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GM UAW workers on strike

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by poindexter, Sep 24, 2007.

  1. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    I was thinking Richie Philliips myself.
     
  2. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Thanks for the correction, MacDaddy. I had it wrong on pick-ups versus heavier truck lines. I'll take my medicine, though, and leave my post up as evidence of my haste and inaccuracy.

    Let me ask this, though, relative to incentives, the government, consumers and choices - If I wanted to buy a full-size pick-up - say to haul sheetrock to the jobsite - and I wanted to buy one with a fuel-efficent V-6 given rising gas prices, how would I do it if companies no longer manufacture them?

    I guess I'd also ask whence the designation 'light truck' versus 'heavy' arises for the purposes of the CAFE standard.
     
  3. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Yup. The Japanese jumped on this little wave, too.

    Nissan quit making Z cars for a while in order to manufacture more trucks and SUVs. Toyota quit making the Supra or anything else relatively sporty (Celicas don't count, guys) to make more trucks and SUVs.

    The only thing slowing down the SUV craze stupidity has been the rising cost of gasoline. And as soon as it either settles or obsessive owners figure what else to cut out of their lives to make room on the credit card for the extra fuel cost, they'll probably keep right on going full speed ahead.

    Look at the European manufacturers. Think it's a complete coincidence that a traditional car company like Porsche is making SUVs? BMW, Mercedes and Volvo are raking it in as well.

    As for the UAW, let them rot. The days of unskilled laborers making obscene money to put one bolt in a vehicle in an assembly line are coming to an end.
     
  4. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Obscene money? Has anyone here taken the time to understand what the strike issues are all about? Job security and the shifting of benefit burden in a company that has cut about 75 percent of its work force over two decades would seem fairly important to me.
     
  5. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    I got that, cranberry. The domestic makes are attempting to cut what little benefits those still left have. They probably want to continue to outsource their manufacturing to Mexico and anywhere else ... anywhere but the U.S.

    Let those people find jobs with the Japanese and European makes that may not be offering the kind of money the Big Three were paying assembly-line employees during yesteryear, but rest assured many of them are still making more money than most in the journalism profession, are offering much more job security and want to produce vehicles within our borders.
     
  6. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    As much outsourcing as there has been in recent years, the Big Three still manufacture many more cars in the US than the Top 10 foreign manufacturers combined.
     
  7. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Maybe so ... I'll readily admit I don't have the production numbers handy. But the vehicles are sitting on the lots, hence the big losses the Big Three are taking. Not even the no financing incentives, improved drivetrain warranties and frequent rebate offers are bringing back buyers.

    Part of that is the economy. I think the other part is because they're not making vehicles that can compete in an increasingly competitive market. The Big Three were so used to dragging their feet and taking their sweet time introducing new products that they don't know what to do now that Japan and Germany are much more aggressive and willing to build vehicles that we'll gladly buy. It took longer than I thought it would, but the domestics' reactive mindset has finally caught up with them.

    That same lazy attitude and fallacy that they'll do whatever they please is hurting what few employees they have left.
     
  8. MacDaddy

    MacDaddy Active Member

    Ford, Dodge, GMC and Chevrolet all make V6 full-size trucks. No one buys them, but they do exist.

    Trucks switch from light to heavy at 8,500 GVWR.

    Basically, what this strike is about is job guarantees -- call it "job security" if you want, but it's really guaranteeing there will be jobs, which in this day and age is ludicrous. The UAW wants to keep the guarantees, obviously; GM wants to scale them back, also obviously. UAW workers still have way better pension and medical insurance benefits than the vast majority of the country.
     
  9. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Where GM (and Ford and Chrysler) got caught with their pants down was putting too many eggs into a not-so-good basket.

    They had a virtual monopoly on the market through the oil crisis -- Datsun/Toyota were around, but their cars were generally crap, and the Euro makes (Mercedes, et al) were high-end cars that the average Joe wasn't going to buy. VW was about the only real competition they had, and it was considered the value car for the cheap student/Deadhead/hippie, but not for the regular American. (and VW's other lines besides the Beetle weren't big sellers). However, as costs rose, quality went down. Reliability was a big issue, and on many cars, the odometer only had five digits -- meaning not even the builders expected the car to be driven 100K miles. Not only that, but most American models in the 70s were V8 tanks that got horrific gas mileage.

    Boom. The oil crisis hits, Honda enters the market, Toyota has a slightly bigger presence, Datsun is there ... and they have these little cars that get great gas mileage. Not bad when you're worried about running out of gas on "even day" and you have an odd-numbered plate. People realize those little Jap cars are reliable (they even last past 100K miles), get good gas mileage, and they're relatively cheap.

    GM/Ford/Chrysler took years to catch up. The lines they put out in the 1980s were uninspiring at best, and their only saving grace was the 1990s cheap gas ... and the SUV/truck craze. Meanwhile, the Japanese companies are building plants here (saving the shipping costs & tariffs), building their cars here, and doing it with decently-paid, but non-union labor. A Honda that costs $10K might have 75% of the cost tied up in R&D and parts. A Chevy that costs $10K has 60% of the cost tied up in labor costs. Which one is going to be more reliable?

    Detroit has had the Focus blowing up (which replaced the Escort, which was possibly the worst car I've ever driven next to my dad's 1985 Plymouth), the Neon (with a tremendously poor reliability record) and the Cavalier (which several of my GM-loyal friends used to refer to as the "Crapalier" because it was such a bad car) trying to compete with the Civic and the Corolla. GM even gave up and started badging Corollas as Chevy/Geo Prizms for a while.

    The SUV/truck craze hit both markets -- the suburban soccer-ball mommy and the 'Murican-only redneck, just in time for country music and NASCAR to become the latest hip fad. Having a truck and a "3" sticker in the window was the way to show off your redneck street cred. Problem is, they lost the suburban market when Honda/Toyota/Subaru began building SUVs & trucks, and they lost a LOT of the market when gas prices went from $0.79 to $3.00 in a decade.

    Detroit banked the farm on big cars in the 70s, and lost. It banked the farm on big cars in the 90s, and lost again, both when oil crises hit.

    Meanwhile, Honda and Toyota are putting together more reliable cars more cheaply. Detroit's ONLY option is to cut costs at all costs to become more in-line with what the Japanese makers are doing, so they can sell more car for less cost, instead of rolling all of their costs into labor. That's the only way to get the customer to buy the car. Otherwise, Detroit's options have been to cut corners (and we get the Ford Focus), or to raise the price (and people just buy the Honda/Toyota). Meanwhile, nonunion Honda must be doing something right for unskilled laborers ... they're opening a new plant not far from here, and their job application site is pretty much jammed. While they're not the insane UAW wages, they're enough to put together a comfortable living.

    Hey, I'm all for workers getting what they can when they can, and if the UAW can do it for them, great. But if you're getting paid something that is a FAR beyond-market wage, at some point, there's a time to face reality and realize that the company isn't going to survive unless some kind of market equilibrium is reached.
     
  10. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    What the hell kind of country do we live in where we bitch and sneer and people who make $50,000 a year going on strike, not because they want more money, but because they want job security? Should an auto worker make more than a doctor or teacher? No. But sonofabitch, when you take away the taxes and the mortgage payments and the car payments and junior's college tuition savings it doesnt exactly leave Rolex and Grey Goose money left over.
     
  11. Thinking Man

    Thinking Man Member

    Excellent post, Crimsonace. The car companies are, primarily, to blame for the mess they are in. That said, as you so eloquently say in your post, the only way they are going to get healthy again is to cut their costs either through healthcare or wages/benefits. If you work for the Big 3 (which my wife does as an accountant), it sucks. But that's reality. Hopefully the sides can meet somewhere in the middle on VEBA and get this thing done quickly.
     
  12. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    If this thing lasts more than a couple of weeks, it's going to start having a cascading effect. The parts suppliers will start laying people off, showrooms will start to empty, businesses who serve these workers will feel the crunch, and if it goes long enough, there could be upwards of a million people affected. That won't be good for a teetering economy.

    That said, it sounded like the two sides weren't that far apart when the strike was called, so hopefully an agreement is near.
     
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