Neff Zone Column -- January 17, 2009

Back up your data, pictures and music for as little as $3.75 per month. Never lose another file. More information about Carbonite from Jim Neff.

Print Edition: January 17, 2009

THE BCS AND THE UAW

Today I’m going to wade in on two issues that have been the subjects of letters to the editor in the Cadillac News.

First of all, let me offer some final observations on something critical to the nation’s well-being, the BCS. I’m not going to debate whether or not a Division I football playoff is preferable to the current college bowl system because apparently our genius legislators in Washington will be tackling that problem soon due to the fact that there are no more pressing tasks for our Congress or Senate. Let me just offer three points.

Point 1: There is no "s" in the current BCS, which is short for Bowl Championship Series. The word "series" would indicate that there are multiple games involved on the route to a championship (as in baseball’s 7-game World Series). This is simply not the case because the championship is just one game between two teams ranked highest in selected polls. There is no "series" leading to a national championship.

Point 2: The two top teams do not play in the BCS final game. Under a scenario for any series, tournament, or culminating championship in any sport involving the two "best" teams, those teams are actually playing for who finishes first and who finishes second. (In tournament play the third and fourth teams would play to determine who finishes third and fourth, and so on.) In the BCS just concluded (won by Florida) after the game was over the loser (Oklahoma) was ranked fifth (and Utah was ranked number two). So, which was it? Was Oklahoma actually the second best team in the country, in which case they should have finished number two in the final rankings, or were they the fifth best team in the country, in which case they should not have been in the championship game in the first place?

Point 3: The BCS can’t be a championship for all Division I football schools/teams because only a select few are deemed worthy of consideration. In reality, no matter how many games they win, how many points they score, how many ranked opponents the defeat, no teams from the Mid-American, Mountain West, Big Sky, or indeed 7 of the 11 technically BCS conferences has any real chance of being selected for the national championship game.

As an example, consider Western Michigan University next fall. If they win all their games, beat both Michigan and Michigan State, and run up all sorts of impressive statistics, they will never (NEVER) be considered for the top BCS game. Why? They play in the Mid-American Conference. This is the reality for teams, players, coaches, and fans of the vast majority of "technically" BCS schools. In what other sport do you start on day one with the knowledge that whatever you do and however hard you work there is not even a remote possibility that you can be a champion? This is exactly opposite of what occurs in the other three college football divisions and in every other NCAA sport.

Now that I’ve said my piece about the BCS, let’s turn to the myth of the $70 per hour United Auto Worker wage. Simply put by Media Matters for America: "Any suggestion in the press that most UAW workers are paid $70 an hours is spectacularly dishonest. Period."

Where do people get this figure? Felix Salmon at Portfolio says: "The average GM assembly-line worker makes about $28 per hour in wages, and I can assure you that GM is not paying $42 an hour in health insurance and pension plan contributions. Rather, the $70 per hour figure is a ridiculous number obtained by adding up GM's total labor, health, and pension costs, and then dividing by the total number of hours worked. In other words, it includes all the healthcare and retirement costs of retired workers."

The Associated Press observed: "A chunk of GM's $70-an-hour labor costs goes toward paying current retirees' pensions and health-care coverage. In other words, that's money that's not going to end up in the pocket of any autoworker when he cashes his paycheck this week. That money has absolutely nothing to do with calculating the hourly wage of a full-time UAW employee today. None."

These opinions are backed up by Mark Phelan who covers the automotive industry for the Detroit Free Press: "The oft-cited $70-an-hour wage and benefit figure for UAW workers inaccurately adds benefits that millions of retirees get to the pay of current workers, but divides the total only by current employees. That's like assuming you get your parents' retirement and Social Security benefits in addition to your own income. Hourly pay for assembly line workers tops out around $28; benefits add about $14. New hires at the Detroit Three get $14 an hour. There's no pension or health care when they retire, but benefits raise their total hourly compensation to $29 while they're working. UAW wages are now comparable with Toyota workers, according to a Free Press analysis."

Now, you might counter that the so-called "legacy costs" for the Big Three are higher than foreign-owned plants in the U.S., but consider this. Those plants didn’t start up in this country until the 1980s. As of 2007, Toyota’s total U.S. operation had less than 1,000 retirees. Comparing retiree benefits is an apples and oranges thing.

Even some simple math reveals the absurdity of the $70 per hour claim. At 40 hours a week that would mean a UAW worker would gross $150,000 per year. Look, my grandmother, father, brother, three uncles, an aunt, my father-in-law and half of my graduating class worked in Flint auto plants and I can absolutely guarantee you that none of them ever made anything remotely approaching that. Either that figure is untrue or they were all cheated.

Oh yeah, and as far as getting bang for their labor buck, according to the Harbour Report on manufacturing which measures the amount of work done per employee, eight out of the ten most productive vehicle assembly plants in North America belong to Chrysler, Ford, or GM.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com. Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews.