Some people just love whinging.

I work in Mining, we've had pay rises frozen for the past year indefinitely due to poor industry conditions. 500 people in the office down to <200 in the past year. And annual payrises regardless of performance? have to be kidding. Get rid of the dead weight if you can. Our national productivity is abysmal as it is, we don't need to be carrying people with no work ethic.

Regular drug tests? We get breatho'ed every day on site.

Double time? wtf is that? I get paid the same hourly rate regardless of if I work 40 hours a week or 84.

Required to take annual leave during the annual shutdown, well nobrainer. Do people expect to take their annual leave at other times and then show up during the annual shutdown and get paid to do nothing?

They get paid for breaks??? I thought it was only government workers that got paid for sitting on their asses not doing anything...

they might be forced to undergo training? f me, the company is offering to upskill them, and they are unhappy about that?

what would make the unions happy? if the government practically owned holden? if everyone got paid the same under some eba? sounds like communism to me

Unfortunately people don't quite know when they are on a good wicket until it is too late. Maybe handing back some of these privileges might just let them KEEP the jobs they have. As a country we have this belief now that we are entitled to all these benefits just because we live in Australia. Sadly the house of cards we have built over the last 50 years is going to come crashing down in a devastating fashion unless we make some compromises like this one, so that Aussie companies can remain competitive and make a profit. Anyway these are just my thoughts. I might be wrong.

Holden may be more successful if they manufactured a decent small 4 cyl car. We've been holden fans for years, but have changed to ford for this reason. We now have a ford focus in the family and couldn't be happier with it. (traded in an astra).
V8s are a niche market, and people are moving towards smaller, more economical cars.
Pay deals for holden workers might not be necessary if the company lifted it's game. Is it up to the government to bail out every unsuccessful business venture? I don't think so.

swoosh said..
And annual payrises regardless of performance? have to be kidding.

I think that this should happen, indexed to inflation at a minimum. I have missed out twice in the last few years due to company hardships. But I'm sort of towards the top of my field and don't particularly want to move positions so if I don't get indexed against inflation I'm effectively getting a decrease against the cost of living over time.

Legion said...

swoosh said..
And annual payrises regardless of performance? have to be kidding.

I think that this should happen, indexed to inflation at a minimum. I have missed out twice in the last few years due to company hardships. But I'm sort of towards the top of my field and don't particularly want to move positions so if I don't get indexed against inflation I'm effectively getting a decrease against the cost of living over time.

It sounds like you have a choice to move if you wanted to. Therefore logic suggests you are choosing to stay, and in doing so choose to accept the conditions on offer?

Jman said..

pepe47 said..

Holden may be more successful if they manufactured a decent small 4 cyl car. We've been holden fans for years, but have changed to ford for this reason. We now have a ford focus in the family and couldn't be happier with it. (traded in an astra).
V8s are a niche market, and people are moving towards smaller, more economical cars.
Pay deals for holden workers might not be necessary if the company lifted it's game. Is it up to the government to bail out every unsuccessful business venture? I don't think so.

Well what about the Cruze?? In 2012 more Cruze's were sold than the Focus and more Commodore's were sold than both the Cruze and the Focus.

That would suggest they are building cars that people want.

Yes, thats one example. However, if the sales are that good, why are holden in trouble?
It's a large market and would be difficult to remain competetive with the choices available.

Legion said..

The choice would be to move into management vs. staying in a technical role. I prefer the tech side of things but it kind of sucks when like swoosh says, most pay rises come with ladder climbs or quantifiable achievements. And seeing my role is not performance based anyway, it's hard to quantify something that deserves a raise to bean counters.

Once you are near the top of your field in a technical role, you would be making well into a six figure salary, surely most people would be content with that?

That being said, indexed to inflation is probably very fair. But, I think we are honest, a lot of Australians are fairly over paid at this stage thanks to the past few boom years, and most are probably due for a bit of a correction. But some people increase their discretionary spending to match their income and wouldn't surprise me if they are now feeling the pain....

When holden first brought out the cruze, we researched it believing it would suit our needs.
Then we read the review, it said that apart from being gutless, etc, you may want to wait until the turbo version is brought out, kind of a mid sized car with a small car engine.

The other day the American boss of Holden was being interviewed on the run at an airport. The reporter asked him something about the federal election. The boss answered something along the lines that his first priority was to meet the PM after the next election.

Ironic that a commercial company's first priority is to have a good working relationship with government rather than focusing on what the customer wants.

Ford made huge mistakes over the large decade. They had the opportunity to make a smaller car, the Focus. Instead they kept building the Falcon, a great car but not one that is very popular. I really don't know why Ford or Holden went down the LPG route to power their cars. The they could have advertised their cars are cheaper to run than the average Mazda 3.

pepe47 said..

Jman said..

pepe47 said..

Holden may be more successful if they manufactured a decent small 4 cyl car. We've been holden fans for years, but have changed to ford for this reason. We now have a ford focus in the family and couldn't be happier with it. (traded in an astra).
V8s are a niche market, and people are moving towards smaller, more economical cars.
Pay deals for holden workers might not be necessary if the company lifted it's game. Is it up to the government to bail out every unsuccessful business venture? I don't think so.

Well what about the Cruze?? In 2012 more Cruze's were sold than the Focus and more Commodore's were sold than both the Cruze and the Focus.

That would suggest they are building cars that people want.

Yes, thats one example. However, if the sales are that good, why are holden in trouble?
It's a large market and would be difficult to remain competetive with the choices available.

Well sales are not good if you compare to the % of cars built and sold here say 20 years ago.

Its all to do with the lowering of import Tariffs that were there to protect our manufacturing industries and the high Aussie dollar and our high standard of living and high wages. We should think of money that the government give to Holden as joint investment and not a hand out as it employs people that will pay tax and so on.

Anyway my Mrs is pretty happy with her Cruze

Gizmo^^^ If the factory folds the govt is sitting on land that will at a minimum drop in value by half, that doesn't sound like a good 'investment'?

Regardless of the model range Ford, Toyota and GMH sell in Australia they still have the expense of manufacturing some of that range in Australia.

I don't know what the assembly plant wage is but say it's a round $50k a year for a 38 hour week, add on super, sick leave, leave entitlements, long service liability etc etc that one employee is now probably costing around $5 or 6,000 a month. Now, build the same car in Thailand you are probably paying US$250-300 a month for an 60 or 70 hour week with no super, no paid sick leave, no long service, no workers comp, etc etc.

So for every assembly plant worker in Australia building Territories and Falcons Ford can get at least 20 workers working at least 50% more hours in Thailand building the Ranger.

It sucks for the employees for sure, but it's fairly simple economics, GMH, Ford and Toyota can probably close their plants tomorrow, shift their production overseas and carry on business without blinking, they know it and so does the government. GMH has nothing to lose by sticking their hand out for money and raping the employees along the way, and the government will keep handing out money because it's cheaper than having 50 or 60,000 people unemployed.

Chris6791 said..

Gizmo^^^ If the factory folds the govt is sitting on land that will at a minimum drop in value by half, that doesn't sound like a good 'investment'?

Who said anything about top price land value..... Value it at vacated land price. Do you know where the factory is?..... It would make another suburb not far out of Adelaide. (It's not out in the backblocks by any means)

Gizmo said..

Chris6791 said..

Gizmo^^^ If the factory folds the govt is sitting on land that will at a minimum drop in value by half, that doesn't sound like a good 'investment'?

Who said anything about top price land value..... Value it at vacated land price. Do you know where the factory is?..... It would make another suburb not far out of Adelaide. (It's not out in the backblocks by any means)

I have no idea where the factories are, but if they close they will be surrounded by hundreds of broken businesses and thousands of unemployed which will destroy the redevelopment value of the land for a long time. Again requiring hundreds of millions of dollars of government funding to establish new industry or prop up the regional economy.

It's a circular argument, the manufacturers have the government, suppliers, employees and unions over a barrel. The manufactures will keep sticking their hand out for money, the government will keep giving it knowing its a bad investment, but not as bad as the alternative. All GMH, Ford and Toyota have to do is to protect their brand as best they can because we will keep buying cars regardless where they are made.

Jeez, so for the cost of every assembly plant worker in Oz they can get maybe as many as 80 in Thailand...

evlPanda said..



Face it; Ford and Holden make dinosaurs. And that's not the fault of the workers on the production line.


As for productivity the Germans work less and produce more; efficiency = productivity <> long hours.

I get the feeling that most seabreezes have the impression that the raw materials goes into the car manufacturing plants and out pops a new car.
It takes thousands of hours of planing by engineers and toolmakers and a whole stack of other skilled and unskilled people who most are usually running there own part supply business or whatever to supply the car maker who work very hard and efficient.

Also the Germans get plenty of Government assistance to keep there car industry viable.