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Post by Cranky on Dec 12, 2008 23:07:32 GMT -5
McGuinty works with Harper and they agree on a $3.5 billion bail-out for Canada's Big 3. There'd better be concessions and accountability...starting at the TOP. I'm with HA......there must be restructuring...a new paradigm....or it's just our money down the drain. I agree with HA on most things when it comes to bailing them out ... but I don't think it should be done on the backs of the workers. (unless there is a contract signed that once the company reaches some plateau the workers get the wages back) First there was one agreed, then two, then...the WORLD! LOL! Now there is Dubya getting into the act. He is going to lend it to them from his magic trillion dollar fund.  Dubya must be the ONLY president that was hated by the Democrats AND the Republicans. We announced today that we are providing 20% of what the US is providing, or about 3 billion. Now THAT is a very smart move by Harper to make it impossible for the Yanks to cut us out of a deal. There was a real fear that Obamanation was going to make it a "spend in the US plants only" deal. Good money after bad...... |
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Post by CentreHice on Dec 13, 2008 1:12:47 GMT -5
I agree with HA on most things when it comes to bailing them out ... but I don't think it should be done on the backs of the workers. (unless there is a contract signed that once the company reaches some plateau the workers get the wages back) First there was one agreed, then two, then...the WORLD! LOL! Now there is Dubya getting into the act. He is going to lend it to them from his magic trillion dollar fund. Dubya must be the ONLY president that was hated by the Democrats AND the Republicans. We announced today that we are providing 20% of what the US is providing, or about 3 billion. Now THAT is a very smart move by Harper to make it impossible for the Yanks to cut us out of a deal. There was a real fear that Obamanation was going to make it a "spend in the US plants only" deal. Good money after bad...... Smart move by Harper? Just Harper? McGuinty went to Ottawa to meet with him. Ignatieff was in on it too. They all hammered it out. Pundits of all political stripes are calling it a great start to successful collaboration in an effort to deal with the economy. Good on them all, I say. |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 13, 2008 13:46:51 GMT -5
Smart move by Harper? Just Harper? YES! I see only what I want to see.  |
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Post by cigarviper on Dec 13, 2008 17:17:03 GMT -5
This is ONE reason why the "coalition of the willing" I endorsed was a great idea. More to come.
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Post by duster on Dec 13, 2008 18:50:43 GMT -5
Getting all three politicians to work together seems a pragmatic approach born out of necessity, imo. Having the industrial sector of the country's wealthiest and most populous province facing a severe economic downturn is reason enough for unprecendented action.
Not sure if people are aware, but GM, for example, after losing $5.4 billion last year, wanted to renegotiate worker contracts when the old CBA ended last September to match the two tier system that they have in U.S. This was to make up for the overall higher labour costs of production in Ontario. Under the two-tier system, unskilled workers are paid less than the skilled line workers. Hardgrove flatly refused and threatened to strike while bragging about his $70 million strike fund. I'm not saying who is right or wrong, but when a company loses that much money, putting a knife to its throat is not a good approach.
It's fine to say it shouldn't be done on the back of workers, but CAW has to accept responsibility here for being so short sighted and refusing to compromise. Even today, they remain inexplicably intransigent. With an 80 cent dollar, parts from the U.S. used to assemble cars are more expensive now. Add that to the aforementioned higher labour costs combined with poor sales and I can't see how things get better. It seems to me the $3 billion is mainly a short term palliative at best.
I was living in Britain when British Leyland was partially nationalized. I wonder if something of that nature has been explored? It might be cheaper than $3 billion.
end of rant.
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Post by Cranky on Dec 13, 2008 19:57:16 GMT -5
I was living in Britain when British Leyland was partially nationalized. I wonder if something of that nature has been explored? It might be cheaper than $3 billion. end of rant. That is what GM is worth now. Just buy them and restructure them. As for the union, I rather not get started for my own sanity. They ARE one of the problems but all you hear is about the "poor workers". Yeah, the HIGHEST paid jobs in the world considering the skill level and we are suppose to feel sorry for them when it's OUR MONEY. |
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Post by seventeen on Dec 14, 2008 2:30:50 GMT -5
One 'solution' is to let GM file for bankruptcy protection. The contracts then become void, the benefits disappear and the company can get it's cost structure in line again. I like 'workers' to get a decent wage. But I also think you get paid for what you know and for your skills. It doesn't take years to train an assembly line worker. (Ok, that doesn't explain orthodontry, but there's always an exception to the rule).
In BC, you'd have mill workers making $75-80K a year. Well, some of them still do, but there's a whole bunch fewer of them. An intransigent union can't stop reality from hitting home. Their dues are based on a percentage of the pay, are they not?, so lower wages means lower income for the unions and short term thinking means no cooperation on wage reductions.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Dec 14, 2008 3:04:59 GMT -5
Pundits of all political stripes are calling it a great start to successful collaboration in an effort to deal with the economy. Good on them all, I say. We were overdue. |
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Post by CentreHice on Dec 14, 2008 11:11:00 GMT -5
Smart move by Harper? Just Harper? YES! I see only what I want to see. ;D |
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Post by CentreHice on Dec 19, 2008 9:18:18 GMT -5
Congress can't come up with a bill....so the Executive Branch steps in.
Bush just announced $13.4 billion in "loans" for December...and another $4 billion for February. If the U.S. automakers don't come up with a viable plan for reform by March 31/09, the loans must be paid back, and the companies will have no choice but to file for bankruptcy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, it's not a "loan" if they come up with a plan. It's a bailout.
The Bush administration did what they had to do. Now it's in the auto industry's court...from the CEOs to the Unions.
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Post by CrocRob on Dec 19, 2008 10:03:06 GMT -5
Sigh. GM is an investor's nightmare. I don't see why it's "all three or nobody."
GM should be filing for bankruptcy protection, regardless of what happens.
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 13:27:46 GMT -5
This is just one big clusterf*** for our money. What conditions did Dabyya impose? And now we have to match those? THREE BILLION DOLLARS for a bunch of corpses?
Do you guys know that the shut down to save money will cost them BIG DOLLARS in top offs? Do any of YOU get top offs to 85% of your salary to sit at home and do NOTHING? And WE are going to pay for that? Do you guys know that they are planning to shut down a THIRD of their capacity and they need BILLIONS just for buyouts? And WE are going to pay for that! Let them BANKRUPT NOW!
This kind of corporate nepotism is the kind of thing that we use to laugh at in third world.....
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 13:38:23 GMT -5
Sigh. GM is an investor's nightmare. I don't see why it's "all three or nobody." GM should be filing for bankruptcy protection, regardless of what happens. You seem to have gone from fence sitter to......let them eat dust. Take a seat on my bandwagon. ~~~~~~~~~ You guys should go to some American car forums and read some of the union biys "we are entittled to our good jobs" posts. One guy posts.... "I have three kids, a wife, two cars and house payments. How am I suppose to live on less the $70,000?"To which I replied..... "Are you entitled to that lifestyle with MY money?"To which he replied.... "I have a RIGHT to my middle class dreams".*sigh* |
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Post by franko on Dec 19, 2008 13:46:44 GMT -5
You guys should go to some American car forums and read some of the union biys "we are entittled to our good jobs" posts. One guy posts.... "I have three kids, a wife, two cars and house payments. How am I suppose to live on less the $70,000?"To which I replied..... "Are you entitled to that lifestyle with MY money?"To which he replied.... "I have a RIGHT to my middle class dreams".*sigh* Send him to me, HA . . . I'll kick his . . . I'll show him how to live on less than $70,000 . . . it is very possible. Of course, it means that you have to make choices . . . but this generation [heck, my generation] has an expectation of wealth without work. David Dingwall spoke for the way most people think. |
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Post by CentreHice on Dec 19, 2008 14:47:07 GMT -5
You guys should go to some American car forums and read some of the union biys "we are entittled to our good jobs" posts. One guy posts.... "I have three kids, a wife, two cars and house payments. How am I suppose to live on less the $70,000?"To which I replied..... "Are you entitled to that lifestyle with MY money?"To which he replied.... "I have a RIGHT to my middle class dreams".*sigh* HA...my reply to that would be: "Then find another job that will meet those dreams. Better yet, start your own business. You have to live according to your income. Nobody has a right to DEMAND that their job pay for their lifestyle. That's the tail wagging the dog." There are many auto workers who are more than happy with their jobs and live well within their means. I have family and friends among that group. They are the ones willing to take less to make this work. I think more will be joining their ranks now. The UAW/CAW simply has no choice but to scale it back. And it goes for the guys at the top too. Enough of the outrageous salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and expense accounts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- When I was a teacher (15 years ago) I used to cringe at the militant/vocal members who were always wanting more. Teachers work hard....but it's a very nice living. And they own the Leafs!  There comes a point where the Unions have done their jobs. Nobody's exploited, workplace is safe, benefits, overtime, etc. Why keep asking for more, more, more? Maintenance....that's all that's necessary. |
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Post by CrocRob on Dec 19, 2008 15:42:30 GMT -5
Sigh. GM is an investor's nightmare. I don't see why it's "all three or nobody." GM should be filing for bankruptcy protection, regardless of what happens. You seem to have gone from fence sitter to......let them eat dust. Take a seat on my bandwagon. Only for GM. I don't mind throwing money at Ford, and to a lesser extent, Chrysler. I take issue with how it was dispensed (pretty much conditionless, and the govt doesn't even get stake in the companies), but remain at least somewhat satisfied that it was dispensed out of money that was already gone (from the Wall Street fund). At least it wasn't 14.3 billion additional dollars, I guess. |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 17:58:48 GMT -5
HA...my reply to that would be: "Then find another job that will meet those dreams. Better yet, start your own business. You have to live according to your income. Nobody has a right to DEMAND that their job pay for their lifestyle. That's the tail wagging the dog." Start their own business? Don't even go there! It took me five years of 70-80 hour weeks to build the business and other then food on the table, EVERYTHING was sunk into the business. I didn't take a salary until year SEVEN. And you think these lard asses will sacrifice that much? Anywho... Nothing will be accomplished without with a billion, ten billion or a hundred billion. I worked out (and confirmed by NY Times) that every car the Broke Three make costs $800 more then the competition. HALF of it is from legacy costs and HALF of it is from higher wages/benefits. At the very least, they can give up their half and still make a damn good living. Here is an article from NY Times...... $73 an Hour: Adding It Up
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: December 9, 2008
Seventy-three dollars an hour.
That figure — repeated on television and in newspapers as the average pay of a Big Three autoworker — has become a big symbol in the fight over what should happen to Detroit. To critics, it is a neat encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with bloated car companies and their entitled workers.
To the Big Three’s defenders, meanwhile, the number has become proof positive that autoworkers are being unfairly blamed for Detroit’s decline. “We’ve heard this garbage about 73 bucks an hour,” Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said last week. “It’s a total lie. I think some people have perpetrated that deliberately, in a calculated way, to mislead the American people about what we’re doing here.”
So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).
But the defenders are not right to suggest, as many have, that Detroit has solved its wage problem. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler workers make significantly more than their counterparts at Toyota, Honda and Nissan plants in this country. Last year’s concessions by the United Automobile Workers, which mostly apply to new workers, will not change that anytime soon.
And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.
The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.
The success of any bailout is probably going to come down to Washington’s willingness to acknowledge as much.
Let’s start with the numbers. The $73-an-hour figure comes from the car companies themselves. As part of their public relations strategy during labor negotiations, the companies put out various charts and reports explaining what they paid their workers. Wall Street analysts have done similar calculations.
The calculations show, accurately enough, that for every hour a unionized worker puts in, one of the Big Three really does spend about $73 on compensation. So the number isn’t made up. But it is the combination of three very different categories.
The first category is simply cash payments, which is what many people imagine when they hear the word “compensation.” It includes wages, overtime and vacation pay, and comes to about $40 an hour. (The numbers vary a bit by company and year. That’s why $73 is sometimes $70 or $77.)
The second category is fringe benefits, like health insurance and pensions. These benefits have real value, even if they don’t show up on a weekly paycheck. At the Big Three, the benefits amount to $15 an hour or so.
Add the two together, and you get the true hourly compensation of Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (nonunionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits.
The third category is the cost of benefits for retirees. These are essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix — dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force, to get a figure of $15 or so — and end up at roughly $70 an hour.
The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are. The Big Three built up a huge pool of retirees long before Honda and Toyota opened plants in this country. You’d never know this by looking at the graphic behind Wolf Blitzer on CNN last week, contrasting the “$73/hour” pay of Detroit’s workers with the “up to $48/hour” pay of workers at the Japanese companies.
These retirees make up arguably Detroit’s best case for a bailout. The Big Three and the U.A.W. had the bad luck of helping to create the middle class in a country where individual companies — as opposed to all of society — must shoulder much of the burden of paying for retirement.
So here’s a little experiment. Imagine that a Congressional bailout effectively pays for $10 an hour of the retiree benefits. That’s roughly the gap between the Big Three’s retiree costs and those of the Japanese-owned plants in this country. Imagine, also, that the U.A.W. agrees to reduce pay and benefits for current workers to $45 an hour — the same as at Honda and Toyota.
Do you know how much that would reduce the cost of producing a Big Three vehicle? Only about $800.
That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
My own family’s story isn’t especially unusual. For decades, my grandparents bought American and only American. In their apartment, they still have a framed photo of the 1933 Oldsmobile that my grandfather’s family drove when he was a teenager. In the photo, his father stands proudly on the car’s running board.
By the 1970s, though, my grandfather became so sick of the problems with his American cars that he vowed never to buy another one. He hasn’t.
Detroit’s defenders, from top executives on down, insist that they have finally learned their lesson. They say a comeback is just around the corner. But they said the same thing at the start of this decade — and the start of the last one and the one before that. All the while, their market share has kept on falling.
There is good reason to keep G.M. and Chrysler from collapsing in 2009. (Ford is in slightly better shape.) The economy is in the worst recession in a generation. You can think of the Detroit bailout as a relatively cost-effective form of stimulus. It’s often cheaper to keep workers in their jobs than to create new jobs.
But Congress and the Obama administration shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that they can preserve the Big Three in anything like their current form. Very soon, they need to shrink to a size that reflects the American public’s collective judgment about the quality of their products.
It’s a sad story, in many ways. But it can’t really be undone at this point. If we had wanted to preserve the Big Three, we would have bought more of their cars. |
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Post by CentreHice on Dec 19, 2008 19:12:58 GMT -5
Start their own business? Don't even go there! It took me five years of 70-80 hour weeks to build the business and other then food on the table, EVERYTHING was sunk into the business. I didn't take a salary until year SEVEN. And you think these lard asses will sacrifice that much? Anywho... I was being facetious about that.....and I knew it would get a rise out of you. And they're not all lard-asses....trust me. Back to this issue: The CAW is very upset that it's all "being thrown on the workers". I've heard on the news today that the U.S. workers make something like $15 an hour less than Canadian workers....and they're demanding it must be rectified, or they'll have no choice but to take the jobs to the U.S. One report on CTV tonight said that the Canadian cuts could be anywhere from $15 to $25 per hour. I assume that includes benefits. ------------------------------------------ Obviously, some wage concessions will have to be made, but as your posted article says, the real issue is making quality vehicles that people want to buy. |
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Post by Skilly on Dec 19, 2008 20:41:26 GMT -5
And you think these lard asses will sacrifice that much? Anywho... Lard asses huh ... just because they are in unions. Well I guess I am a lard ass then. And indirectly I am sure that somehow that has to be against the COC ..... but I digress. You speak as if you are the most knowledgeable person on the subject. You experience with "unions" isn't the end all and be all of unions. Unions sign contracts, and at the end of those contracts the parties renegotiate the terms. Unions in NL are underpaid sometimes by 100% when compared to their other provincial counterparts. I wont get into what the ROC thinks about NL, but us lard asses have made sacrifices for our salaried. Try 13 years out of the last 20 without a raise (which is why we are underpaid), try sacrificing pay to save other benefits, ...... ..... I find it reprehensible that you can paint a whole sector of our society with the same brush (and use language like lard asses) with immunity. One has to wonder how many member of this board are union members, and/or workers affected by this tragedy. |
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Post by Yossarian on Dec 19, 2008 20:44:52 GMT -5
Knowing a little bit more about GM than the others through a previous work association with their captive financier, other than buy them a few weeks, this will do nothing, considering the depths they have sunk to. I mean Wagoner actually thinks units like Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer have value, and someone might be interested in buying them. And he still insists in keeping Buick around only because it is one of the most popular selling brands in China. The Chinese are new to this capitalism and the car driving thing. They still equate Buick with luxary, rather than an old guys car, with engines developed 15 years ago, that drinks gas so fast that you can see the guage moving, and handles like a cruise ship.They haven't had enough time to realize this is not a 1950's Buick, when the unit may have actual done something relevant. Tiger Woods can only sell so many vehicles. What does it really matter what it is called, and what kind of logic is that for a business plan? Don't be afraid of a little risk when the end result might be a better product and better run company.
A main brand (Chevrolet) and a luxary/performance brand (Cadillac), and maybe a truck division (GMC) for their rich work/industrial truck history and profitability, is all they need. With this approach they could kill thousands of redundant executive, marketing and blue and white collar workers that each division sucks up, shut down hundreds of unnecessary dealerships and an handful of plants, become leaner, and instead focus their resources on development and engineering and focus on building class leading vehicles across the entire line-up. In 5-10 years, then people might be interested in buying their cars again.
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Post by Skilly on Dec 19, 2008 21:05:22 GMT -5
US bailing out Big Three which service a population of 350 million ... maybe just maybe Canada can only support one company with our 35 million population. But if we don't follow suit with the US bail-out then the US protectionists will take every auto-sector job south of the border ... then all the other sectors that feed of the auto sector will fall too like dominoes.
Let's not forget one thing about these unions. Every thing in their collective agreements was bargained for ... therefore management gave them these benefits, they didnt just wake up one day with these plush jobs (if in fact they are plush), management made them plush, management did not have to give in during negotiations. This is a result a weak management, which is why I sympathize with the workers .....
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 21:24:20 GMT -5
One report on CTV tonight said that the Canadian cuts could be anywhere from $15 to $25 per hour. I assume that includes benefits. It has to be. Their actual wages are in the $29 range. There is a ton of benefits that can slashed. Job banks, top ups, etc. |
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Post by cigarviper on Dec 19, 2008 21:26:57 GMT -5
Funny how a consumer and casual observer like myself saw the writing on the wall years ago when I asked why in hell were they putting hemis in station wagons. If they take the lead in developing alternative fuel based vehicles for everyday use at affordable prices they'd have something.
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Post by CrocRob on Dec 19, 2008 21:52:23 GMT -5
US bailing out Big Three which service a population of 350 million ... maybe just maybe Canada can only support one company with our 35 million population. But if we don't follow suit with the US bail-out then the US protectionists will take every auto-sector job south of the border ... then all the other sectors that feed of the auto sector will fall too like dominoes. Let's not forget one thing about these unions. Every thing in their collective agreements was bargained for ... therefore management gave them these benefits, they didnt just wake up one day with these plush jobs (if in fact they are plush), management made them plush, management did not have to give in during negotiations. This is a result a weak management, which is why I sympathize with the workers ..... I find it difficult to sympathize with the UAW and CAW because when times were "good" they were happy to gobble up as much as they could get by holding knives to the companies' throats. Now that times are tough, and the company's throat is actually pressing back against that knife, they are unwilling to budge. Management is to blame, for sure, but how can you deny that the two auto unions have played a part in all this? Oh sure, Management didn't have to give in. I guess they should have just closed up shop and moved the jobs to Mexico. Oh wait, there's legislation preventing them from doing that. I'm (obviously) no union apologist, especially with respect to the more militant ones. They have their merit for securing better benefits for workers, but often at the expense of protecting the weak links, removing employee accountability and legislating unnecessary redundancies whilst generally not partnering with the employing company but pushing against it. |
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Post by Skilly on Dec 19, 2008 21:56:24 GMT -5
One report on CTV tonight said that the Canadian cuts could be anywhere from $15 to $25 per hour. I assume that includes benefits. It's fine to make cuts .... but dont start on the bottom and work your way up. Cutting a management salary by $50,000 saves one job ....... the big wigs in these companies have been getting rich for years, and you want to talk about not doing anything to get that money.... I would cut stuff like the spa days (wtf??), and the donations to the charities in the name of the unions .... Mike Duffy said that each employee cost about $20 an hour in excess of there salary on stuf flike that ... start there and cut things like sick days before touching the salary. If after all the management has there cuts and you still need to hack at the bottom salaries, then I'm for it to save their jobs ... but a part of me still has a nagging feeling that this is nothing more than the government's / Big Three attempt at breaking up the union. Let's actually see the plan before cutting the worker's salary ... that's the part that annoys me, here is your money/loan and you dont have to show me your plan for another 90 days??? Try that one at your local bank !!! |
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Post by Skilly on Dec 19, 2008 22:00:52 GMT -5
Oh sure, Management didn't have to give in. I guess they should have just closed up shop and moved the jobs to Mexico. Oh wait, there's legislation preventing them from doing that. Isn't that where we are to now? So its ok to move the jobs to the US and Mexico now by not bailing out the companies (cause thats what will happen) .... but back then the same arguement doesn't hold? If they felt it was too much to give in back then, then yes the same arguement holds true ... say screw the workers and take the jobs elsewhere. But they gave in, cause they could afford it .... it wasnt the union wages that got them where they are, it was management decisions and unwillingness to change the price/quality of their vehicles. |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 22:11:37 GMT -5
You speak as if you are the most knowledgeable person on the subject. You experience with "unions" isn't the end all and be all of unions. . I worked under a union, fought off unions, ran companies that had Teamsters and CAW, negotiated several contracts with unions. And you? I had union guys pull wiring off a display, call in a fire marshal to shut down a Jaguar dispaly, put projects months behind to push for overtime and generally, nothing good has ever come out of any contact with a ANY hard core union. I was even offered a job at the Oakville plant and refused it. So I am no fan of unions..... Now, there may be a companies who abuse their employes but there is still no need tfor unions. This is not the 19th century and there are laws in place to protect workers. Unions sign contracts, and at the end of those contracts the parties renegotiate the terms. Unions in NL are underpaid sometimes by 100% when compared to their other provincial counterparts. . Is the cost of living in NL the same as Toronto? Irrelevent of that, why do you even bother to be in a union? I wont get into what the ROC thinks about NL, but us lard asses have made sacrifices for our salaried. Try 13 years out of the last 20 without a raise (which is why we are underpaid), try sacrificing pay to save other benefits, ...... Again....so why bother with the union and not show how capable and important you are to the company through individual effort? I have yet to see a single employer (and I know many) who didn't treat their good employees with respect and consideration. ..... I find it reprehensible that you can paint a whole sector of our society with the same brush (and use language like lard asses) with immunity. One has to wonder how many member of this board are union members, and/or workers affected by this tragedy. A bit dramatic there..... When I wrote "lard ass" I was thinking about Mr. Entitlement with whom I had the exchange with (from my previous posts). Obviously more than a little disconnect between who I meant and how it came out. For that I apologize. As for the tragedy part, yes it is....Ontario lost a quarter of a million jobs and that is a tragedy. The US has over ten million people out of work and that is a tragedy. I had to lay off a hell of a lot of people and THAT is a tragedy. Irrelevent of all that, throwing a billion or five behind this bailout is not going to solve anything. Without restructuring the companies and their contracts, they are going down and nothing will save them. And one more thing you may or may not know.... Chery of China is looking for dealerships in Canada and US. Yes sir, if you think it is bad now, wait until you see what happens with $4,000 entry vehicles and $7,000 SUV's. |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 22:27:05 GMT -5
US bailing out Big Three which service a population of 350 million ... maybe just maybe Canada can only support one company with our 35 million population. But if we don't follow suit with the US bail-out then the US protectionists will take every auto-sector job south of the border ... then all the other sectors that feed of the auto sector will fall too like dominoes. Let's not forget one thing about these unions. Every thing in their collective agreements was bargained for ... therefore management gave them these benefits, they didnt just wake up one day with these plush jobs (if in fact they are plush), management made them plush, management did not have to give in during negotiations. This is a result a weak management, which is why I sympathize with the workers ..... I find it difficult to sympathize with the UAW and CAW because when times were "good" they were happy to gobble up as much as they could get by holding knives to the companies' throats. Now that times are tough, and the company's throat is actually pressing back against that knife, they are unwilling to budge. Management is to blame, for sure, but how can you deny that the two auto unions have played a part in all this? Oh sure, Management didn't have to give in. I guess they should have just closed up shop and moved the jobs to Mexico. Oh wait, there's legislation preventing them from doing that. I'm (obviously) no union apologist, especially with respect to the more militant ones. They have their merit for securing better benefits for workers, but often at the expense of protecting the weak links, removing employee accountability and legislating unnecessary redundancies whilst generally not partnering with the employing company but pushing against it. The LAST contract the UAW negotiated, they boasted that the company would go under before they had to give in. Oh how quickly they union apologists forget this. And one more thing....they threw the new employees under the bus just like EVERY union I ever dealt with. New employees start at a MUCH lower salary but they can not touch anything on the line. Plus they are first to get the axe regardles of how well they do their job...as per standard union practice. Sacrifice? Oh sure.... Read this article to get a better view of what the union was up to in their LAST contract.... www.thetruthaboutcars.com/general-motors-death-watch-146-full-speed-ahead/ |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 22:31:54 GMT -5
Oh sure, Management didn't have to give in. I guess they should have just closed up shop and moved the jobs to Mexico. Oh wait, there's legislation preventing them from doing that. Isn't that where we are to now? So its ok to move the jobs to the US and Mexico now by not bailing out the companies (cause thats what will happen) .... but back then the same arguement doesn't hold? If they felt it was too much to give in back then, then yes the same arguement holds true ... say screw the workers and take the jobs elsewhere. But they gave in, cause they could afford it .... it wasnt the union wages that got them where they are, it was management decisions and unwillingness to change the price/quality of their vehicles. And who assembled those vehicles? The employees had no responsibility for the assembly quality? My 14k 2 year GM van has rattles in the dash and left rear, the feul sending unit was improperly installed and nearly killed me when I ran flat out of gas in the middle of the highway (even when it was showing a quarter tank). Who did that? Management? |
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Post by Cranky on Dec 19, 2008 22:37:47 GMT -5
Let's not forget one thing about these unions. Every thing in their collective agreements was bargained for ... therefore management gave them these benefits, they didnt just wake up one day with these plush jobs (if in fact they are plush), management made them plush, management did not have to give in during negotiations. This is a result a weak management, which is why I sympathize with the workers ..... To which I respond.....have you ever negotiated a union contract from a position of weakness? www.thetruthaboutcars.com/general-motors-death-watch-146-full-speed-ahead/ |
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Dubya must be the ONLY president that was hated by the Democrats AND the Republicans. 
