big 3 auto bailout

[39mto39g]

Lets see a honda do this.
Ron

[Seascamp]

Ron, I fancy Fords as well, come from a long line of ford people and a family reunion starts to look like a dealership parking lot. I broke ranks and got a Dodge Ram and a Jeep Cherokee before that. I have no complaints to offer and am currently considering a new Jeep Liberty or perhaps a Ford of the like. I’ll hang in there with those two until it gets too punitive. My comments are directed toward lost opportunity and the mutually destructive relationship the big three have with the UAW. Been around more Unions than I can count, know the drill, know how to get along and know all the signs of a worn out relationship. Kind of like being a dinner guest at a dysfunctional achromous relationship home, aarrgg, that sucks.

If Detroit were in the right place, the UAW and the big three would sit down like grown adults and hammer out a success oriented survival plan. But not to be, the dialog is about ‘fuk you, strong memo follow’ kind of deal and that doesn’t get them where they need to go. I have seen this so many times before and know the next things to come.
Jasus, all my manufacturer customers that were once in the North East are now either out of business or gone offshore or to other States, or parted out and sold off bit by bit. So rather than going to places like Lynn, or Fitchburg, Ma, or Lester, PA, etc. I just go to their new locations and/or identities, where ever or whatever that might be. Same product, same needs just different faces and sometimes a different culture to learn about.

My observation is that if the product is top of the line, high performance industrial equipment and manufactured in a 4th generation world class manufacturing environment, then top wages are paid according to the local economics. No such thing as a ‘sweat shop’ doing world class manufacturing. On the other hand, depending on country, the training process can be a very steep up hill climb, but it can be done and is done, I’ve done it. A kiddo with some high school level math skills can run , load feed stock, monitor parameters of a CNC machining process plus accel and succeed at it. Hell, English language isn’t necessary. And ‘how to’ comes out the same in Thai, Malaysian, Hungarian, Russian, etc. done that already. I guess there is a saga about teaching someone how to fish rather than giving them a fish.

Scamp

[39mto39g]

Ford just needs to leave the UAW in Detroit and move to a right to work state. Hire all new non union workers from that state, pay them a fair wage with medical and a retirement system. If they get a union, close down and move somewhere else.
GM can stay in Detroit, (The arm pit of the US).

Ron

[Stick]

If the American automaker would have listened to C. Walters Deming instead of sending him on his way the American car would be value packed and the American autoworker would be happy as a mud-lark. Deming left Ford and went on to set up the Toyota Production System.
I was trained by Deming in 1976 and brought his TPM (total productive, predictive, maintenance, management) process to the Cleveland Engine Plant #1 on the 5 liter block / crankshaft machining departments and during the next two years we took a department that was losing million$ every year into a department that generated several million dollars profit. It took us less than two years and we did NOT lose one hourly (union) employee. The workers now owned their job. Oh and BTW we did get rid of over 50% of the salaried employees. The second year of the process we did not have one grievance filed with the UAW/IBEW and our down time was reduced over 80%.
Ford transferred me to Atlanta to bring the TPM process to the Atlanta Assembly Plant where Ford manufactured the Taurus and Sable and two years after I got here the Assistant Plant Manager stuck his finger in my face and said "Nobody is going to come down here from the north and tell the Atlanta how to run it's business. We've been running this way since 1947 and we're not going to change now."
No one came down here from the north and told Atlanta how to run because the day after Tom Kilker told me that I went into Salaried Personnel and signed my retirement papers. Today the Atlanta Assembly plant is being taken apart and 3,700 people no longer have a job. Since I was a salaried employee two years ago the Ford Motor Company cancelled my health insurance.
The American car companies have to look at what other companies are doing right and follow their lead. The autoworker has to grow some balls and say, “Hey, I’m the union. I’m here for my own good. I own my job and that pay check in my pocket doesn’t have no union label on it.”
The owners of their job know how to and can make their job profitable without cutting quality.
I worked thirty-two years for a car company and since I am a retired salaried employee does that mean that when Ford Motor Company goes belly up I ain’t. gonna get my pension check every month and since I was salaried I contributed a sizable amount to my pension plan every pay day.
If the American taxpayer has to prop up the American automobile companies someone has to overlook those companies and ask "Hmmmm, Toyota's making money and Ford ain't. What are they doing right and what are they doing wrong?"
Don’t park no rice burner in my driveway. (Pardon my bias opinion)

[bluesclues]

Myself when I buy I do go GM trucks but when you buy one and you haveto ask just how much of it is made in this country you find out if you can get 50 % you are very lucky just look at the list of countrys looks like the UN. ant noting made here anymore.


razz

[exlrrp]

My tendency and first thought is to let them go belly up---this is supposedly a free market and they have not survived in a supposedly free market.
but its not really a free market---other nation's like germany, japan and korea supplement their car industries. These countries subsidize the "dumping" of cars here at lower prices than they sell at home. In all these countries, there's a national health policy whch means that their carmakers don't need to pay into expensive health plans.
What we see here is the result of decades of bad managment decisions, the worst of which was to go on making large and fuel inefficent cars and trucks. This was one of their most-head-in-the sand decisions ever made---to go with the Hummer model instead of the hybrid model. This decision was based on the expectation that gasoline would countinue to be as cheap as ever.
Does anyone still believe gas wil continue to be as cheap as historically? I don't think so either. So the American auto companies are stuck in a cleft stick of their own making.

What we're talking about here is a HUGE chunk of our economy. we're talking the largest industries in the country, several million people involved. If theyre thrown out of work, with nothing to take these huge industry's place,the US and state governments will wind up paying for them anyway, through unemployment benefits, welfare and Medicare. If the Big Three are allowed to go belly up, this will certainly throw the US into a long time depression that will take us a decade to recover from. Japan, with similar problems, is in a decades long economic malaise and they MAKE Toyotas and Hondas.
Alll factors of this economy are interlinked , which is why Wall Street affects Main Street. If the Big Three go down, it will affect everyone here......negatively. Think about how much pension funds, including state and federal worker's pension funds, have in the Auto industry---it was the Blue Chip stocks for most of the last century. Wanna see your pension fund get cut in half overnight? Allow the auto companies to go bankrupt.
So I (reluctantly) see the sense in keeping the companies alive.....under certain conditions.
One of the wackiest things about the Bush administration's cures for the economy is the lack of oversight and the conditions for bailout. I think if companies get bailout money, the US taxpayer should then be in a major equity position, enough to dictate management practices, compensation....and prices.
One factor is the new national health insurance plan to be arranged. if the US government does this, this will relieve a big chunk of the Big Three's liabilities.
Another thing I don't see being discussed here is proportional----AIG, a private insurancce company has now gotten $125 Billion dollars from the federal government for all those credit default swaps and derivative deals they insured that went south. Its now clamoring for more of the $700 billion bailout fuind. Why should AIG get a HUGE amount of money---a whole year's worth of Iraq war funding--- and not the Big Three? AIG manufactures nothing, contributes very little to the economy, only employs less than 10,000 people.
I see it as dumb to give them that much money and not give the Big three a nickel. But I demand oversight and conditions favorable to the US taxpayer on how the money is spent.

So its a real bad situation with no good choices---thats what the Bush administration's legacy is to the future

[dcatkin]

I often ask myself, where have all the Americans gone, if your a true American you'd support the big three, because you'd realize that GM just in the USA, not the overseas factories, and dealerships, employ close to 900,000 people.

If you count the advertising firms that are retained by GM to work on nothing but their ads, the legal firms that GM retains to take care of their legal matters, and the parts manufactures that make parts for GM.

Not to mention the tool and die shops, that are retained to work for GM, before I see more bashing on the big three, it might just be time to do some studying on the issue, before you run your mouth.

Yes they have made some mistakes, during the 1980's mostly, but a lot more of the blame should fall back on the UAW, who are a bunch of money extorting crooks, with their inflated health plans, severance plans, and it doesn't stop there.

Now I hear people saying that the American car companies should not build American cars, but should take lessons from the Germans, and the Japanese, I'm sorry, there again it might be time to study the situation a bit more before you blert out such idiocy in a public forum.

They build fuel economy cars, GM alone has at least 10 models that get 26 or better miles per gallon, and that's not enough for you, they can build both, I'm telling you now, I like American cars, and yes I have an econo truck, and it's a dodge, but I still love camaro's, mustangs, chargers, challengers, and corvettes.

The camaro was just released to the market for special order, and they are already way above their production goals on those cars, I got to the chevy dealership and ordered mine, and right after that they sold the last one that they were alotted to an old guy that came in right after me.

People don't want American cars any more, hog wash, if they didn't then the camaro would not have sold like that, I'm telling you, that American cars will always sell in America, the mustang is still selling really well also, but nobody likes American cars, again BS.

[39mto39g]

dcatkin
taking lessons from the Germans, and the Japanese is not a bad thing, But telling someone here that "it might just be time to do some studying on the issue, before you run your mouth"
and "I'm sorry, there again it might be time to study the situation a bit more before you blert out such idiocy in a public forum"
People have a right to their opinion even if you don't like it. I don't know who the "YOU" is that you are talking to, but the "YOU" most likely has been on this forum for awhile and certainly can have whatever opinion he wishes.
GMC ( Got a mechanic coming) and mostly , Camaro, just suck. But that is my opinion.
I paid $26,000 for my 2009 Mustang GT, What did you pay for that Camaro? Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha. Sorry, you haven't said yet. Oh, Yea, My car is in the driveway, not on some dealers wish list.
Ron

[Seascamp]

You make good points and points I believe to be true . Detoit has all the talent and energy to produce a world class vehicle and the best of the best. No easy answers getting there, but the current status quo just leads to more time locked in the horse latitudes of failure. There is no way the UAW is going to give up their dominance of shop floor control or process development or influence in the product development cycle. Bottom line , the UAW shop floor bullies separate those who want to do their best from those who want to them to provide their best; the customers . And then separate those giving a message of support and knowledge from those who need it and would welcome it.

Dismal situation and like where does one start? Maybe a start might be to get the UAW shop floor tyrants back off their control and hate trip. There is no way an organization can press forward when militant Unions and shop floor tyrants control the vital resources, no way.

Scamp

[SuperScout]

The sheer lunacy to assert that if we allow - or even encourage - the Big 3 to go bankrupt and all those millions will suddenly become unemployed is to demonstrate one's complete lack of contact with reality. When one of the airlines went through Chapter 11 recently, they didn't stop flying, they didn't cancel flights, and the aircraft mechanics didn't go on strike. 'Bankrupcy' does not mean 'going out of business,' but provides a business some time to reorganize, rearrange debt payments, and strive to remain a viable business entity. While the Big 3 are begging for a bailout, the billions of our dollars they are asking for are really to be used by them to pay the bloated benefits that the UAW has extorted from them. (Has anybody notice that when any union goes on strike, the top brass still gets their paychecks? That's an example of chicken-sh*t leadership - "here, Johnny, do as I say, not as I do.")

Part of any business reorganization that the Big 3 needs must include the UAW and other unions, and if they don't want to fully cooperate and make the requisite concessions, they will have to suffer the consequences. I agree that America can make the best products in the world, given the right circumstances, but the intrinsic impedimentia of bad labor unions, government intrusion and corporate stupidity will trump the best intentions.