If loosing 85% of your workforce since the mid 1980’s isn’t taking a big hit I don’t know what is. Further, the UAW was paid a lump sum by GM and now assumes all the health costs for its retirees.

As for white collar workers, the engineers, the technicians, there would be far more of them working if they too were unionized but because of the way the labor laws are crafted they are not allowed to join. In the end both the UAW and the white collar workers are in the same boat except the UAW folks have the muscle to fight back.

The UAW gave back in the form of layoffs and back then they were lectured and finger wagged about how they had to sacrifice for the good of the company and their fellow workers while CEO Roger Smith moved their factories to Mexico under what was called the Maquiladora program or Brazil and other countries where pollution and labor laws are lax. Just to see what it’s like you should take a trip sometime to Saltillo, Mexico just to see what it is like to live there.

In this time the trucks have been built there ask yourself has the price of the GM’s trucks come down since they pay these workers $6 a day? Here’s an excerpt of a report from The Houston Catholic Worker, a Catholic charity, on how GM profits from these lower wages:

General Motors trucks are built as well or better than they are in Michigan. In the U.S. a worker gets $120 per day on the assembly line, in Saltillo, $6 per day (April 29, 1998, HC). Interestingly a $6 daily wage is enough for the bare essentials, beans are 85 cents a kilo; but it will not buy a GM truck.

http://www.cjd.org/paper/Mex.html

As for top management they have NEVER cut their salaries, Cadillac health care and stock options benefits. You saw a small sample of that when they flew on their private corporate jets tin cup in hand to Washington while 10 million Americans are unemployed and don’t expect that kind of treatment from the government. It’s the sort of spectacle that ought to make the public fall to the floor and guffaw with laughter.

Flint now has a workforce of 12,000 employees from an all time high of 80,000.00 and even now factories are closing and more UAW people are loosing their jobs. I suppose the only answer that will placate the critics of the UAW is if the UAW is put out of existence.

Let’s say you do get what you want. Who do you blame next? The Mexican workers, GM’s woes can be squarely placed on GM’s management. It was GM that fought safety glass, safety belts, air bags, the catalytic converter, a car that could get 80 mpg under the Clinton program Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles
and of course the same GM crushed the EV-1 fully electric vehicle. The UAW just builds what GM’s management tells them to build. If the UAW had a seat on the board of directors you would have a point but with all the give backs and deep cuts it’s high time that Wagoner and company were sent packing and a new management team were put in.

Since they like off-shoring and outsourcing so much in order to cut labor costs may I suggest they cut management costs by replacing themselves with any number of fine management talents from India. The companies there are well managed and their CEOs don’t hoard the pie like American CEOs do. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. So let’s get started there’s no time to waste.

I do not need or like 4 doors. The Camaro is looking like about half the price of a volt; that $20k price difference will buy a lot of gas.

I like the concept of the E-REV’s, but I won’t be able to afford to be in the first or probably the second generations of them. Too rich for my blood. I don’t buy cars I can’t afford to pay cash upfront for.

I said that a long time ago to my friends:GM, Ford and Chrysler continue to produce out of fashion cars because they find people with bad taste to buy them. Great. The problem is that becomes a distraction and they end up losing focus on future and inovation.
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I dont think you can/should tell people what to build or buy (free market/free will). You have to make it attractive to the consumer for what you are trying to accomplish. So if you dont want people to buy muscle cars, put a tax on them so only the die-hards & rich will pay for them. Is that fair? I dont know. it depends on your reason for not liking muscle cars and what you plan to do with the tax money.

The UAW doesn’t manage GM. The board of directors and the managers under them do. It wasn’t the UAW that decided to build large hulking SUV’s, trucks and the poster child of poor fuel economy The Hummer.

As I have posted previously. The UAW has seen its numbers plummet from an all time high of 80,000 employees in Flint, Michigan down to 12,000 today. The rest of those jobs went to ‘right to work states’ where there are no unions or they are very weak, to Mexico where you are murdered if you try to form an independent union, Brazil and now Russia. They have agreed to pay cuts for all new hires. They have assumed the cost of their pensioners’ health benefits. Meanwhile Wagoner and the other board members keep getting richer. They even had the nerve to fly on private jets costing $20,000 to ask for the taxpayers to bail them out of their stupid decisions to walk away from hybrids 7 years ago so that Toyota and Honda could take up the market. The UAW didn’t decide to crush the EV-1. That was a management decision. The UAW has given whenever asked. It’s time for management to offer up its pound of flesh now.
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Big 3 white collar workers have taken a much larger hit over the years compared to the UAW guys. And there’s no debate. They just say you are gone, or your benifits are gone, or your pay is reduced. They don’t have a fat cat like Gettelfinger crying and threating strikes for them.

Its time for the UAW to take a real hit, or pay the ultimate price and go bankrupt. This isn’t the time to try and hold your ground.

I also think the executives should work for $1 for at least 2 years.

I said that a long time ago to my friends:GM, Ford and Chrysler continue to produce out of fashion cars because they find people with bad taste to buy them. Great. The problem is that becomes a distraction and they end up losing focus on future and inovation.

“Do you recall that with their big legacy costs The Big 3? could only profit with the big margins of big trucks.”

This is only half true. That was the easiest way for them to make profits because of little overseas competition and friendly tax legistaltion. They always had an opportunity to innovate in the smaller car market but didn’t try very hard (mildly put).

Its completely different.

The USA industry is the largest in the world where the British was a nitch market.

A GM bailout will be very successful if they do the right things.

“Tundra monster truck plant here in San Antonio. They have also stated that they do not plan to build a plug-in hybrid and have talked down GM’s progress on the Chevy Volt.”

More crap from denialists.

Honda and Toyota didn’t fight CAFE kicking and screaming and getting loopholes for awful SUVs and pickup trucks.”

Toyota took a lot of flak for joining Detroit in fighting the latest CAFE until it looked like the market would force them to meet the CAFE numbers anyway. ( eg. finally backing off on Tundra sales projections after making huge tooling investment)

Jake # 59

Do you recall that with their big legacy costs The Big 3? could only profit with the big margins of big trucks. Makes you wonder how they could think that the party would keep going on for so long. Well, we’re now in the wee hours of the morning, the music has stopped and the Japanese makers are the ones sitting pretty.