GM Strike : Has it affected engineers and other employees?
Curious how the strike's been affecting GM employees -- has it been negative? Positive?
Why would it be positive for the engineers who aren't in the union and still have to come into work
It's a strike...I don't think it's a positive for anyone during any strike. Certain UAW benefits bleed over to salaried workers, so I can't complain there (cheap Healthcare, lots of vacation days, the week of Christmas off, 4 day weekend for Easter, 8% 401k matching)... So let's see what the terms are and which ones GM will continue to give salaried workers.
UAW treats itself as an independent contractor. Their priorities are generally not aligned with company priorities. Their priority is to milk GM, Ford, FCA and slow down the work as much as possible so they can create an artificial demand for more money. Especially in R&D sort of environment where you need to test hundreds of different iterations this sort of behavior brings development to a complete stand still. It takes hours to get these people to replace one bolt on a car. The morale is generally low no matter what if you work in r&d side of things.
From an IT POV it's been business as usual at the Georgia Innovation Center. Not positive, not negative. Not anything because we're nearly 1000 miles from Detroit and a day's drive from the nearest plant.
Everybody with a brain is assuming this means our variable pay will be little to none in a few months.
Besides lowering our opinions further by blocking our entrance to work and causing traffic jams that are slowing down emergency response vehicles in the area? By yelling and swearing at people trying to get to work because they’re blocking the intersection on red lights? By causing the vision based robotics suppliers to double down on replacing them? No. We get in late and get home late for family engagements, but many of us work from home or just work harder to pick up the slack.