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Submit your questions for Autoblog Podcast #319 LIVE!

We record Autoblog Podcast #319 tonight, and you can drop us your questions and comments regarding the rest of the week's news via our Q&A module below. Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes if you haven't already done so, and if you want to take it all in live, tune in to our UStream (audio only) channel at 10:00 PM Eastern tonight.
Discussion Topics for Autoblog Podcast Episode #319
Jeep checks out the Grand Wagoneer at Wagonmaster

Mercury rises around sexy Cougar pack

With a slightly larger body and a more luxurious interior, the Mercury Cougar doesn't carry quite as much cachet among pony car enthusiasts as the venerable Ford Mustang. But don't try to make that argument around Cougar super-fan Mike Brown. Since starting his Cougar collecting in 1988, Brown has become an absolute expert on the model, and he claims to have owned 400 of the Mercury pony cars in that time. Ten of them are in his collection today, not to mention a heap of spare parts in the garage. Check out some of the rarer members of Brown's fleet and allow him to tell you about them in this interesting interview from Electric Federal.

Detroit 3 and UAW set for showdown over tiered wages

This week, thousands of United Auto Workers will converge on Cobo Center in Detroit for the Special Convention on Collective Bargaining, an every-four-year event that lets members tell UAW leaders what the negotiating priorities should be during contract negotiations. This is where a lot of sand and a lot of lines start coming together in preparation for contract negotiations between the UAW and the Detroit 3 automakers, which will happen later this year. Number one on the UAW agenda is the end of the two-tier wage system created in 2007 to help the automakers get through bankruptcy; veteran workers are paid the Tier 1 rate of around $29.00 per hour, new hires are paid the Tier 2 rate of between $15 and $20 and get about half the benefits of Tier 1. Tier 2 hiring has been an undoubted success for the automakers, allowing them to keep factories in the US and hire more workers. By agreement, it is capped at a certain percentage of each automaker's workforce, and while the union's ultimate position is to get rid of the dual-scale system entirely; one leader said Ford could easily afford the $335 million it would take to convert all its workers to Tier 1 out of its $6.9 billion in 2014 North American profit, and General Motors could do the same out of the $5 billion it is handing to investors through the (admittedly forced) share buyback. Other delegates say that at the very least they'd be happy with enforcement of the current caps in the new contract. The automakers, conversely, would welcome expansion of the Tier 2 ranks. Including benefits, import automakers pay workers "in the high $40 range" per hour, according to an analyst, while Ford and GM pay about $59 in wages and benefits per hour. More Tier 2 workers on the rolls would let those two companies get labor cost parity with the competition. Fiat-Chrysler pays wages closer to the imports because of special exceptions in its UAW contract that allow unlimited Tier 2 hiring; those exceptions will end on September 14 and bring FCA into line with the other domestics, unless the new contract maintains them. FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne is opposed to the two-tier system, having called it "almost offensive." One analyst says the UAW might win a sizable pay raise for Tier 2 and a small increase for Tier 1, but the keystone issue will be how the hiring matrix can help the automakers keep overall wages in line with the imports.