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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Nov 05, 2009 6:31 am) Yes, you're right about that. People with problems about a product - be it a car or an appliance, usually are more vocal than those who have no problems. And, unless the problem becomes one of safety (in which case the NHTSA becomes involved), there is really no good way to see how widespread a problem is. You certainly can't count on the automakers - any of them - to report out, for instance, how many transmissions have come back in for repair or replacement. Might make 'em look bad  .
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Nov 05, 2009 5:42 am) >Honda had a problem but owned up to it QUICKLY You might want to tell that to the Odyssey folks. They're not happy. In the past Honda had extended the warranty to about 100K mi on Accords for the trans problems. That cost was born out of the extra profit they were able to make on the initial sale of the car, in my opinion. Gm and others were saddled with the extra high cost of UAW and were not able to glean a high profit margin on car sales to use as a silent warranty fund. I knew somebody would bring up the Honda transmissions which is why I preemptively mentioned them. The fact is that Honda, a much smaller car company than GM, responded much better than GM. Even with Honda's more limited resources over the last 30 years, the transmission situation (three model years) is the only substantial quality problem that has been cited. Compare that to the Vega, V8-6-4, Olds diesels, Citation, Dexcool, Quad 4, Transmission failures, and loads of other things I'm sure I don't know about from GM. There is NO COMPARISON of GM's shoddy quality over 30 years to Honda OR Toyota, and to try and pretend that it is apples and apples is just a denial. The market is not so stupid as the GM apologists think, and there is a good reason why GM is a massive failure while the competitors have been successful. The culture of Unionism vs. management has distracted the US auto industry from its real attention which should be MAKING QUALITY PRODUCTS THE PUBLIC WANTS. If GM had competitive wages and benes at least it might have been able to fund better design. If the UAW had not been such a continuous focus for the management then perhaps they could have devoted more time to strategy for the company regarding PRODUCTS. The union has a huge cost and it is not all just the cost of salaries and benes. Heck, even Hyundai has spent the last 10 years with a much more credible turnaround than GM, again with a smaller set of resources at its disposal. I know, I know, the Volt is going to make it all different, right? 
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 05, 2009 7:27 am) "We'll sit down with the UAW and continue to have those discussions on how to make ourselves competitive and then go from there," said Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, who spoke to the Reuters Autos Summit." I'm sure Alan Mulally keeps in touch with his Boeing friends. Boeing just announced a second 787 assembly line in North Carolina - a right to work state - largely for "labor flexibility". Boeing indicated that the strikes every few years cost them a lot of money, and the delays caused by strikes make their customers unhappy. So once Boeing has two assembly lines open, they can put the pressure on, or Washington will be losing a lot of manufacturing jobs. Let's hope Ford does the same. Unfortunately Ford probably can't build in a right to work state without the UAW having to be there (is this true?), so that means for Ford it is more jobs in Mexico and elsewhere. If the economy gets good enough in Mexico then we can all just sneak illegally over the border to get some good jobs down there. So let's NOT hear the UAW lament about all the manufacturing jobs going overseas, ok? Where is Rocky when you need to admonish him?
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Replying to: tlong (Nov 05, 2009 11:45 am) Don't know if they are UAW jobs. Electric Truck Maker EVI Relocates From Mexico to U.S. as EV Market Here Grows (Green Car Advisor) |
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Replying to: lemko (Nov 05, 2009 5:59 am) |
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Boeing's planning on building a 2nd Dreamliner 787 production line in a Carolina somewhere. Only it's gonna be in South Carolina, not North Carolina. Oh, believe me, having been laid off twice from Boeing's, the Company is the one in control there. If it cuts in to their profit margin too much the head Starbuck's and raspberry jelly donut grey suits will take matters in to their own very capable hands. I'd like to see Mulally do this at Ford and boot the UAW off their force altogether. Bust that puppy up in to a billion little pieces. Little wrench pieces and little bones. Little bones..little bones...little bones...little bones...little, little, little bones. What a croc, these "strong" unions. If they want to survive they're gonna have to get the sledgehammers out, boys. I actually respect Boeing a lot more by this action. The time to take this kind of action is early, like right now. Not later. Right? |
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I was just looking at US manufacturing which is up for the last quarter. Yet we are still losing jobs. Could it be we are getting more productive as a nation. That does not bode well for the non skilled worker such as those in the auto industry. The UAW along with our Federal, State and local governments are less productive. I was listening to a report on CA state jobs. The state has hired on average 48 new people every day for the last several years. We are now close to 900,000 state employees. And Ahnold cannot figure out why we are going broke. GM and C seem to suffer from the same lack of common sense. We need less people doing more work to compete in the World we have had a big part in shaping. It is not Chinese goods that have caused US problems. It is our own inability to adjust to change. Work rules in a Union contract whether it is with Ford or the state of CA are a detriment to efficiency. Think about it. An engineer cannot pick up his laptop and carry it from one area to another. I say let em go broke until they figure out what caused their demise. I think Ford will respond to clean out the dead wood. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/default.htm
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gagrice. I think we're gonna be hearing a blockbuster announcement from Fo-Mo-Co pretty soon that details out some mindbending moves. Like down here by me only further south even more! Take production to Mexico completely. Make corporate personnel involved in production move. Heck, Aqua Prieta is a Mexican city only about 80 miles south of us here in Willcox, AZ. They're right on the USA-Mexico border, Douglas, AZ, is the town on the American side. But Ford could build a huge factory there and the workers could live in Douglas if they still wanted to live in the U.S. Or even drive the 70-80 miles south down there from Willcox, Benson or a city like Sierra Vista. Key to this is busting the UAW's and hiring Mexicans to do the bulk of the production work. And save on wages immensely. It's time to bust up Ford's involvement with the UAW's. Ford is the only American automaker I respect. I don't want them to fail. Moving production fully to Mexico, hiring Mexican workers to mix in with some Americans already working for Ford, and busting up the UAW Union should be prime raspbery jelly donut and Seattle's Best coffee fodder at this point in time during major-mover Ford meetings. They need to wake up and smell the beans now, though. Warren Buffett and his 10% ownership of Chinese BYD will only keep panting down American carmaker's collective necks. If the BYD e6 is anything like they advertise...all electric propulsion with a range of 249 miles on one charge, and the movement slowly is towards all-electric vehicles, Ford will need much lower labor costs to compete. The Chinese and Japanese and perhaps even VW will eat them for lunch if they don't make some changes. Another BO bailout should be out of the question completely, too. The first one still gleams as a ridiculous move.  But I spose my point is that Ford is still alive and I actually like the Ford Fusion Hybrid. I like it's production systems and I like it's body design. Who can forget that on April 28, 2009, a Ford Fusion Hybrid wsa driven 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas! That worked out to a whopping 81.5mpg! Does anyone else besides me get excited about this? Or is larsb from Phoenix, AZ, and iluvmysephia1 from Willcox, AZ, the only "green car" fans on the Edmunds website? Is this an Arizona thing? gagrice, are you impressed by that Ford Fusion Hybrid test at all? |
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 06, 2009 6:31 am) In topical news, the Ford-UAW contract is bigger than the national health bill presently before Congress. Benzinga Move more production to Mexico? "Consumer Reports rates the quality of the four-cylinder Ford Fusion higher than the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, and the Lincoln MKZ higher than its Acura and Lexus counterparts. The Fusion and MKZ are built in a factory without job classifications because it's in Hermosillo, Mexico, and isn't represented by the UAW." (same link)
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