Saving the US Auto Industry

[xoxoxoBruce]

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.

[Trilby]

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!!

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

IAW?

Yea, my mistake. UAW.

[Aliantha]

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.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

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.

[Aliantha]

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.

[TheMercenary]

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.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Brianna

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.

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

[Aliantha]

What, graduates aren't useful?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Brianna

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!!

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...

I'm laid off again, about the 14th week this year. We just laid off another 250 hourly employees permanently! We now have laid off, permanently, more employees than we currently have working in the plant. We also let go a very good maintenance supervisor, so we could move a supervisor with no maintenance experience to that position, because he has the right friends. Why worry about keeping highly productive, quality people when you need to make sure the popular guy stays?

G.M. top dogs came in to evaluate our progress on our new 010I Duramax Project. This is their way of thinking. We machine our own heads, cranks, rods, and blocks here in Dayton, Ohio. They want us to package them up and ship them to Detroit, so they can have their "experts" inspect our quality. Then they will repackage these parts and ship them back to us for assembly. It is nice to know people actually think my insurance and benefits are what is killing G.M. and not the idiots that throw away ten times that amount of money taking care of their buddies in management.

My plant has had competitive wage and benefits agreements given to them by the union in every contract since before I hired in, yet G.M. has done nothing but waste those savings!

All together now... 85% of all...

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

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...

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

[SquidGirl]

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

By Al Lewis
Dow Jones Newswires

A government bailout of General Motors Corp. is an all-American vote of confidence in CEO Rick Wagoner.

"What the industry needs now is the most competent, most experienced, most capable leadership team they can have at each of the companies," Wagoner said in video interview with Automotive News on Monday. "And I think we have a great team at GM."

This great team led the industry with a 45 percent plunge in October car sales.

GM's stock recently hit a level not seen since 1943, a decade before Wagoner was born. And soon taxpayers may be forced to cover the $2 billion a month GM is guzzling like a rusting fleet of Chevy Suburbans.

So Wagoner — despite his clean- shaven face, neatly parted hair and self-professed greatness — was asked whether he should consider resigning.

"The issue hasn't come up, and I expect it wouldn't come up," Wagoner said, even though the issue had just come up in the interview.

And then Wagoner declared that U.S. taxpayers should trust him best to run GM.

"Any support we get is going to be based on the fact . . . that it's a good investment on the part of the taxpayer," Wagoner said. "That the business will actually be better in the future. And one of the key aspects of that is to make sure you have the strongest possible leadership in the company."

Wagoner has said he's willing to accept limits on golden parachutes and even executive compensation. But getting rid of him? "It's not clear to me what purpose would be served."

Hmm. Now there's a puzzler.

Let's go back. Way, way back. To seven weeks ago, when Wagoner appeared certain his perennial turnaround efforts were finally complete, despite whatever rocks an avalanching economy might dump on the road ahead.

"GM is here to stay," he declared, announcing a new 4-cylinder engine plant in Flint, Mich., on Sept. 25. "And today we celebrate the latest evidence."

A few weeks earlier, on Aug. 18, Wagoner was on PBS's Charlie Rose Show, boasting of a $26 billion liquidity position that would carry GM through at least 2009.

"We believe, under conservative market scenarios . . . we're good through '09," he told Rose. "And we've got capability to work beyond that. . . .

"At this point, I think the message I would like to leave you with here is GM is here to stay. . . .

"We've put together plans based on conservative industry, economic and market forecasts, conservative oil prices," he continued. "And under those scenarios that we look at, the answer is GM is going to be around and healthy and robust."

Can a CEO this wrong be trusted with shareholders' money, let alone taxpayers' money? What's wrong with a basic bankruptcy reorganization?

In a Nov. 7 interview with Fox Business News, Wagoner said consumers will simply stop buying GM cars if the automaker files Chapter 11.

"We would not be talking about reorganization," he said. "We would be talking about a liquidation. It would be a catastrophe."

But millions of U.S. consumers have filed bankruptcy themselves. Perhaps they would understand. After all, they spend money at bankrupt phone companies, bankrupt retailers and bankrupt airlines. Right?

"Sure," Wagoner conceded in the Fox interview. "So they buy a $300 ticket and use it three days from now. It's quite a bit different from paying $25,000 and planning on getting service and support for the car you just purchased for the next five to 10 years."

So I guess if GM is forced to file bankruptcy, its CEO has already put consumers on alert that he doesn't expect them to buy his cars.

Even if they are great cars.

Back to the Nov. 10 Automotive News interview:

"People will say, 'Well, boy, you can't do great cars,' " Wagoner said. "People who say that today are just not looking at the facts. They're not looking at Chevy Malibus or Cadillac CTSs or other products."

I hate when an entire market is wrong.

"Let's be honest," Wagoner said. "This industry is running at 11 million units today (as opposed to the 14 million Wagoner had expected), not because the OEMs (manufacturers) all of a sudden began to deliver poor products. We're running at 11 million units because the credit system in the country has failed. . . .

"It seems a little silly to use problems that come as a result of the credit crisis as an excuse to wipe out, really, the most important industry in the country."

Not to mention a great management team.

So for these reasons Wagoner wants another big piece of the American Pie. But maybe we should play him a verse from the song, "Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry."

Al Lewis: 201-938-5266 or al.lewis@dowjones.com

See tw, it's not his fault.

[SquidGirl]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

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.

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.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

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.

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]