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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
15589 messages, Last post on Jul 01, 2009 at 7:44 PM
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on this Christmas weekend, hope all yours was happy... Saturn is not critical for the survival of GM...after reading a few books lately (Call Me Roger, Comeback), they document Saturn as a multi-billion dollar loser from the day it ran the first car off the line...what Roger Smith envisioned in his mind never became true...cost overruns, quality problems, made the division no different than any other GM division, like Chevy or Buick... As far as supplier bankruptcies following a GM bankruptcy, that may be the cost of fixing the whole shebang...because if GM does NOT file Chapter 11, than all you really are doing is, literally, maintaining the status quo of the last 30-plus years, by not forcing necessary change onto GM...it MUST shed, and destroy, the UAW, so it can relieve itself of its unmanageable debt that is, and will, kill it... To not force the change will simply mean that tomorrow will be no different than a day in 1982, 1993 or 2004, and the underlying problem will not change, so, like termites eating away at a wood foundation, all will look OK until the foundation is simply gone...it is gone as we speak, but a bailout will simply hide it for another moment in the future... You need to stop looking at contracts that were signed and obligations that were committed to...if the $$$ is not there to make it work, then the contract has no choice but to be breached... After all, every person or company that files for bankruptcy is, in effect, breaching every financial agreement they have committed to perform...but the reality is simple, like it or not...if the money isn't there, the money isn't there...so breach of contract becomes the ONLY viable option...you cannot get blood from a stone... Should management have agreed to all those provisions in past UAW contracts???...obviously, no...but, at the time they signed them, GM, Ford and Chrysler never dreamed that their market share would drop so low, and their sales would drop even lower...that, in itself, is an expression of the sheer arrogance of Detroit, as the Japanese automakers came in, made much better cars, and the Big 3 simply thought they were a flash in the pan... So, we can agree that management was stupid to sign the contracts, but that is now water under the bridge...they now have the ability to make millions more cars that they can/will sell, and they need to downsize by thousands of workers and a goodly number of factories, simply because we will not buy all they can make, as we have found alternatives that the American buying public simply believes are better made... So, after pointing fingers at stupid management, and union workers who simply can't count the number of bolts needed to hold a window regulator in place ( that, rocky, is what happens when all those "skilled workers" you refer to actually perform their jobs), and now union workers who will strike rather than compromise, they have no choice but to jettison the workers, jettsion the agreements, and move forward in a much smaller, but stronger, automaker... What many folks cannot imagine is simply a GM that was once a world power on its own, now a large player but not the power it once had...kinda like the old Soviet Union...previously a superpower, and now still a major player on the world stage, but not with the power it once had...GM will be like that...even a 20-25% market share will keep it a major player, just not the 65% market share it had in the 50s and 60s...
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have we had any UAW members join us in here, to your recall? Most thinking people who have followed this thread are having a hard time feeling sorry for the UAW's. Question to any of you UAW workers out there soon to get canned from your jobs: Are you looking in to getting re-training? College in your 40's? Or are you scheming to try and collect from what must be hard up midwest states for months of U.I. That is while your chance to re-train fizzles away and you decide to eat some steak on your U.I. every so often. Why not, you reason, you deserve it, right? Pfft!  So far CNN or HLN or Bar-bwa Wah-Wah and her donut-eating dork buddies on The View(except Elisabeth Hasselbeck  ) don't see any reason to do any stories on this issue. Yet the story is huge, it's not just large, it H-U-G-E with a pronoounced H! Not just one of the U-G-E's, with the H silent. This is HUGE, my car-crazy friends. This 17.5B large is not gonna be enough to turn GM-Titanic away from the iceberg, which in their case, is theirselves. |
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most posters here and a lot of other people have fallen for a classic 'misdirection'. are there big problems in the domestic auto industry? yes. are they the root cause of our economic problems? |
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Replying to: bhmr59 (Dec 27, 2008 5:49 pm) I've mentioned Black Lake Family Education Center prior. Its paid for by the UAW membership. Summer family scholarships are available to all the membership. Not just the top of the pecking order. My family and I have been there and I would highly recommended it to the UAW membership. Lucy and Desi honeymooned in the old/original lodge. Each week during the winter months leadership has training there. Chaplin's week, local paper editors week, and the many other sub organizations use it. The Big Three and high level union officials have also broken bread and discussed issues pertaining to the membership. FAUX NEWS is just so full of fecal matter to even think that bail out money and or any other than the members money bought, built, and maintains it. An indolent duffer reporter will do anything for a sensationalize story, which lacks research and or truth. Now ask them about the AIG The Walter and May Reuther UAW Family Education Center is located on Black Lake near Onaway, Michigan. It is funded from interest on the UAW strike fund. No union anywhere in the world offers an education center of this magnitude to its members. With its stunning design, beautiful location, and warm, open atmosphere it is the envy of labor educators. http://www.uaw.org/about/where/onaway.html Now ask them about the AIG $440,000 plus bail out blow out party. http://taxdollars.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/02/after-federal-bailout-aig-fetes- - -in-style-in-oc/?ref=patrick.net AIG American General spent: $147,302 for banquets $139,375 on rooms $23,380 for spa services $6,939 for golf $5,016 at the Stonehill Tavern $3,065 for in-room dining and the lobby lounge $2,949 for gratuities $1,901 at the Monarch Bayclub $1,488 at the resort’s Vogue Salon Cost of prostitutes unknown |
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Replying to: chikoo (Dec 27, 2008 10:34 am) Really? What facts support this perception? Glad you asked. http://books.google.com/books?id=c36bJtWn8iAC&pg=PA184&lpg=PA184&dq=Saturn++join- t+GM/UAW+undertaking&source=bl&ots=oiPqCMlhSt&sig=jcIfzEPbdSR99yodQtuN7_-487o&hl- =en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 27, 2008 6:06 pm) I would have liked to see Senator Corker asking Goldfinger about his UAW golf club at the same time he was asking the CEOs about their private jets. Let's spread the publicity around about the D3 - over the past ten years, while the CEOs were jetting and the UAW was golfing, the automobiles were filled with hard plastic, bad head gaskets, and failing transmissions. Open your wallet, as a taxpayer you must do your civic duty.
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Replying to: cheezhed (Dec 27, 2008 12:31 pm) The AMA/UAW is the union/lobby for doctors/rank and files. So they watch over the doctors/tank and files best interests. Did you not read the link? If you wish to refute any of the "PSEUDO FACTS", please bombard me with some logic and or deductive reasoning. The fact that the AMA has and will continue to limit the supply of doctors and therefore some will suffer needlessly and or die is a reality. More doctors, means lower fees/costs and therefore more health care to humans. I know right from wrong. I know that what the AMA does is wrong in comparison to the transgressions (if any) of the UAW. |
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Dec 27, 2008 2:36 pm) As far as not retiring early, I agree thats a fatal mistake. I believe that one has to have outside interests or a hobby. Your GM management going along with it is just silly. Just go into any dealership and tell them some terms which they don't agree with. More than likely your demands will not be met. You will be leaving in the same car you drove in. In any economic exchange both parties must agree that they will be better off and therefore its a bilateral situation. Demanding unilaterally that Iraq be a democracy didn't and won't work. As I recall, the Bulls won 2 threepetes in the 90's (the NBA's greatest era). While a quick first step is vital to getting the defensive player back, you have to prove you can drive before getting respect. Otherwise you will get packed. No disrespect intended, but Payton is no Jordan, or for that matter he isn't even a Pippen. From those below Stockton is my pick of the litter. Karl Malone. Charles Barkley. John Stockton. Gary Payton. Patrick Ewing. Alonzo Mourning. Those aren't just the names of great players, those are the great players that never won a championship in the 90s for one reason - Michael Jeffery Jordan. http://jordanrivas.newsvine.com/_news/2007/11/11/1082535-nbas-best-the-jordan-er- a |
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Replying to: marsha7 (Dec 27, 2008 7:13 pm) AIG, Sept. 17, 2008: $85 billion guaranteed by the Federal Reserve. Bear Stearns, Mar. 16, 2008: $29 billion guaranteed by the Federal Reserve MBIA, Dec. 10, 2007: $1 billion from private equity fund Warburg Pincus UBS, Dec. 10, 2007: $11.5 billion from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, along with an unnamed Middle Eastern investor E*Trade Financial, Nov. 29, 2007: $2.55 billion from Citadel Investment Group Citigroup, Nov. 26, 2007: $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Countrywide Financial, Aug. 22, 2007: $2 billion from Bank of America Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund, Aug. 13, 2007: $3 billion from Goldman Sachs and investors including C.V. Starr & Co. and Eli Broad U.S. Domestic Airlines, September 2001: $15 billion from the U.S. government Russia, 1998: $17 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund Long Term Capital Management, 1998: $3.6 billion from various Wall Street firms Apple, August 1997: $150 million from rival Microsoft (beat Sony Walkman with an IPOD senseless) Mexico, 1995: $50 billion in loans ($20 billion from the U.S. and more than $30 billion from the International Monetary Fund, Europe, private banks, and other trading partners) Salomon Brothers, 1987: $700 million from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Various U.S. Savings and Loans, 1986-1995: $124 billion from the FDIC Continental Illinois, 1984: $1 billion in capital from the FDIC, which also guaranteed the bank’s $30 billion in uninsured deposits and assumed $3.5 billion of the company’s debt Chrysler, January 1980: $1.5 billion in loans from the U.S. government City of New York, 1975: $150 million from the New York City Teachers’ Union plus refinancing $3 billion of its debt Lockheed Aircraft, 1971: $250 million in loan guarantees from Congress New York City Trusts, 1907: $50 million ($30 million from John Pierpont Morgan, along with other bankers and $25 million from the U.S. Treasury) So whats Apples market share of the MP3 player market? |
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