Big Three Auto bailout

Does that, the $48 figure, include Canada? If so that kind of kills your point. Labor is if anything stronger in Southern Ontario and the only primary difference between it and the US is health care.

I was just saw a country music video. In it Reba McEntire is driving a Toyota. Sign of the times

 

Didn't they already agree to executive pay cuts as part of the deal? If you're going to bail them out on taxpayer dollars then they need to restructure to a competitive business model (all the way around), otherwise you're just delaying the impending funeral. So yeah, if the UAW (a large part of the problem, but clearly not the only part) can't get on board, then to hell with them. Might as well go the bankruptcy route or let market forces take their course and Honda/Toyota/etc can buy them up.

Gotta love Democrats seizing on a financial crisis as an excuse for "green" agendas. See, you could do that with any aspect of this if you really wanted to, but what's the point?

I much prefer your guitar playing to your pot banging in this case. See ya next Fri at the Orderup gig for the former.

 

yes Don the management at the Big 3 are to blame for the reasons you stated and for another one that you conspicuously omitted - being controlled by the UAW. Like Lyle said the UAW is an abomination. I didnt know this before but I heard about it last night at an Xmas party from a friend who had a run-in with the UAW as a 19 yro intern.

As for my friend's run-in, she was working in a laboratory, not on the shop floor, and swept up the mess she had made in the process of doing her work. A union member saw her and wrote her up. Her boss had to talk to her and explain that in the future she needed to wait for a union employee to clean up. Okay, what's the message - forget the progress and innovation that is meant to be made in the lab. Sit around and wait like a lazy ass while some other lazy ass decides to come clean up your mess.

I'm sorry but that is just sick. And Don it has nothing to do with workers' rights to organize; it has to do with a powerful organization having a strangle-hold on a major American manufacturing industry.

And one more thing as far as fuel efficiency. It was a Republican who tried for years to get stricter fuel efficiency standards through Congress. His efforts were defeated time and again by union-backed Democrats.

 

Don, I think my suggestion is about blowing up THE WHOLE operation, not just the Unions. Management is at fault for allowing the Unions to have too much power and driving up cost per worker, so responsibility is shared but please don't try and make this into some Republican Democrat thing, I never brought up party and I don't watch Fox News (and there is nothing more wrong with Fox than any other TV news agency other than they conveniently disagree with you alot of the time) or any of the other that matter. Quit trying to put things into a neat party box. I'm surprised you haven't brought up Bush yet either, but you did use your usual Fox News trick. It such a nice convenient way for you to attempt to marginalize points of view.

 

Want to read all or part of the 22 pound 2,215 Ford-UAW contract?

Check it out..

Mo... I worked for GM for 2 1/2 years. Like your friend, I couldnt see sitting and waiting... or working dumb, not smart. Got written up once for replacing conveyor hooks. And almost again for trying to get the welder operator to set his electrodes so that the grooves worn in them didnt distort the product.. which I had to bang each and every one to fit the molding gage. The WORST part is that the shift BEFORE mine 'tuned' the welders so they ran perfect then adjusted them back to the template at end of shift. And the welder operator on my shift KNEW that.

In another plant, I had a union committeeman bump me off my spot every time we worked overtime (he wasnt even in our section. Turns out he had only 8 months on the job and went straight to union spot by 'connections') My foreman finally told me the skinny so I could file a complaint.
The shop steward was not happy.. with me.

My brothers all had similar horror stories... but they worked for 30 years, not short-time like me.

 

LATimes: Dog bites Man

Auto bailout's death seen as a Republican blow at unions

Ya think?
I'm SURE it doesnt have ANYTHING to do with unions taking worker dues money and using it to promote only Democrats.

No... that wouldnt be FAIR!

 

You kidding me? Who was it tried to get GM/UAW in a Chapter 11 scenario while maintaining/building long term consumer confidence?

Corker {R} Tenn. He MIGHT be accused of conflict of interest, but what he TRIED to do was make UAW give concessions it would have to make in Chap 11, anyway. They wouldnt do it.

Bush? He is only trying to make sure Chap 11 doesnt happen till he leaves. We've talked about WHY, before. It's legacy operating costs we are talking about. Until that problem is solved, GM will never be healthy.. it is NOT the current labor contracts causing the real problem.

So yes, the UAW DID 'vote it down'. I have no idea why you put scales on your eyes when you're talking about Dem Union base. It's MY family going to be affected adversely, and yet....

 

So you're saying if you could magically erase those costs (or bail them out) they'd be perfectly competitive? Sure. :wink:

And what's to say the current labor contracts don't just lead to future disabling legacy costs.

That makes no sense whatsoever. If the UAW are part of the problem and are told to make concessions in order to receive help, and don't, then how do you absolve them of blame and pin it on those who deny the help?

Off subject (kinda).... but were you thinking of Fog when you named that album?

 

I know from what my brothers tell me. They just squeaked in under the wire on their retirement.
I dont know for certain, of course but I suggested one way to deal with it for ALL US based autoworkers in the first post.

 

:lol: :3d laughing:

 

UAW Work rules

Who Is at Fault for the Decline of the Big Three?: must-read on how it got that way.

Not surprisingly: management. Also not surprisingly, the work rules are residual answer to something no longer broke.

 

Saturn Punked

Penske walks away.

PM does a fair analysis of Saturn's demise and several commenters added, what are to me germane, views of the brand's problems since the beginning.

Penske cannot be fully faulted for their reaction to GM not assuring long-term buy-in to building the car. Roger's been there before when he partnered with the fat Eye-tie at KMArt. The idea was that KMart would change their culture to quick-react to compete with Walmart and Target but that never really happened.

So there was a big market blitz to capitalize on Penske's name but Corporate treated it like Roger was just another Jaclyn Smith. This situation was different in that GM would just be the Supplier.

Now, if Roger's serious, the new 'Saturn' {after the brand is considered DEAD} would just as well be made in Korea.