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Tumult efter Vilks-musikal

Media figures falsely assert or suggest autoworkers make $70/hour without noting figure includes benefits paid to current retirees

Media Matters for America

- 3 hours and 27 minutes ago

As Congress debates whether to authorize a multibillion-dollar bailout of the U.S. automotive industry, several media outlets, notably New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, nationally syndicated radio host Lars Larson, and MSNBC's Chris Matthews, have used data that combines the average cost of current wages and benefits and future benefits to falsely assert or suggest that autoworkers make $70 or more per hour. But, as analysts and some media outlets have noted, the figure includes not only future retirement benefits for current workers, but also benefits paid to current retirees. Further, the "Big Three" U.S. automobile makers negotiated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 2007 to significantly reduce the salary and benefits packages for certain new employees, a fact that Larson and Matthews did not note.

Despite the misleading nature of the $70 per hour claim, it continues to be repeated. In a November 17 New York Times column, Sorkin described General Motors employees' benefits as "off the charts": "At G.M., as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs." Contrary to Sorkin's suggestion, the "health care and pension costs" include health care and pension benefits for current retirees, and not what an "average worker was paid," according to GM. The Associated Press reported:

GM, which negotiated the four-year deal that serves as a template for UAW deals with Chrysler and Ford, says its total hourly labor costs dropped 6 percent this year from pre-contract levels, from $73.26 in 2006 to around $69 per hour. The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees, GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said.

On the November 20 edition of Hardball, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow James Gattuso stated, "I think that there's no reason that a UAW worker should get total compensation of $70 an hour when the average American only makes about $25 an hour in total compensation." Matthews responded, in part: "They negotiate for their salaries, and they're getting 70 bucks. So that's how the free market works." While speaking about the "unskilled, high-school graduate workers" in U.S. auto plants on his November 19 radio show, Larson said, "When you're paying $73.73 an hour to those people with salary and benefits and your competition is paying $48 to its workers, you're going to get your butt kicked in the marketplace unfortunately." Contrary to Gattuso's, Matthew's, and Larson's assertions, a UAW worker is not "get[ting] total compensation of $70 an hour."

In a November 18 post on his American Prospect blog criticizing Sorkin's reporting, economist Dean Baker wrote that the $70 figure Sorkin used is distorted by conflating "legacy" costs -- medical benefits and pensions paid to retirees -- with current labor costs:

The New York Times told readers that GM's autoworkers are paid $70 an hour (including health care and pension). This is not true. The base pay is about $28 an hour. If health care cost per worker average $12,000 per year, that adds in another $6 an hour. If the pension payment takes up 25 percent of base pay (an extremely high pension), that gets you another $7 an hour, bringing the total to $41 an hour. That's decent pay, but still a long way from $70 an hour.

How does the NYT get from $41 to $70? Well the trick is to add in GM's legacy costs, the pension and health care costs for retired workers. These legacy costs are a serious expense for GM, but this is not money being paid to current workers. The person on the line in 2008 is not benefiting from these legacy costs.

The UAW also notes that the auto companies frequently inflate their labor costs by combining all of the expenses attached to maintaining their workforce:

In addition to regular hourly pay, the labor cost figures cited by the companies include other expenses associated with having a person on payroll. This includes overtime, shift premiums and the costs of negotiated benefits such as holidays, vacations, health care, pensions and education and training. It also includes statutory costs, which employers are required to pay by law, such as federal contributions for Social Security and Medicare, and state payments to workers' compensation and unemployment insurance funds. The highest figures sometimes cited also include the benefit costs of retirees who are no longer on the payroll.

From Sorkin's November 17 New York Times column:

G.M. currently employs about 8,000 people who actually don't come to work. Those who do go to work are paid about $10 to $20 an hour more than people who do the same job building cars in the United States for foreign makers like Toyota. At G.M., as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs.

Those costs are already coming down slightly because of a renegotiated deal with U.A.W. last year, but not nearly enough.

From the November 19 broadcast of Westwood One's The Lars Larson Show:

LARSON: When Detroit is making cars at $73 an hour to its line workers, its unskilled, high-school graduate workers, and I'm a high school graduate as well. When you're paying $73.73 an hour to those people with salary and benefits and your competition is paying $48 to its workers, you're going to get your butt kicked in the marketplace unfortunately.

From the November 20 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Don't we need factory workers to be a healthy society?

GATTUSO: Well, first off, in the auto industry, were -- it's not a matter of losing factory workers to keyboards. It's -- to a large extent, losing factory -- UAW jobs for non-UAW jobs. Jobs in Michigan for jobs in Tennessee --

MATTHEWS: Do you think that's a good change? That's a good --

GATTUSO: -- or jobs in Michigan for jobs in Indiana.

MATTHEWS: You like having non-union labor? Is that a healthy thing?

GATTUSO: I think that there's no reason that a UAW worker should get total compensation of $70 an hour when the average American only makes about $25 an hour in total compensation.

MATTHEWS: Well, you negotiate for your salary, and they negotiate for --

GATTUSO: And there's no reason that the average American should have to pay for that UAW worker.

MATTHEWS: Sir, you negotiate for your salary at the Heritage Foundation or wherever. They negotiate for their salaries, and they're getting 70 bucks. So that's how the free market works.

GATTUSO: And if Heritage didn't have the money to pay me -- which, you know, I hope they do -- but if they didn't have the money to pay me, I wouldn't go to the government asking for more money. I would have to take a lower salary.

MATTHEWS: Touché.

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extent,factory workers,authorize,united states,legacy

Denmark: “Deep Linking” Under Fire by Newspaper Publishers

Global Voices Online

- 7 hours and 21 minutes ago

Danish newspapers Blogging journalists in Denmark are up in arms over a renewed effort by Danish newspaper publishers to stop websites like Google News from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper's homepage. They call this “deep linking”, and it is precisely what bloggers usually do. Regardless of what is considered normal practice around the world, the Danish Association of Newspaper Publishers insist they only want homepage links, so they can better control the user experience.

Specifically, the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association are frustrated that Google News in Denmark wants to list and link to articles of Danish newspapers without paying them royalties.

Danish blogger, Peter Svarre writes, “AAAARRRRGH!” upon reading arguments against Google News.

I don’t really know whether I am in a state of shock, despair or outright frustrated rage, but after reading an article in Politiken I just realized that the traditional Danish media or at least the editorial board of [newspaper] Berlingske Tidende seems to have understood nothing and learned nothing of the last five years development on the Internet. What seems to be common sense and ordinary street knowledge for media and advertising people in New York is apparently exotic, dangerous, and threatening lore to the established Danish Media industry.

There was a similar dispute in Belgium in 2006-7, when newspapers there took Google News to court and according to Finfacts threatened to fine them â‚¬1 million a day if they kept linking. In Denmark, there are also precedents. In 2002, the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association took a Danish web company, Newsbooster, to court for emailing links to news articles to their customers. Newsbooster was forced to shut down.

Blogger Ricco FÃ¸rgaard at Fiskeben.dk [Da] said in May:

Det er tydeligt, at disse sÃ¥kaldte medier ikke har forstÃ¥et en pind og ikke er kommet ud af 1994 endnu. De har ikke forstÃ¥et, at det er trafikken pÃ¥ hjemmesiden, som sÃ¦lger de (irriterende) reklamer, som efter sigende skal vÃ¦re med til at financiere nyhederne.

It's clear these so-called media haven't understood anything and haven't moved beyond 1994 yet. They haven't understood that it's the traffic on their website that will sell those (annoying) commercials, that will supposedly be financing the news.

On Medieblogger, Lars K Jensen quotes [Da] from a recent email discussion on the mailing list of the Danish Online News Association (DONA), where the chief legal adviser from the Danish Union of Journalists, Anne Louise Schelin, responded to a question about the official rules for citation and linking.

Schelin advised, that one should never link to anything but a website's homepage, even in an email to colleagues about a specific article. The only redeeming factor would be whether a link could be considered “loyal,” she said, referring to a Danish court case between two real estate websites from 2006.

Others on the mailing list vehemently disagreed, calling it “nonsense from the fax generation”. Blog editor of Politiken newspaper, Kim Elmose published his response in his personal blog Mediehack, calling the resistance to deep linking counter productive, and pointed to the irony that most Danish journalists use Google News as a tool themselves.

Lars K Jensen asks in Medieblogger:

Tilbage sidder jeg med spÃ¸rgsmÃ¥let: Hvad er et illoyalt link? Hvem definerer, hvornÃ¥r et link er loyalt eller illoyalt?

Et link er vel et link?

And now I am left with the question. What is an un-loyal link? Who defines when a link is loyal or not?

Isn't a link just a link?

* Photo above of Danish newspapers is by Jacob BÃ¸tter on Flickr.

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email,dk,blog,royalties,quotes

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