I Build Cars For a Living. I Can’t Afford to Buy One.

https://youtu.be/X9fDoOb1Ces?si=y5uAhVChXvKqweXN

182 points · 25 comments · view on lemmy.world

25 Comments

Kyrgizion@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 2y (3 replies)

My company bills 1h of my time to clients at roughly what I make in almost a week.

flyboy_146@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

🤯 I'm sorry to hear that.

I'm curious, do you work on exotic / ultraexpensive cars?

Kyrgizion@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y

Haha no, I just work in IT (datacenter environment) so it's not as if I can start my own company to work with these clients.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 2y
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thantik@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I didn't realize this but Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota don't have unions. I thought all automotive workers in the USA were in unions!

I'm the only employee of my business, so I AM the union.

alilbee@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2y

Ah, but you're also the boss. Tough break, those are gonna be brutal negotiations.

jaschen@lemm.ee · 11 pts · 2y (4 replies)

Toyota executives was greedy and didn't continue paying their workers fairly and now they are unionizing. They fucked around. Here comes the finding out.

red@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 2y (3 replies)

It's so weird to see this. Where I live, unions are a default. It should become the norm everywhere, not just in northern Europe.

Kornblumenratte@feddit.de · 1 pts · 2y (2 replies)

In which country of Western, Central or Southern Europe are unions not a default? Don't know about Eastern Europe.

TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Thatcher killed most unions in the UK, though in the past few years there has been a slow resurgence.

red@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 2y

Not sure, but I do know the union stuff is very prominent in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark

alilbee@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (12 replies)

While everyone should be able to afford basic necessities like a vehicle and wages need to be increased across the board, the title is weird. You can work at a factory making a thing you can't afford and not have much of a problem with that. "I build cruise liners for a living. I can't afford to buy one." would be a strange statement.

TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Mate, come on. He makes Toyotas, not super yachts. I think you're missing the point.

I don't think his view here is "anything that I have a hand in manufacturing, I should be able to afford".

That's not the point of this video, and it's not the mindset that anybody is espousing.

alilbee@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

As I said in another reply, fair enough. I just read it in a way that inferred something it seems other people didn't.

chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 2y (9 replies)

Is this video about something only large corporations can afford, or is it about something that is necessary for lots of families to have and seen as normal to buy?

alilbee@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2y (8 replies)

Please reread my first sentence.

chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 2y (7 replies)

How does that make your bad argument better?

You say people should be able to afford necessities. Then you compare buying a car to buying a cruise ship. One is a necessity to many people, one is completely unrelated to people.

Yes the argument makes no sense when you change the subject completely.

alilbee@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y (6 replies)

A car is a necessity, nobody is denying that and I state as much. To be clear, I think people should be able to afford cars. I just don't think it's weird to work at a factory where you make luxury items more expensive than the average person can afford.

chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 2y (4 replies)

Ok, so we can say in plain terms: a person working in a factory should be able to afford **buying a car**.

alilbee@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y (3 replies)

Yep, and I think that would have been a better title.

chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 2y

But that is the title.

Kornblumenratte@feddit.de · 1 pts · 2y

A car shouldn't be a necessity. public transport, short transfers, walkable cities and all that. But I agree – it is a necessity, sadly.

AGD4@programming.dev · -1 pts · 2y (4 replies)

at 0:05: "I totaled a car last week and I can't afford to replace it". I feel like there is a bit of undue entitlement in that statement. Should any worker be able to comfortably replace a car that they destroyed?

I have no love for Toyota or any other mega corp, and I think the bigger issue in this article is the very first statement in the interview: "I spent three and a half years building cars and I can't afford a home yet". That is a big problem, but I wouldn't attribute that to greedy corporate employers exclusively.

the_third@feddit.de · 7 pts · 2y
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umbrella@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 2y (2 replies)
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AGD4@programming.dev · 0 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I would

But not exclusively.

You can point the finger to individual and foreign investors, but also to government policies (or lack thereof) that make that possible.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 2y
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