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Comments
-Rocky
-Rocky
Here's local news about an attorney who got caught. (sorry Bob, but it helps Rocky make his point.)
Kettering attorney arrested in his office
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
-Rocky
rocky: "With all the hate you've shown us WHY does you and the real Marsha7 keep buying domestic cars??? If they are such pieces of crap and are unreliable you keep going back to the well for more don't ya???'...I told you earlier, my Hondas were the best cars I ever owned, but when it was time to replace my 10 year old Legend, I thought I should Buy American and support the American worker...that was MY decision, but I could NEVER look at someone else and tell them to do the same, I would say they should buy what they think is best...
So, while I rail against the UAW, and for good reason, and everything I have said is true about their ignorance, lack of skill, and being overpaid for their "skills" derived from an hour of training, I thought I should try and keep my $$$ here...It is with great sacrifice that I stopped buying Hondas...
The UAW has been to DC complaining about GM's restructuring plan. They've seen the light - too much off-shoring. (Reuters)
However, thank you for you service. :shades:
At least if I buy Honda or Toyota, my money will employ hard working Southern workers who appreciate having a job and do NOT have that welfare entitlement attitude...and I am of the impression that they just might not be UAW workers...
Interesting story about Saturn, if my memory serves me correctly (if not, it is just a fantasy in my mind)...when Roger Smith conceived of Saturn, originally he wanted it as a independent company so that it would NOT be subject to being worked by the UAW...hence, he went into Tennessee, right to work state I believe, and hoped to make cars union-free...no surprise, UAW balked...don't remember if a strike was threatened, but Smith compromised by allowing the UAW to staff the plant, but they agreed it would not be strictly be seniority, it would be GM's choice as who they wanted, as long as it was UAW...so, GM could avoid all those senior members who were the worst militant rabble rousers (which, IMO, is all of them plus the next 3 generations of offspring) and could pick, if you will, the "cream of the crop"...
Now Saturn will be dumped...nice try, Roger...
Saturn started out with a completely different UAW contract with GM which had the plant working much more like a Japanese plant with lots of employee input on how to run it and a MUCH thinner contract without all the work rules.
As the original players disappeared from the scene the UAW pushed for changes and eventually the plant had the same contract as everyone else.
The whole idea was that Saturn would become the model for the larger corporation but it went exactly the opposite way.
I'm sorry to see Saturn go but it hasn't been Saturn in a long time.
The thing about the south many people seem to overlook is the fact that the so called "less pay" is enough for them to live decent lives. Check out the living costs there and you'll understand. It's a win-win situation for both the States and the car companies to build their plants there (and they fully have the right to do so), and UAW got noone to blame but themselves and their local governments.
Besides, should you feel the need to be patriotic, take comfort in knowing this: be it Ohio or Alabama, either way it's still made by Americans, whether it's made by UAW or not, should we even care?
2. Would you buy a car built by UAW for $30k or a car built by RTW workers for $27k?
I say the answer for both are no brainers. RTW states are still US, the workers are still Americans, and the less production cost bring the cost down for us as well.
And now that Chrysler is doomed, Ford's in deep trouble and GM is closer to death as we speak, isn't it obvious that UAW is losing the battle?
Rocky's Fables:
The moon landing was a hoax.
The UAW does high quality work at low cost.
American cars are superior, problems are from currency manipulation.
As the original players disappeared from the scene the UAW pushed for changes and eventually the plant had the same contract as everyone else.
"Saturn - a new kind of car company.....that turned into an old kind of car company."
2. Would you buy a car built by UAW for $30k or a car built by RTW workers for $27k?
I say the answer for both are no brainers. RTW states are still US, the workers are still Americans, and the less production cost bring the cost down for us as well.
Those are good questions. I'm in the market for a new sedan and will be considering those options. There are a lot of good choices between Honda, Toyota and Ford (and maybe Hyundai?). I realize the Fusions are built in Mexico but I'd like to give some business to Ford just for kudos to them for avoiding our president's plan to nationalize the domestic car business. Kind of sacrelidge because I live in Michigan but I have a first-hand look (complete with anecdotes from the workers themselves) at how the UAW has killed our state and the auto business.
In UAW (or in any work environment terms), if the cost is unchanged, and the quality of work performed is equal, it doesn't matter to the company who does the work. Therefore the workers are fungible and seniority is OK.
Truck drivers are an easy example. The company wants to have its trailer full of merchandise at a given location at a given time. All drivers are paid by the mile so the cost per mile doesn't change from driver to driver. Therefore to the company, it shouldn't matter which driver performs the run, as long as the truck is there on shedule.
However, it DOES matter to the drivers. Some don't want to be on the road for weeks at a time. Some want all the miles and money they can get. Some don't like driving through cities.... some don't like the mountains.
So in cases like these, seniority is a good way of deciding who has to do which run. Works well for the workers, and doesn't cost the company anything more.
However, when you start have employees in skilled trades, it DOES matter to the company who does the work for efficiency, and because they're paid at different wages, it matters on cost as well. For the skilled trades a seniority system causes higher costs and inefficiencies. Bad idea.
For assembly work, does it matter which worker works which shift putting washers on the widgets for the wheels? Sticking the lower paid workers on the late shifts might be better for everybody. They get more money from the shift premiums, the higher paid workers don't have lousy hours, and the company pays less because even with shift premiums, the lower paid workers cost less than a higher paid worker working the same shift.
I've laid out some things to think about.
I personally believe that scheduling should be an unfettered right for management, except where it doesn't make any difference to the company (see above) but I suspect that our UAW component may disagree.
Is the UAW giving any additional scheduling flexibility in the new contract agreements?
I assume there are hazardous tasks, like dipping car bodies into chemicals and painting, that are better done by robots, altho it is written that Smith's robots started painting each other rather than the cars...it is also possible that the robots were the answer, but technology had not advanced in software to program the robots...I don't know, but the simple concept of automation was not a bad idea, in and of itself...
Who got stuck on nights and weekends was always debated when I worked for Alascom under the Teamster contract. It was laid out that you offered the senior tech any premium work and forced the junior tech. All were paid the same hourly. Then the management got smarter. They would offer schools most out of state starting with the senior techs. The caveat to having all the schools was double edged. You may be the senior tech and not want to work weekends. However if you were the only one that was trained on all the equipment in the office you could be forced to work those shifts. I would never turn down a school and as a consequence even when I was tops in seniority I could be forced to come in at 1 AM or work a weekend. I was stuck on swing shift for nearly a year including weekends because I had gone to all the schools. Yes I was greedy for more training. It got me the job that I worked at for the last 25 years of my career.
To put it in the concept of usefulness in a factory. If the senior guy can do the job as well as a junior worker, I see no reason to not keep the senior person. If they can no longer do the job and nothing else is available. I would lay him off. That is just one of many ways the UAW has crippled the domestic auto industry. They keep old guys that can no longer cut the mustard. That is not the fault of the company. It is the fault of the UAW. Heavy factory work is best suited to younger workers. And the pay should be such that they use the job to pay their way toward a better job that they can handle when they are older.
-Rocky
As far as your work rules go look at how loose they are in Lansing.
-Rocky
Of course it feels solid...they're learning to make all that hard plastic pretty thick these days! :P Actually, I will give you that for the new Sebring...I don't like the looks of them, or the interiors, but they do have a solid, beefy feel to them...moreso than the 2001-06 models, which I thought were much more attractive, but with a beauty that was only skin deep, I guess.
Good Post!
If you watch the video it is something Steven Spielberg could of produced.
The UAW does high quality work at low cost.
Yep less than 8.4%
American cars are superior, problems are from currency manipulation.
Well that is one of many problems. Don't forget unfair trade like NAFTA, trade barriers, etc..........
-Rocky
That about says it all! :shades:
Maybe if GM and Chrysler would reopen southern plants without UAW workers, they too could produce quality cars again.
Absolutely!
Only problem is that when a hip breaks or an MRI is needed, some folks have the gall to want it fixed or done fairly soon. Doesn't happen in Canada, according to a 1 hour special on TV a while back.
So they are forced to come here and "PAY" . Where will they go if we switch to national health care?
Kip
Which american insurance or pharameceutical company paid for this TV special???
So they are forced to come here and "PAY" . Where will they go if we switch to national health care?
You can go to Mexico. Just ask the globalist sympatheizers on these boards. If they can build an elite car they must have elite healthcare services also.
I've never read such hyperbole in my life. Yeah it's those worthless UAW workers that build crap cars yet the same types build elite cars like the CTS. You folks make ZERO sense and need to pull your heads out of somewhere to put it kindly.
-Rocky
There ya go!
Kip
Once the divisions lost their independence, brand distinctions no longer mattered & one GM car came to look pretty much like any other car of the same size. This is why the biggest Caddy booster here freely admits that Cadillacs of the late 80s are vastly less appealing than the great Caddies of the 50s & 60s.
You can blame the UAW for making GM cars cost more than they should, but you can blame only management for making GM cars so unappealing that many of us wouldn't buy them at half the price.
Just to show that I'm not making this up out of the air, below is a link which discusses the project. It's dull reading and therefore just added as a verification source. The discussion of the team idea is at the bottom of page 90 - the link presents the top of that page first.
Work structuring - SAAB
Instead of assembling engines part by part, the engines were built as a complete units by teams. Instead of a cycle time for each part, there was a cycle time for complete engines. The work teams got to decide who would group together into a team and the work groups then got to decide who did what, and how, and any arrangement they came to was OK as long as there was a completed engine that worked at the end of 30 minutes.
Very interesting to see that it's still going on. Perhaps this is why GM bought SAAB - not for the cars but for the research they'd done on the assembly process.
UPDATE: Here's google summary of a link that suggests that the plan was readopted by SAAB after the initial program ended. Unfortunately, they want me to pay to ready the article and I'm interested but not THAT interested. Here's what I could extract for free :-)
traditional assembly line has been abandoned for good.' He hopes that the .... than in most examples of group assembly. In fact, Saab considers each .... some areas, such as in the fascia work shop, two teams work on the car at the ...
Surmises that a previous attempt to employ these methods failed because management still used the old methods, the new purpose-designed plant has more potential and, importantly, space for expansion.
www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&hdAction=l- nkpdf&contentId=850529&history...
Sadly, only the CTS and Malibu are worth bragging about, rocky...what about the rest of the line???...I mean, like ALL of it, not just one or two models that they figured out how to make right...hence, BANKRUPTCY...
You have to think in Family terms - Chrysler UAW is still UAW, but they're not GM UAW.... different branch of the family.
Cousins are allowed to complain about how stupid the other cousin is, but you and I are not allowed to do so because we're not UAW family... got it?
No family dirty laundry gets aired in front of company, see?
I don't think anyone would say that a UAW factory is NOT capable of building a quality vehicle. It is the fact that much of the time their attitude is poor and it is reflected in the quality. If they are upset about some issue and thinking about going on strike you can bet the quality goes in the toilet. Face it about half the time the UAW is wanting to strike some plant somewhere.
In a non union shop you just get rid of the trouble makers and continue to build a good cars. If the UAW would help cull out the worthless workers it would have gone a long ways to benefiting the Domestic auto makers. That includes getting rid of the shop stewards and their cronies that are not carrying their share of the load. I know it happens because I was in the middle of it with the Teamsters.
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-mashups-moon-hoax-sneak-peek.html
IMHO you are assuming WAY more intelligence of the part of Wagoner and the Board than ever actually existed. Like they would have to buy a car company to know they should work in teams? "Let's start a $10B project to analyze whether we should work in teams. How about we buy another maker and add a brand?".
I went to the UAW web site. Lots of materials on benefits, saving jobs. How to lobby Congress. Retirement benefits. Layoffs. Buy American. What you drive supports the US. Etc.
Nothing on the front page about any programs to improve the quality of cars or the manufacturing process. Nothing about efficiency.
on an 09 MKZ, a UAW member can get an incentive worth over 14K!
of course, it is assembled in mexico by non UAW workers.
i wonder if anyone actually went for it? :surprise: