>>>>Let's clear up a common misconception. American automakers do not have labor costs anywhere near double that of their competitors. It's about $12 an hour more, and most of that due to pension payments to retired workers. Significant, yes, but nothing close to double.
>>>
>>>Last I saw it was around $78/hr US vs $45/hr foreign. I'll admit those may be off as I haven't looked into them lately.
>>>

>>Your numbers are indeed way off. Not even close.
>>
>>Don't blame Detroit's demise on our elected leaders. The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves....
>
>Jakes numbers appear pretty close to the Center for Automotive Research
>
><snip>
>...
>When including benefits, the average Detroit auto worker makes approximately $73 an hour, while non-Detroit producers pay around $44. With Honda and Toyota paying 40% less for labor, it is no wonder they can remain viable even during economic downturns.
>...
>see link
>http://seekingalpha.com/article/109473-will-detroit-s-loss-be-japan-s-gain

I'm pretty sure that $73 includes the cost for the pensions they're paying to older workers. Here we go;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/24/opinion/main4630103.shtml

Source here is also the Center for Automotive Research and here are some key passages:
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Let's start with the fact that it's not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007.

But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.

Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people.
--------------------

IOW, the cost to the company is about $70/hour for each active worker, but that's because those workers are getting that in wages and benefits.

Tamar