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A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

nytimes.com

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Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#101

Post by L_Rahman »

owenversteeg wrote: post #89
sethbannon wrote: post #16

The vivid color contrasts in these photos make them visually stunning, but do they serve any functional purpose?

The photos are absolutely gorgeous, and it looks like whoever's taking them has some seriously expensive glass. I'm guessing that someone in charge wanted the photos to "pop" and the contrast got boosted just slightly too much. In my opinion it doesn't ruin the photos, and it's only really visible in a handful of them.

The photographer is Christopher Payne who does a lot of work that looks at humans making things. The colors and how they're treated in these photos is a product of his specific aesthetic:

http://lenscratch.com/2016/08/christopher-payne-making-stein...

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#102

Post by kesselvon »

valuearb wrote: post #68
erentz wrote: post #31

This was the most striking part to me: "According to The Seattle Times, the starting rate at the Airbus plant, about $16.50 per hour, is comparable to the starting wages at Boeing’s passenger-plane plant in Renton, Wash. But the Airbus pay scale tops out at $23 an hour, while experienced Boeing workers can earn $45." We now have so much surplus labor that even this relatively skilled job only pays $16.50 an hour.

The person who makes $16.50 an hour probably costs near $25 an hour. Cash payroll doesn't include employee benefits, including medical, dental, other insurance, paid time off, bonuses, and company share of payroll taxes. It's not unreasonable to estimate the entry level jobs pay about $26,000 a year in cash, and another $10,000 a year in benefits, for a total of around $36,000 a year. In Alabama. You can't have a dis…

The COL and tax difference isn't 2x. Alabama doesn't have unions, so they can't bargain collectively. That's the whole reason manufacturing has been moving south

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#103

Post by dragonwriter »

kesselvon wrote: post #102
valuearb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who makes $16.50 an hour probably costs near $25 an hour. Cash payroll doesn't include employee benefits, including medical, dental, other insurance, paid time off, bonuses, and company share of payroll taxes. It's not unreasonable to estimate the entry level jobs pay about $26,000 a year in cash, and another $10,000 a year in benefits, for a total of around $36,000 a year. In Alabama. You can't have a dis…

The COL and tax difference isn't 2x. Alabama doesn't have unions, so they can't bargain collectively. That's the whole reason manufacturing has been moving south

> Alabama doesn't have unions

Alabama disagrees: https://labor.alabama.gov/inspections/unions.aspx

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#104

Post by jlappi »

needz wrote: post #63
JBReefer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overestimating both the level of skill required to start and the cost of living in Alabama. Alabama is CHEAP, and taxes are very low.

8th lowest CoL in the USA and a pretty great place to live. Glad to call Birmingham my home.

Jasper here, even cheaper. A neat little town not too far from the Ham.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#105

Post by needz »

jlappi wrote: post #104
needz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8th lowest CoL in the USA and a pretty great place to live. Glad to call Birmingham my home.

Jasper here, even cheaper. A neat little town not too far from the Ham.

Currently two miles from work with dirt-cheap rent while I build up my nest egg. Late twenties, single and enjoying the convenient nightlife. I'll gladly move when it's time to though (better school systems and all those family-life-community benefits).

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#106

Post by kesselvon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #103
kesselvon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The COL and tax difference isn't 2x. Alabama doesn't have unions, so they can't bargain collectively. That's the whole reason manufacturing has been moving south

> Alabama doesn't have unions Alabama disagrees: https://labor.alabama.gov/inspections/unions.aspx

Alabama is a right-to-work state, unions aren't as effective and there's significant action by local politics to suppress labor activism and organization

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#107

Post by kesselvon »

munificent wrote: post #99

"It helps that in Alabama, labor is cheap. Airbus set a goal that building planes in the United States would not cost a penny more than building in Europe. It is expensive to ship parts from Hamburg, but because the Mobile workers are not unionized, Airbus can hire fewer of them and pay them lower wages." I think that's the money quote of the article. Large multinational corporations have a long history of moving fac…

South has always been an internal resource colony feeding the factories in the north. Now that services dominates the economy, all the activity concentrates in cities while the south manufactures.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#108

Post by jdminhbg »

munificent wrote: post #99

"It helps that in Alabama, labor is cheap. Airbus set a goal that building planes in the United States would not cost a penny more than building in Europe. It is expensive to ship parts from Hamburg, but because the Mobile workers are not unionized, Airbus can hire fewer of them and pay them lower wages." I think that's the money quote of the article. Large multinational corporations have a long history of moving fac…

The per capita GDP of Alabama is $5k higher than that of (e.g.) France: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=per+capita+gdp+of+alaba...

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#109

Post by dragonwriter »

kesselvon wrote: post #106
dragonwriter wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alabama doesn't have unions Alabama disagrees: https://labor.alabama.gov/inspections/unions.aspx

Alabama is a right-to-work state, unions aren't as effective and there's significant action by local politics to suppress labor activism and organization

That's true and important, but it's very different than "Alabama doesn't have unions", is all I'm saying. (It's kind of like saying "C doesn't have static types" just because it's type system is far less powerful than, say, Haskell's.)

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#110

Post by CPLX »

bigtones wrote: post #20

I'm disappointed American Airlines don't buy all Boeing planes, especially given their name. Although Airbus planes do have some American parts on them, they're mostly European. Considering they got USD$15 Billion in bailout money from the US Government, and just how good Boeing planes are at a very similar price point, supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do.

For what it's worth they sort of used to. It's US Air that had all the Airbuses prior to the merger.
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