As the American Axle (AA) strike stretches into its second week, Automotive News [sub] reports that GM may be considering bailing out yet another troubled supplier. Thus far, GM has claimed the Axle-caused work stoppages gave them an opportunity to trim bloated truck and SUV inventories. But as the strike begins to halt all of GM's high profit North American truck production, and hobbles hundreds of other suppliers, this shit is getting serious. Negotiations between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and American Axle management are deadlocked. American Axle wants to cut UAW wages in half across the board, from $28/hr to $14/hr. The only viable scenario at this point: the now-standard package of buyouts, buydowns and flowbacks. Once GM has finished buying out enough of its own workers, it could move the holdout American Axle workers to its own payroll, freeing AA management to hire new employees at the now-competitive rate of $14/hr. But isn't the point of GM's buyout program to trim its payroll fat? And hasn't GM already blown its bailout budget on Delphi? Chapter 11 if they do, Chapter 11 quicker if they don't.
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These guys must have a printing press on loan to them from the Treasury, how can they not sweat all these piles of money they give out, it’s going to run out eventually. Maybe that Rick’s new job, incharge of printing the money in the basement and bringing the money bags up to the top level to dole out executive bonuses.
Fritz to Rick, “can you run down and print $3billion for this Delphi mess, you can keep the change.”
The UAW has once again lost their minds. The whole industry is teetering and they strike an essential cog at the same time the economy is slowing and sales are down. This could drag several other suppliers into bankruptcy. Seems the UAW won’t get it til they kill the golden goose and there are no more golden eggs. It looks more and more like the Big 3 are done and TTAC was right all along. This move by the UAW is stupid beyond belief.
This strike seems much more serious than the rather weak “strikes” they pulled on GM and Chrylser this summmer. Those seemed more like just showing they’re still around and they can still strike, more than actually having much/any effect on the negotiations themselves. More like appeasing the hard-liners who call STRIKE! the second they can.
This is legit. Unfortunately they’re slitting throats here. Not just AA, but GM. When AA stops ordering parts from their suppliers, how are they gonna fare?
Deep down I want, just once, for the UAW to strike themselves out of a job. Somebody’s gotta do it.
Like nobody here would be pissed if they tried cutting your salary in half.
quasi–sure i’d be pissed—because I have been brainwashed for so long by my union mgmt that “monkey work” deserved $28+ /hr + massive health benefits.
bluecon :
March 6th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
The UAW has once again lost their minds.
Would you like to take a 50% pay cut?
years ago we had a pork processing plant that was the least profitable in the company. management just wanted to keep wages stable if i remember right. they went on strike anyway – they would get like $70 or something per day to strike, more than half a days wage i guess. a month later management just shut the place down.
Let’s remember that AA is a profitable company. So you have a profitable company that wants to cut wages in half, and then expects a seriously unprofitable company (GM) to bail them out? What in the name of all things Maximum is going on here?
umterp85, it’s monkeywork why? Because the workers are making money at a workbench and not behind a desk?
Oh, that’s right, anybody can slap together truck axles, right?
Bluecon:
I don’t know what you do for a living but how would you react if your boss walked in and told you that you pay had been cut in half effective today. I imagine you would freak out and inquire to the boss how do you think you are going to pay your bills.
This is how the members of the UAW are reacting to the latest contract offer from American Axel. This is a perfect company for a strike to occure at. A relatively small number of workers can go on strike and in many ways have the effect of shutting down the big 2.8. They are taking away the 2.8’s cash cows (big trucks and SUV’s)and putting a number of their fellow union brothers hanging out at the Union Halls drawing pay for bing laid off.
The only difference between these people and you, Bluecon, is your only choice is to look for another job. The union prople can call a strike and the same 537 idiots in DC protect their jobs.
I am not supporting the UAW or American Axel here. If I were to bash anyone it would be the 537 idiots currently in Washington and all the thousand’s that have proceeded them. (435 House, 100 Senate, and 2 White House)
The American manufacturing sector has been dying a slow death since the 60’s. A drive around Kansas City (where I live) or probally any major city in the US will show a a host of boarded up factories where once proud companies produced US made product. Government policies and a lack of forsight on the part of American business and labor leaders have created this mess we are in.
I hope that this November all the employees of American Axel and all the former well paid workers remember why we are really in this mess. It’s not a Republican or Democrat it is the incumbents.
quasi—I have used broad hyperbole to make a point about the UAW. For years they extorted auto companies to get their workers paid wages and benefits that were serously inflated vs. other manual workers. Additionally they created a culture that did not foster quality work but rather to protect the worker regardless of what the worker did and how the worker performed. My “monkey work” comment applies to this principle—-monkey work does not apply to the line worker who are beating the hell out of their bodies through brutally repetitive work. Rather—“monkey work” applies to the janitors and support staff who get paid $28/hr to sweep up.
Well said TJ. Free trade is a fantasy that only the US is playing. The US is like a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest when it comes to trade and industrial policy. And it doesn’t matter who runs congress or the White House. What we really need is fair trade.
bluecon :
The UAW has once again lost their minds.
Geotpf :
Would you like to take a 50% pay cut?
How would you like to own a company and be told, “You will pay us $75 per hour or we will shut you down”. The UAW used to have the power and now the company does. What they were payed to put parts on a car, engine, etc. was away to high.
TJ
I have worked in automotive since 1976. Was a member of the CAW and UAW at one time and have done almost every job in the plants. I program the assembly lines (controls engineer) on contract and have never worried about losing my job since I have skills and can find another. This is just lining up the labor market as to supply and demand, there was lineups to get the new jobs at $14/hr.
umterp85, if only the janitors and support staff were the only ones AA wanted to take a 50% pay cut, maybe I wouldn’t be so offended, but it’s the folks whose fortunes AA is built on that are being told they have to get their salaries chopped in half.
Quasi—don’t disagree with you and have alot of sympathy for these workers and hate how our country is turning into an “empty suit” whose foundation of new jobs rarely involve “making anything”. That said—the greedy UAW and its historic extortion tactics improperly inflated wages (sack-less mgmt did not help here either) and benefits to the point of being uncompetitive…todays American Axle worker is paying the price for this greed.
For the record, “Bail Out” was an awful movie. Any time you can get a film at a dollar store, you know you’re in trouble.
umterp has hit it right on the head. The market decides what your work is worth. Don’t like it? Far as I’m concerned you should get another job. People are always too quick to say, “How would you feel if…” Guess what? It doesn’t matter! Whether you want to admit it or not, this work could be done by anyone physically fit with some training. So whether the play button is being hit by John in Houston, Juan in Hermosillo or Jin in Handan, someone will do it if the UAW won’t. And the world’s consumers will buy the product. That’s why they’re irrelevant nowadays.
What you’ve just wrote is indicative of the lack of respect the blue collar (and manufacturing in particular) gets in this country, and that is sad, especially when a strong manufacturing base is what helped this country rise to prominence, and what helped Japan and Europe rebuild in the postwar era, and is what’s helping China rise to the world stage.
No workforce is going to accept a 50% pay cut. Period.
Can someone explain to me why the price of everything we actualy need keeps going up while every day factories are closed down and jobs shipped to China where it supposedly cheap to make stuff?
Maybe there is a reason CEO pay has skyrocketed over the past 16 years while workers have been given the sharp end of a boot kick.
@quasimondo
Good for blue-collar work…in the past. This is now. Service jobs are big in the economy now. Sure some Euro brands are looking to expand manufacturing here for export back to the Eurozone, but for the most part it’s either work for less money or don’t work at all. It’s no disrespect to manufacturing. It’s reality. In fact, I’d turn the whole thing on you and say what you’ve written is an example of the near deification of manufacturing and the “middle class”, especially among the anti-business, anti-NAFTA protectionist sect.
I agree that NOBODY wants their wages cut, but maybe just maybe the HIGHLY compensated executives could take a 50% pay cut and pass that on to their workers. Hmm, nobody is suggesting that…
CarShark, it’s no deification. There’s a reason why the industrialized nations are the powerful ones. Jobs in the service industry don’t hold as much influence in the global economy as manufacturing does, and they don’t get the respect they deserve either. I’ll even go so far to say they get less respect because many service industry jobs are seen as ‘menial’ and undeserving of even the most basic of employee benefits.