smockers83 wrote:Nothing not too surprising there telco, quite a bit of sensationalism...even worse than the media.
I agree with about 1.125 sentences. The government should provide assistance and the UAW is a great union I'm sure, except for the fact that they're overpaid. And I'm also against many, many things that are controlled in the economy by other things other than the economy.
Mismanagement of 40 years? I wouldn't go that far back.
The heads of one company should be fired, not all three. Ford and Chrysler CEOs should be able to stay as they've been there about a year now. Nothing to really base their performance on yet besides that neither of them have tanked, as I stated earlier in this thread. In fact, Mulally made a great call and probably saved Ford when he mortgaged Ford's assets to get the extra cash. He wouldn't be able to do that now, that's for sure.
When execs mismanage a company who always gets blamed? I know I know! Umm, the execs! Enron anyone? Or how about all the antitrust cases that have occurred in this country? Every time I read about a company going under in the paper, its never blaming the workers. Its about how the company became inefficient, didn't sell what customers wanted, etc. That's due to management and executives. Or how about when a CEO resigns from a company? That's just a nice way of saying, "Hey guys, I sucked, I'm sorry. Peace out and I hope things get better without me here."
The workers of the UAW have a say. That's the whole reason for the union, so the workers have a voice, right? They have a say in that they vote on their contracts just like you and I have a say who represents us in government. They can complain to the union as well, however largely inefficient it is to do so.
First person that comes to mind that I know who made tens of millions of dollars and recently admitted to a mistake is Michael Vick. How many people not making tens of millions of dollars (or $400k) ever admit they made a mistake? I bet there's a ton more of those than the million dollar variety.
Again, a company's biggest expense is its labor force. If any company cannot control that expense, any company will fail. The reason the UAW jobs are sent to places like Mexico is because Mexico's labor force is cheaper relative to the UAW. If Mexico is slightly less efficient than the UAW, the savings are still greater. The UAW has rendered its work force uncompetitive in the market, thus the reason why the companies are failing. And by failing I don't mean within the past few months with the huge downturn of the market, I'm talking about the past several years.
Had the UAW made itself a competitive work force, two scenarios would have occurred. One, the Big 3 could have produced the same exact cars as they have been, but at a cheaper price due to the cost savings, thus giving them a competive product. Or two, the Big 3 could have invested the cost savings into product and technology development and produced competitive products similar to their major competition.
Modified by smockers83 at 6:37 AM 12/8/2008
I disagree that the union members are overpaid. If anyone in the automobile industry is overpaid it is the management.
Union members accepted health and retirement benefits while giving up wages in return for those benefits. Management agreed because management could provide those benefits cheaper than if purchased individually. Now that management has screwed up the company why should union members have to suffer? It wasn't their decision to produce inferior vehicles.
The reason I mentioned 40 years is because back in the 1960's first VW and other German auto's and a few years later the Japanese started providing fuel efficient and more reliable vehicles that many Americans began to purchase.
Why has it taken so long for those overpaid incompetent auto executives to wake up?They fought CAFE standards, and safety standards for many years that foreign manufactures had no problem meeting.
Looks like the UAW may finally be getting a seat on GMs board?
http://online.wsj.com/article/....html
Telcoman
