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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16738 messages, Last post on Dec 03, 2009 at 10:07 AM
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Apr 25, 2009 4:46 am) OJT is not what it once was in the telco business. My first step by step school was 9 months 8 hours per day. My last school on the latest DMS100 version was a funky online program that I hated. The CD they sent kept locking up the computer. Causing restarts and frustration. Not to mention the wasted company time. I preferred class room teaching. Especially in nice locations in Florida.  Last was in 2001 Sarasota, FL. All classes after that were online.  The real kicker was the company budgeted money for OJT and our Union contract required the company to keep employees up to date on new equipment. Much of the budget was spent sending supervisors to the good schools. And they were to pass the information to the guys in the field. Not something we would go on strike for. If the UAW had learned to pick their fights more carefully, they may still be a large vibrant Union. They should have also made an effort to stay within reason for wages. Paying a line person in a factory close to $30 per hour is just crazy. I would look for the non-union auto makers to cut wages when the UAW goes under. |
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The Big Three didn't adapt to the competition but offered heavy cars based on full-sized cars and rarely got great gas mileage. So you admit their stuff was not what people wanted at the time. Yet: The foreign brands were given access to our markets by lack of foresight in government (surprise that that happened, isn't it) and by lack of adaptation by the Big Three. So in your book "oversight" would be forcing ALL your citizens to buy inferior and unwanted product (at least as perceived by those who bought the imports) to protect interest of small minority of people who were too lazy, too arrogant or too stupid to notice peoplw wanted something different? That is not "oversight" in my book - that is a criminal racket. I'm glad the government of this country decided that interest of 98% of people is more important than the remaining 2%. At least in this case, which we are discussing now. I define oversight as allowing as many of your citizens as possible, not just "chosen few" to enjoy the best products and lifestyle they possibly can. If that means that a few fat cats of your own kind have to starve and die, so be it. Yes, yes - AIG, Dallasdude already told that many times. We are not discussing AIG now, so let's not start again. All professional group/special interest "defenders" (not only labor unions, trade groups, lobbying organizations, etc.) have been really successful in convincing people that they "belong" to some kind of group, which needs special treatment/potection - of course at expense of the rest. Then they turn around and tell the rest of us, that it's all for our own good that we bear that cost of that privilidge and protectio. What's worst, people don't realize that those groups create classic "prisoner's dilemma" where at the end everybody loses because at the end everybody gets some of that special protection, which ultimately inflates the cost of doing any business. Moreover, people are trained (in really Pavlovian sense) to think about themselves in terms of jobs/professions/businesses they do, rather than what they do in the entire rest of their life. I am and will be engineer for about 1/6th of my life - for the rest I am a consumer. Now, which is better: be "protected" 1/6th of that life by labor contracts, "fair" employment laws and all that socialistic crap, or be protected for the 5/6th of the life by strong competition laws, anti-truts, free market, ensuring that the providers of any or service product I buy remain on their toes, almost scared they may lose it to the guy next door or across the ocean. This also means I have to be scared, too - for this 1/6th of my life, but that's the price I'm willing to pay so the rest I live having choices and knowing that everybody else really appreciates whatever money I have to bring.
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Replying to: dino001 (Apr 25, 2009 6:24 am)
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Replying to: jimbres (Apr 25, 2009 7:58 am) Look at the roots of the UAW. Reuther was as close to a card carrying Communist as anyone in this country. To make him anything else is trying to revise history. He spent time in the Soviet Union and shaped the UAW to be like their Unions. Reuther was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the son of a socialist brewery worker who had emigrated from Germany. In his entire career he was close to his brothers and co-workers Victor Reuther and Roy Reuther. Reuther joined the Ford Motor Company but was laid off as the Great Depression worsened. He and his brothers went to Europe and then worked 1933-35 in an auto plant at Gorky in the Soviet Union. What Reuther and the UAW would like are the entitlements of Socialism without the political control. When in fact they are inseparable. When you control the companies you take their freedom. That in turn takes everyone's freedom. Even those that seem to be in control. |
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Replying to: dino001 (Apr 25, 2009 6:24 am) Read the post again: "Lack of adaptation by the Big Three..." "Lack of foresight in government..." I'm not sure where the rest of your post is relevant to mine. Mine was that the UAW is partly at fault along with many others who didn't foresee what people like the Chinese have; they require GM to be buddied up with a Chinese company to build cars there. Perhaps the US should have done thus.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Apr 25, 2009 8:39 am) GM sales in 2007: 9,370,000 vehicles Toyota sales in 2007: 9,366,418 vehicles GM profit/loss in 2007: -$38,730,000,000 (-$4,055 per car) Toyota profit in 2007: +$17,146,000,000 (+$1,874 per car 1) Is it any wonder that: a) "Detroit automakers declined to discuss the programs in detail or say exactly how much they are spending," and b) the Big Three asked for a bailout after spending more than $4 billion on an outdated "jobs bank" program over the last four years? 2) If the Big Three hadn't wasted an estimated $4 billion from 2005-2008 paying idled "workers" not to "work," what could they have done with that money? Well, they could have produced about 200,000 cars at an average cost of $20,000 or built 8 new factories at an average cost of $550 million. 3) Speculation: Without the burden of the jobs bank, and the $4.2 billion estimated cost of the jobs bank over the last four years, the Big 3 wouldn't be begging for a handout today. Even if the hourly wages of the Big Three are now comparable to wages at Toyota and Honda, and even if the productivity gap has narrowed, the cost of the job banks to Big Three is probably one of the biggest factors contributing to their competitive disadvantage and one of the biggest reasons they are facing bankruptcy today. If the UAW had agreed five years ago to end the jobs bank, the Big Three wouldn't be in so much trouble today, and wouldn't have gone to taxpayers begging for a handout. Funny how both the financial industry and the auto industry went begging after repeated failure to understand their respective markets and businesses and in the end the taxpayers foot the bill. From now on, there is no right or wrong just re-balancing. The market will adjust to the best product manufacturers be they in autos or financial instruments. The UAW will morph into a small auto financial system...much like a credit union. They will actually make money moving forward as their model changes as well. Regards, OW |
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"I think Darwin was referring to species, not individuals. Individuals tend to survive better by cooperating."...and I think you are right...overall, it was species that would survive or die... But, as long as the species DOES survive, there will always be those individuals, esp in homo sapien, who rise to the top and survive "better"...the UAW was one such animal, doing better than most for the lack of skills they had...but, again, they did not relaize how good they had it, so they killed the golden goose that fed them...now, they will die, but the species will live on... I read today, as I predicted, that GM will dump Pontiac, as it only has a few worthwhile models, nothing to build a brand name on...they may sell it, but who would buy it???...they will salvage the G series and absorb it into Chevrolet...as I said...Chevy, Caddy and a Truck brand, call it Chevy or GMC...the rest is gone... Quoted from circlew: GM sales in 2007: 9,370,000 vehicles Toyota sales in 2007: 9,366,418 vehicles rocky, if GM cannot make money making over 9 million vehicles, something is wrong with their cost structure...can you spell U-A-W??? I assume by now the reality of what the rest of the country (non-UAW) has known for decades is finally sinking through...they are not wroth what they have been paid for years...did they get thru the free market of capitalism???...yes...but that same free market has come back to bite them because they priced themselves out of the market...the market giveth and the market taketh away...now they will wither away and the Big 3 will slash their cost structure and start acting like a normal company...too bad they waited 20-plus years to do it (back in 1983 or 1984, after GM's first losing year since, like 1925, Roger Smith could have taken a long strike and broken the UAW...like a fool he capitulated in about six weeks to their demands...he could have been a hero to the nation by breaking the UAW but he gave in...so it took another 20-plus years but it just may happen, and this nation will certainly be better for it)... |
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Apr 25, 2009 8:39 am) Why? Are you saying that the U.S. government should not have allowed Toyota & Honda to build factories here unless they first "buddied up" with GM & Chrysler? You'd expect this sort of meddling in business from the Chinese government. They're Communists, after all, & Communists believe that the Party should call the shots. So if you're a Communist, this makes sense. But if you believe in free markets & private enterprise, the idea that government should be allowed to do this ought to scare you. Do you think that the bureaucrats have some kind of hidden talent for picking winners & losers? I certainly don't. From where I sit, the market is working just as it should. GM & Chrysler failed to reduce legacy costs by wresting concessions from the UAW when times were good & now they're on the verge of bankruptcy. The D2 aren't innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control; they made bad business decisions & now they'll pay the price. That's fine with me. That's how the world is supposed to work. I guess I'd make a pretty bad Communist. |
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Replying to: jimbres (Apr 25, 2009 9:25 am) I think you'd better check what is happening today in USA. >GM & Chrysler failed to reduce legacy costs by wresting concessions from the UAW Was Ford paying UAW below the wage rate at GM/C? That's what the post suggests. Ford has a role in here too. All three were played the same way by UAW with strikes against the one making the most money at the time while the other two continued to produce and sell cars.
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