5000 GM Workers Get $31 An Hour + Full Benefits - To Do Almost Nothing

[Perian]

Link: http://www.forbes.com/home/free_forb.../1017/110.html

Scott Taylor spent this summer fixing up neighborhood parks in Edgemere, Md., a pleasant suburb in Baltimore County that juts into Chesapeake Bay. He trucked sand into the waterfront Lynch Point Park to rebuild the beach, power-washed the play set, fixed the fences and helped a Boy Scout troop paint a flagpole.

For this and other community service work Taylor earned $31 an hour along with fully paid health insurance and credit toward raises and his pension. Who's paying him? General Motors, the carmaker that has lost $1.3 billion so far this year.

Taylor, 49, is an autoworker, but GM no longer has a job for him. The Baltimore factory where he worked for the past 21 years closed in May. Instead of sending Taylor packing with a nice severance package, GM put him in what's known as the "jobs bank."

Under a contract it first negotiated with the United Auto Workers in 1984, GM is obliged to pay workers who lose their jobs full wages and benefits, even though they are not building vehicles.

Across the U.S. some 5,000 GM workers like Taylor are in the jobs bank. Many are doing what Taylor is doing, volunteering at parks departments, fire departments, churches, schools and GM dealerships.

Others are going to community colleges, with tuition aid from the UAW and GM. Still others go to a room in an industrial park or shopping mall near their closed factory, in Baltimore; Linden, N.J.; Lansing, Mich. and elsewhere, and pass the time playing cards, watching movies and doing occasional paperwork. Some transfer to other GM factories when jobs open up. Others stay in the jobs bank until retirement.

Article continues at quote.

[Perian]

Double post - Sorry

[mrfunji]

I agree Perian. I guess all there is to say is kudos to the people who are helping out the community - they could be doing nothing.

[Cortazzo]

they are very lucky people, and i doubt that the jobs bank will continue after this current contract expires, it makes no business sense at all. It is doubly painful during a period of share loss like GM is experiencing.

[Ming]

I wonder if the shiny-happy employees of Toyota plants are set up with the same program?

[tgagneguam]

Originally Posted by Perian

How can you comment on a story like this?

What is there to say.

Do you blame the union? Do you blame GM?

The best I can say here is nothing.

Life goes on.

Perian, I know that you know that UAW members need the union to protect their jobs and way of life.

I don't see this as wasteful at all (ahem).

[espo19047]

Is the job bank hiring?

[JVal14]

What company signs an agreement like that? This is exhibit A as to why GM is getting eaten alive by other car companies. They could sell half a billion cars next year, but the company will still go bankrupt if they continue to agree to things like corporate wellfare. It's gettign to the point where I'm giving credit to the unions for suckering Harvard MBAs into signing their lives away like this.

[x2222]

All you can say is that somone at GM actaully agreed to this in 1984, apparently it was fair then and they gotta stick to it. It sucks that ununionized toyota and nissan employees as well as imports have undercut these benifits since then but what can you do? Gm won't make any more deals liek this in the future.

[dealerman]

Stories such as this make me sick to my stomach. GM agreed to these terms in good faith, and thus are legally bound to them. However, I feel these 5000 or so people would rather see GM go bankrupt than allow them to get out of the deal. It is the whole "my job security is worth more than the other 100,000 workers" syndrome.

[Perian]

Originally Posted by tgagneguam

Perian, I know that you know that UAW members need the union to protect their jobs and way of life.

I don't see this as wasteful at all (ahem).

I agree that the UAW is necessary.

Its just that I find their "Screw the future and get everything we can right now" attitude offensive.

Don't union people have children?

Where are they going to work?

[01cavalier]

Id hope that they end the job bank in the new contract, but honestly, I really doubt it. This is just one of the ways the UAW causes big headaches for GM. If they do continue this, they should be putting them back to work whenever they really can, requiring them to either transfer if needed or end these benefits.

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by Perian

I agree that the UAW is necessary.

Its just that I find their "Screw the future and get everything we can right now" attitude offensive.

Don't union people have children?

Where are they going to work?

If the company were to implode, I can think of far more pertinent questions in regard to the future of 'UAW' kids (no offense)...

[saturnsteve]

THIS is why GM is in trouble! I say screw 'em

[Perian]

Originally Posted by Phillip

If the company were to implode, I can think of far more pertinent questions in regard to the future of 'UAW' kids (no offense)...

No offense taken - it's not an easy situation for either side.

I'm sure GM wishes it had jobs for these people.

I'm sure the UAW does also.

Let's face it, as these job-bank workers retire - the UAW has one less member.