Are UAW members really paid $73 an hour?
No. Wages for UAW members at Chrysler, Ford and GM range from about $14 an hour for newly hired workers to $28 an hour for assemblers to $33 for skilled trades workers. Typical hourly wages at Honda, Nissan and Toyota are only slightly lower. Due to the effect of profit-sharing formulas, however, there have been some recent years in which a typical Toyota worker has taken home a larger annual paycheck than a typical GM worker. The $73 an hour figure is outdated and inaccurate. It includes not only the costs of health care, pensions, and other compensation for current workers, but also the costs of the pensions and health care benefits of retired employees spread out over the active workers. Active workers never receive any of this compensation in any form, so it is not accurate to describe it as part of their “earnings.” In addition, overall labor costs at Ford, GM and Chrysler were dramatically lowered by mid-contract changes in 2005 and the 2007 UAW labor agreement. As a result of ma
