Labor Union Demands Killing GM?

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CADsortaGUY

Lifer
Oct 19, 2001
25,162
1
76
www.ShawCAD.com
Originally posted by: BarneyFife
Originally posted by: Ktulu
There is seriously so much idiocy in this thread. Please read this damn article and tell me that it wasn't the contracts with the UAW that was killing GM.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/1...log-with-john-mcelroy/

Most people seem to miss the fact that they are on the verge of a massive turnaround. I'm not trying to be a rah-rah cheerleader here. I'm persuaded simply by the facts.

Last year's UAW contract was truly historic in that it will completely remove the health care cost burden off the Big Three. Though they have to give the union the money to assume this burden, they're paying 40% less than it would otherwise cost them. After 2010 they stop paying billions in health care every year and start dropping that money to the bottom line.

Moreover, there will no longer be any pensions for new hires. They'll get 401k's instead. Again, massive cost savings going forward.

On top of that the UAW workforce takes big pay cuts, and new hires come in at a wage rate that is roughly the same that Toyota, Honda, Nissan, et al, are paying their American workers. In other words, the Big Three can finally compete with the transplants from a labor cost standpoint. That means they can now make small cars in America without losing money on every one they make.

Another benefit of that new labor contract is that the Big Three are no longer pressured to keep building cars and trucks in the face of weak demand. Under the old labor contract it was cheaper to build cars and slap big incentives on them than it was to not build them in the first place. Now, they can build to actual demand, and they're running on much tighter inventory.

I agree. Its obvious 95% of the people in car threads have a political agenda and have no idea about the facts.

So you agree that the union contracts were killing GM? Great! Glad to have you aboard.... finally...
 

outriding

Diamond Member
Feb 20, 2002
3,051
2,096
136
First off I would like to say I have worked for GM for 8 years and Delphi for 2 years. All the way from plants to engineering and to the exec offices.

I have seen many errors on both sides of the fence, but when it comes down to I am faulting the management not the union.

Heres why:

1) The unions were first setup because of management screwing over the workers, if they were treating the people decently then unions would not have been setup.
2) Waste from the management.. Private elevators to a private lunch room because the everyday engineers (in an engineering facility) are considered lower class.
3) Using the IT staff to go to their homes to hook up the tivo, load some game for their kids on the work computer.


Sure there are bad apples in the union how about the managers who cannot improve the company and sign bad contracts?

How about this: a few years ago all the managers in delphi with a "C" (CFO, CIO, CTO, and etc) in their title got canned because the SEC found them guilty of fraud?


And this towards CAD: Why didn't you have a space for promises broken by GW Bush?

 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
Originally posted by: chris9641
I don't quite see the correlation between Toyota's non-unionized labor force and it's success. Of course it's not due to their better management, better products, and better r&d... no it's the unions fault!! You know why Toyota employees are getting those wages? Fear of unionization, without unions you'd see where those wages would end up. I see they note renegotiating labor contracts as a solution, well why weren't those contracts negotiated more effectively by the owners of these company's in previous negotiations. They caved in to these contracts, contracts they didn't have to agree on, and now they're paying the price.

non-union employees' productivity rate is way higher than unions'