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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Labor Costs to Skyrocket for American Cars

New union contracts negotiated at American auto manufacturers will lead to a spike in labor costs after years of belt tightening.

The United Auto Workers approved significant contract adjustments at Ford and General Motors on Friday after months of tense negotiations. Those decisions—one by membership vote, the other by union leadership—come soon after Fiat Chrysler approved a new deal with dramatic pay boosts. Each of the contracts could reverse “much of the savings achieved by the companies over the last eight years,” according to a study first published in the Wall Street Journal.

The new GM deal would raise labor costs from $55 to $60 an hour, a 9 percent hike, according to a study of the deals from Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research and Art Schwartz, a former GM labor executive and president of Labor and Economic Associates. The union contract at Ford also reached the $60 hourly rate over the next four years, a 5 percent increase from its current rate of $57. Those hike pales in comparison with Chrysler, where average hourly wages will spike nearly 20 percent from $47 to $56.

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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess Im gonna be a hater on this one...
The job is not worth that kind of money. Period.
New car prices are ridiculous anyways...$70,000 for a new pickup truck? GTFOH with that.

Anonymous said...

What part of the auto assembly jobs rate a $40 to $60 wage, plus benefits?

Concerned Retiree said...

They already have a surplus of Hundreds of thousands new cars sitting around in storage lots. This means even more to be sitting around. This also means used vehicles just doubled in price. The auto workers are not waiting for robots to eliminating their jobs. They are forcing in robots to take over their jobs by pricing themselves out of a job. Where is the common sense?

Anonymous said...

$60 per hour? For putting something together? Ridiculous!!

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with the author. Invest your raise well because in a few years you'll be out of a job. Either a robot will take over or they will move the plant out of the country!

Anonymous said...

FYI that is $124,800 per year WITHOUT overtime! For a job with little hazardous conditions and no college degree required!

Anonymous said...

Look what happened to Detroit. Auto workers have priced themselves out of jobs. NO ASSEMBLE LINE WORKER should receive $50.00 to $60.00 an hour wages ridiculous. These people are not skilled workers, they are on an assembly line. You can train monkees to work on an assembly line. The Auto workers union is the reason why the auto industry has crumbled. Greed killed the car industry.

Anonymous said...

Looks like less American cars are about to be sold. When will we learn the time for unions is gone. All they do now is drive up the costs for everyone else.

Anonymous said...

You can bet you won't be too big to fail when Trump gets in. Haha

Anonymous said...

When a car cost is 5000 to make and they sell them for 30000 or more. Do the math. Yet when you hear that they are hurting you go a try to deal. They won't budge even a little. Finally made a deal came back the next day to sign papers. The salesman takes me to the financial guy who tells me the price is 6000 more than I agreed to. Screw them all. My car has been paid off for 10 years and runs great.

Anonymous said...

I love my VW

Anonymous said...

Ford is building a big new plant in Mexico the other auto makers will follow. Help stop this BS vote for Trump.

Anonymous said...

GM is going straight down the same path that led them to bankruptcy.

Anonymous said...

I have a friend who used to work for Chrysler in Wilmington as a welder, doing spot welds on the rare pieces that the robots didn't get. This was 25 years ago. He made $60 an hour. He told me that he usually just sat around and drank coffee during his eight hour shift.