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I'm glad to see these workers getting what they want but don't we all know the cost of whatever they get will just be passed on to the consumer and further balloon the price of cars? If car prices get much higher you'll have to be a factory worker making 100k just to buy one.
So executive bonuses and salaries can keep skyrocketing with no consequence, but workers getting what they need is what you complain about?
No. I'm complaining that what they are getting is just a bandaid to the problem. These workers getting paid more won't stop executive bonuses and salaries from skyrocketing and the money to fund those bonuses will just be pulled from our pockets. Until some regulation is in place to fix the underlying issue, employers and employees will just keep trading blows and running up the cost. Everyone is acting like these car companies are suddenly going to stop doing what they've been doing for decades.
Oh yeah because cars are selling close to cost and not at hyper inflated prices.
Come on, the current insane prices aren’t because it costs so much to pay workers that make them, it’s because people are willing to pay it. If people stopped paying insane prices for cars and they were rotting on lots, prices would go down- but people get their 6 year finance on their 85k 2024 whatever.
And very little of the recent explosion in car prices is from the manufacturers. It's the dealerships.
Just a few years ago NOBODY paid sticker price. That's still true, but now it's because the dealerships are charging 20-50 percent ABOVE stocker price
I agree. Nothing they're striking for will fix this though.
I'm not disagreeing with you but it seems naive to think that these companies would do anything but pass the cost along and keep paying execs way too much. Are we really under the assumption that car manufacturers are going to accept making less money?
Of course not- but they wont have a choice if people stop ponying up. As long as people keep enabling the high prices, they’ll keep charging them. The market will only support so much of this before someone comes with with a a more reasonable price and starts taking all the sales. Then it’ll be a race to the bottom again.
The workers shouldn't be the ones to suffer so that we have cheaper cars. The greed of the ownership class has to be contained.
Agreed but this strike isn't going to do that.
Why not?
The big automakers are already pricing themselves out of most consumers reach.
Hell at this point you’re not even buying a car, you’re buying a 7-10 year loan and getting a car as part of it. The car itself exists only as a means to sell the loan (and long-term service).
You never own the car any more, it runs closed source offline software that farms you for data. It is a rented tool for the neo digital feudal serf class. Ownership is only a right for citizens. Proprietary means ownership through a loss of agency. Once ownership rights are lost slavery follows. This is the true legacy of our time that people will talk about for hundreds of years.
You are EXACTLY right! Which is also why prices have NOT gone up at ALL in the past few years until literally just now!
Not sure where this is going.
This neocon "pass on the cost" lie is so pervasive it sounds convincing until you think about it for two seconds. If that were true, then I would just "pass on the cost" of my labor and charge my employer more for my wages. But that's not how the economy works. The shareholders and executives will just make a little less.
It's a little more nuanced than that. Prices are always set to "what the market will bear." By complaining about the additional labor costs (or patting themselves on the back for their benevolence), they may be able to shift market attitudes to increase the price, thus 'passing it on."
also all the anti-trust violations and monopolies help with the price gouging. We don't have real regulation for crony capitalism in the USA.
Hell, the GOP seems to think there's no such thing anymore, and that capitalism is a magical machine that needs no regulation at all.
That's not how it works because the majority of us don't get to adjust the rate of our labor on the fly. Passing the cost to consumers literally happens all the time and it's not a secret.
Don't be a crab.
The definition of a bootlicker
Not bootlicking. Just being realistic about the capitalist tendencies of any large company beholden to shareholders.
Who is upvoting this brain dead take?
Cars are sold for as much as they possibly can get consumers to pay. If they managed to lower the cost of production, price would also remain exactly the same because... They are charging as much as they possibly can.
Everything between the cost of making the car and that price is profit to shareholders.
So you actually think this strike is going to fundamentally change how they do business? With no additional regulation they will just decide to make less money and make no attempt to do exactly what they've been doing all these years which is to increase profits at all costs.
Sounds like as good a time as ever to start ditching cars and moving to/building communities that allow us to affordably exist without owning one.
!fuck cars@lemmy.ml
And fewer people will be able to afford their products.
I don't think most people buy a car they can actually afford anyways. They take loans with ridiculously long notes and as long as the payment from month to month sounds good they'll sign.