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Three months ago, Canadian unionized workers were negotiating a new deal with Ford, GM and Chrysler for their Canadian plants.
From news reports at the time (September 2012):
"All three automakers - with Chrysler the most publicly outspoken - have argued adamantly that Canadian labor costs are the highest in the world and must drop to match those of the UAW in the United States, or future production and investment in Canada will be jeopardized."
They were not bluffing. 😞
If they aren't competitive
There has been a lot of union busting strategies in the US and Canada. To me this is just another. The US economy is in bad shape, Canada’s is not. So does this mean that ‘competitive’ is defined as …….Canadian workers have to lower their wages to suit other countries because the other countries messed up? Do the CEOs and upper management lower their incomes? If all cars were suddenly made in Mexico, would Canadian workers have to lower their wages to Mexican standards? (Free trade has become a curse)
On one side of the coin you have Canadian workers standing up for themselves and what they feel they deserve to be paid. On the other side of the coin you have a country with huge unemployment and people willing to work for less, so the big corporations take advantage of this. Where’s the judgement call come from……money or morals? Yeah I know, always money. The rich get richer and the others get thrown the occasional bone.
...and FACTS have to be taken in the correct context.
The workers at GM-Canada are not to blame nor are the workers at GM-USA.
When GM (or any other large multinational manufacturer) compares labour costs between two countries (Canada and the USA), they do NOT compare how much each worker is paid per hour. That is only one aspect of their labor costs. The worker may be making $30 an hour while the cost per production/hour to the employer may be $70.
Many calculations are needed to compare both.
An employee typically gets paid 52 weeks x 40 hours a week x hourly rate.
The employer receives production for 48 weeks (4 weeks vacations) x 35 hours a week (paid breaks) minus paid sick days minus paid statutory holidays minus paid personal days x hourly rate. To that rate, the employer needs to add payroll costs (Employment Insurance, CPP, pension plan, medical benefits, other benefits, etc).
So, when comparing labour costs, employers do not compare hourly wages paid to workers but their own costs for every hour of production per worker. Two totally different things.
I know 1 person is going to say that he will not cut employees or hours that he will take less food on his plate as long as others can eat-BUT in reality no matter what the business or the owner it comes down to the bottom line!
You know a person? Good for you. I know one too who feels the same way….me. So that makes two. You’re darn lucky knowing two people who actually think more of others than …….money. Two people who are happy with what they have and would be still happy if it comes to less, but don’t want others to lose out because of them. What a wonderful Christmas spirit…..right Ebenezer? Some people just live Christmas for one day, when it should be 365. But there are also some people, who never live it.
“I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
― Charles Dickens
