Saving the US Auto Industry
 

How do you feel about sending taxpayer money to save any one or all of the Big Three?

Against.

I worked as a nurse for GM (Truck and Bus division) back in '97. I came home one night after working and said, "This company won't last ten more years." Workers would clock in then come to medical and say, "I"m sick, send me home." If the company nurse sent them home, they got no demerit points and were paid.

They'd come to work whacked out or drunk and the union rules were that we were to "sober up" the asshat (in medical, no less) and periodically give the person sobriety tests. If they ever passed the test, they could go to work. Many of them just slept in medical for 8 hours, collected their pay and went home. I had asthmatics smoke cigs until they went into an attack and had to be transported via bus to the hospital, diabetics who would let their sugar drop to get out of work, and one woman came to medical one hour after her shift had started to announce that she thought she had a tampon stuck. Unwilling and unable to do the honors, we sent her to an Urgent Care. No tampon, but she was paid for all the time she was gone, as were the others. Never, ever have I witness such gaming in my life. The auto workers, those proud All-Americans, put the nails in their own coffin. Every single car or truck ever bought included the price of elbow, wrist, hand, shoulder surgery paid for by GM. And once Mama and Papa knew the tricks, they passed them down like precious recipes to Jo jr. and Dolores Dre. Entire families gaming.

They got what they deserved.


:fuse:

Interesting insight. But I have to say, I see a lot of that behavior in other industry as well. It use to be worse in the DOD than it is now, but they have their fair share of slackers as well.

I also worked for AK Steel in medical dept. They were nothing like the doodie heads at GM. In contrast to Generous Motors, they had maybe one bad apple to 9 good ones, where gm had 10 bad apples to 9.

There was a deer in the parking lot: Joe Asshattery ran it down with his truck, killed it and was going to take it home (mmmm, truck killed baby deer!) when he got arrested.

Another proud GM worker, pissed at a security guard, brought the severed head of a PIG to work and set it in a place where he knew security guard woud see it.

Guy came to work, shot his woman in the face in the parking lot.

Because union rules said they didn't have to tie back their hair, woman on line was scalped. YOU paid for that if you bought a car, truck....

Dude arrested and jailed for dealing weapons (GUNS) at work was released after a year and got his job back. YAY UNION!

the monthly union letter, written by their "president" read like the ramblings of a drunk maniac.

Yeah. I've a grudge, but so what? They BEGGED to be shut down.

The problem is I don't think Pelosi and Reid have the balls to do it. Shut it that is. Most of the rational economists I have heard on NPR say let it fail or at least go to Chapter 13 and reorganize. It would be painful for many people but something has to give. We can't just keep handing out Billions to these failing corps.

And how many of the 266,000 GM employees did you see gaming the system? :eyebrow:

Read "Life on the line", by Solange De Santis.

All of them. Just extrapolate: 10 out of 9 apples at my GM plant were bad.
90,000 dollars a year for a janitor, who still lives in a trailor on the wrong side of the tracks? Full medical? Gramma's and Grappy's putting grandchildren on their insurance coz mom and pop are meth addicts? Yeah. And there's so much more.

Read Rivet Head: Tales from the Assembly Line by Ben Hamper.

Bullshit.

For the RECORD, bruce, I worked with steel workers,too, who were pretty much the salt of the earth. Good men and women. Mostly ex-military. A lot of Vietnam Vets. Lot of Gulf War vets. They were NOTHING LIKE the GM babies I saw.

Oh, you worked at GM? then you know.

ETA: when they got "laid off" they collected their pay. Getting "laid off" was a wet dream for them. They went practically berserk with happiness.

If "10 out of 9" were gaming the system and reporting to medical to get out of work every day, how the hell did any thing get built? That's impossible and union or not, the plant would close very quickly. Since you are saying all 266,000 GM employees fall in this catagory, then GM never built any cars/trucks. Bullshit.

I didn't vote because I haven't a clue what is really needed to save this situation. And my family's livelihood depends on Chrysler staying in the business.

Bri, I worked in a couple of transmission plants and I saw all kinds of people who came to work everyday and do their jobs. Everyone I know who works there works hard.

And most of these jobs aren't kind to the body. Neck and back problems end up plaguing a lot of these people. After a year of it I had to have two herniated discs (that caused me severe pain for 6 months) removed. The repetition of my job aggravated a problem that normally wouldn't have surfaced for another ten years or more.

I didn't vote because I don't fit any of the above.... I buy to a certain extent the argument that a total shutdown will lead to too much job loss, etc.

However I just don't see what good it is to give bales of cash to owners and management that have, by definition, screwed up. Who really thinks that a large influx of cash will suddenly enable the same people to run at a profit? In the case of the post-9/11 airline industry, it seems to have delayed the inevitable, and I see the same here.

Picture this, GM sold off piece by piece and busted into half a dozen small innovative car companies building the cars people want and need. Let it fail.

I wonder how much job loss really would occur under reorganization? And for how long, before they got their shit together under new management, and started rehiring again?

You're obviously right, bruce. Some GM people did work. ok: 9 out of 10 gamed the system.

In GM's case alone they have to many parts. Like Griff says, let them fail, re-organize, and be sold off to those who have the money to keep them going. Problem is not all the bits are going to be bought off, esp some of the auto production parts. I am afraid IAW may have been part of the problem here. If you look at other plants that do not have IAW involvement they seem to be doing better financially.

And if you had worked in the cafeteria, 9 out of 10 would have been hungry. Limited perspective. ;)

I'd rather see the money go to mass transportation, higher fuel efficiency development, bike paths and work-from-home practices, and while we're at it, to me. Or at least not more from me.

I had no idea they owned a part of so many smaller companies: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, and Wuling.

GMAC finance part alone is the biggest part of the ship under water.

Get out of my country, ya damn hippie. :lol2:

Comrade, do not try to resist. Resistance is FUTILE! :D

The Asian auto manufacturers have a secret weapon - Feng Shui. We simply can't blame the incompetent leadership of any US automaker or coddling by both parties in Congress that mistakenly thought that giving in to requests to not toughen pollution/mileage/safety regs would actually help them build better cars. No, that would require someone to actually take responsibility.

So I propose a feng shui solution, one that will cheaply solve the problem without assigning blame to any group.



Step 1: On the 4th Monday of any month, go to headquarters building of automaker needing assistance.




Step 2: At 1:34 PM local time, open windows in top two floors of the building starting from one of the four cardinal directions depending on season (East/Spring, South/Summer, West/Autumn, or North/Winter) in a counter-clockwise order.




Step 3: Throw any guy wearing a suit out of one of the open windows.

I wonder if a half dozen little guys, without an established dealer network, could win the trust of the public. Might need a new system of handling parts and warranty work through independent outlets.
No, I'm not buying a car from fucking walmart.

Of course they might just coalesce like the baby bells. :confused:

Let it go and restructure - then they can also renegotiate with the unions for a more realistic compensation situation. I heard that the average employee gets something like $55 and hour plus some insane benefits. That just is not gonna work in a globally competitive market :headshake

Not true. :headshake

Nope not true at all. We live on an autoworkers salary and although we live in ease...we are barely into middle class.

Got any numbers then? What is the average? Anyone?

IAW?

I googled UAW average salary and found this one at the top.


According to Forbes:

Labor cost per hour, wages and benefits for hourly workers, 2006.

Ford: $70.51 ($141,020 per year)

GM: $73.26 ($146,520 per year)

Chrysler: $75.86 ($151,720 per year)

Toyota, Honda, Nissan (in U.S.): $48.00 ($96,000 per year)

According to AAUP and IES, the average annual compensation for a college professor in 2006 was $92,973 (average salary nationally of $73,207 + 27% benefits).

Bottom Line: The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D. (see graph above, click to enlarge), and 52.6% more than the average worker at Toyota, Honda or Nissan.

That's what the automakers claim each UAW employee costs them, including all the lawyers, accountants, clerks and hot nurses in the dispensary, it takes to service them.

Some of it are projected costs if they live to be the average actuarial age, collect a pension equal to the average worker at retirements years of service, has a spouse with survivor benefits that lives to the average actuarial age.

Some is services the company is willing to provide, even if the employees don't choose to take advantage of them.

There are plenty of people making more and plenty of people making less. But they make a good living because thanks to the union, they are getting a fair piece of what the company makes on their labor. They are the middle class.

If they chose to be garbage collectors or college professors, they would get what that was worth to their employers.

I never serviced no auto worker.


...steel workers, now, that's a horse of a different color...

and just to stir the pot some more: if an IEU member (our plant was International Electricians Union) got a speeding ticket in the city the plant was in, a union member went to court for them to get the ticket thrown out. I know you think I'm making this stuff up, but, honey, you couldn't make this stuff up!!

Yea, my mistake. UAW.

You know Bri, I'm just thinking that if 9 out of 10 workers spent their time in sick bay with the nurse, it's no wonder they didn't make enough cars. ;)

All the guys in the shop knew how hot the nurse was. Blame it on the nurse. :D

Yeah...it's all Bri's fault that the US auto industry is collapsing. lol

Might I just say that the Australian industry isn't doing all that much better. No one is buying cars at the moment, but the advantage that we have is that most of our manufacturers make more small cars than large, so they've got half a chance of surviving.

Well Ford would make a killing if they started to import the same cars they have in the UK, with the steering wheel on the proper side, unlike the UK. The diesels over there have fantastic gas milage.

In all fairness, the average UAW worker actually produces something useful.

What, graduates aren't useful?

I assume it was a union official that got the ticket squashed, for the member. Good, don't you wish the people you voted for would take care of you?

Oh, from another forum...All together now... 85% of all... :blush:

Shoot him he's chokin me!
-No shoot him! He's chokin me!

Sorry, all...I buy Toyota. I've has more luck with foreign cars.

I don't think we need our tax money to step in, I think they have other options and opportunity, they just want to be proud and not sell off. They are their own business, let them take care of it. I do wonder how much unemployment tax payers money goes towards laid off autoworkers in comparison to the tax money thought to help fix them.

See tw, it's not his fault. :lol2:

The auto industry and the oil industry are so intertwined that they don't want fuel efficiency as it will affect profits. Want to watch a good documentary? "Who killed the electric car" It goes over the Hybrid test back in the 90s in California and how well they worked, but how the oil industry didn't support it, resulting in a pull of their test models to demolish (actually had to return their car and let them be taken to an empty lot until they take them to crush them all). Good documentary.

They have cleaner diesel in Europe so their emissions on American fuel probably wouldn't pass. VW finally got their diesel cleared, so its possible. [shrug]

I think it has been a secret of the car industry here for years. They, US car makers, have been making cars over there that get 30-50 miles per gallon. It's bullshit. I think the UAW has something to do with it because the engines are made over there.

Truly, a Renaissance man.

Years ago my Uncle had one of those little VW pickups with a diesel engine 50plus mpg and ran forever.

Oh boy, more of Merc's conspiracy theories. :rolleyes:

To expand on what Griff said, ultra low sulpher diesel became law in Europe in 2005, available here in 2006, and law here in 2007, except for non-stationary/off-road/maritime use. So up until last year they couldn't use the emission controls US law requires on diesels now.

Oh, and their vehicles are lighter as they don't have to meet US crash standards.

I was so disappointed. My 1990s Honda Civic never got better than 49 MPG on consecutive tanks of gasoline.

Meanwhile, what every post forgot to mention. Europeans cars were being designed by people who innovate. Mercedes had performed massive innovation in diesels to make more use of the fuel and significantly lower emissions. Meanwhile, that bus or truck you are following? That is the best innovation from any accountant. How to make a diesel pollute less? Yes, low sulfur fuel is necessary (and we have burned most of that already). But the solution to less emissions is to burn more of that fuel into energy. Lower pollution also means more horsepower and better MPG - when you get your facts from those who do the work - not from MBA trained management.

The solution is not diesels (even though diesels do adapt better to changing loads). The solution is directly traceable to auto companies who did ZERO innovation except when required by government regulation.

Let's see. The Europeans did diesel innovation. Japanese did gasoline innovation (ie hybrids). Americans did what? GM still makes engines without overhead cams (1970 innovation), still makes cars with sub-70 hp/liter engines (1980 innovation), and no hybrids (1990 innovation that even the US government paid for - see the Ford Prodigy and GM Precept - 1999 American hybrids quashed by communists such as Rick Wagoner).

Oh. GM spent $1billion on hydrogen fueled vehicles when anyone with basic high school science or some college training in thermodynamics knows a hydrogen fueled vehicle always was a myth. And according to that Washington Post article, GM is still wasting money on hydrogen fueled vehicles.

Just more examples of a communist bean counter (ie Rick Wagoner) throwing money at problems like a grenade because he does not even drive a car.

"Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry." So I could not even abandon it in the river. Just another way my GM product costs more money.

Brianna is correct in that she only saw one part. I saw what happened when those same workers ended up in a GM plant where the workers had control of their jobs.

Because GM workers were considered so dumb, massive layers of management told them everything they could and could not do including going to the bathroom. GM assembly plants created the workers they wanted - as Brianna demonstrates and as William Edward Deming said why it happens.

Because GM workers had to take charge of their work - work like an independent contractor - the UAW and GM negotiated a special condition for this GM plant. If the assembly line worker did not like working without communist control, then he could apply for a transfer to any other GM plant.

Reality, only one person did not like having control of his work - took the free transfer. Once those employees with bad attitudes could be in control of their own job, then those employees were very productive.

A highest paid union worker was making somewhere between $70,000 and under $100,000 annually (stated by him and his peers). Why? He would take all overtime he could get - about 80 hours per week. Once a union worker is offered overtime, he goes to the bottom of a list. Since GM had so much overtime work and since so many workers were turning down overtime, then this GM employee got plenty of overtime.

I don't know where those Forbes numbers come from. It probably included money GM is supposed to put in pension and medical benefit funds (and did not), health insurance, etc. The numbers imply that is salary without overtime. Numbers probably include all costs including those that GM was not funding (which explains another myth called 'legacy costs').

Meanwhile, unions have made so many concessions that new union employees are now paid $14 per hour. GM is successfully lowering the American standards of living.

Before those concessions, Japanese workers were sometimes paid more than American auto workers - a number that varied with currency values, etc. Why do Japanese products routinely cost so much less to build? All previous posts forget to add more important facts.

How much labor goes into a car. For an expensive and unprofitable vehicle - maybe 40 man hours? Do the math for a $20,000 car. Why does everyone forget that labor is not the major car cost? Because some want to blame the unions rather than first see GM's real problem.

How much labor in the profitable cars? Last estimates were 26 man-hours for the entire vehicle.

Massive vehicle expenses include design, number of parts - even that the car is so anti-American as to need wheel alignment. No wonder GM does everything to dump warranty repair costs onto dealers who in turn must do anything possible to deny a warranty repair. All cost increases directly traceable to bean counter top management. Same costs that Iacocca in Chrysler and Petersen in Ford fixed to go from record losses to record profits in but years. Excessive costs were not the unions. Excessive costs directly traceable to stifled innovation.

So anti-American is GM management as to require two extra pistons in each engine. So many more parts that - well blame the unions so that a Cellar majority did not calculate the horsepower per liter number for and did not know what makes the GM car cost so much.

What was the horsepower per liter for that new Chevy Cobalt that was recently touted as the new GM?

GM cars are so badly designed as (rumored) to cost more to build than to sell. Sales so bad that 25% of all sales are to employee and supplier families at reduced prices. What the Economist suggested should be called socialism. Massive losses masked by $5000 per vehicle profits on SUV - vehicles with minimal engineering and 1968 technology engines. Last number I saw when GM was claiming profits - GM's average profit per vehicle was only $200.

Why does a Honda or Toyota cost less to build? Routine: when employees do the designs and make changes, then products cost less. Now there is no need for massive layers of management. I would see this in the GM plant where union workers loved what they did - because they made things work. They had control of their job - unlike those in assembly plants.

At one point, I had to get something fixed. The engineer had to get permission from management who would deny it due to technical ignorance. So I found a union worker, who threw a disparaging arm salute at the direction of a mythical boss, and then went off to solve the problem - now. How did I get things accomplished in GM? Find a union employee who knew what was involved.

In that GM plant, an employee (probably) setup the machine improperly. When I got there, another employee had just corrected the problem. I asked him why he entered a room full of HCl gas. He said he held his breath and solved the problem before the problem became massive. Wacky? Well he knew what was necessary to protect the production line. In other plants, the union guys probably would have walked away since they had no control over their job and would wait to be told what to do.

Later I got dragged into a meeting called by the plant manager. Maybe 50 people in that meeting - except a guy who made the original connection and a guy who fixed the problem. Even in a productive GM plant where inspired union employees would solve problems - still the plant manager was only interested in having a meeting. Imagine how much worse it is in GM assembly plants.

A meeting resulted in nothing - just wild speculation and no conclusions. But because she was an MBA, then the meeting had solved everything. Nobody knew why that failure happened. But she did what any bean counter dummy would do - have a meeting - CYA.

I talked to those who created(?) and solved the problem. I knew what happened. And I knew the problem was solved only because union guys were empowered. They loved working at a job where they could take charge - not in an assembly plant where everyone had to wait for an MBA to tell them even when to go to the bathroom.

I saw a sign that used the word "employe". One day, the sign read, "employee". I noted that someone had finally learned how to spell. No. The sign was changed because Roger Smith had resigned two days ago. All signs in GM had to be misspelled because Roger Smith could not spell employee. And all signs changed back when he was gone. Even spelling employe was more important than the product. No wonder union workers get a bad attitude. Some pet dog got treated with more respect. Treat them like dogs. Then their pay must be higher. Then get member of the Cellar to blame union workers rather than Roger Smith or Rick Wagoner.

'I support saving any one or all of them' using 'another plan to save them from certain death.' But the poll does not permit clicking both.

Deja vue 1970s - same mistakes made by the same companies before bankruptcy finally fixed them.

Why Bankruptcy Is the Best Option for GM

This is contradictory to some of the opinions previously posted here.
How does this affect your thoughts on the bailout of the big three? Can we selectively bailout one or two of them and not the other? Is GM that much worse off than the others? Do they all deserve to deal with their own issues with no bailout whatsoever?

Requoted from classicman None of these commitments drain cash IF GM did what once was required. A responsible company has those employee costs funded before an employee retires. When an employee retires, the company pays nothing more - no legacy costs.

Since GM cars were so crappy, GM used pension funds to claim profits. This was acceptable with so many new spread sheet deregulations. New standards that even assumed a pension fund would always have a 10% ROI (even though history says it is always less than 8%). A solution that also assumed GMs pensions would be picked up by the government - see my warnings years ago about PBGC. This meltdown and lying was known so long ago that even I knew about it.

Had GM been required by responsible accounting to fund those pensions, et al, then GM would have faced bankruptcy earlier and solved this with little pain. GM would have fixed their only problem - top management. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to ... Instead Enron accounting was alive and well. No regulations did so much good - right.

GM's problems have been entrenched for 30 years. Since we are foolishly discussing bailouts, then those MBAs are making no plans to restructure. Rick Wagoner said last week that GM has no restructuring plans. Of course not. Government welfare will save GM. Why should they do what is necessary? They are MBAs - ostriches.

Ross Perot defined GM's problem 25 years ago. GM throws money at problems like a grenade. That means solutions are impossible.

Restructuring - eliminate many GM models. Start retooling now for only a few base models, as Toyota, Honda, and VW have long done. for example, only one intermediate frame - not three. IOW, GM must innovate - do what everyone else did more than 20 years ago. It cannot happen until everyone admits GM's only problem - Rick Wagoner and an entrench cadre of MBAs who routinely stifle innovation.

Rick Wagoner has no restructuring plans. $50billion thown into a company now only worth $1.8billion? Only a fool would even consider that. What happens when bean counters were replaced by car guys in 1979/1981? Restructuring was conducted ASAP. GM has no such plans because Rick Wagoner is an MBA waiting for government rescue.

How many of these divisions must be eliminated now - Buick, Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac, or Saab. At least two must go immediately if GM has any hope of being saved.

I vote 3 go - Pontiac, Buick and Saab or Hummer.
I just saw a show on cnbc about this too - they predict one to 2 million jobs lost, no matter what. If we give them the bailout then it just prolongs the inevitable even longer and further wastes money. The UAW is standing firm that they will not negotiate their contracts nor benefits at all. I wish them well with that. They really don't have a choice do they? BTW, one of the men remarked that there was a senator who had brought up this issue the last time they got bailed out... John McCain. He was overwhelmingly criticized for his "negative" opinion.

I don't support welfare whether for poor or rich. But if you give thewelfare to the poor at least they'll spend it and keep the $ in circulation. If you give it to automakers they'll mostly use it for 85% of top management salraies and they won't spend it. They'll invest it and then we'll end up giving them even more money when their investment house of cards gets knocked down.

I'd say just cut right to the chase and distribute Milwaukke's Beast, Ciggies, and scratch-offs directly to the poor.

I'm not in favor of taxpayers bailing out private companies, but I don't have an alternative. all i do know is that if the big 3 go under, Michigan dies. Detroit's pretty much dead already, Flint's a zombie (but we knew that), Ypsi's on life support, Ann Arbor is still waiting for a pacemaker after Pfizer pulled out last year, and the rest of the state makes/grows the stuff the inhabitants of the Mound of Venus spend their money on. dead :( it's not just about those companies -the network of businesses and livelihoods supported by them and their employees is huge and underlies the whole economy of the state. We're doomed, doomed I tell ye!