Quote from smilingsynic:
I thought at first you were being sarcastic, but I guess you were serious.
The CEO had some eight years to compete with Japan, but yet it is the WORKERS' fault that GM sucks?
Please.
What then explains the success of Toyota and Honda, which have many automobiles built in the USA?
Both are manned in the US by UAW workers, right?
According to your, um, LOGIC, GM and Ford suck because they have lazy UAW workers, and yet Honda and Toyota succeed because they happen to have all of the good UAW workers.
Not very convincing logic, my friend.
My point is we no longer have a free market economy. We now have a political economy. In this political economy Obamaâs buddies will benefit from his actions. Businesses large and small, who are not Obamaâs buddies, are going to suffer at his hands because he has a socialist mandate to take what ever he wants from business to pay for his programs.
Is the UAW totally at fault? No, I didnât say that. I said Obama is not going to make his budâs in the UAW suffer. But Obama will make business suffer. Was GM management at fault in this mess? Yes they were. But the blame is not being shared equally. You donât hear Obama telling Gettlefinger he is out because he failed to meet the governmentâs targets.
Did the UAW rape GM? Yes, they did. I saw it first hand. For example I saw Cadillac Clark Street assembly line shut down for 14 hours costing GM $1.3 Million because they had idiot work rules that only a certified UAW authorized electrician could reset controls for the line. Yet they had 2 certified GM electrical engineers standing there waiting there all that time for a UAW electrician to come in from the golf course (the one supposed to be on the line played hookey that day). This was the constant crap that killed the auto industry. When GM demanded the rule be removed the UAW threatened to strike. I saw over 30 small strikes over a 8 year period over lunacy like this.
The lazyness Iâm referring to is the UAW management who made these people lazy. Do I mean this categorically? No, many of the rank and file where outstanding workers forced to act under these crazy UAW work rules. I repeatedly heard these fine workers grouse about the menial tasks they were required to do to. The UAW sandbaged more people into a plant that were needed. One I remember was a worker who had 10 years on the line doing special electrical fittings was constantly bumped from his job and required to move parts from one side of the plant to another for months on end (at full $65/ hour pay). This was the work rules - because he was bumped out by senior UAW employee. The UAW only in the last year allowed GM to hire a $15 dollar parts mover.
You say compete with Japan? GM could not build a sub compact they made money on because the cost per line worker was four times Japans. Toyota had a line cost of $9.83 in 2005 when I retired with GM at $43.62. Now you tell me how the hell they could compete with that level of cost.
Look at the auto lots today. They are jammed to the gills with sub-compact and compact cars the government demands, but no one will buy. No one wants them. Yet the government with its idiotic fuel requirements demands they be made.
You have never lived until you have had a drunk UAW worker heave his lunch up on you. Then to hear a few minutes later the UAW forman tell your boss to forget the incident or he would shut the plant down. I lived through 35 years of this kind stupidity in the auto industry.
In the last 20 years 40% of the auto business has been given to contractors because GM, Ford and Chrysler could not afford full time workers, except those driven through the UAWâs never ceasing ultimatum of - do it their way or die. Well now it is die â¦.
