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Originally posted by: ifcar
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I think he was referring to salary. "

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Oh. I thought that was kindof a dumb question, in the context I took it.

According to Ron Khol, the editorialist at Machine Design (a design engineers publication) the average UAW line worker makes $26 an hour. If they work a 40 hour work week, that's $1040 a week, or $54,080 a year. That seems too high to me, to a job that requires no formal eduation, when most college-educated engineers with bachelors degrees start off in the low 40s.

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Originally posted by: Kevin
"Jeez, that is something VERY stupid to complain about.  I do think it kind of nice to have jobs that pay decent and you don't need much education, my dad is an engineer for BNSF (railroad) which is like that.  But when they want higher wages that's just stupid."

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My point is it simply isn't fair for a worker with no college education or formal training to make more than a college educated engineer just because of a Union. And it only makes sense that the companies would have some financial strain because of that, when you're paying a staff of line workers the same as you'd pay a whole company of engineers, it's kindof expensive. I'm not against decent paying jobs, but I'd think that $15-$20 an hour for your basic line work is plenty. At the nicer local manufacturing plants, they make mid to upper 30 some thousand a year, which is good, (they also have amazing benefits, and they're given all of this because they agree not to have a union) the less nice plants make in the low to mid 20s, (some specialist positions with vocational training make upper 20s to low 30s) and that's with a union. The UAW just seems greedy to me.