[TheForge] OT: several questions and thoughts

[Marc Godbout]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 15:19 -0500, Demon Buddha wrote:
> 
> Marc Godbout wrote:
> >>
> > I'm guessing that the $60/hr is a "loaded" rate.

> A $27/hr wage isn't going to have an actual cost of $60/hr.  I was just 
> tossing numbers out.  It will be closer to $45, which is still 
> idiotically high for someone who drives screws all day long.
> 
Where I worked several years ago, an electronics company, the hourly pay
for assemblers was $12 - $15 per hour and the loaded rate used by the
bean counters was $65 / hour. Where I work now, still electronics, they
pay $15 - $20 and the beans are counted at $75. I wouldn't expect the
auto industry to be hugely different. And those aren't tossed-out
numbers - that's what I see on the budget planning sheets, when they let
me look at them.


> 	Nobody will readily convince me that someone turning screws all day in 
> an unskilled position is worth that much money.  if the position 
> involves serious craft, then I may feel very differently about it. 

Totally in agreement. The folks earning in the $20/hour range are our
expert solderers. I certainly couldn't do their job.

> 	Ah, but here you raise a different point.  One pays what the market 
> will bear.  If nobody will clean sewage for $5/hr, you will have to 
> offer more.  That's the FREE in freemarket.  But if there is a union 
> that prevents people on the street who are willing to do that work for 
> that money from taking the position, that is obstruction of free trade 
> and anyone engaging in it should get his ass beat real fine.  I will bow 
> to the will of the market in such cases, but I'll do anything to defeat 
> a scumbag union from messing with my business.  Nobody has a right to 
> work at a given company, and nobody has a right to extort wages.  In any 
> other circumstance, people would be going to prison for doing the same.
> > 
> > If the auto manufacturers were allowed to pay $10/hr, I'd bet we'd still
> > find people to put our precious cars together just as well.
> 
> 	Precisely so!  But looking at it from the line worker's point of view, 
> why would he do that if he can join a mob and force the company to pay 
> more?  I'd kick the lot of them out, move to Mexico, and tell them to 
> pound salt.  OK... now I need a beer, dammit.

Absolutely. I'll take whatever I can get. The unions were a good idea in
the beginning as I believe they correct a lot of wrongs. But the same
power that righted wrongs went all the way past the righting of wrongs.
Power corrupts. The greed of the bosses has been matched by the greed of
power. Nothing new here.

-- 
Marc Godbout
http://www.ironringforge.com

New England Blacksmiths Membership Director
http://www.newenglandblacksmiths.org