I also wonder about that $73 figure. It must include healthcare, which means it was double counted in the OP.
My dad is a retired GM employee (33 years), and I can tell you that his base pay was about $28/hr at the end. Granted, the cost of benefits were so high that they were scared to hire too many people, so he got tons of overtime.
In fact, he averaged over 60 hours a week (and often up to 85) the last 7 years he was there (1998-2005), so his annual pay looked pretty darn good with all that time-and-a-half. He accepted a buyout to retire, even though he wasn't really ready to, and as he was leaving they already had most of the plant converted to $14/hr non-union positions.
The days of the platinum health-care for retirees are pretty much over as well. My mom just spent a week at home sick because she didn't want to spend $175 to go to the doctor. When I was growing up we could go to the doctor/hospital for free on Dad's insurance, so this was a bit of a shock to me. Sadly it seems like my $55/mo high deductible plan beats their insurance in a lot of ways.
I'm not saying all this to try and earn sympathy for my parents or blame GM. I just want to point out that it's not all roses for the 'greedy union workers and retirees' either. There has been a lot of absurd crap over the years (like the job banks that paid people to sit in a room all day), but the absurdity goes both ways. My dad has stories about them building cars that had no buyers, just to honor supplier agreements, and then storing said cars in fields until they were scrapped.
My dad is a retired GM employee (33 years), and I can tell you that his base pay was about $28/hr at the end. Granted, the cost of benefits were so high that they were scared to hire too many people, so he got tons of overtime.
In fact, he averaged over 60 hours a week (and often up to 85) the last 7 years he was there (1998-2005), so his annual pay looked pretty darn good with all that time-and-a-half. He accepted a buyout to retire, even though he wasn't really ready to, and as he was leaving they already had most of the plant converted to $14/hr non-union positions.
The days of the platinum health-care for retirees are pretty much over as well. My mom just spent a week at home sick because she didn't want to spend $175 to go to the doctor. When I was growing up we could go to the doctor/hospital for free on Dad's insurance, so this was a bit of a shock to me. Sadly it seems like my $55/mo high deductible plan beats their insurance in a lot of ways.
I'm not saying all this to try and earn sympathy for my parents or blame GM. I just want to point out that it's not all roses for the 'greedy union workers and retirees' either. There has been a lot of absurd crap over the years (like the job banks that paid people to sit in a room all day), but the absurdity goes both ways. My dad has stories about them building cars that had no buyers, just to honor supplier agreements, and then storing said cars in fields until they were scrapped.