While the United Auto Workers (UAW) were busy plotting their future, The Detroit News ran a Cyber Survey. “Have UAW members given up enough or should auto makers expect more concessions?” As of the time I’m putting electrons to pixels, only 26 percent of the respondents agreed with the ungrammatical assertion “there’s been enough concessions.” The other 74 percent voted that the “UAW needs to make more concessions.” It’s not too promising when the home town crowd starts turning against you. But does it really matter?
Admittedly, on-line surveys are far from statistically significant. However, the “put your hands up for Detroit” results are a clarion call to the UAW. The days when the union could demand the sun and get the moon are gone. Even a brief look at the automakers’ balance sheets indicates that they can no longer afford to keep idle workers on the payroll, or pay for full time employees who work on a part-time basis, or carry enormous “legacy costs,” or even keep pace with rising health care costs.
Yet the UAW is like Oliver Twist on an endless loop; they keep asking for more. The speeches and 103-page Resolution approved at their collective bargaining convention all indicate they’re not willing to give many (any?) concessions to their employers. In fact, the UAW wants MORE benefits and job guarantees.
Saber rattling? Don’t be so sure. The UAW doesn’t seem to grasp the simple concept that they’re on the verge of pricing themselves out of a job. The organization is deeply infused with a sense of entitlement, a “Don’t mess with us, we ARE the company” credo that informs everything they do– even if it threatens to take them all the way to the unemployment line.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger signalled that his union brothers and sisters are ready, willing and able ($847m strike fund and counting) to down tools should their employers get stroppy. Even though Big Ron’s got a look at the automakers' books, he doesn’t believe The Big 2.5 are on the ropes. The fact that Ford and GM have recently topped-up their checking accounts, that investment bankers are clamoring to buy Chrysler, merely reaffirms the UAW's bottom line: where there’s a contract, there’s a way.
Bankruptcy? Fuhgeddaboutit. Gettelfinger vehemently denounced Delphi for trying to use bankruptcy to break their union contracts. Yet Chapter 11 awaits any of the The Big 2.5, should their unionized work force choose to strike. Make that all. If any one of the domestics collapses, it will cause a chain reaction that will end the American auto industry as we know it.
Of course, the automakers aren’t innocent victims in any of this. No matter what you’ve heard, the paradigm has not changed. The automakers still threaten to close plants or withhold new cars from particular plants, using new models and continued employment as hostages to get what they want from the UAW. The workers at GM’s Lordstown, Ohio plant are sweating bullets right now.
What's more, auto company executives are equally mired in the entitlement mentality. According to Ron Tadross at Banc of America Securities, the base salary of the average GM, Ford, or Chrysler vice president is about the same as the total compensation for the CEO of Toyota (just under $1M). Add in the bonuses and stock packages (regardless of how well the company did) and Detroit’s top dogs are making 40 to 50 times as much as the workers they say they can no longer afford.
When was the last time you heard any of these executives offering to take a pay cut or refusing a bonus to preserve their company’s future?
You want to know why the Cadillac DTS, Lincoln Town Car and Chrysler Aspen’s interiors look and feel cheaper than a $17K Honda? Why Motown’s motors lag behind in fuel economy and alternative propulsion? Detroit’s overheads are so high, their bureaucracy so stratified and stultified, that they simply can’t afford to produce what the market demands at a price that the market expects. That’s why the American auto industry, once known for technological innovation and trend setting, is playing a perpetual game of follow-the-leader.
And so the UAW and the Detroit-based automakers continue to squabble like a couple of four-year-olds, each threatening to knock down the other’s blocks and go home. The first concession both sides should make is to reality. The reality is that the old ways no longer work. Those of us on the outside realize this, from top-flight industry analysts all the way down to the poor sap on the dealer floor, trying to sell lackluster domestics against the class leading transplants. But there is no indication whatsoever that the UAW, GM, Ford and Chrysler “get it.”
A wake-up call is on its way, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
Calling it an entitlement mentality hits the nail on the head. The constitution does not guarantee a job anywhere, not even at GM, and the smart ones took the buyouts and moved on to other careers and locales.
The recent Democratic takeover of Congress may embolden the UAW to go head to head with the companies. If Uncle Sam can be made to bail out the pension and benefit plans they get to have it both ways.
And then everyone, including me, is ging to expect the government to bail us out and provide a juicy retirement life as well.
You can’t change human nature, and it’s not human nature to concede or accept one thing when something bigger and better seems within reach.
All else being equal, I’d give my money to the home team. But all else isn’t equal. As long as we have an open marketplace, I’m going to spend my hard earned cash on the best product I can find. The one that finds itself in my own personal crosshairs of reliability, performance, luxury, style, and cost. Until our homegrown manufacturers figure that particular equation out, I’ll be shopping elsewhere.
There’ll be a lot of talk about what workers “deserve” and i don’t fault people for feeling that way. Maybe they do, i’ve pretty much given up trying to figure out things like that. But it’s survival at this point, bluster can’t conquer economics.
An interesting thing to me about companies on the ropes is management often says they have to continue paying top dollar to themselves, or even issue “retention bonuses” to themselves to keep from hemmoraging key talent. Who else would hire these people (at any wage level)?
Excellent nail-on-the-head article.
I have nothing to add.
I wonder what the chances are for a new American-based auto manufacturer are? Obviously, one not completely 100% built here (sharing parts, labor, etc. from other countries), but one that may come about from people fed up with the current 2.5?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_%28cars%29
Fiat’s turnaround was done a little differently, keep the workers, ax management:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06299/733232-185.stm
“He said Fiat, which was selling 30 percent fewer cars than a few years earlier, no longer needed the same number of managers. Of more than 700 at the car unit, 30 percent were sent packing, for an annual saving of about $160 million. At the corporate level, he dismantled a 300-person management layer that monitored the company’s truck, tractor and car units.
“It showed we’ve taken responsibility from the top for the problems,” says the head of human resources, Francesco Garello. “We haven’t put the blame on the factory workers but on the decision makers. That had an enormous cultural impact.”
Amen, brother. Unfortunately, that wake-up call is going to come in the form of bankruptcy. The union blokes are too proud to stand down on their demands. They all think there’s no way it will ever happen, and so they won’t make concessions so it doesn’t happen. And when it does go up in flames, then where will they be? Trying to form unions at Toyota plants? Good luck, and good riddance. The big 2.5 are all afraid of what would happen if they filed bankruptcy, but they should embrace it. Call it a new lease on life.
I think this is why GM attempted to buy Chrysler.
If they could pull it off, and considering Ford to be irrelevant, then it becomes GM and the UAW vs everybody else – live or die together. Dump the retiree healthcare load on the union’s back via a Goodyear style deal and hope for the best.
Could still happen, probably depends on how much the German union DCX board members can do to fend off a Chrysler sale to the V-cap sharks.
“The automakers still threaten to close plants or withhold new cars from particular plants, using new models and continued employment as hostages to get what they want from the UAW. ”
I would be interested to know if this came about BECAUSE of the UAW’s intransigence. If the UAW refused to be reasonable, then maybe management had no other choice.
“Yet the UAW is like Oliver Twist on an endless loop; they keep asking for more.”
And as a song from the rock band Rush states: “More is never enough”.
So if there were to be a strike when is the earliest that it could happen? This summer?
So if there were to be a strike when is the earliest that it could happen? This summer? The contract negotiations start in September so I don't expect anything before then, unless the strike is against Delphi in response to the severe concessions (including an approximate 50% cut in wages) asked for under the bankruptcy proceedings currently underway.
Detroit’s overheads are so high, their bureaucracy so stratified and stultified, they simply can’t afford to produce what the market demands at a price that the market expects.
Yet they still offer huge rebates and incentives.
I’m not even sure the union needs to give up much in the way of hourly pay. They simply need to pay what everyone else does for insurance, not get paid when they don’t work, and agree to be flexible with what tasks they will do and how and when they do them.
However, that isn’t enough to save any of the big 2.5. There also needs to be a corresponding change to management. I like the sound of that FIAT plan, although I don’t think it goes far enough. I think letting say 75% of all management above the supervisor level go would solve a tremendous amount of problems.
Another area that needs to be addressed is manufacturing engineering. The manufacturing engineers in the auto industry are just as unflexible as the union. They have unchecked power and don’t see the bottom line of the company as a realistic concern (in my experience).
umm I maybe mistaken here, but when Ford was running Ford he got paid $1 and no bonuses if the company didnt perform well, and GM’s big wigs all took pay cuts last year and havent gotten cash bonuses in a couple years. I do not consider stock options a real bonus but more of a motivational tool to get the company to perform so the stock is actually worth something. So there in the past couple years is when big wigs took pay cuts, now it is the UAW’s turn to take a cut in anything.
Folks, demanding that the union change may sound good to some MBAs, but it won’t fly in the real world. Nothing is going to get the UAW to move until they see some real changes in the management of the 2.5. They really can’t accept concessions until they see that the management has taken some realistic hits. Sure American car companies are in trouble and changes have to be made, but, if the only thing that changes is the UAW contract, then the rails to bankruptcy are still well greased. The UAW has evolved into the creature that it is now because of the management tactics it has had to deal with. Detroit automakers have talked of trying to be more enlightened in employee relations for the past 35 years, since the Japanese have successfully started selling cars here. It hasn’t successfully happened systemwide yet because the management doesn’t have the backbone to make the internal changes that enlightened management requires.
Frank, very well put. The UAW clearly has a very significant share of the responsibility for helping to address the enormous structural issues self-evident in the US car industry. Indeed, until that can be done, it’s not even sensible to think about fixing all the other problems (poor marketing, zero product investment, consumers trained to expect big rebates, etc.) And even then, it may still be too late. I grew up in the UK which once had a viable and innovative car industry. Union power, along with a socialist government that was in power at that time, killed it almost overnight. Although Thatcher addressed a lot of the unoinisation issues and de-nationalisation helped with the rest, the entire sector had fallen too far behind to ever catch up. Looking now around the company car park outside my window and seeing how poorly the US models sit next to the Japanese or German cars out there, it’s hard to see the ultimate end result being much different here for at least 1 of the 2.5, if not 1.5 of them. (I’d still though contend that there’s enough of a domestic, price-sensitive market than one player could survive if the cost overheads could be cut. But then, I’ve been accused of being too optimistic in the past, so who knows?)
TexasAg03:
Yet they still offer huge rebates and incentives.
Because a cheap price is all they have to offer.
It’s been quite a while since unions helped to take down an auto company and the company wasn’t located in Detroit, but instead, South Bend, Indiana. The company had been around so long, that when a reporter interviewed one of the workers about the rumors of the company’s demise in December, 1963, said worker responded, “Studebaker will be here, long after you and I are gone.”
In the fall of 1962, UAW workers at the aging plant in South Bend went on strike. It delayed delivery of the 1963 Studebaker Avanti, which had debuted earlier that year at the New York International Auto Show and generated considerable interest.
The strike lasted for weeks, and just added to the problems of the Avanti’s launch – things such as poor fit and finish of the fiberglass body, which allowed the rear window to pop out at speed, was yet another factor. (The body came from Ashtabula (sic) Fiberglass, somewhere in the mid-west.)
Certainly, some of those potential Avanti buyers went to Buick showrooms and bought the new Riviera (if they wanted four seats) or the exciting new Corvette Sting Ray (if two seats would do). The year 1963 was an exciting year for product from Detroit; and South Bend had an uphill battled.
In December 1963, Studebaker’s board of directors decided to end auto production after over 100 years in South Bend and transfer operations to Hamilton, Ontario. And so, the union workers ended up losing their jobs, finally.
In 1966, Studebaker, which got down to one model, ended auto production – period.
There may be a precedent there, for today’s mess in Detroit. Certainly, things won’t unfold exactly the same; but some things may apply.
Guyincognito — you said “manufacturing engineers in the auto industry are just as unflexible as the union. They have unchecked power and don’t see the bottom line of the company as a realistic concern (in my experience).”
I thought engineers complained they were always being overruled by cost-cutting managers who thereby stifled better products. Can you give us some examples from your experience of engineers who abused power and ignored the bottom line?
37 million for Delphi executive bonuses?Not too shabby for a bunch that ran the company to chapter 11.
Al Noyes above has nailed it great post AL!
How refreshing to hear that Gettelfinger has found his testicles.Call it sabre rattling,if you want.
Us folks with the blue collars having been taking it on chin for a couple of years now.
Maybe its time for big 2.5 to find some cost saving somewhere else.
My vote? no more concessions
Back in the 1990s, when I worked at Delco Electronics (now Delphi), I was invited to one of the monthy “round table” meetings where one of the upper managers rubbed elbows with the working folks. We were going through union negotiations at that time and I asked if Delco would ever be without a union. His response surprised me. He said that the union had been there so long, the supervisors did not know how to treat the workers without a union buffer. Supervisors were not hired for their people skills.
Due to the lack of skills on both sides, supervisors have been villified by the hourly and the hourly have shown that they care nothing for the company. Most will proudly say they are UAW members, but will grudgingly admit that they work for a specific company.
That’s the problem. It’s us against them, union against management/supervision. They do not want to cooperate and will do anything and everything to get the upper hand over the other. Until they all get along, they are all doomed.
“The UAW has evolved into the creature that it is now because of the management tactics it has had to deal with.”
Or visa-versa. Who has the Government’s gun pointed at who.
Terry, come on Studebaker is hardly the model of union ruining a car company. Studebaker went into receivership in the 1930s, re-emerged and after world War 2 did not invest in its production facilities to produce cars in a then efficient manner. They developed a reputation of being poorly engineered vehicles and were not desired by consumers. Sure the union was there but the work rules and legacy costs were not the contributing reason a poorly run car company quit. The strike probably gave the company a chance to work on engineering problems that plagued the early Avantis
What is relevant to today is that it was a company that built poor quality cars that not many people bought.
“An interesting thing to me about companies on the ropes is management often says they have to continue paying top dollar to themselves”
Managers are employees, they cant pay themselves.
“they’re on the verge of pricing themselves out of a job”
No. They priced themselves out of a job some time ago. The Piper wants to be paid.
If it makes you feel any better, Management is going down too. Cue Gotterdammerung.
The Studebaker example is similar to the problem with the steel mills in the 70’s, in which unrelenting demands from the unions combined with strikes spelled an end to the steel industry in this country. The classic saying “We’re all architects of our own demise” is true for the unions, regardless of the foibles of management or any other mitigating circumstances. When market share declines, the number of union jobs decline as well, regardless of blame. It is senseless and irresponsible for union members to insist on maintaining the Jobs Bank (in which 1000’s of laid off employees sit idle in large rooms all day and continue to draw full pay, often sleeping to pass the time), or for them to refuse to pay ANY amount of their medical benefits that the rest of the country has to pay (blue and white collar). This is indefensible under any circumstances, particularly when the Big 2.5 are losing market share at their current rate and heading toward layoffs and bankruptcy. Someone explain to me the need to pay thousands of laid off workers to sit around, many of them for many years at a cost of billions of dollars, and do nothing.
Good point Robert S.I can’t see the transplants
picking up any of the unemployed big 2.5 management.
But as others have pointed out, you don,t need to be a college grad to work on the line.So I guess when Toyota takes over the plant,I’ll hafta learn how to build a Camry
umm I maybe mistaken here, but when Ford was running Ford he got paid $1 and no bonuses if the company didnt perform well, and GM’s big wigs all took pay cuts last year and havent gotten cash bonuses in a couple years Ford shouldn't be paid anything to run Ford – his family owns the company fer Pete's sake. And poor Richie Rick Wagoner. He didn't get a cash bouns and only a $2.8 million stock bonus. I hope he and his family can eke by on his $2.2 million salary.
“Management is going down too.” Yep, probably worse than the blue-collars. Those “retention bonuses” aren’t so much to keep managers from leaving as to give them something while there’s still something to give out. Under Chapter 11 the judge, creditors, Wall Street and suppliers will have the hammer. Most exec jobs will disappear along with many boxes on the organization chart. Survivors will live with a new austerity. Chrysler didn’t go bankrupt, but to get the fed loan guarantee Iacocca had to give up his cherished corporate jet, a terrible humiliation for a CEO. Senior Wal-Mart exec’s share rooms when they travel; can you imagine GM or Ford VP’s taking turns in the shower?
Many UAW members will lose jobs and the rest will lose their exorbitant benefits. But a much slimmed-down domestic industry could survive. Its share of the market won’t disappear altogether, if only because millions of people live 50 miles or more from a Camcordia dealership.
It’s too bad I really wanted a Camaro SS convertible. It was tops on my list with many others behind it but still, makes me sad.
There is blame all around. Too much red tape in management (typical of large companies or any government agency) and the UAW us vs. them mentality. Can anyone honestly defend the jobs bank? Seriously you think you should get paid for doing nothing? And where is the essence of team work when you have a rigidly defind job description and can’t/won’t deviate from it?
Not that it’s right but look at large IT firms, contacting firms, lawyers and so forth. Management makes huge money in all of them. Is it right for actors to get paid 20 million for a picture? I don’t think so but that’s the way it is. I say instead of complaining do something about it. You want more money? Go out and get it on your own.
Land of the free, home of the brave, live the American dream.
Slackers need not apply.
Gobucks,
You are quite correct however if my information is correct the GM jobs bank is pretty well depleted at this point due to the buyouts.
“only 26 percent of the respondents agreed with the ungrammatical assertion “there’s been enough concessions.” The other 74 percent voted that the “UAW needs to make more concessions.””
This is key. The UAW relies on public support which is why I think the Dumobrats will leave them high and dry. The Dumobrats are now anti-car as well so there ya go. Billy Klinton took millions of dollars from labor unions not to sign NAFTA and then he signed it anyway. There is just no honor amoungst thieves anymore. Whats this world coming to.
Looks like the Repulsicans are going to give 2.625 a taxpayer handout under the guise of “alternative energy”. It will cost billions of dollars to develop that Mr. Fusion.
I love that comentators continue to refer to the “American” car companies as playing catchup to others. I have yet to rent an American car that has the same fit and finish as the 94 Civic that I’m still driving. Hello! Why can’t GM, Ford, and Chrysler produce an interior as decent as something Honda was producing in 1994?! (And were producing for $13k new!)
Frank: I am not saying that the CEO’s dont make a ton of money, but they deserve to get paid a ton of money, they deal with more crap then most people and have a ton of stress, mostly because the comany they run are critized by every person on earth.
$1 is basically nothing, and he deserved more then that, even though the company is in a downward spiral.
What I was trying to point out is that, some them have done a lot and a step in the correct direction, now it is the UAW turn, because if they dont, it will be the salary people, the engineers and those people that pay the price, once again and there is no reason that they should always bail out the company.
UAW is being selfish and need to quit acting like a bunch of 2 year olds and man up and be a team player.
“What is relevant to today is that it was a company (Studebaker)that built poor quality cars that not many people bought.”
That is the crux of the matter.
It seems that all members of the circular firing squad are cleaning their weapons and laying in stocks of ammo. GM management should simply copy the Toyota management payscale across the board. If any of the “talent” isn’t willing to work for those wages then they can go ruin some other business, perhaps the local dry cleaner.
The UAW blokes who know nothing but fighting may have some lessons to learns as well. I wonder what kind of pay and benefits the UAW bosses are giving themselves to represent the working man and woman?
Corruption and self-dealing seem to be everywhere in this game. While the home teams consume themselves the visitors are cleaning up.
As someone shopping for a new car, I want to thank the UAW for helping me in my decision.
My wife and I are looking to replace our aging minivan with a new car, preferably a small to midsized SUV. After much research, and looking at a recent autoshow, the Saturn Outlook made my short list. Nice looking vehicle, and I can get a GM discount via my MIL. Not to mention a good friend recently got one and is very happy with it.
I now have serious reservations about buying a car from a company who may be bankrupt sometime within the warranty period. This is a big expense for us, and I don’t want to be throwing my money away. I guess I’ll go with the (very close) #2 choice, a Hyundai Santa Fe.
“I guess I’ll go with the (very close) #2 choice, a Hyundai Santa Fe.”
Hyundai is a company bedeviled by labor unrest and management scandals involving bribery and more. Just because we don’t often read Korean business news in the US doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to worry about there as well!
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200603/kt2006032717033411990.htm
As far as Delphi in concerned, their 50% pay cut “concession” means that the worker’s pay gets cut down to $14. They currently make approx. $28.
What’s the point in working for Delphi anymore? You might as well strike. There’s nothing to lose. The workers already have obligations: mortgage, kids college, bills. How will all that be paid for with $14/hr.? Time to strike & bring ’em down. If the company can’t afford the labor, they have failed.
I wonder what kind of pay and benefits the UAW bosses are giving themselves to represent the working man and woman?
I don’t know about benefits, but according to their April 2006 LM-2 filing with the Department of Labor, total salaries and disbursements for UAW executives in 2005 were:
Pres Ron Gettelfinger: $156,278
Sec/Treas Mary Bunn: $153,263
Various Vice Presidents: $140,888 to $142,610
Various Regional Directors: $128,356 to $148,766
Other Employees:
Clerk typists: $49,726 to $55,365
Stenographers: $52,812 to $54,707
Organizer: $111,763
Bookkeeper: $59,042
System analysts: $107,773 to $111,760
Retiree representative: $114,345
HVAC operator: $80,476
Administrative assistants: $120,697 to $137,817
I’ll leave it to our readers in Detroit to let us know if these salaries are out of line with comparable jobs in that area (union and non-union).
“I now have serious reservations about buying a car from a company who may be bankrupt sometime within the warranty period”
I would highly doubt IF GM or any of the big 2.5 do file for bankruptcy they will void the warranties on their vehicles. That would be one the stupidest moves they could make, piss off people that actualy buy their vehicles by not honoring the warranty. So many other things would happen before they say your warranty is no good.
50merc,
I could give numerous examples. Two of the worst involved tooling changes that were utterly refused. One was a relocation of a part that would have saved ~ $7 million/year and required a special fixture to be made and a re-working of a couple processes. I designed the fixture contacted the tooling manufacturer, had it made, and proved that the processes could work but it was killed anyway.
In another example I sought a tool change to remove an assembly aid which would have saved ~ $3 million/year. Manufacturing simply refused to work on it.
These instances were indicative of the nature of the relationship between manufacturing and design engineering. And, no one could override manufacturing’s decisions, up to and including VPs.
It became especially frustrating when the powers that be forced product development to nickel and dime parts with definite risk to quality, while huge savings potential existed that didn’t affect part content or quality.
Frank,
In a post (rant) last year I detailed what a UAW Plant Chairman in a Big 2.34569 plant is paid per the contract. I’m not doing the math again, but here it is in a nutshell:
12 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the highest rate of pay in the plant (Tool/Die Maker, roughly $32) at midnight shift premium (10%). Now 12 hours means 8 hours straight time, plus 4 hours at time and a half (6 more hours pay) for a total of 18 hours pay at $32 * 1.1 = ? Sundays and holidays are 12 hours at double time for 24 hours pay * 1.1 = ?
So in the end that means that the Chairman is paid at least $250K/yr. For doing nothing. A stressfull job to be sure these days, though.
Guyincognito,
I hear ya. I was in the big meeting room at launch one time waiting for my turn to get my ass kicked. One of the trim guys was complaining that the door trim panels were too hard to install (they were actually pretty easy to install, I thought, after having done about 50 car stereo installs in my day.)
So when door trim supplier guy asked “Well, what do you want?” the mfg engineer said “I want to be able to throw it at the door and have it stick!”
That’s the state of the Detroit automakers these days in a nutshell.
The end is near, and it's about time. I think the UAW/CAW are the last stand for unions in N. America. They are pricing themselves out of a job indeed. I live in a small city (120,000) and a major employer closed it's doors a couple years ago. Tobacco industry. Heavily unionized. The employees were paid enormous salaries, to the point that they closed the doors and shipped production down to Mexico. Now all these people are out of work. I blame them, not the company. I don't feel sorry for them at all. A job is a priviledge, not a right. It's survival of the fittest.
The dollars that run around in the auto industry are huge, and a well run company with a good product and popular appeal could easily support the top management making the kind of dollars they do. It could also support the current union union wages for those that put the cars together.
The issue is the number of people who do nothing, very little or as little as possible. There is deadwood in labour and management. I spent a number of years on th line and then in management at the big 3. So much effort goes productivity goes in to into getting out of work, covering your A**, and the union protects those guys. If I was still one of those guys paying union dues on the line and crawling out of a car with a 60 pound heater every 56 minutes I would refuse to pay union dues to protect all of the D… F….’s
If the companies can get rid of the thousands of people that they have in the last 6 months and not effect the product reaching the customers , then that should tell you just how much deadwood was hanging around. I imagine they have only managed to nibble at the edge of the forest.
And on the topic of UAW salaries and compensation, as most everyone knows UAW President Ron Gettelfinger holds one of the union seats on DCX' supervisory board. As a member of this board, he is entitled to approximately €70K in compensation. Per UAW policy, Gettelfinger declined the compensation, directing it be given to the Hans-Böckler Foundation, a nonprofit organization of the German Trade Union Federation (as did his predecessor, Nate Gooden).
Just a spell word to break the enchantment at the UAW convention: “Rover”.
We do not get it, fellas: The UAW is a meta car brand. Please see http://www.uaw.org/uawmade/auto/2007/index.cfm
Hey, Robert: It is not the magnificent “Buick Terraza”, but the “UAW Buick Terraza”.
UAW members, customers are voting with their wallets, or, as Henry Ford said:
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
…or who does NOT. You forgot to nail this point, Henry.
The 2.345743 are NOT “GM”, “Ford” and “Chrysler”, BUT “GM”, “Ford” and “Chrysler” plus the UAW.
And, do you know who is to blame?: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Americans who voted him.
The big 2.5. lost control over their factories in the 1935 (the “Wagner act” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Act).
Look at these happy thugs, after gaining control over other person´s property: http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/pic/sitdown/strikend.gif
A now look at the Fisher factory, 70 years later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buickcityflint.JPG
I really, really would like to know more about how transplant manufacturers in the U.S.A. avoid the metastasizing of the UAW cancer. Could you illuminate us about this fascinating issue, R.F.?.
daro31 I work in a union job in a right to work state. I use to be a steward. By law the union has to fight for the slugs. For better or worse its collective bargaining. The slugs can sue the union if they are not defended because they no longer have the right to defend themselves.
I thinks I got an “evil” twin in Spanish guy….
The Gov’t-worshipers tell us to think FDR was a great man when in fact he did sooo much damage to individual freedom/property rights in the US. A Mr. Fusion powered Bugatti Veyron affordable to the masses would be a reality today if the Populist-parasite FDR…Well….
I dont think the transplant company employees would except a union since they see what is going on in Detroit. Using threats of violence will put you in the unemploymant line over time and make you unemployable as well. I worked at a major telecom company and a telecom union tried to “organize” us… They got nowhere… This is the US south afterall.
Luther wrote: I thinks I got an “evil” twin in Spanish guy
Ehrrr… why “evil”?.
Just say “unpopular”. I am not “evil”, Luther, I am rational.
Suppose EVERYBODY on the face on Earth gets unionized, UAW style.
The result?: EVERYTHING is more expensive. Not a big surprise, really. We are back at square one.
Unionized workers gain benefits only if there are NO-Unionized workers paying Unionized wages (as prices) as consumers and being paid NO-Unionized wages as producers.
To sum up bluntly: Unionized workers are leeches on the backs of NO-Unionized workers.
Henry Hazzlitt explained it very well at his classic “Economics in one lesson”. Please read (its a pleasure of clarity) Chapter 20 “Do Unions Really Raise Wages?”: http://jim.com/econ/contents.html
“Ehrrr… why “evil”?. ”
I was joking Spanish guy! rational=evil…Is a joke.
He, he. I supposed. : )
But, OTOH, rational considerations are often labelled as “evil”, “selfish”, “greedy”… it is not by chance that Economics is called (by not-so-rational folks, I must say) “the dismal science”.
Well, it is not “dismal” at all. It is a basic Science for productiveness, wealth and happines.
And not, I am not an Economist.
“rational considerations are often labelled as “evil”, “selfish”, “greedy”… ”
Precisely my joke.
I have been posting here since day one that the 1935 Wagner Act is at the ROOT of all of 2.625’s problems.
Uh, I missed your post about the Wagner act.
Yes, you are right: We are “twins”.
The edit feature is working about as well as the UAW and management….
Hey Al, I have to take issue with the notion that Studebakers were poorly built. Fitting for a company that started out in 1852 when brothers Henry and Clem Studebaker built three covered wagons in South Bend, Indiana, Studebaker trucks, from all the people I ever talked to who owned them, were durable and built to work.
The aforementioned Studebaker Avanti, which was supposed to be the start of an entire new generation of cars, was built in various incarnations – the Studebaker engine was gone, early on, replaced by a GM V8, but the Lark chassis survived into the Eighties – until 1991. (In fact, some guys in Georgia, reportedly had brought the Avanti back, a few years ago, accordng to an article in Old Cars Weekly; but I haven’t read anything since then about that effort.)
Studebakers, especially the Hawks, are rapidly appreciating at collector car auctions, as too are the few remaining Larks that were fitted with high-peformance variantions of the venerable 289 cid V8.
Admittedly, I have never owned a Studebaker. But from what I recall reading, the old factory oftentimes had several generations of workers employed. I believe the workers did their job. It just got to the point where, as the old sayings goes, “they killed the goose that laid the golden egg.” Well, there was that, and the fact that once the word gets out that a car company is going away, and consumers fear lack of product support, it becomes a self-fufilling prophecy. Likely, this is what will do in GM, Ford or Chrysler, in the next few years.
I meant to write, at the end of the last post, as for the Buick plant now being idle in Flint, Michigan, I give you two words: Roger Smith.
When was the last time you heard any of these executives offering to take a pay cut or refusing a bonus to preserve their company’s future? On this topic, FoMoCo released information about executives' 2006 earnings today: CEO Alan Mulally: $28.18 million compensation in 2006, including an $18.5 million bonus. This includes a $7.5 million hiring bonus and $11 million to offset the compensation he gave up when he left Boeing. Other compensations totaled $334,433, which included $172,974 for use of the corporate aircraft, and $55,469 for relocation costs and temporary housing. And that was just for three months in 2006, folks! El Presidente de los Americas Mark Fields: $5.57 million total compensation CFO Don Leclair: $4.4 million Bill Ford: $0 as per his agreement to work for nothing until the company turned around. The company took an expense of $9.95 million, however, related to his previous stock and option awards. At least Little Billy won't have to end up living on beans and cornbread.