Workers vs Management - Who's the greedy one?

[soylentgreen]

Management, e.g. the Boards of Directors for these companies are obligated to run the company to maximize productivity. They represent the interests of millions of shareholders - it's not "greed", it's professional. Failure to do so can result in legal action.

It is not professional to exploit workers to make a profit.

According to the final report published by 4 Day Week Global, the results of the trial were overwhelmingly positive. Almost 92% of the companies involved in the trial decided to keep the 4-day workweek permanent after the trial. The change has resulted in a happier, more loyal workforce with no loss of productivity.

 

[Big Brother]

Who wants American cars anyway? Get a Toyota. Problem solved. Double the price of cars and half goes to the autoworkers. Everyone will gladly pay double to support the autoworkers. Problem solved. Or just export all the manufacturing of cars to China. Problem solved. Boycott cars and walk, it will also help lose those few hundred pounds everyone has put on. Many problems solved. Solutions galore, but it all really doesn't matter because the establishment runs the show and could care less about autoworkers. The billionaire donor class gets what it wants out of the system, not autoworkers.

 

[highroller]

Everyone is greedy.
1) the non working investor class
2) management
3) employees

In this order.

At least the workers produce.

Only work produces wealth

 

[multivita-man]

UAW-automakers negotiations pit falling wages against skyrocketing CEO pay

It looks like the big three automaker's workers will be going on strike at midnight. Some of the unions demands seem over the top to me, like asking for a four day work week, but on the whole, looking at the companies profits and the management's wage increases over the last 10 years, I have to side with the workers. Look at the numbers;

• Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits.
• CEO pay at the Big 3 companies has jumped by 40% during the same period and the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks.
• Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments. As a result, workers’ wages in the union and nonunion sector alike are falling farther behind inflation: Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.

Stock buybacks are a big park of the problem;

"...As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends.

“Our union has also proposed an enhanced profit-sharing formula that would provide workers $2 for every $1 million spent by Ford on stock buybacks, special dividends, and increases to normal dividends,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a Facebook Live event earlier this month. “Ford has responded with a concessionary proposal that would change the profit-sharing formula so that workers would actually earn less.”

Costly Buybacks
Last year, S&P 500 companies set records for stock buybacks, spending over $923 billion — far outpacing the $565 billion the top firms spent on dividends, which are profit-sharing payments made to shareholders. The U.S. government banned such stock buybacks as “market manipulation” until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration legalized them as part of his deregulatory “Reagan Revolution.” These expenditures, which artificially inflate value for shareholders, come at the cost of long-term investments that ensure a company’s ability to exist, including compensation for their workers..."


The "hard times" (generated largely by their greed) are over, it's time to share the wealth;

"...In a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis on the matter, Lazonick calculated that if GM had “saved that money and earned a modest 2.5 percent on it, the company would have had $35 billion on hand when the financial crisis and Great Recession hit and probably would not have had to file for bankruptcy protection.”

Instead, because the companies were considered “too big to fail,” the U.S. spent $11 billion bailing out GM.

At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, 21,000 layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions.

In 1986, GM employed nearly 900,000 people — today, they have just 167,000 employees..."

We're at end-stage capitalism. The entire system needs to crash down before real reforms are devised and implemented. This will happen probably sometime in the next decade or so, but we won't be the same society when/after it does, and I dare to say other societies, particularly large and complex ones like ours, will be facing a similar predicament.

 

[multivita-man]

Only work produces wealth

Yeah, other people's work produces wealth for those with capital and who have praetorian guards to keep the order.

 

[SoCal]

Workers don't participate in the profits or losses of a company. If profits go down would you support a pay cut? I'm guessing no. Workers wages are determined by the supply and demand of their labor. Simple as that. Unions skew that mechanism. These workers will be replaced by robotics anyway and they'll have plenty of free time. No need to worry about only a 32 hour work week then. It will be a zero hour work week.

You guessed wrong. Try reading all of post #1. The workers participated in the losses of the automakers, it's time they started participating in the profits...

"...At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, 21,000 layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions..."

 

[Juks]

Just wondering how you came up with that analysis. Are the workers more productive?

While I agee that CEO's are overpaid that is a seperate issue. Do we need a competitve domestic auto industry.

if the companies can extract large excess profits without problems, then they can obviously sell the cars for significantly more than the cost of production. These surplus profits are produced by the workers so naturally they should get a share of them. It is, as I said, their work that enables management's lifestyle

 

[joluoto]

I will always side against management and CEOs. Always.

And the Investor Class, which are the worst people ever who are only interested in ever growing profit, and does not give a fig how it's achieved.

 

[highroller]

And the Investor Class, which are the worst people ever who are only interested in ever growing profit, and does not give a fig how it's achieved.

Why did I save and invest money if it wasn’t to exploit my fellow men????

 

[trouble13]

UAW-automakers negotiations pit falling wages against skyrocketing CEO pay

It looks like the big three automaker's workers will be going on strike at midnight. Some of the unions demands seem over the top to me, like asking for a four day work week, but on the whole, looking at the companies profits and the management's wage increases over the last 10 years, I have to side with the workers. Look at the numbers;

• Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits.
• CEO pay at the Big 3 companies has jumped by 40% during the same period and the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks.
• Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments. As a result, workers’ wages in the union and nonunion sector alike are falling farther behind inflation: Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.

Stock buybacks are a big park of the problem;

"...As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends.

“Our union has also proposed an enhanced profit-sharing formula that would provide workers $2 for every $1 million spent by Ford on stock buybacks, special dividends, and increases to normal dividends,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a Facebook Live event earlier this month. “Ford has responded with a concessionary proposal that would change the profit-sharing formula so that workers would actually earn less.”

Costly Buybacks
Last year, S&P 500 companies set records for stock buybacks, spending over $923 billion — far outpacing the $565 billion the top firms spent on dividends, which are profit-sharing payments made to shareholders. The U.S. government banned such stock buybacks as “market manipulation” until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration legalized them as part of his deregulatory “Reagan Revolution.” These expenditures, which artificially inflate value for shareholders, come at the cost of long-term investments that ensure a company’s ability to exist, including compensation for their workers..."


The "hard times" (generated largely by their greed) are over, it's time to share the wealth;

"...In a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis on the matter, Lazonick calculated that if GM had “saved that money and earned a modest 2.5 percent on it, the company would have had $35 billion on hand when the financial crisis and Great Recession hit and probably would not have had to file for bankruptcy protection.”

Instead, because the companies were considered “too big to fail,” the U.S. spent $11 billion bailing out GM.

At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, 21,000 layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions.

In 1986, GM employed nearly 900,000 people — today, they have just 167,000 employees..."

 

[Slartibartfast]

I am going to side with the workers on this one. Upper management already has enough to survive and live well on.

 

[samiam5211]

Workers don't participate in the profits or losses of a company. If profits go down would you support a pay cut? I'm guessing no. Workers wages are determined by the supply and demand of their labor. Simple as that. Unions skew that mechanism. These workers will be replaced by robotics anyway and they'll have plenty of free time. No need to worry about only a 32 hour work week then. It will be a zero hour work week.

You and I will also be replaced by Robots/automation at some point.

We need to start figuring out what the economy looks like when none of us are needed.

 

[Jezcoe]

Management, e.g. the Boards of Directors for these companies are obligated to run the company to maximize productivity. They represent the interests of millions of shareholders - it's not "greed", it's professional. Failure to do so can result in legal action.

"Maximize Shareholder Value" are the three most dangerous words to the American worker.

 

[BirdinHand]

"Maximize Shareholder Value" are the three most dangerous words to the American worker.

And dumb Americans swallow that bullshit hook, line AND sinker.

Because don’t you know - they’re “shareholders” also. And XYZs stock going up by $1 or even $10 for the X shares they hold is going to really have an impact on their retirement

 

[Jezcoe]

Workers don't participate in the profits or losses of a company. If profits go down would you support a pay cut? I'm guessing no. Workers wages are determined by the supply and demand of their labor. Simple as that. Unions skew that mechanism. These workers will be replaced by robotics anyway and they'll have plenty of free time. No need to worry about only a 32 hour work week then. It will be a zero hour work week.

The auto industry... famous for eschewing robots.

 

[spud_meister]

I've done all three. Right now I'm 1). These people include anybody who's retired and is smart enough to have saved and planned for his/her retirement. Does that sound like 'greed' to you?

Yes. Expecting to be paid money you haven't earned is greedy.

 

[washunut]

And dumb Americans swallow that bullshit hook, line AND sinker.

Because don’t you know - they’re “shareholders” also. And XYZs stock going up by $1 or even $10 for the X shares they hold is going to really have an impact on their retirement

Perhaps if you better understood what some/many managers/execs mean by this you would revise your post.

Those managers understand that in order to best maximize shareholder value you must delight ALL constituents. That is customers, employees,community as well as company profitability.

 

[spud_meister]

Workers don't participate in the profits or losses of a company. If profits go down would you support a pay cut? I'm guessing no. Workers wages are determined by the supply and demand of their labor. Simple as that.

Yes they do. Labour is usually one of the largest costs for a business, and is often the first to be cut in economic downturns.

Unions skew that mechanism.

Unions skew supply and demand? Do you realise inflation is a mechanism to price workers out of being able to afford to live if demand is increased?

These workers will be replaced by robotics anyway and they'll have plenty of free time. No need to worry about only a 32 hour work week then. It will be a zero hour work week.

Who's consuming products with a zero hour work week? Even though you can clearly see the contradictions of capitalism, you still support it. Liberalism is a mental disorder.

 

[BirdinHand]

Perhaps if you better understood what some/many managers/execs mean by this you would revise your post.

Those managers understand that in order to best maximize shareholder value you must delight ALL constituents. That is customers, employees,community as well as company profitability.

Oh I understand perfectly well.

Do you?

 

[holbritter]

UAW-automakers negotiations pit falling wages against skyrocketing CEO pay

It looks like the big three automaker's workers will be going on strike at midnight. Some of the unions demands seem over the top to me, like asking for a four day work week, but on the whole, looking at the companies profits and the management's wage increases over the last 10 years, I have to side with the workers. Look at the numbers;

• Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits.
• CEO pay at the Big 3 companies has jumped by 40% during the same period and the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks.
• Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments. As a result, workers’ wages in the union and nonunion sector alike are falling farther behind inflation: Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.

Stock buybacks are a big park of the problem;

"...As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends.

“Our union has also proposed an enhanced profit-sharing formula that would provide workers $2 for every $1 million spent by Ford on stock buybacks, special dividends, and increases to normal dividends,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a Facebook Live event earlier this month. “Ford has responded with a concessionary proposal that would change the profit-sharing formula so that workers would actually earn less.”

Costly Buybacks
Last year, S&P 500 companies set records for stock buybacks, spending over $923 billion — far outpacing the $565 billion the top firms spent on dividends, which are profit-sharing payments made to shareholders. The U.S. government banned such stock buybacks as “market manipulation” until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration legalized them as part of his deregulatory “Reagan Revolution.” These expenditures, which artificially inflate value for shareholders, come at the cost of long-term investments that ensure a company’s ability to exist, including compensation for their workers..."


The "hard times" (generated largely by their greed) are over, it's time to share the wealth;

"...In a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis on the matter, Lazonick calculated that if GM had “saved that money and earned a modest 2.5 percent on it, the company would have had $35 billion on hand when the financial crisis and Great Recession hit and probably would not have had to file for bankruptcy protection.”

Instead, because the companies were considered “too big to fail,” the U.S. spent $11 billion bailing out GM.

At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, 21,000 layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions.

In 1986, GM employed nearly 900,000 people — today, they have just 167,000 employees..."

You know, I get it they want (and deserve) a raise in wages. However, did these workers start these companies? Did they put their own money into starting them?
Did they not agree on a wage when they took their jobs?

I've recently seen more than a few comments about how wages are higher than ever and the country is doing so well economically. When I argue that many people are not getting huge raises, the response is - find a new job.

Well, if these people are not making what they want, find a new job. The government should never have bailed GM out, but since they did, these people kept their jobs. Now that's a complaint?

NO ONE has to 'share their wealth'. Would I like them to share? A big YES. Should they have to? No. Start your own company.

 

[bongsaway]

UAW-automakers negotiations pit falling wages against skyrocketing CEO pay

It looks like the big three automaker's workers will be going on strike at midnight. Some of the unions demands seem over the top to me, like asking for a four day work week, but on the whole, looking at the companies profits and the management's wage increases over the last 10 years, I have to side with the workers. Look at the numbers;

• Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits.
• CEO pay at the Big 3 companies has jumped by 40% during the same period and the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks.
• Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments. As a result, workers’ wages in the union and nonunion sector alike are falling farther behind inflation: Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.

Stock buybacks are a big park of the problem;

"...As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends.

“Our union has also proposed an enhanced profit-sharing formula that would provide workers $2 for every $1 million spent by Ford on stock buybacks, special dividends, and increases to normal dividends,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a Facebook Live event earlier this month. “Ford has responded with a concessionary proposal that would change the profit-sharing formula so that workers would actually earn less.”

Costly Buybacks
Last year, S&P 500 companies set records for stock buybacks, spending over $923 billion — far outpacing the $565 billion the top firms spent on dividends, which are profit-sharing payments made to shareholders. The U.S. government banned such stock buybacks as “market manipulation” until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration legalized them as part of his deregulatory “Reagan Revolution.” These expenditures, which artificially inflate value for shareholders, come at the cost of long-term investments that ensure a company’s ability to exist, including compensation for their workers..."


The "hard times" (generated largely by their greed) are over, it's time to share the wealth;

"...In a 2015 Harvard Business Review analysis on the matter, Lazonick calculated that if GM had “saved that money and earned a modest 2.5 percent on it, the company would have had $35 billion on hand when the financial crisis and Great Recession hit and probably would not have had to file for bankruptcy protection.”

Instead, because the companies were considered “too big to fail,” the U.S. spent $11 billion bailing out GM.

At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, 21,000 layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ healthcare and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions.

In 1986, GM employed nearly 900,000 people — today, they have just 167,000 employees..."

On the pay scale ladders of these companies, which rung do the hourly workers stand on? Who makes less than they do in the scheme of things?

 

[Jezcoe]

You know, I get it they want (and deserve) a raise in wages. However, did these workers start these companies? Did they put their own money into starting them?
Did they not agree on a wage when they took their jobs?

I've recently seen more than a few comments about how wages are higher than ever and the country is doing so well economically. When I argue that many people are not getting huge raises, the response is - find a new job.

Well, if these people are not making what they want, find a new job. The government should never have bailed GM out, but since they did, these people kept their jobs. Now that's a complaint?

NO ONE has to 'share their wealth'. Would I like them to share? A big YES. Should they have to? No. Start your own company.

Everyone should start their own company.

Amazing solution.

 

[bongsaway]

Perhaps if you better understood what some/many managers/execs mean by this you would revise your post.

Those managers understand that in order to best maximize shareholder value you must delight ALL constituents. That is customers, employees,community as well as company profitability.

That is absolute horseshit. Profits for the shareholders and the health of the corporation are the most important factors even at the detriment of the communities where they are located. The health of the corporation is first and foremost. Profits have a way of melting some people's morality.

 

[PeteEU]

Just wondering how you came up with that analysis. Are the workers more productive?

While I agee that CEO's are overpaid that is a seperate issue. Do we need a competitve domestic auto industry.

You did read this part?

Across the U.S., auto manufacturing workers have seen their average real hourly earnings fall 19.3% since 2008.

And

Autoworker concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated, including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments.

In the mean while, executives got massive pay rises and the companies generated massive profits.

 

[Kushinator]

Just wondering how you came up with that analysis. Are the workers more productive?

While I agee that CEO's are overpaid that is a seperate issue. Do we need a competitve domestic auto industry.

Any idea how much labor is associated with building an automobile in a typical UAW plant, i.e percentage of total cost?