That would explain Land Rover and Jaguar's reliablity.

 

He is making a generalization to prove his point, and did so. He used the work often not the word always

 

I trying to make a generalization too, that paying more doesn't mean you get more.

 

That's exactly why I chose to use the words "best quality" not just lowest price.

 

Right, but it gets to a point where we are just playing semantics. I do agree it doesnt always, but usually you get what you pay for.

 

Best quality can be had at any price. Like I said, it's a gamble.

 

Which leads to my second question. Why pay several grand more for a UAW sticker when the quality is a crap shoot? Not so much in the case of the UAW, the cars with the highest initial quality don't come from UAW factories.

For example in the last few years I have bought 3 new F-150s, my mom has bought a new Zephyr and my sister has bought a Mustang. Two of the F-150s have had build issues. One of the F-150s had improperly adjusted cables on the sunroof the other had several trim pieces that were not properly installed. The Mustang left the factory with a broken valve cover. The Zephyr did not have a single build issue. So in the case of just my family 3/4ths of the vehicles make at a UAW factory have had build quality issues. The one that was make outside the UAW not a single flaw. I am only referring to issues that directly came from the person who put the screws into the parts, not the design.

So I ask again: If the quality is a gamble anyway why should a company pay several thousands of dollars per unit to assemble a vehicle? If nothing else the money saved could go to pay the warranty claims.

 

Everything in life is a gamble. Everything in life has its difficulties. So? What are we going to do? Quit? No. We keep living. Buying a car, a hamburger, a bottle of shampoo, it's all a gamble. You never know.

The UAW is doing great things for it's members. The fact that GM can't balance a budget isn't the union's fault, it's the company's fault.

It's all about pushing off the blame in this country, why not chop off the little man.

 

Precisely. GM knew the contracts it had with the UAW.

 

But why should I pay more for the same thing?

I disagree. They are doing good for the short term but long term they are pushing jobs overseas. The contracts won't allow them to move to non-union states. Their competitors do not have the same labor costs so they can build the exact same product for several thousand dollars less. Several thousand dollars multiplied across millions of cars equals a serious amount of money. By your own words the company gains nothing from this expenditure, it's all a gamble.

Exactly, the union wants to blame the CEO and yet they won't accept the fact that their salaries are out of line. They then go a step further and demand more money or else they will stop working. That sounds a lot like extortion to me.

 

The only thing the UAW is doing for its members that matters is encouraging them to do a half *** job...when (not if, when) they screw something up, the assembly worker doesn't have to answer to the man directly, they got big momma union in their corner to speak for them.

They take personal accountability out of the picture, so the workers can cruise along and not worry about their asses going into the fire when something goes wrong. They can't fire a screw up half *** on the line for not doing his/her job properly, the union won't allow that - after all, that's what the union is there to do, right, protect its members?

The company suffers and the customers who buy that junk suffer. But the UAW is doing great things for their members.

 

If you actually believe the UAW encourages mistakes, you need to see a Dr.

 

Not so much that they encourage mistakes, more that they remove personal responsibility from workers on the line. The manufacturer can't go after Joe Smith for a misbuilt vehicle or ten on a particular step of the assembly process, they gotta go after the union.

 

Had a friend about 6 years ago here in Houston who worked for UPS part time. After we got off work he would go work there, sometime we would go out drinking after work. I would inquire about him needing to call in to UPS and make up an excuse. His reply was "F it, I pay union dues, they cant touch me". He was a decent friend but terrible employee, im sure UPS would have let him go if they coulda. Forget about the guy who is out of work and would kill to bust his *** 8 hours for 12 bucks an hour... Sounds to me like the union is alot like workplace communisim

 

If unions don't encourage mistakes, they certainly do a great job protecting them. What does it take to get fired from a union job? Practically an act of Congress. In the competitive market, the threat of losing a job encourages workers to perform at acceptable levels. Not so with the union because it's the union who has to decide whether or not to let the employee go. How does that promote growth in a company? Can we set the standards bar any lower?