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Comments
The adjustment on the federal level comes from pressure from social groups wanting to increase the buying power of their constituents, or at least perceived constituents.
The states also set minimum pay levels.
If the union work pays less, there is less demand from groups to have higher pay. They do so when they perceive that others are earning more because the others have obtained pay raises through negotiation.
>The UAW does a poor job,
Does someone have the list of UAW plants in the US and which cars are made by them?
>you can't cling to the old past
Is this a Limbaugh saying?
>Besides we're talking UAW, not all unions.
We're talking all unions because the problems and the good are involving all unions.
A local construction union leaves a downtown worksite because they have put in their 8-hour day; the construction company can't get them to work extended days and overtime to make up for time lost on the contract for a new regional transit stop for the buses. I assume that would have no connection with the attitude some blame UAW for having through the years?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Blanket statements like that are broad, sound ridiculous. All UAW workers have built all the cars they make poorly and they are all bad cars? Hmmmm. Does that include the Toyota Matrix that they build alongside the Pontiac Vibe in California? Or is it just the Pontiac Vibe because someone dislikes the US manufacturers?
How have I gotten so many good GM cars through the last 20 years?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Nope. I didn't even care whether they existed or not until they start asking for taxpayers money to pay their wages.
As long as they don't ask for anyone else's help, they can be paid as high as they want and I won't even care. If they go down because of their poor job, it's their problem not mine.
The moment I have to sacrifice my tax money to pay these fool it becomes a problem, and I dare say a lot of people here actually feel the same way as me.
A lot of Buick Roadmasters survive. I was parked next to one at the mall yesterday.
Apaprently, and obviously, you're either:
a. One darn lucky guy, or
b. You have different standard from the rest of us about good and reliable.
As for Matrix-Vibe, both are just ok cars, nowhere near good no matter the brand name.
I don't say ALL UAW products are bad. Some are good, CTS and Corvette as said over and over again (and you seem to disregard over and over again). But that alone is not enough to put UAW into "good" category, as the majority are bad, hence the generalization. You as an adult are supposed to understand this already.
I'll say this one more time: some UAW workers are good workers, but they have to live with the bad reputation caused by the majority, it's the risk they should be prepared for. If I have to say "bad UAW workers" all the time to separate the few gems they have it'll be a waste of time. We ALL understand there are good apples, but they're few and far in between, surrounded by the rotten ones so badly they become hard to find.
Also, the foreign transplants are paying workers around $28 an hour. Aren't they still overpaid for doing the work a teenager at McDonald's could perform? What's going to happen when the Big Three and UAW finally do go away? Are the transplants going to drop everybody's pay down to Wal~Mart level, pack up and go home, or move their manufacturing facilities to third-world toilets?
Of course not. However you can't ignore the fact that a few million people out there disagree with you and imidazol.
Being the one with the good GM products doesn't make you right. In fact, there's no right or wrong in this case. The public rules the market, the majority sets the standard. And by their standards GM simply didn't, hasn't, and still doesn't give what the public wants.
What's so hard to understand about it?
a. One darn lucky guy, or
b. You have different standard from the rest of us about good and reliable.
Well make that TWO darn lucky guys. Wait, my Grandpop always did well with his GM cars, make that THREE...no, my best friend has great luck with his Tahoe and Corvette, that's FOUR darn lucky...oh, and this other guy...that's FIVE...and the list goes on.
Different standards? Heck, if anything mine are a lot HIGHER than the average slob. A burned-out bulb will drive me bananas. Anybody who knows me knows I'm extremely picky about my cars.
I believe it's the car companies themselves who asked for the money; none was directly given to the UAW from the US Treasury.
So the problem is that the government giving money is not good. Is it okay for the government to subsidize large banks? Or AIG who I read is the holder of the pension funds for the US Congress folk who have a vested interest (no pun intended) in securing the longevity of the AIG so that their retirement funds don't disappear?
Is it okay for the government to subsidize black newspapers? Or all newspapers because they are losing readers faster than Pelosi-favored mice are disappearing?
Is it okay for the government to subsidize record companies, three out of four of which are in foreign countries? Or can they just force radio stations to pay more royalties to the record companies as a subsidy?
>The moment I have to sacrifice my tax money to pay these fool(s) it becomes a problem, and I dare say a lot of people here actually feel the same way as me.
Again the government is not directly writing checks for UAW workers pay stubs. But I suspect more of this problem is to do with the lack of understanding of how the American taxpayer has been ripped off by congress forcing banks to make mortgage loans for people with no hope of paying them back so that politicians could earn points in the past and present--at least until the excessively high property values encouraged thereby collapsed and the banks' fake paper supports collapsed. Pols like Frank, Waters, Dodd, et al, who wouldn't let the previous president cut back on mortgage excesses in 2004-5, all are responsible for spending your money now. Frank and his "friend" at the Fannie Mae are primary movers in having fake backing for mortgages.
The lack of understanding that the car companies problems by their roots in those economy problems I cite above makes the car companies and UAW by extension seem the logical lightening rods. But the real roots of the problem, and the waste of money bailing out companies, lie as I said above, in the fake paper in mortgages encouraged by many politicians starting with Clinton and his Attorney General-what's her name- who threatened lending institutions if they didn't give out more money. So the UAW gets the blame because they are accessible in the minds of working people; the high financial games of paper instruments of Wall Street and Fannie Mae aren't.
I do agree UAW is overpaid, and has been overpaid. But while the public has been fed lots of stories about the auto companies, many other parts of the economy are being messed with in DC. Your tax money is being planned for, wasted in most cases, to build railroads to nowhere.
Click here to read: Train service in Dayton--read the blog comments below the article for the ridicule. These locals think the trains will run once per hour or something instead of two times per day! Grin....
Click here to read: And a second article about how wonderful, although the point that trains only make sense as commuter vehicles in highly populated areas.
This is your tax money wasted. The actual tracks, trains, etc., will end up costing a hundred times what they're wanting and saying now.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Welcome to Obama's Stimulus plan. The non-union contractors in CA are up in arms because they are not being allowed to bid on the Stimulus projects. So we know the waste will be enormous. The final straw in my step dad dropping out of the Carpenters Union was the 12 drops of rain per foot rule. They shut the job down if they got 12 drops of rain on a foot of 2x4 laying on the ground. Of course the company had to pay a minimum 4 hours to all the workers. And Unions wonder why they are almost all busted in CA. Why pay a carpenter $28 per hour, last scale I heard of, when you can get good willing carpenters for $22 per hour all day long and willing to work as much OT as you will give them?
I would expect the Unions to really play up their good fortune with the Stimulus money projects. My question is will we get our moneys worth from the tax money spent?
What's so hard to understand about it?
The public has bought many GM cars. I realize the mantra has been that all cars from GM are bad and they haven't sold any cars there indicating the public has voted about their worth.
But who has the data about how many cars GM sold in the last few years compared to other manufacturers? They seem to have sold a lot of cars. Someone is buying them. Are they all dumb? Or is it just easier to regurgitate the mantra that NOBODY has been buying GM cars? or any US cars since we're talking about UAW here and want to stay on topic, don't we?
What's so hard to understand about that they are still selling cars? Indeed if the economy hadn't been messed up by the politicians in DC, the recession wouldn't have been so financially tight, and car sales would have been much better than they have been the last two years. Indeed GM might now have needed help from the Fed to save the jobs of many people.
>And by their standards GM simply didn't,
The car lots at local GM dealers seem to be awfully bare of vehicles for NOBODY to have been buying them. Therefore I think they must be giving someone what they want?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Now you're ridiculing me that I have a lower standard for my cars! :mad:
May I suggest you start reading some of the Toyota threads with people having troubles with their Toyos (I thought they were all perfect, grin) and the Honda VCM and Odyssey transmission threads are very entertaining. Sounds like there's trouble in Victorville with problems in the perfect cars some people tout as the be all end all of automobile perfection. I can supply links to those threads if you want to read them to enhance the perspective of reality in autos.
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I am just posting one little snippet of your longer post. I agree with every word you wrote. The root of all the problems lie with our government and their failed policies. The auto industry is just the latest failure. The education system is on the brink of disaster with budget cuts in every state. Our infrastructure has been poorly maintained in spite of huge tax revenues being paid in. I could go on and on as you could.
My wish was the UAW would have been more cognizant of the problems and worked with the D3 to cut costs before GM and C lost so much money. I think they are beyond help at this point. Unless the UAW makes drastic concessions. I am thinking in the $15-$20 range max per hour. No retirement pay or benefits until 63 years of age. And toss out about 2000 pages of work rules in those bloated contracts. We did fine with 33 pages. Every man had them memorized making the shop stewards job easier.
You can say, "Well they agreed to the contracts the UAW proposed"....but if they did not agree....the UAW SHUT THEM DOWN with strikes. They should have took a firm stance a long time ago and they gave in to the UAW (who, at the time, was VERY POWERFUL . They still sell a lot of vehicles and STILL LOSE MONEY, but now the Govt. subsidizes them. AND THAT IS NOT WHAT THE TAXPAYERS WANT!!!
I would expect they would drop the unskilled workers pay to a competitive level around $15 per hour. With health care paid and a 401k matching option. Anything more and the jobs will continue to migrate to business friendlier locations. It is not just labor costs. States like CA have all but pushed manufacturing out of the state with extremely tough regulations. If it cannot be built in CA because of environmental concerns the labor costs could be very low and the jobs would still go away.
That can be found with a little research. The major factor is GM went from 50% down now about 17% of the US market share. I seriously doubt that people that switched from buying GM to whatever, even thought about the UAW involvement. I did in 1998 when I needed a new truck after hitting a deer with my favorite 1993 3/4 ton Silverado 4X4. The UAW had just gone on strike and I was in Idaho on vacation. I was fortunate the local dealer in Hailey was a big Suburban dealer and had gotten a load of Suburbans before the UAW strike hit. I liked that vehicle for the 7 years I owned it. I should have kept it instead of buying the 2005 GMC Hybrid PU that was kind of a disappointment.
So the question is: where did those 33% of GM buyers go? Not many went to Ford or Chrysler as they have barely maintained or lost MS. It has to be the imports and transplants. I think it is generally the result of the move to more fuel efficient small cars. GM has not done that well with small cars.
For Ohio or Michigan to ever regain their manufacturing base, the Unions will have to become pro active in making sure the wages are not out of line with the rest of the states. Or they will lose more and more jobs. Nothing Obama can do to force any company to move into that kind of environment.
If you're old enough, as I am, to remember what a headache car ownership was back in the 1970s, this is huge. Back then, we traded cars frequently because we had to. Today, if we trade frequently, it's because we want to.
My gripe - & it's a big one - is that the domestic manufacturers - GM in particular - have had little to offer those of us who aren't truck/SUV lovers. Look at the pre-2008 Malibu, for example. While not a bad car, it wasn't anything you'd want in your driveway. It had all of the flair & excitement of an airport rental, which seems to have been the purpose for which it was designed. It doesn't look complete without the bar code sticker in a side rear window.
When GM was riding high on SUV sales during the 90s, it should have invested some of its profits in a line of exciting sedans & coupes. Then it would have been prepared for the day when fuel prices went up & the public fell out of love with SUVs.
I have no love for the UAW, but I can't blame the union for the industry's core problem: a shortage of compelling products that pull people into showrooms.
Nope. If you're a car maker hoping to be a key player in a major market, then you must have design & manufacturing facilities in that market.
Right.
> It had all of the flair & excitement of an airport rental,
It reminds me of the Civic, with a little more room.
>It doesn't look complete without the bar code
Not sure what that has as relevance here. Other car companies sell to rental agencies. If noone sold to them, they wouldn't exist.
>the industry's core problem: a shortage of compelling products that pull people into showrooms.
Now we're down to "it's the products designed by the engineers and designers and allowed by the beancounters that's the problem." For others it's the UAW who holds full responsibility... ?????
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Agree with the points.
When more sellers come into the market, the earlier companies lose market share. Somehow posters blame GM, e.g., for losing market share when number of competitors went from 2 to 10. The competitors have cheaper, newer plants. They also can cherry pick the market items with which to compete.
It's like having a Kohls open in an area which already has Macy's and BonTon as legacy operators of department stores here since the 30s and 40s. The new kids get all the attention even if their management is located in Japan and Korea and their primary employment here is the working grunts on the line rather than actual upper and middle managers.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
True, but some brands - notably, the Malibu - are dumped wholesale into rental fleets to keep the factory lights on.
Don't you think that GM would have tried harder to make the pre-2008 Malibu an appealing car if it didn't have fleet sales to fall back on? I do, & that's the point.
Now we're down to "it's the products designed by the engineers and designers and allowed by the beancounters that's the problem."
That's exactly my position. Even though I don't particularly like unions & wouldn't want one within a mile of any business that I owned, I can't in good conscience blame the UAW for a long string of dull, uninspiring cars.
Years and years of my father's "Steellabor" pravda mag delivered to the house. belligerent Goodyear, god knows what workers fighting for their "rights". Government 1930's labor relations board (not real US court, where the constitiution would have axed it in 1933) crapola. All of them too stupid to know every year for the past 40 computers/sensors become more and more capable of replacing High School dropout/GED labor.
My fathers shop was a small shop. Unionized in the early 80's. He got a $1.00/hr raise and the union (and democrats) got half that. Retired at 10.80 hr. Had more responsibility as foreman than 10 UAW guys. Cmon card check!!! Unions are great for small 100 employee shops. Wooooo wooooo!
Gotta hand it to FDR though-- democrat party's hands in the payroll of lotsa private firms. (yeah I heard unions donate a dollar or two to "responsible" republicans now and then) And the special NLRB labor courts created aside the U.S. Judicial System. Nice touch.
50000 dealership workers, private pension funds holding GM/Chrysler loans get crapped on so the Democrats can hand over their UAW cucolded idiots half these lobotomized "organizations" as reward for 50 years of "service" to the good ol party of the mule. You have a problem with that ? The 'crats "dear leader" will find you greedy, uncooperative.
Screw up like GM Chrysler, get all the loving help you need. Do (some) of the right things (Ford) get nothing and an infinite govt as a competitior. Probably be threatened like Chrysler debtors for your trouble. Talk about moral hazard.
Wait till the other unions pensions go bust and the tax dollars go to bail them out with govt guaranteed "insurance". Its 170 days since the federal reserve's Paulson. 100+ since the inauguration of the chosen one. Massive stench from Chicago before you can even get his hands on the bible. (or was it the phone book?)
100 or so days out of 1440. You haven't seen nothin' yet.
from post 9000 or so -------------------------------------
The UAW guys could have had it all, at least for a lot longer. Many saw the problems, the golf cart stewards in their blue shirts shutting down the production line in pissing contests with management. ("safety" issues) Stewards "cutting out" with their buds to go bowling down the street.
Ridiculously low quotas for some stations a determined worker could complete in 2 hrs and read the paper the rest of the day. (and thumb his nose at management when he did it)
UAW membership dropping 70%? in 20 years. Despite a large increase in the U.S. sales.(It didn't occur to them it wasn't working?)
The only thing keeping the Domestics afloat was the "outsourcing" of parts to small mechanized machine shops around the country.
15 years ago "outsourcing" was considered to be the traitorous shifting of labor from ridiculously expensive American union shops to far less expensive American non-union shops. The concept of overseas wasn't mentioned much.
I have a customer who makes $12/hr operating a cnc machine producing parts for the local Ford plant. When not doing that he resets for parts from 4 other companies in 2 separate industries. A UAW high school dropout would be paid 4x as much to do 1/5 the work. (and believing he's getting "shafted"). Other UAW workers who knew how lucky they were were powerless. Exceeding quota would make other workers "look bad", and reveal the need for less workers. Work ethic could be highly discouraged. One lady got really reamed by the stewards for consistently producing too much product. "I just get so bored doing nothing" she explained to me. She eventually got to enjoy solitare.
Of course absenteeinsm and alcoholism, $30/hr janitors... we won't go there.
The Democratic party's unholy alliance with the deal. (mostly northern "Blue States" aka "rust belt". $70/hr pay packages meant hefty union dues with the Democrats hand in the payroll through union contributions (98% to Democrats)
The infamous "jobs bank". Hmmmm hardly no other plants lay workers off at full pay to go play pool, at $29/hr much less $50+. Great deal if all the workers could share in this. Unfortunately, only 1-2% of (politically connected) workers can get it and the rest pay up for the products.
There's no way a bunch of high school dropouts/GED folks, with an extra layer of management (union/stewards) ,pay packages 40%? higher than competitors and with rigid work rules (how many UAW guys does it take to change a light bulb..) are going to compete with college educated employees (specifically screened with expensive psychological tests not to be "Detroit" types) unhindered by such in other plants in automobile manufacturing. The dog won't hunt with $3.00 gas.
Save the flag waving/pearl harbor/working class hero crap for those who don't know any better. Mostly driven "domestic" nameplates all my life, but what they say about watching "sausage being made" surely applied here.
Put a fork in the UAW/domestics for consumer autos. They're done. The Democrats will throw them 30-40 billion (of your tax money making much less/hr. ) to have them float another year.
Some of the "skilled" trades were pulling down $170+k/yr (actual salary sans benefits) with overtime. The dolts should leave the stewards/golf carts/UAW leadership in a ditch.
Good luck folks
--jjf
If Beijing gets its way, the future will be small, green and—of course—made in China. The shock of the global financial crisis, and the resulting need to stimulate the auto sector has persuaded Beijing to dig deep into government coffers with more than $733 million
Chinese auto companies still have a key competitive advantage—the fact that most are run by (and favored by) China's command-and-control government. The state can tweak policy and macroeconomic levers that virtually change the game overnight—witness Beijing's swift and successful response to the financial crisis. Compared to democratic countries where policymaking can be protracted and messy (just look at America's efforts to revamp the automotive industry), Beijing has a major leg up. They can simply decide what the future will look like, and state-owned enterprises must toe the line.
And no one does fiscal prudence better than the Chinese, who have managed to keep growing amid the recession thanks to their $2 trillion in reserves and the ability of their autocratic system to turn on a dime to deal with whatever new economic challenge is presented
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195095/page/1
I picked on the Roadmaster as something I thought was about the ugliest car made in 30 years...but my taste is not yours!!!
Actually, lemko, the only reason your point does not work ("that's five...and the list goes on") is that you point out those who buy GM cars...that is NOT the problem...the problem is the number of people who NO LONGER buy GM cars, and who now buy imports....
It's like the local restaurant that had to close...telling me how many people ate there does not communicate how many people NO LONGER eat there because they believe the food is not good...so, you keep pointing out how many GM loyalists there are...that no longer matters at all...none...zip...what matters is how much of the market has deserted GM, to the point that they no longer make enough money to stay in business...
Whether it is poor UAW workmanship or poorly designed cars, or mediocre food, poor service, or a dirty restuarant, it doe NOT matter how many people eat there...they will have to close if enough people desert and leave the brand for another restaurant or another car company...the fact that you know so many people in love with their GM car is, really, quite meaningless...because the number of people GM has disgusted with bad cars is now greater than the number of people like you who love their cars...and that is why they are going down...
Your defense of GM is like yelling in the middle of the ocean...nobody hears you because we have had our own experience with GM, and all of your good things you say have not won back anyone...
You are the one in the middle of the ocean...I appreciate your efforts, but, like the boy who cried wolf, no one believes you anymore, not enough to keep GM afloat any longer...
No, the UAW can be blamed for strikes and a general inefficient way of forcing the businesses to price themselves out of jobs. That'll help the cause every time.
Regards,
OW
You get what you VOTE for, in or out of the Union.
Regards,
OW
Don't start a new thread unless you actually want to initiate a new conversation.
My god I've answered this question so many times I'm sick of it. let me tell you once again: I DO NOT support any bailout for either banks, insurance groups or auto companies. Bank of America asked for bailout, I removed all of my money elsewhere, they lost me, that simple.
And if the stimulus plan isn't used for projects that we, the taxpayers can use then I don't support it either. It's public's taxmoney, thus should be used only for the purpose of public well being, not the government, not a group of bailout takers. Simple.
But if they (I'm assuming the one's already in those positions) become infuriated by the 40% paycut, then what? Move from Ky. to Ala.? And what if Hyundai drops their pay down to $11/hr to keep ahead of Toyota, now you piss them off. Where do you go from there? Mexico? If so, who buys all the new cars, Mexicans??? it surely wouldn't be us, as we no longer have a job.
It's called the temptation of price. Gm does sell a whole lot of cars, but mostly at a loss, deep rebates everywhere. It's common knowledge you see everywhere, even slapped on your morning newspaper.
Try getting the majority of them to buy the cars at Japanese competitors' price, and we'll see how many of them will actually choose GM over the Japanese products.
The car lots at local GM dealers seem to be awfully bare of vehicles for NOBODY to have been buying them. Therefore I think they must be giving someone what they want?
Local, huh? Then how do you explain the pile of last year's leftovers still collecting dust on dealers lots elsewhere?
May I suggest you start reading some of the Toyota threads with people having troubles with their Toyos
Why do you always compare with Toyota, a car company which quality is falling? Why not compare with the relatively steady Honda and Nissan?
Why do you keep comparing with the weaker players? If GM always see the weaker ones for comparison it'll never improve enough to be on top, or even on par for that matter.
Sure Honda got problems, but Odissey is one model. How many GM cars have more problems than that?
I see it as a chain reaction between these 3 factors:
1. Greedy execs looking to squeeze more profit
2. Lazy UAW workers overpaid
3. Poor car design and engineering
This is what I see: UAW kept demanding raise, in which GM management had no choice but to oblige. Meanwhile, GM execs up there, seeing that profit was about to diminish, chose to make cuts elsewhere to maintain profit, or even get more profit. Thus GM cut the budget on engineers and designers' pay. Result: the good engineers left and worked elsewhere, the replacements were no goods designing crappy cars. UAW didn't help, their pampering made them lazy and sloppy thus ruining their work, making the cars even crappier. Cars didn't sell, company went down.
So the blame goes to both management and UAW. Which takes the higher responsibility is none of my concern. Both take bailout, both just as guilty in my book.
Actually Kohl's is an old family business. Senator Kohl Democrat from Wisconsin is one of the heirs to the fortune. I believe the wealthiest person in Congress. Kind of like WalMart all American owned and operated.
Why not? It happens all the time. My son in law just got moved by his software company from San Diego to Evansville Indiana. CA is driving companies out of the state in record numbers. If Michigan and Ohio do not educate their work force and give them a crash course in reality, the jobs will all leave those states. This has been going on since the 1960s. Just not in the auto industry as much. I would imagine a lot of the smaller suppliers are in the South to avoid the UAW.
I took a two month class at North Electric in Johnson City, TN in 1971. The company had just moved from Galion Ohio to avoid high labor costs. So Michigan and Ohio have been running businesses out with high priced labor at least 40 years. I am not sure what other factors were involved. Some times high property taxes or cost of utilities. Bottom line is companies move where they can be competitive. It is sad when they leave the USA.
Yes, it is. But, if we overpay, as you intimate about the UAW, then we fear inflationary prices. If the pay scale collapses due to cheap labor, then we see states like Mi. and Oh. suffer. Soon, it won't be just the Northern states, as the Southern pay won't be acceptible. Then the whole country suffers as we struggle to earn a respectable pay, because of competition from other countries where the pay is pennies on the dollar.
It was part of the greed-fest that Wall St. helped with, along with dorky greedy banks, that brought misery to untold hundreds of thousands later. Idiots.
Sleight of hand doesn't work in banking, idiots? Unbelievable that they could be allowed to gamble with our money and then when it didn't work we all have to bail their fannies out. :sick:
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
But management always has a choice because it has the last word. It can & should say "No!" to unreasonable demands for more money & benefits. In fact, managers have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders not to cave in to labor; the board of directors should fire them if they don't live up to this obligation.
As I see it, D3 management stupidly assumed back in the 60s & 70s that they could buy labor peace by giving the UAW whatever it wanted & passing the costs on to us, the consumers. (These are the so-called "legacy costs" that some here point to as a reason why the domestics should not have to compete with imports.)
It seems not to have occurred to senior management that many of us would rebel against this cozy arrangement by buying foreign cars. No intelligent manager would have agreed to pay for retirees' medical benefits, for example - after all, who can know what the business landscape will look like 30 years from now? - but D3 managers were a bunch of smug, insular caretakers who figured that their monopoly would last forever.
Way back in 1969, Car & Driver published an essay that slammed D3 management as a bunch of complacent timeservers who knew nothing about the real world & who were far more interested in their Grosse Pointe country club memberships than in building better cars. It's a great piece, & you should read it if you can find it. (I've looked for it on the Web - so far, without success.)
It's only been in the last 15 years or so Kohls has opened stores in Ohio (outside of Columbus). They are the fresh hip store to shop at. They aren't burdened with staid older employees as are some of the competition stores; the competitions have been through 3 or 4 owners during that time.
Kohls knows exactly the target group; they cherry picked the market as did the foreign competition. Kohls does not have to appeal to everyone to get them in the store. I have watched the crowds at various times as they drew them in at the area Kohls stores.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Naaah. ACORN's hiring.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
1. Greedy execs looking to squeeze more profit
2. Lazy UAW workers overpaid
3. Poor car design and engineering
Another factor was shareholders. Don't I recall Kevorkian or some name like that buying a large stake to try to impact GM's profits and share pricing to his advantage--I don't recall he was interested in lower profits and better cars because of more money put into the cars.
Another factor is the older factories from the earlier days of GM. Rebuilding a factory is expensive (even worse when you can't lay off employee numbers and have agreements about maintaining employment in above-mentioned factories) and many plants have a pollution legacy now which wasn't a problem when they were working in their heydays in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
That is just one aspect of paying more than the current market for any labor. It leaves the worker vulnerable. If you have 1000 unskilled people vying for every job the wage is too high. You need to lower that wage until less are willing to take the job for the wage offered. That in turn will force the cost of living down to meet the wages. There are a few places like NYC and CA that it does not work like that. Areas around Silicon Valley the schools were having to supplement housing to get any teachers during the dot.com bubble. Same for police and firemen. A middle class living wage was about $115k per year.
I don't see that in Michigan and especially Detroit where homes are being given away. You have Rocky that still lives for a dream home in Grand Rapids. Well I would like a home in LaJolla or Malibu. Guess what, I am SOL unless someone leaves me a $100 Million. That is not even remotely possible.
You and I were fortunate enough to pick a vocation that is needed just about everywhere. Manufacturing is a moving target and has been for a very long time. I am very surprised the auto industry has held out this long with the high cost of labor. It has not been profitable for GM over the last 20 years. The UAW leadership knew it and ignored it. If the workers want to stone the culprit they should start with Gettlefinger and Reuther for telling them lies. Like the big one that they are worth as much as a doctor, teacher or engineer.
Many of the posters here have listed numerous problems that would aggravate anyone...a few weeks ago, there was an article in the Atlanta paper, explaining in deep detail, why a buyer will never buy another GM car, after the way he was treated with his DTS, lemko notwithstanding...I realize it was only one article about one buyer, but it summed up this entire topic...his car was vibrating at high speed, dealer told him it was normal, GM engineers told him it was "within normal limits" as though a vibrating Caddy is normal...how many others have had the same thing, and, if the Lucerne is a Buick version of the DTS, how many Buick buyers have been told the same thing???
Is that the fault of the UAW for leaving out counterbalancing parts, the fault of GM for poor engine design, or the fault of the dealer for not trying to fix (according to the article) the problem???...I don't know, but I do know one thing...for WHATEVER reason, that buyer will NEVER look at a GM car again...will he look at Ford or Chrysler???...I don't know, but if one spends enough money (like a DTS) and buys, literally, a piece of junk, will he see the entire Big 3 as all the same and run to the imports???...not inconceivable, IMO...
So, the UAW has their share of blame for poor assembly and workmanship of the cars they build, but mgmt takes blame for allowing design problems to exist and never correcting them...
A high speed engine vibration should have qualified him for a new engine or new car, with GM apologizing and making sure he is satisfied...I am sure 1000s of people read that article in the paper, and may very well caused some/many of them not to walk into a Caddy dealer, esp with GM in its current condition...
Honda and Toyota may also have their defects, but not in the quantity that occurs with the Big 3...and now that imports have 50% of the market, their sales are large enough to have similar problems...
The Big 3 have blown it big time, and the UAW is about to become the highest paid unskilled workers the unemployment line ever saw...
Naaah. ACORN's hiring."...cute thought...but since all ACORN is good for is community organizing and registering non-existent "voters", soon in Mich there will be no one left to organize, and even the dead voters will have to show up because the live voters will all be gone...
There are people that think you can keep hiring more people to work in the Government without impacting the economy. What happens when the USA can no longer buy goods like oil with our worthless dollars being printed to pay all the civil servants?
Obama says "we're out of money". Will he stop printing worthless dollars?
Obama did show his appreciation to the dead voters. He sent 10,000 of them a $250 check. And they think they can handle health care. What a joke.
Although I enjoy your posts, I've gotta ask: can't you see the "Reply" link at the top of every post?
If you can't see it because of a visual impairment, then please accept my apology. Otherwise, puh-leez use it when you're responding to someone else's post so that your response is linked to that earlier post.
It occurs to me that you might be using a really old browser that doesn't render these pages properly. If you're still using Netscape Navigator, it's time to update. It ain't 1995 any more.
Goldfinger was sitting right beside the CEOs and wanted that money so that the UAW's standard of living could be preserved. It was important to ask for taxpayer money but it was not important that GM was losing money when they struck against GM in 2008.
So the problem is that the government giving money is not good. Is it okay for the government to subsidize large banks? Or AIG who I read is the holder of the pension funds for the US Congress folk who have a vested interest (no pun intended) in securing the longevity of the AIG so that their retirement funds don't disappear?
Nobody likes giving the money to the banks and almost everybody feels the same way. But the financial system is the lifeblood of our economy and the failure of that system could kill the patient. The D3 are more like a few fingers on one hand - painful to lose but not fatal.
So the UAW gets the blame because they are accessible in the minds of working people; the high financial games of paper instruments of Wall Street and Fannie Mae aren't.
Its a strange coincidence that the automakers who are most fragile are the ones who all have UAW workers in this country. You have to ask why the UAW-represented automakers are the most fragile, have been losing the most market share, and need the bailout money the most. The common denominator is.....the UAW! I'm not so convinced that the actual quality of assembly is the real problem. It is the labor contracts, the high benefits in retirement, and the inflexibilities in the plants that render the D3 uncompetitive. This is, to a large degree, the fault of the UAW.
They sold a lot of cars because they had to discount enough to their real value in the marketplace. The result was low to zero margins on most vehicles. Hence a hemorrhaging of money. And once the economy dropped they were toast.
The car lots at local GM dealers seem to be awfully bare of vehicles for NOBODY to have been buying them. Therefore I think they must be giving someone what they want?
Again, price dropped to the point that they were worth it to enough people. Doesn't mean they were of high value, or enough value to cover their high costs of manufacture and overhead.