kicker is that now this transfer worker has no local seniority and works at the local wage. The later two facts are the 2nd and 3rd biggest reasons people don't move around. The primary reason people don't move around is that usually open jobs with equal pay are few and are typically far away. Generally people with 10 or more years of seniority won't uproot their families.