unclenedsfishfactory.com

my friends and relatives complaining

Boy, did I go on a rage with this one or what?

----- Original Message -----

From: Walter Scribner

To: 'Bill Bowers'

Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:06 PM

Subject: RE: Outraged? Yup

I know it’s weird but as soon as I sent this I felt like a narrow-minded idiot (I also seem to have greatly under estimated the compensation for a big three employee). My problem is that I see both sides of arguments. In business and in relationships that’s usually a good thing, but in other situations it makes me seem like an indecisive idiot. However, my original response was justified as I drove home thinking about the situation more. Let’s take a look at the “big-three”:

Ford, Chrysler and GM say that their compensation per employee (including pension and benefits) is, on average, $73.20 per hour for basically turning a wrench.
They mostly produce large, gas-guzzling, vehicles that are semi-reliable at best. (read, “no one f**king wants them”) Now they have to practically give away SUVs because they weren’t paying attention in the 70’s.
They’ve had the same warning signs and the same opportunities that every other car manufacturer in the world has had, but they haven’t adapted. They are now enormous, lumbering, ignorant companies looking for a quick cost affective buck and they have refused to change with the times; no one wants their products.
Chrysler has already been bailed out once and they haven’t learned.

Now let’s take a look a Toyota, who also employs thousands of people in the US:

Toyota’s average compensation for an employee (including pension and benefits) is $48.00 per hour.
They have changed with the times and are still making a profit despite the economy.
Toyota has vehicles that have a six-month waiting list to purchase them (You can get a Yaris whenever you want as long as you’re willing to travel to 3 or 4 different dealerships or take what they happen to have on the lot).

Yeah, I get it. I get the whole snowballing-economy thing. I understand that there would potentially be thousands of people out of work causing rippling economic affects. I even get the whole Nancy Pelosi thing (If I don’t steal money from Bill and Butch I’m going to lose shit loads of votes). My point is . . . how many more times will we have to bail these **** out? Will they ever get it? I bet they won’t.

So . . . I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that you and Eileen don’t make $96 per hour for a total household income of $192K. I’d also be willing to go further out on that limb and say that your jobs require more skill than the average UAW union employee. Laura and I have never really gotten into an argument, but politics is one thing that I need to tread VERY carefully around. I remember one time when I was whining about the Mass Turnpike Commission, mostly about the tolls and the fact that their employees are making 60K per year to make change. Laura’s reaction was, “Yes, but would you want to do that job?” My response was, “No . . . I wouldn’t want to clean toilets either, but I’m not going to pay someone 60K per year to do it”.

I agree that it’s none of our business what PRIVATE companies pay their employees, except when they f**k up and ask us to bail them out.

Yep . . . it’ll cause a lot of pain, but I reiterate . . . F**K ‘EM!!!!

(Other than that I have no strong feelings on the subject)

Love,

-Butch

PS – With regard to compensation, I used the lowest I could find for the big three and the highest I could find for Toyota.

-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Scribner [mailto:wscribner7@verizon.net]
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 8:34 AM
To: 'Bill Bowers'
Subject: RE: Outraged? Yup

Yes, I’m outraged. They can do what they want with their profits if they have any, but our money should go to improving the solvency of the company, not bonuses and half-million dollar junkets.

With regard to GM and Ford, let them fail. The reason they aren’t competitive in the first place is that after they get done paying someone $47 an hour to put in ten screws they have no money left to improve products and processes.

$47 an hour to turn screws? interesting...
two weeks notice ned

Haha...funny but true! I bet 95% of the employees there make $10 an hour. The average wage figures are definitely negatively-skewed with the big bosses making thousands per hour...