Canadian Ford workers ratify historic new agreement

[Margaret's boy]

Will new vehicles become even more unaffordable with collective agreements like this? What good is an "historic" contract if the economy does a nosedive and companies are forced to make painful cuts and lay off employees? Tentative deal with Ford includes new investment, huge wage increases | Windsor Star

[Richard]

They do not think that far ahead,they just look at it as the companies making profit so it can afford to pay,not that those profits are used to fund future research and product development so they can continue employment.

So then the union shops go bankrupt and nobody has a job and as country we are all that much weaker.

What is the income disparity between the average union worker and the union bosses? No problems there .

Toyota and Tesla are looking at vehicles where the entire vehicle is assembled with 3 stamped body modules connected together by robots,which is what they have been doing with shipbuilding where it used take 10,000 to build a ship now can be done with 1000.

The auto manufacturers of today are the buggy manufacturers of yesteryear and are going down that same trail,but the west has already been won,so the only place left is in that big factory in the sky.

[Wesley Mouch]

I think Union overlords have it right. It's a far better bet to fight to keep your dues income in the short term than worry about long-term health of US Manufacturing.

Was struck by comment recently about just how much easier it is to build an electric car. It's far less complex. This will likely be the end of the UAW, as you just don't need as skilled a workforce.

[Richard]

Teslas setting the bar on that,it’s all components and they are now getting it down to 3 stamped components to complete the entire body assembly,you do not change a dented fender,you change the complete front component assembly.

The downside of that,get rear ended and the car is totaled,throw it away and buy another or spend $25,000 to fix a rear end collision.

They have it down to 50 components to build a car,verses 2000 to build an ICE,the auto manufacturers of today are the buggy manufacturers of the past.

When you think about all the jobs provided by making all of those 2000 parts that will no longer exist,the parts stores even down to the people that transported those parts.

It’s an entire industry that will cease to exist.

Even the billions spent today that will be obsolete within a few years,the auto manufacturers used to feed technology out slowly in order to recoup investment,everything our lives that revolves around technology is like an IPhone,it will be obsolete within a couple of years.

Thats the irony in it all,people supporting their own obsolescence.

[GPCharles]

In 1960, cultural critic Vance Packard published The Waste Makers, promoted as an exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals". Packard divided planned obsolescence into two sub categories: obsolescence of desirability and obsolescence of function.

[Richard]

^ cool find

I think it is worse with us older generations because we experienced products that were built to last where as the younger generation the concept of a throwaway society is normal.

Watched a program a few years back on vacuum cleaners,they size the brushes in the electric motor for X amount of uses before they wear out and they do not sell replacements,throw away and buy another.

While I have a 1950s vacuum that still works.

Even with houses the old ones were built to last generations,new ones have a anticipated 50 year life span.

All of this stuff going on and money being spent centered around saving the planet,and they do not even address the one thing that would benefit it the most,stop being a disposable society.

[Gistok]

^^ Absolutely agree Richard... I needed a new refrigerator... so I got an older refurbished model from a store specializing in older items. I paid $280 for that fridge.

Meanwhile my sister paid $1500 for a sleek new stainless steel fridge 12 years ago [with water and ice dispenser]... and last year had to already replace it with another newer model.

My older fridge still works fantastically 15 years after I purchased it... and it will likely last another 10 years, at least! The money I save on NOT having a water or ice dispenser... is well worth it.

[Richard]

I have a 95 Sub Zero fridge that I got for free off of market place 5 years ago,it needed a $15 defrost timer,I changed the door panels and you cannot tell the difference from a $6000 2023 model.

But my claw foot rub is 100 yo,wall mounted toilet that is 70 YO,and matching vintage pedestal sink,all free that somebody set out at the curb for scrap,and in clean condition.

I can shower or bathe,use the toilet,and brush my teeth no different then I could with a $40,000 bathroom that people have to remodel every 5 years.

When I really noticed a difference was in the 1990s I used to run 80s rust free Hondas from Florida to Minneapolis and get double of what I could get for them in Florida.

Sitting at a traffic light in Florida at that time 90% of the cars would be new,with lots of luxury cars in the mix,get to Minneapolis and sit at a traffic light and people were driving 15 YO cars with rust.

5 years later that was not the case.

GPCharles post rings true,the marketing has got people to the point where they constantly stay broke in order to have all of the nice things they do not really need.

Bit then the argument comes up and people say they do not make enough money and are always broke,so then it is the evil company’s fault because they do not pay enough.

But yet they are driving new cars,living in a 2500sqft house and only if it has granite counter tops and all stainless appliances that are top of the line,while having all the tech toys.

They say now the average new truck payment is $1000 a month,but that is what people do,they spend their paycheck before they get it and they purchase down to the last cent of their expected paycheck.

I used to have a buy here pay here car lot,it did not matter how much I sold the car for or if it was even worth it,the only thing people looked at was how much down and how much a month.

They have a saying - Poor people cannot afford to buy junk - it’s true they spend more money buying it over and over then if they would have just saved up and bought quality.

But it is all junk now.

I dated a woman in Holland ,they got paid every 90 days,so they were extremely budget oriented,people in this country would not last the first 30 days like that.

Whats really funny is my truck is for business and employees drive it,my personal car is a 1997 Jaguar XJ6,built by Ford with a GM transmission,I paid $800 for it going on 8 years now and have not spent a dime outside of consumables.

But my $75,000 truck has been in the shop more times then I can count.

Its the problem with appliances and Vehicles,they are cramming so much technology in them so fast,they cannot even fix them.

LG & Samsung are the worst refrigerators in existence,they base it on if they sell 5000 and 1000 go bad they have not lost because they cost them so little build but people think they look pretty that they pay the crazy price for them.

I probably said it before,my employees tell me all the time I do not pay them enough,but yet I look in the parking lot and they are all driving brand new BMW,Lexus and Mercedes while wearing designer clothes and IPhones that are 5 years ahead of mine.

It does not matter what I pay them ,it will never be enough.

A majority of those appliances that people return to the box stores,it does not matter if they are scratch or dent or something did not work,they go straight into the dumpster,they do not go back to the factory for warranty.