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The UAW and Domestic Automakers
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You know what would be cool? A bustleback Seville with a DoD LS-1. Has anybody done that swap yet?
Turboshadow
Who is assuming that the others outspend GM?
I probably brought that up in the wrong forum but it's been brought up a few times in the "Buying American Cars: What Does It Mean" forum.
I'm honestly curious as I have no idea how much GM spends on R&D in any given year in comparison to Toyota. I'd also comment that just throwing a lot of money into R&D doesn't always pan out. From what I understand, GM spent large sums developing the all-electric car in the late 90's (EV1) and has spent large sums on fuel cell technology in this decade.
Will it pan out for GM? Possible, but (IMO) unlikely. At least not soon enough to make a difference for GM. Toyota OTOH spent money on hybrid technology which appears to be paying off for them now.
All of which has zippo to do with the UAW and Domestic Automakers. Sorry.
Still I would like to give GM a chance, however they make nothing that I want to buy, besides maybe a Solstice. (Currently drive a 01 BMW 525i with 86k that has been pretty good though not perfect, but still feels brand new, and all the interior buttons, etc, looks/feel brand new)
GM- Please make your cars appeal to the young urban consumer ( I am 31, educated professional). None of my friends even want to think GM, the cars are huge.
why is a grand prix and impala, 10 inches longer then accord/camry and have no more interior space.
What's the point?
Why is the ION/Cobalt equally large, compared to the imports, w/o more space.
Why does GM have no rear wheel drive cars to compete with the BMW 3's and Lexus IS, sorry CTS is way way longer.
About the only GM car that interest me know is the 07/08 CTS, but there is no info on it, and I don't think I can wait that long..
sorry to rant, but I keep getting disappointed, though hope for the best.
I've posted these numbers on another thread. In essence, over the last few years, GM and Toyota spent about equal amounts company-wide.
Of course, this amounts to less spending per car, because GM has so many additional nameplates to support. And it points to an obvious solution, namely reducing the number of nameplates, particularly in North America. Is there any sound reason why GM should have triple the number of nameplates of Toyota in the US market, when the quantity of its retail sales of passenger cars is about the same?
To generalize-
The railroads went bankrupt in the 1970's
The steel companies went bankrupt in the 1980's
The airlines are going bankrupt in the 2000's
The domestic auto companies (fill in the blank...)
Big, stupid companies with shortsighted unions do not survive
Unfortunately, the union can do little to improve the stupid management. And the management can do little to improve the shortsighted union.
DELPHI CORP.
Cutting U.S. jobs while prospering in China
A struggling U.S. auto parts maker faces a dilemma that's increasingly common as more products are made in China.
By Craig Simons
INTERNATIONAL STAFF
Sunday, March 05, 2006
SHANGHAI, China — It is a tale of two countries and one company.
Delphi Corp., the world's second-largest auto parts manufacturer, is struggling in the United States. Once worth more than $17 billion and with sales of $19 billion in North America in 2004, Delphi filed for bankruptcy protection of its U.S. operations in October, citing tens of millions of dollars in loses every month.
Craig Simons
COX NEWSPAPERS
Low cost of wages and benefits are reasons behind Delphi China's success. Starting assembly line workers making suspension systems, brakes and steering components earn $3,500 a year, including company payments to a benefits program. Starting engineers earn about $7,300 a year with benefits. U.S. Delphi employees earned an average of $75 an hour with benefits in 2005, a spokeswoman said.
Craig Simons
COX NEWSPAPERS
(enlarge photo)
Delphi Corp., the world's second-largest auto parts manufacturer, is growing in size and revenue in Shanghai, China. But in the U.S., the company filed for bankruptcy, cut pay and reduced benefits. Analysts say U.S. companies will have to find ways to reduce costs and possibly shift assembly work overseas to remain competitive with low-wage nations.
In its bankruptcy filing, the company said a "substantial segment" of its U.S. manufacturing base would be sold or closed over the next two years. The company has asked workers to take pay cuts of up to 60 percent and accept reduced benefits.
In China, Delphi is profitable and growing. From nine employees and $20 million in revenue a decade ago, Delphi China now employs more than 8,000 people and sold $637 million worth of automobile parts in 2004, the latest available figure.
Although executives declined to comment on how profitable the operation is, revenue in the Asia Pacific region grew 30 percent between 2002 and 2004 and has since been "growing and profitable," said Steve Clemons, a company spokesman.
The contrast of the struggling U.S. parent and its thriving Chinese offspring, which is not affected by the bankruptcy proceedings, underscores the difficulties that manufacturing plants in America face as competition from low-wage nations such as China and India increases.
The differences also highlight what industry insiders see as the best chance for the long-term survival of Delphi and many other American manufacturers: Companies will have to find ways to reduce their costs, including pensions and medical care benefits, and shift some, if not most, assembly work overseas to remain competitive, analysts say.
A tour of Delphi's Dynamic and Propulsion Systems factory in Shanghai reveals the challenge China-based producers pose to American parts manufacturers.
Chief among the Shanghai plant's advantages is the low cost of wages and benefits. Starting assembly line workers making suspension systems, brakes and steering components earn $3,500 a year, including company payments to a government-run benefits program, while starting engineers earn about $7,300 a year with benefits.
In the United States, Delphi employees, many of whom are represented by the United Auto Workers, earned an average of $75 an hour with benefits in 2005, spokeswoman Lindsey Williams said.
Delphi's U.S. operation also is burdened by the costs of pension and health care promises made to employees in the past. These costs for Delphi workers and retirees are underfunded by more than $13 billion, Williams said.
Most Chinese manufacturers, however, "have no legacy costs at all," said Yale Zhang, director of auto-industry consulting firm CSM Worldwide's Shanghai office. "The Chinese companies can focus all of their resources on the future."
Those advantages have helped Chinese companies undercut prices of basic parts offered by Western manufacturers. Car door latches produced in China, for example, are generally 30 percent cheaper than the standard global price for the same part, said Zhou Jingyi, an analyst at CSM Worldwide.
Although Chinese companies don't have the technology to produce complicated components such as engines and anti-lock brake systems, Western automobile makers increasingly are using Chinese-produced "non-function parts" such as latches, windshield wipers and upholstery to reduce their manufacturing costs. The value of auto parts exported from China more than tripled between 2002 and 2005 to $7.7 billion.
Craig Fitzgerald, a partner at Michigan-based management consulting firm Plante & Moran, called the reduction in part pricing the "biggest impact of Asia on the automobile industry so far."
While there are "certain product lines" where auto part manufacturers in the U.S. could compete with a "$15-an-hour average wage and a 60-percent fringe benefit, there are other product lines where there is probably no feasible wage and fringe benefit structure that could be remotely acceptable in North America and would allow them to be competitive," he added.
At the same time foreign-owned firms based in China are producing more sophisticated parts.
Last June, Delphi China completed the first phase of a $50 million research and development center that will be "one of the top five (Delphi technical centers) globally" when completed in 2009, spokesman Jiang Jian said.
More than half the Chinese engineers at the Shanghai-based center have advanced degrees and work on tasks ranging from diagnostic engine testing to software design. When fully operational, the facility will employ 1,150 engineers and play an important role in Delphi's global research and development work, Delphi China Engineering Director Douglas Brandt said.
"The perception in the West may be that the quality (in China) is a lot lower," Brandt said, "but good engineers are good engineers anywhere in the world."
The impact of improved quality and greater competition in Asia will drive further price-cutting worldwide.
"You're going to see (auto) parts from Asia coming into America at a significant growth rate over the next 15 years," Plante & Moran's Fitzgerald said.
While "there are major sections of the car that for the next 10 years will continue to be built principally in North America" because of logistical costs, "the future of the (auto part manufacturing) business is clearly overseas, particularly in Asia and to a lesser extent Europe," he said.
Delphi executives said that because of the rapidly growing Chinese and Asian markets, expanding overseas may be the company's best strategy for survival.
"Asia and China are the only hope that our company has in terms of growth for the future," Delphi President of Asia Pacific Operations Choon Chon said. "Just knowi
It will enable the corporation to empty the job banks and with the next negotiations close them down completely. (I think this is a deal that will,or has been worked out already between UAW and management. That program will be history )
Now paying for it is the big issue. Possibilities :Sale of GMAC is one source. Raping the salaried retired workers of benefits (again) is a part of it. This is easily done. Reducing structural costs is another large part of it.
I think that the next negotiations are going to be very contentious. Not so much because of the issues as because the reserves of both parties are going to be so thin.
The herculean task is to convince the rank and file that
the gravy train is over. We have to be competitive or perish. The UAW has their work cut out for them. They have undo better than 50 years of indoctrination to do it. I do believe they will accomplish their task.
As the the fate of the retirees ? The UAW side has some hope. As for the salaried I shudder to think what will be the outcome, regardless of tenure.
Well there it is . Comments ?
Bush told people in India this week that they are the futre CEO's. Wonder what they are inline to be paid? GM and Delphi need to move their business management offshore.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
This past week I read in AutoBeat Daily that GM is moving their purchasing operations to Shanghai, China. There will be plenty more of these types of moves from GM in the not too distant future. Your wish will most likely eventually come true.
Ron M.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Get used to living in a house of 750sq.ft for a family of 4 with inlaws. THAT is considered housing for the upper middle class in China. Oh yes. a car in about 5 years.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
As I have said before, as compared to individuals in TV, Sports,Movie,and Investment figures ,those numbers are paltry. But then so are those "brain dead"viewers that justify those incomes by watching the event. Check your priorities.
The companies that move production to the far east don't lower prices one modicum. Have you seen bargains the last decade or 15 years in Nike shoes? The cost for labor dropped when they weren't produced in US and were produced by "slave" labor. But the profit margin increased since the product was sold for higher and higher prices here. Check the 200$ shoes.
Comparison to movie and TV people isn't the industry to compare. What are those TV and movie people making who are already in China's industry. That would be the next group to move--the Hollywood production and star types.
"$5000 for this next movie Tom or we have a replacement who will."
"Katie, you can be replaced for $15000 for the next year by someone who actually knows how to interview a politician. Take it or leave it."
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Cowardly suits can generate negative revenue until the cows come home and still get their undefendable salaries and amoral golden parachutes. What have people like Wagoner done to justify their fortunes?
It would behoove these people to start investing in personal security forces, I fear we have rough times ahead.
Let's see: GM won the largest market share and continue to be the fastest growing in the fastest growing auto market of the world -- China, virtually coming from nowhere less than a decade ago. It's an accomplishment that Toyota, Ford and VW (the previous largest market share holder there) would love to emulate.
Back at home in the goold old USA, GMAC, another operation that is not under the shadow of UAW, has been one of the largest and fastest growing consumer lending, commercial lending, mortgage and insurance company.
Looks to me like the "cowardly suits" can achieve really impressive results when the union is absent.
The reality is that, this is not just an issue at GM, Germany's VW and Mercedes are facing exactly the same problem with noncompetitive labor force cacooned in benefit packages dating from the days of automotive monopolies/oligopolies. The reality is that the automakers can no longer reap monopolistic profits by gouging the consumers like they could half a century ago; shareholders have long given up their share of the loot when they took lumps with declining stock prices and in many cases company bankruptcies. It's high time for the unions to disgorge some of their ill-gotten fortune at the expense of consumers.
I don't quite understand this "slave" labor argument; are you using the Marxist paradigm of calling all workers "wage slaves"? Factory workers in China make far more in those factories with relatively modern facilities than they would in their old farm villages with their bare hands; that's why they decided to work in the factories to begin with. The whole phenomenom is very reminiscent of the New England textile mills over a hundred years ago, attracting farm girls and boys into towns and give them a life that their parents would only dream of . . . the whole urbanization process that turned America from a farming economy into an industrial and then service industry based economy in the last century.
When the market place is open, the economy is vibrant because of competition. On the other hand, competition does cause dislocation to certain segments of the society that are beholden to old inefficient ways of production, despite an over-all improvement in the standard of living; the magnitude of discontent builds up over time to a degree that some demogogue can convince enough vocal minority that competition is a bad thing despite every day experience of individuals preferring paying as little as possible for the same merchandise. How to stop individuals from excising that natural preference to maximize their own utility? Of course, coercion, in the name of "the common good," which is little more than a government intervention in the market place through violence or the threat thereof. Needless to say, since the boundaries for tariff is enforced by violence or the threat thereof, the only form of competition left is the violent form, namely, wars. That's why periods of free markets usually do not last for ever, and mankind is condemned to mutual slaughter. Enjoy it while it's still here, and beware of what you wish for ;-)
No talk about the sustainability of the market in China. How long will it last? What kind of money is it making in the scheme of the company? What actions has Wagoner spearheaded in this market?
GM has the largest market share here as well, but it is artificial. Market share and profitability are not one in the same.
We have a diseased corporate culture, and lemmings everywhere more than willing to bend over for a stab at a piece of the pie.
GM's presence in China was virtually non-existent before Wagoner. It displaced VW as the leader in that market under Wagoner's watch . . . and it continues to be the fastest growing carmaker in that market thanks to innovative models and outstanding vehicle quality, all at a reasonable price. Buick, not Toyota, is the emblem of quality in that market despite Toyota having been hacking there for nearly a decade along side GM. Isn't that everything we all dream GM could do in the US? unless you are in bed with the union ;-)
GMAC had been keeping GM on the profitable side of the ledger until the last year or so. That's another operation that does not have the union's greesy finger in it. The domestic carmaking side, where the union is, has been a money loser for years if not decades.
China is like the blind squirrel. It can't be shown what Wagoner personally has spearheaded.
Why is it that the same GM management can turn out reliable cars in China that sell like gang busters in the local market, both in absolute terms (output growth) and in relative terms (out-performing other carmakers in the same market, including Toyota and Honda), yet it is beaten year after year by the same set of competitors in the US? The primary difference is the flexibility of labor structure.
Then we can also compare within the US by looking at the GMAC unit, which is not ridden with union contract dead weight. It has been carrying GM's financial balance sheet for years. It's the model all other carmakers' captive financial arms are trying to emulate.
It seems that lack of union rule is the common thread for sucess for GM, both in the US and overseas.
As for your demand for evidence of "personal" involvement, in case you did not realize, any CEO of any company would have been praised to high heavens if his/her company has accomplished the kind of dramatic success that GM has done in China: from next to nothing to #1 in less than a decade in the second largest market in the world. An undertaking that immense in scale could not have been maintained without the CEO's active leadership and support. Also, even before beoming CEO of GM in 2000, Wagoner was credited with turning around GM Brazil.
I've seen no data to suggest that initial quality or long-term reliability are particularly important to Chinese customers, or that GM is producing its PRC products at higher quality levels in comparison to what is available. GM became the PRC's number one brand by surpassing VW, another firm not renowned for prioritizing reliability over other features.
I don't know the Chinese auto market, but I would guess that Chinese buyers are more interested in perceived status than in reliability (the car as status symbol in an emerging market, rather than as an appliance), and that its longstanding animosity with Japan is going to provide an advantage to American and European brands.
The primary difference is the flexibility of labor structure.
GM's workforces in Europe and Australia are unionized, so that actually isn't the difference.
Here's the key difference: for decades, GM has been THE dominant player in the US, a market with few competitors since prior to WWII until the last couple of decades. The loss of market share since then has been gradual, so the wake up call has been too subtle for the message to be heard, because even as market share fell, production volumes remained high, and those losses could be offset with bulk fleet sales that disguised the problem.
Compare this to other markets, such as Europe, where GM has had to compete with much stronger rivals and more of them for a very long time. Competition improves the breed, and GM simply hasn't been as burdened by the need to compete for its American customers as it has abroad. Unfortunately, irrational brand loyalists have only helped to perpetuate the problem long enough to provide an enabling effect.
While I'm sure gutting the union will create some short-term positive buzz on Wall Street, no one will ultimately be impressed if the products aren't improved and the bureaucracy not trimmed down. Labor is the latest scapegoat in a long series of GM management's scapegoats, the attack upon whom does absolutely nothing to create a better product that meets the desires of the consumer.
After all, GM makes reasonable quality product, so importing GM into China is not betraying the Chinese consumer. Also, my sources in Japan tell me that GM cut a very sweet deal with its Chinese JV Partner (so how profitable it is for GM in the long run, I don't know).
If the workers really are the problem, let em strike. Let's see what this company and it's hordes of simp suits can muster. I won't hold my breath.
"yet it is beaten year after year by the same set of competitors in the US?"
Apples to oranges. Most competitors on the Chinese market make some dumpy old Malibu look like a Lexus. It's a bit tougher here.
Again, position doesn't equal profit. What did Wagoner do in Brazil, as well?
GM's workforces in Europe and Australia are unionized, so that actually isn't the difference.
GM Europe has been losing money hand-over-fist for quite a few years now. I'm not familiar with GM Australia operation; in any case it's a tiny fraction of GM US, GM Europe or GM China.
While I'm sure gutting the union will create some short-term positive buzz on Wall Street, no one will ultimately be impressed if the products aren't improved and the bureaucracy not trimmed down.
I can certainly agree with the last part of your statement. After ridding itself of unsustainable union obligations (as well as some excessive dealernetwork obligations), GM US must turn out impressive products.
If the workers really are the problem, let em strike. Let's see what this company and it's hordes of simp suits can muster. I won't hold my breath.
Hahaha, very funny, I'm sure you heard of bank loans and union contract obligations that GM can not just walk away from.
Apples to oranges. Most competitors on the Chinese market make some dumpy old Malibu look like a Lexus. It's a bit tougher here.
You are very wrong on this one. What you described was the situation when VW entered China market in the 1980's, selling low-line Audi's then VW's. Nowadays, MB, BMW and Lexus all have production lines in China. In fact, they are Buick's primary competitors there. Incidentally, China is also the only market outside North America in which Honda Accord is the same size with the same 3 liter engine.
I mention Europe and Australia to illustrate why GM does a better job of producing products that meet consumer needs in those markets than it does in the US. Simply put, they have to fight harder to earn their euros than they has traditionally been required to earn their US dollars. A lack of competition and significant fleet sales (a virtually guaranteed source of sales volume) have created complacency at home.
Europe is a very tough car market for everyone involved, it is competitive yet mature, while high taxes on cars and fuel don't help sales for any of the makers. Still, GM has been profitable there, and the cars offer a driving experience that might surprise Americans frustrated by its domestic lineup.
GM's braintrust - of which you are either connected to or see yourself akin to - got themselves into these union deals. They can now work around and through then. Earn that money for once in their professional lives.
Any links to these Chinese built Lexus and MB, and proof of where they are positioned in that market? Cars that would never be positioned alongside Buick anywhere else on the planet...I have my doubts about the directness of the competition. Don't you tell me where I am wrong...stick to kissing the rears of the corporate clowns you aspire to...
While the Opels and Vauxhalls seem like a breath of fresh air compared to the dreary Chevrolets, Saturns, Pontiacs and Buicks that GM offers us, reviewers writing in the British enthusiast magazines Car and Top Gear remain unimpressed. Interestingly, writers in Car recently tore the Pontiac Solstice to shreds, comparing it unfavorably to the Mazda MX-5.
Ford has had its troubles in Europe, but many of its cars have received rave reviews in those magazines (particularly the Ka, Focus and Mondeo).
That's because if you sent the materials and designs of an LS430 to a Detroit factory, it would just be a waste of fine leather and wood. Design and material choices have to be targetted at what manufacturing facility, technique and trained work force quality at hand. When the union rules does not allow proper incentivization on the production line, and does not allow retraining of workers, and does not allow firing of workers, and does not allow hiring of new workers, they can only be send designs and engineering specs targetted at workers and production that are decades behind time, which they are.
GM's braintrust - of which you are either connected to or see yourself akin to - got themselves into these union deals. They can now work around and through then. Earn that money for once in their professional lives.
First of all I do not consider myself akin to GM management, being a consumer and small business owner with no monopolistic power whatsoever in my own market. Secondly, unions are products of politics, specificly the exemption from Sherman Anti-trust Act that the Congress decided on the union issue over half a century ago, when automakers enjoyed monopolistic profits and union was a way for the workers to get a slice of the action, all at the expense of consumers.
Any links to these Chinese built Lexus and MB, and proof of where they are positioned in that market?
Here is a link to BMW's own website in China:
http://www.bmw.com.cn/cn/index_flash.html
Seems like they sell 3, 5, 6, 7, X3, X5 and Z4 there. I do know that they make at least the 3 and 5 series in China; quite surprised when I heard that, because the factory was set up in China's rust belt, unlike the GM and Toyota factories in the coastal middle-class area.
Here's a Boston Globe article on Buick in China from last year:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/08/20/in_china_buicks_mean_status/
BTW, the personal abuse was quite uncalled for, and did not add to the weight of your argument.
Stupidity on the part of GM management to give in too easily to the UAW to have production peace over the decades (at any cost) was a blunder. We are paying perhaps a mortal price. But then the same can be said with our placating the whims of a fickle buying public.We do not have a cradle to grave job guarantee for anyone anymore, period.
As for style. True, if we eliminated 50% of the brands we could focus more on content of a few (and be damn sucessful).But then displacing that many people in one fell swoop is a bit draconian wouldn't you agree?
I'll bet you drive a Mercedes,Audi,or BMW .
And what was your simple solution to all this ? Hm-m-m-?
It is not even Monday morning and there you are playing quarterback.
You perk up when corporate higher-ups are bashed, there is some kind of sympathy there.
I didn't ask for a BMW link, but thanks anyway. I am not aware of MB interests in China currently in production of any mentionable scale, not to mention Lexus. And I still don't see anything relating these makes to each other in the Chinese market. Why would BMW compete with Buick in China when it does so nowhere else? Could Chinese consumers be that different? The products are only similar in that they have wheels and engines.
Thanks for your advice on what is called for, when I want it, I'll ask.
When it comes down to it, the key is that historic compensation for GM suits is more or less impossible to defend. Bravely leading a company to junk bond status should not enable one to become a millionaire many times over.
What does that have to do with anything, and why do you think you're in a position to ask? Read my profile.
I can find some good domestic cars...and I love the domestics of days gone by. But there sure has been a lot of crap inbetween. My first car was a 66 Ford. It was a fairly solid car and it had held up well when I got it in the early 90s. Quite a few cars from that era built by evil old fashioned union workers weren't bad at all. Growing up, my parents were burned by shoddy GM products - the S-10 Blazer and Ciera they owned were incompetent, especially the Blazer - it fell apart before our eyes. I'll dare say the Horizon and 1981 Audi we also had were much better - and those are not known to be excellent cars. So I can admit that I am jaded.
Judging by the dreck pumped out by the domestics for more or less my entire life, maybe my not working in the industry is a good thing. The people in it now are not acting correctly. The opinions of those who do not get their meal ticket from GM have value, too.
"And what was your simple solution to all this ? Hm-m-m-? "
Pay me seven-eight figures with endless perks and an amoral golden parachute, and I'll come up with something.
Just another blind loyalist...fear and faith...are you a current GM middle management paperweight, an ex-employee, a relative of an employee? I'll bet you drive a Poncho or a Buick.
It's easy to second guess people who err and err for decades.
I think the bile in your of your comments can be summarized in the last lines by Macbeth 5/5 (before the messenger enters). The line starts with "It"
I sincerely doubt you have the knowledge or credentials to analyze personality, but have at it anyway.
So what do you drive?
Stick to your Shakespeare.
Last Month Ford closed a plant near my home. I felt sad for the folks, until I learned the disgusting truths.
Fact- the AVERAGE assembly line worker at this plant made more money than the AVERAGE School Principal, with a Master's Degree. And that was just the base pay, they didnt include overtime pay.
An you think the UAW is doing us a favor? Maybe in the short-term (high school dropouts on the assembly line making $70k a year) but obvliously 'tis all coming to an end.
and do not consider it a particularly good mark of status I DO NOT DRIVE A "Heckflosse".
I drive a domestic product.I guess don't have your sense of "panache".
Ford has had its troubles in Europe, but many of its cars have received rave reviews in those magazines (particularly the Ka, Focus and Mondeo).
I don't entirely disagree with that. GM Europe has produced some pretty awful cars, too, but what I've driven and seen more recently have been pretty good. If a Cavalier had the build quality and interior of a Corsa, it might not have been such a bad ride, but that's to be expected in Europe, where small cars aren't just sold to the very young, very cheap or very poor.
On the whole, I'd say that Ford's European lineup is superior, but GM manages to produce some decent product abroad. For one, the Holden Commodore beats the hell out of a Malibu, any day of the week.
(And the Solstice vs. Miata article in Car was just brutal, although it helps to remember that while it is a fine read, Car tends to hate American cars as a matter of course. If the Solstice had come from the UK, I bet they would have loved it...)
Yes, GM does hae a success story in China. We will see if that continues since others ae trying to get a bigger foothold there. And in the end they can always just kick everybody out!
On a serious note, what motors go into the car there, if you know.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Do not remember about the engine but it is built in China.
http://aol.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy?artid=57365&pg=1
As for the union issues I will reserve my comments until after the 2007 negotiations. We will see if GM management will stay the course in getting the UAW on track. ...You can only take away so much from salaried until it is not worthwhile.
I got the $64K question for ya'll. Who in the hell is going to buy the products made in this country when most of the good paying jobs are exported ????? When ordinary folks don't have extra disposable income to purchase luxury's this great country's wheels will slow down.
As far as taking away from the salaried, I got the solution. Why don't we follow president Bush's solution of bringing bright minds from India via visa's and pay them 1/10 th of the salary compared to the lesser educated american "suits"
BTW- Just lemme know ahead of time so I can move to Canada, or Norway
Rocky
http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/content/localnews/daily/0306sos.html
Everyone is really t ense because of a steel plant about 30 miles away where the overpaid management locked out the workers rather than negotiate last week.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The only people that can fix these problems is our wonderful government. The avg. wage/salary, in this country has dropped almost 4% in the last five years. That doesn't factor in a 3 % annual inflation or rising costs in healthcare and cut's in retirements or "lack there of" for many.
Rocky