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Stories - USA - Idling
USA - Forbes, by Jonathan Fahey & Joann Muller: Oct 17 05: -- GM has thousands of workers collecting paychecks for not doing much... Scott Taylor spent this summer fixing up neighborhood parks in Edgemere, Md., a pleasant suburb in Baltimore County that juts into Chesapeake Bay. He trucked sand into the waterfront Lynch Point Park to rebuild the beach, power-washed the play set, fixed the fences and helped a Boy Scout troop paint a flagpole. For this and other community service work Taylor earned $31 an hour along with fully paid health insurance and credit toward raises and his pension. Who's paying him? General Motors, the carmaker that has lost $1.3 billion so far this year... Taylor, 49, is an autoworker, but GM no longer has a job for him. The Baltimore factory where he worked for the past 21 years closed in May. Instead of sending Taylor packing with a nice severance package, GM put him in what's known as the "jobs bank." Under a contract it first negotiated with the United Auto Workers in 1984, GM is obliged to pay workers who lose their jobs full wages and benefits, even though they are not building vehicles... What this 50-year-old would gain by walking away is the freedom to take another job. But that other job--in construction, say--might pay only half as much. And who wants to start hauling asphalt shingles at age 50? The flagpole assignment doesn't look so bad now...
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